7/11-15/22 Bill, Dave, and I went up to Camp Serendipity for two, four, and five days respectively: I went up on Monday; Dave and Bill joined me on Tuesday; Bill left on Wednesday, and Dave and I left on Friday.

I stopped at Costco on the way up, picked up some groceries, and arrived at Camp Serendipity at 1:30. The mosquitoes were thick. I brought my gear up in two trips, one of them using a wheelbarrow. After hoisting the flag, I had my lunch and a nap. I did some last-minute preparation for the visitors that planned to arrive in the morning.

On Tuesday morning Bill arrived shortly after 8:00 o'clock AM. We had a slight miscommunication and expected Dave to arrive earlier than he did, so Bill and I went to the '59er Diner, got a table and ordered our food. Just as the food arrived, Dave showed up. We then had one of our delightful breakfast visits. In my excitement, I forgot my hat in the restaurant.

We had two trays of salmon from Costco, and we cooked one of them for our dinner. Dave and Bill did all the cooking which made the meals turn out excellent. The conversation was non-stop covering everything from sasquatch to stories from childhood-both theirs and mine. We talked and laughed until fairly late in the evening. I told them several stories from my childhood that helped explain my life-long aversion to cooking.

Dave set-up his bunk in the loft and Bill on a cot down in the living room. I regret not having mosquito netting for them, but they survived the mosquito onslaught during the night anyway.

On Wednesday morning we had some of Bill's special Old-Timer Bacon to make our breakfast extra yummy. The conversations and fun continued nonstop before and after breakfast and delayed Bill's planned departure by a couple hours. That made his trip home extra-long and in bad traffic, but he called us and said he didn't regret spending the extra time with us. To add to his delay, he was kind enough to stop in at the restaurant and asked them to find my hat and hold it for me.

On Thursday Dave and I had a wonderful day with more conversation and some work outside cutting brush in the mosquitoes until I had had enough. We had spent a considerable effort trying to start my chainsaw and could never get it to kick over. We were either doing something wrong or there's something wrong with the saw that I will have to figure out. So, our work in the brush was done with hand tools. I was happy to stop after about an hour and a half.

We spent some time listening to each other play the piano and we had endless discussions on a host of topics. We also took a little time out for naps. Dave wanted to leave fairly early in the morning, so we went to bed reasonably early after another wonderful meal that Dave cooked.

On Friday morning we were up at 6 and after having a great breakfast that Dave cooked, he left at about 8:30.

After putting a bunch of stuff away and fixing a small lunch, I brought my gear down to the truck and left for home about noon. It was one of the most delightful weeks I have ever spent at the cabin. On the way home, I stopped in at the '59er Diner feeling a little humble, and I got my hat.