1/13-15/15 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

Robert called me before I left home just to touch bases. He said he was still not feeling well and was headed to the doctor again. He said they had had a bad ice storm but that it wasn't so bad at Kahler Glen. I took that to mean that it probably wasn't bad at Camp Serendipity.

On the way up, I stopped in and played a game of checkers with Uncle Charles. I beat him this time too. Maybe his dementia gives me too much of an advantage. After I left him, I stopped at Marilyn's to deliver some pictures and she fed me lunch.

I then proceeded on to Camp Serendipity but I drove a couple miles past to check out the parking situation at Stop No. 2 on the White River Road Tour. The scouts are planning to snowshoe up there this weekend and I wanted to check it out first. There is plenty of good parking.

I arrived back at Camp Serendipity at 2:05. The temperature was 28º and there was about 10 inches of stiff snow on the ground. There had been some new snow so the snow looked clean and pure white. Beautiful. There was no evidence of an ice storm.

I hauled a bunch of gear up to the cabin, part of it using my trusty Trapper Nelson backpack. Then I split a bunch of firewood and laid a fire in the stove to light later. I cut and carried three ceiling boards up to the loft. Then I got a phone call from a friend and he talked long enough that I didn't get any more work done. I lit the fire in the stove and ended my day with a shower and dinner.

On Wednesday the temperature outside was 27º and there was still no new snow. I spent all day cutting, carrying, and nailing up ceiling boards. All the scaffolding was in place but as my work took me closer to the high side, I decided it was time to string a safety rope on that side. I took the rope off the other side and rigged up a good taut safety rope connecting the Grid C3 RPSL, the Grid C2 RPSL, and the screw eye high up on the Grid 1 gable wall.

I was able to make good progress on the ceiling boards and finished about half of the Grid B1-C3 bay. I was extremely tired and sore when I finally quit for the night. I quit early enough so that I had some time left to work on Dave's big jigsaw puzzle.

For some time I had been getting whiffs of what smelled like sewer gas. I was never able to identify its source but I had suspected that it was from mold growing in the damp crawl space and seeping up between the foundation and the floor. I had been thinking a lot about how I was going to either dry up the crawl space or install some kind of vapor barrier under the floor.

But I solved the mystery. I smelled the gas while I was in the utility room and looking around, I spotted the hookup for the washing machine. Since I don't have a washing machine, that hole is just sitting there in the wall. I took a sniff and there was no doubt that the smell was coming from there. In short order, I fixed the problem by taping over the end of the pipe. What a relief.

On Thursday morning I cleaned the place up in preparation for the scouts who are coming up this weekend for an outing. My main efforts were out on the porch where I removed all the scrap boards and neatly stacked all the good boards. Then I swept the porch so that it is ready for them.

I did some sweeping and putting stuff away on the inside too, but that didn't take long. I had my lunch and left for home at 1:00. I felt really good about the ceiling progress this week.