12/27-28/17 Ellen and I went up to Camp Serendipity for 2 days: Wednesday and Thursday.

On the way, we stopped in and had a delightful lunch with Marilyn and George. We were happy to see that he is still making progress. From there we proceeded on over the pass. The roads were not too bad but I had to use 4wd a few times, in particular as we neared Camp Serendipity.

We arrived at about 1:00. There was about 8 inches of new snow on the driveway, but I was able to drive up to the hairpin turn and park anyway. I postholed my way up to the cabin dragging a big cooler behind me which made a nice trail for Ellen to walk in.

Ellen went in and started unpacking and organizing while I went back to the truck for the rest of our gear. Then I hoisted the flag and got a fire going in the wood stove.

After settling in for a while, we decided to take a walk. We walked out on the road and were met by Roxie, one of the neighbor's dogs, and then we headed for the Little Wenatchee bridge. Roxie stayed with us all the way to the bridge and then all the way back. She came up to the front porch so I went in and got her a dog biscuit. Ellen stayed with her for a while on the porch.

Next, Ellen did some reading while I took a shower and shaved. Then Ellen started fixing our dinner while I built a device that I had been thinking about. It is a contraption designed to help me roll big firewood rounds out of the woods and bring them down to the cabin.

It is made of three short 2x4s screwed together in a "U" shape. A 3/8" bridle rope connects the sides of the "U" in their centers and a 5/8" rope goes through a hole in the center of the bottom of the "U" and attaches to the center of the smaller bridle rope. Finally, a 20d nail is driven into the end of each of the legs of the "U".

To use the device, the "U" will be placed over the cut faces of the firewood round so that the nails can be driven through the 2x4s and into the center of the face of the round on both sides. The nails will form an axle that the round will roll on. The big rope is for pulling the round as it rolls. The small bridle rope serves to keep the legs of the "U" from spreading apart.

Dinner was ready just about the time I finished making a short video showing my new device. The dinner was excellent. After the dinner dishes were done, we watched the movie "Dunkirk" on the DVD player. It was among the worst movies I have ever seen, but at least it satisfied my curiosity about the movie. Otherwise, we had a very pleasant relaxing evening.

On Thursday morning, I got coffee and the fire going and then I fixed my breakfast. Ellen had something to eat a little later and then we decided to go snowshoeing in Plain. Ellen had found out about that trail and we were planning to go in the afternoon, but after thinking about it, we decided to go in the morning.

We drove to Plain and parked at Plain Hardware. We got our tickets, some drinks, and a nice salt and pepper shaker. Then we walked across the street to the trailhead and strapped on our snowshoes. We had a map and decided to take the longest of two loops. That took us up to the Big Jim Vista and then back down. At that point, we made a mistake, went north instead of south, and ended up visiting a few nice lodges where we realized our mistake. Then we turned around and headed back to Plain Hardware. It was a lot of good exercise and the weather was pretty good, although it was cloudy and foggy. There wasn't much of a vista.

We then drove back to Camp Serendipity, had our lunch, packed up our gear, and took off for home at about 2:30. It was snowing very heavily when we left and a storm system moved in while we made our way home. We made it home fine. It was a wonderful getaway.