4/9-11/19 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

Before I left, I called Earl but didn't get an answer. I decided not to stop in and visit with him. On the way, I stopped at our tax accountant and picked up our income tax return. After getting the return and getting back into the truck, I noticed that my cooler was gone. I remember packing it and setting it near the front door, but I couldn't remember for sure whether or not I loaded it into the truck. The only other possibility was that someone had stolen it. My door wasn't locked.

I decided to drive back to Seattle either to pack another cooler with food or to get the one I forgot. All the way, I was angry either at myself for forgetting or at the thief if it were stolen.

When I got home and entered the front door, there was my cooler. My confidence in the world was restored and my confidence in my memory was somewhat diminished. I loaded the cooler into the truck and got back on the road. That was a wasted hour.

I arrived at Camp Serendipity at 2:05. The snow was nearly gone. I carried my gear up from the hairpin turn and there were sections of the trail that were down to the dirt. The temperature outside was 40°.

I built a fire in the wood stove, hoisted the flag, had my lunch, and then spray painted the top coat on the 20 balusters that were in the painting rack. Then I had my nap.

On Wednesday after breakfast, I cut 20 more rebar balusters. Next, I brushed the rust off them on the wire wheel and then washed them all off with paint thinner.

Next, I unloaded the painted balusters from the painting rack and brought them up to the loft. Then I stuck them into the holes in the lower rail just above the staircase. By that time, I figured that it had warmed up enough outside to paint so I loaded the rack back up with the next batch of clean balusters. Then I took it outside and sprayed on the primer coat.

Back up in the loft, I used the techniques I had developed to get all the balusters seated into their holes on the underside of the top rail. It worked pretty well after a couple false starts. I figured out a new way of suspending the high end of the rail so as to be able to gradually lower it in small increments. That is the key.

By the time that was done, the primer coat was dry enough to spray the top coat on the next batch. When that was done, I went in for lunch and a nap. When I got up, it was raining so I cancelled my plans to re-install the rope rail at the concrete staircase. Instead I went to work on seating the bottom rail that meets the Grid A wall. That was where I had dropped my chisel so the first thing I did was to use some wide masking tape and cover the crack so nothing else would fall down into it.

When I finished cutting the notch, I took the rail down and clamped it to the upper rail for drilling. I marked the under side of the bottom rail for the holes, took the rails out to the front porch and drilled the holes using the same setup I had used before.

On Thursday morning, Dave called, and we had another excellent conversation. When we hung up, I cut, wire brushed, and cleaned another batch of 20 balusters. I had just gotten them loaded into the painting rack when Byron stopped in for a visit. When he left it was time to have my lunch, pack up and head for home. I left for home at 12:45 happy to be feeling healthy again and making some progress on the cabin.