7/10-14/23 I went up to Camp Serendipity for five days, Monday through Friday, with Dave and Bill.

This was a very special week. I was delayed in my start by going to the drug store, stopping at Costco to buy two trays of salmon, and then there were a few fairly long road delays because of construction. I arrived at 1:05 and since it was so late, I had my lunch and hoisted the flag first before I brought my gear up. I had a lot of gear so I brought the wheelbarrow down to the truck, loaded it with gear, and brought it back to the cabin.

I was in the process of bringing my gear up into the cabin when Dave showed up at 1:30. He helped me bring my gear in and watched me and helped me as I unpacked it and put it away. Of course, we were having great conversations all day and in fact all week. The week sort of runs together so I'm not sure exactly what we did each day, but one thing is we went to work installing the last grab bar in the shower stall.

I had been unable to use the fancy stud finder I had bought so I had installed the previous grab bars without using a stud finder. I went to work with my drawings and measurements to try to find the stud locations while Dave tried to use the stud finder. He discovered a plastic cover over the display that was full of writing and diagrams and a little tab that said, 'remove before using'. That was the key. When you peel off that plastic protector, the stud finder displayed where the studs were pretty easily. That was a little humbling for me. But then, together, we successfully installed the grab bar and I was happy with it.

Dave and I also walked to the bridge and looked up at the mountains and the scenery from the vantage points on the road. Back in the cabin we both spent some time playing the piano. Dave hadn't played for several years so he had to work a little bit to bring back his memory of how to play a few pieces. I happened to have some music for one or two of them so that helped. It was fun.

Among our discussions was what I call the Larry Loop Effect. The question is whether water, entering a vertical coil of pipe or hose at atmospheric pressure, will run through the hose if the other end is at the bottom of the coil. My experience is that it will not, and we tried to prove or disprove that. I had already rigged up an experiment with a plastic tube wrapped around cardboard cylinder so I hauled that out and Dave and I ran many experiments with it including putting a little soap in the water, and using alcohol instead of water, and the results could be interpreted as conclusive. Dave wasn't quite convinced, so the question remained open.

We did a lot of talking; we talked philosophy, politics, boat building, mathematics, etcetera.

Dave did most of the cooking during the week and I did all the dishes. It worked out great. He cooked one of the trays of salmon the first night, and then a barbecued pork dinner the next night. Bill joined us on Wednesday in the early afternoon and Dave cooked another salmon dinner for us that evening. Then on Thursday night Dave took us out to dinner at the '59er Diner which was a real fun time.

Bill caught up on some of our discussions and did some more experimenting with the water loop and some more theorizing. Dave and Bill had deep technical discussions about the details of manufacturing a carbon fiber sailboat mast. Dave is in the process of building one and Bill has extensive experience in working with composite materials, so they got into the complex nitty gritty while I practiced the piano.

We went into the woods to look at trees, once before Bill joined us and then again after he arrived. We didn't spend a lot of time with the trees because the mosquitoes were pretty fierce in the woods. We kept them pretty much under control in the cabin, but Dave and Bill were not dressed for mosquitoes in the woods.

The three of us walked on the road heading for Eunice Henry's grave but before we got there, we met a neighbor, Frank, who had just finished mowing some brush and was heading home. We talked with him for a while and then his wife when she joined him in the car to drive home.

When we got back to the cabin, Robert showed up for a visit. Since Robert is a great storyteller the four of us discussed a lot of topics at a fast pace. We all got along well and had a fun visit for a couple hours.

Since Dave wanted to leave early in the morning on Friday, we had planned to go to bed early Thursday but instead we spent a lot of time talking into the night about a question I had worked on earlier. The question is, What path would you take around the globe following a great circle route that went through Seattle tangent to an east-west line? The answer is surprising and after demonstrating the result on a globe with a string stretched around the great circle route, Dave observed some other surprising facts about that route.

There were also other topics that attracted our attention and kept us up later than we wanted to stay up. We finally went to bed after midnight and I didn't get settled until about 1:00 o'clock.

In the morning Dave got up and quietly left without waking us until he shut the front door. That woke both Bill and me up. We weren't sure if he had gone but we looked out the window and sure enough he had left. His car was gone.

Bill had intended to leave early also but we got to talking and I fixed breakfast for both of us. After we finished eating, we talked quite a bit more. He left at 11:30. I had some last-minute things to do before I could leave but I left at 1:00 o'clock. I hope we can repeat this kind of visit every year. It was a super great week.

We were so busy and engaged that we forgot to take very many pictures but I think the memories of the fun time we had are going to last for a while for all of us.