Replacement windows, aluminum capping, interior doors, and attic stairway at rehab house ; starting on the 2nd rehab house ; trip to George Washington National Forest

(posted from home)
(This post covers 23 – 31 October, 2010)


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Sunday, 31 October-

I spent the morning on the web (primarily browsing 'LifeHacker.com') and rode the Concours to the Tollgate Starbucks for coffee and the Times. I took along the laptop this time (first time taking it on the motorcycle) and took advantage of the free wi-fi to read an interesting article on Wired about a reporter who dropped out of sight and challenged readers to find him within 30 days. I then spent a few hours (at Starbucks and at home) updating and posting a blog update before finally getting to the paper.

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Saturday, 30 October-

It's SO nice to be home. This morning I caught up on web stuff, then decided to ride the recently-repaired Concours. Unfortunately, the battery didn't agree. I knew it was weak but was surprised it wouldn't start the bike. If I had been using it regularly, it would have started but once it sits for a month or so, I have to start it three or four times before it will keep running and that was the case today. After three times it wouldn't turn over fast enough to start.
I then jumped on the GS650 and rode into the Battery Warehouse for a replacement battery. I found a decent high-performance battery for $100, came home, and installed it with mimimal fuss. In doing so I found potential problems with electrical connections and cleaned them up as part of my installation.
I took a test ride on the Concours and picked up some St. Brendan's from the State Store to mix with my Van Gogh Double Espresso vodka tonight.
That evening we watched 'Frank Lloyd Wright', the Ken Burns documentary. We had visited Taliesin West outside Phoenix this Spring and were very interested to learn more about Mr. Wright's work. GOOD film!

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Friday, 29 October-

This morning was windy and colder... and, with the cloud cover, darker and more foreboding. Last night I had thought I'd take a walk up to the Tibbets overlook but it didn't look like much fun this morning.
I pulled out the map again and began planning a tour. I wanted to see the various campgrounds (particularly the free ones!) and also get a look at dispersed-camping possibilities.
I decided I'd first see Trout Pond but along the way I'd check out the horse-trail parking spots. These are rudimentary parking spots where horse trailers can be accommodated, typically near trailheads. And they sometimes make a good spot to overnight with a relatively clear view of the sky and no lights to interfere with sky-scanning.
It didn't take long for me to completely miss the first one. There are no signs, it turns out. Once I reached a road intersection clearly showing me I had missed the spot, I declared it time to learn how to use the edge-printed scales on the map to get a fairly close GPS position and then use the GPS go-to function to alert me to it.
I once bought a plastic scale for this but of course I have no idea where it is right now. And a quick glance at the map's edge-scale revealed that the most useful (closest together) labels were in UTM (the Universal Transverse Mercator) system, not in the latitude and longitude coordinates I've used to this point.
That turned out to be a minor problem, though. I found I could simply use the Setup menu on the GPS to set Units in UTM coordinates rather than lat/long's degrees and minutes units. Simply by changing units, I could now see my position in UTM. And once I did that it was simple to take the coordinates from any point on the map and put them into a dummy waypoint (I called it XXX) and then use the Go-to function to get there.
Using this method I easily found the roadside pull-off I had missed and then I knew why: there are no signs. I had driven right by it without seeing it. Once I turned up the unsigned dirt road, I saw six rudimentary parking spots big enough for horse trailers. And I saw trail marks on the trees. In this case the marks consist of a vertical bar with a square dot above them. Different colors indicate different trails. And I could see trail numbers on the map and then get a trail name, distance, degree of difficulty, and suitability for hiking, mountain biking, and horse-back riding. I like it!
I then drove on to Trout Pond Recreation Area. This area had an upscale campground (and charged $15 - $22 for a spot, the latter with electrical hookup). There were a surprising number of sites occupied but then again I had seen a lot of development cabins and homes nearby on the way in. Apparently this one is very popular. But the trout pond itself was small ; I think I could have thrown a stone across it in any direction.
By this time I was ready for backcountry to I took a nearby forest road toward Wardensville. I was amazed to find how good the road is – it's all well-maintained limestone gravel with no washboards, ruts, or washouts. There are some narrow spots with blind curves but only for short distances.
The forest road led me to Squirrel Gap, where there's a giant parking lot for hikers, bikers, and horse trailers. I took a break there and plotted the next leg.
I drove SR55 for a bit to get to another forest road and that one took me to Hawk Campground. This one was a primitive campground but a bit nicer than Wolf Gap had been. I then decided to go back into Vance Cove, one of the places the District Office folks had told me to avoid. I had asked whether there were any places I should avoid because of hunters (bow season and small-game season are in) and this was one. But since rifle season isn't in yet, I didn't see why it should be a problem.
This little cove was beautiful! The road was narrow enough that meeting a vehicle would be a problem so I had to keep track of pull-offs as I might have to back up to one to let an oncoming driver by.
I pulled off in a primitive campsite and started making a sandwich for lunch when another truck pulled in. I spoke with the guy and met his dog, Jack. We had a pleasant conversation about Jack and grouse hunting. I then went on to the blockade at the end of the road and hung out there, enjoying the sunny clearing while plotting the next move.
That took me to county road 600, a very nice narrow little road meandering through upland pastures and a surprising number of homes and cabins hidden away in the hills and hollows. I followed it to county road 603 and took that up into the mountain. At the blockade I parked Mocha Joe, walked a bit, then took a short nap. The air outside felt decidedly cool but the sun heated Mocha Joe very nicely.
After my nap I again pulled out the map. I had covered the northwest portion of the national forest very well. And this made me realize I'd rather save the rest of the George Washington National Forest for another time. It was 1530 and I was only three hours from home.
I crossed into the Shenandoah Valley and got onto I-81 North at Exit 291. I had an uneventful trip home, reaching the driveway shortly before 1900.
That evening we watched “Independent Lens: Between the Folds” a good little documentary about origami.

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Thursday, 28 October-

Though we went to bed so very late we woke about 0800. I wanted to take a weekend trip so began looking at possibilities and then packed. By noontime I was on the way to the George Washington National Forest while Labashi was happy to stay home and work on her projects.
At the Virginia Welcome Center I learned the National Forest office wasn't far but I'd have to rush to make it before closing time. I made it with just 15 minutes to spare but that worked out great. I bought the Trails Illustrated map of the northern section of the National Forest and picked up brochures about trails and facilities as well as hunting season information for both Virginia and West Virginia.
I then drove west out of Edinburg to Wolf Gap Recreation Area. I had seen this spot in my web research this morning and had decided to try it for the night. The free campground has nine primitive sites, one of which had another camper tonight.
I arrived about an hour before dark and began reviewing the map and brochures. After supper I took a short walk to the trailhead for the Tibbets Trail and back. Around 1900 I had the laptop going for an offline blog update when I noticed the time. That reminded me I had an email from Maypo about a Skylab flyover around this time. I looked out through the windshield and immediately noticed a super-bright star at about 11 o'clock. That must be it!
I jumped out of the van to watch but the wind had risen quite a bit and the overhead trees interfered with the view. I lasted only a few minutes. Once back in the van I glanced up now and then but the novelty soon wore off.
I spent the rest of the evening catching up the blog and reviewing the national forest maps and information.

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Wednesday, 27 October-

Orat finished up the interior doors today while Labashi and I spent the entire day caulking the outsides of the replacement windows and the newly-covered door frames. The day had looked rainy and in fact we had some sprinkles this morning but by mid-afternoon it was a picture-perfect day. We took advantage of the nice weather and kept working until 1830 to get all the exterior caulking done.
We all then had dinner with Maypo and the Mrs before heading home. We arrived home at 2200 and were so exhausted we couldn't sleep. We stayed up until almost 0100 watching the rest of Season Two of 'Entourage'.

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Tuesday, 26 October-

Orat and I installed the drop-down attic stairs this morning. We didn't have much trouble with the installation and in fact the stairs seem more stable than others we've had experience using. Orat then finished up the second screen door and started installing the new interior doors while Labashi and I slaved away scraping glazing-caulk and paint on the windows of house #2.
Toward the end of the day I finally had enough. This just wasn't working. We had thought we'd scrape and re-paint the windows and re-use the storm windows but it soon became clear that the storms were completely unusable and the double-hung windows weren't much better. They're either way too tight or way too loose in their sliders, several panes were cracked, some of the hardware was broken, and it was clear now that our paint job would be barely adequate when compared to the super look of the house next door. We all conferred and decided to abandon the scraping, painting, and re-glazing and install vinyl replacement windows as well as aluminum capping material on this house too. The work will be far less and the results far better though the cost will be about $200 per window where replacement storms would have cost about $60 per window. But then again we'd have an extra week of work getting it done. And in such a poor housing market, the upgrade may well make a difference in getting the house sold.


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Monday, 25 October-

Orat finished up the replacement windows today. Labashi and I had made a run to Lowe's for supplies and two screen doors and Orat finished most of the installation of the front screen door by day's end. Labashi and I had gone back over to the second house and had spent a miserable day scraping out the old glazing putty. We each broke a window doing it and we both had problems later in getting the replacement panes to fit ; our measurements were off.
We had dinner with Maypo and Mrs. M.

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Sunday, 24 October-

Today I helped Orat with the aluminum install a bit to learn how it's done and Maypo began installing the vinyl replacement windows. I removed the old glazing caulk from the living room window and then scraped and painted the frame before re-glazing with a latex window caulking material. I tried using the traditional glazing putty but had trouble with it but the latex material went on relatively easily using a caulking gun and masking tape.
By the end of the day Orat had all the aluminum work done and we had half of the twelve new windows in.
Late in the day we helped Maypo move a load of furniture into his new house and then we all had supper together there.

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Saturday, 23 October-

This morning we were supposed to go to Chambersburg but first I had to pick up the Concours from Cycle Tech. I didn't want it sitting around outside the shop until I return.
I was very happy to get the bill of $250 for the repair of the exhaust system and an inspection renewal. Both header pipes had been compromised by the rust (of the cross-over pipe between them) and those headers are each $250 plus something like another $200 for installation. Skip at Cycle Tech cut off the rusted cross-over pipe back to good metal and then welded on a cap to resolve the problem.
We then loaded up Mocha Joe and drove back to Chambersburg for another work-week re-habbing the C-burg house.
I had bought the tub/shower surround at Home Depot in York yesterday and we picked up the drop-down attic stairs at the Lowe's in Shippensburg along the way. The box was also open on this one so we pulled it out of the box and verified that it was all there and the instructions were there.
We arrived at Maypo's house just as Orat arrived from the other direction-- great timing! We then all went to the project. While Orat installed aluminum cap over the sills and brickmold, Labashi and I began work on the windows of the second rehab house (next door).
That evening we had all went out to dinner at Norland Pub.

************ END OF POST ***********

More house rehab

(posted from home)
(This post covers 15 – 22 October, 2010)

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Friday, 22 October-

Today I had a few little errands to run. I picked up the tub/shower enclosure and adhesive and ALMOST bought the attic stairway. I say 'almost' because I rejected the two at the East York Lowe's because the boxes were open and I couldn't tell if anything was missing. I drove over to the West York Lowe's and the only one there was hardly even in a box at all-- just a ripped-up piece of cardboard covered it. Thanks, but no thanks, Lowe's. I saw one in the Chambersburg store so hopefully I can get that one next week.
Late in the day we removed our two window air-conditioners for the season. Labashi's always afraid they'll be full of bugs when we move them and we did indeed have an unsetting number of stink-bugs hiding in the crevices around the window seal (about a dozen of them) but it took only a minute to deal with them.
That evening we watched the rest of 'Entourage' S2D3.

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Thursday, 21 October-

We're home for two days. I caught up on web-patrol this morning, then, despite my better judgement, went into town to shop for stuff for the re-hab (this is supposed to be my weekend!). I thought it was going to be a simple matter of making some routine returns but I ended up spending a few hours checking and re-checking stuff for the rehab. I shopped for a folding attic stairway and took another look at the tub/shower enclosure we had tentatively chosen earlier. I confirmed measurements and reviewed installation instructions.
Labashi spent another day burning.
That evening we watched five (!) episodes of 'Entourage' -Season Two. We like it much better than '30 Rock' but I do wonder about the message of the story regarding women's role in society. According to 'Entourage' their role is to be arm-candy for successful males and their hangers-on. Well, yeah, there's some of that in the world but so far that's the ONLY thing we've seen. Give me a break.

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Wednesday, 20 October-

This morning I finalized the floor-leveling of the bathroom and swept and mopped up. Yesterday morning I had broken the material by standing on an upturned 5-gallon bucket which dug into the material. I had patched it at the end of the day yesterday so today's sanding only took a few minutes.
I also re-installed the electric connections for the bathroom sink light and outlet. The three-way connection had been made without a box, probably because there wasn't anywhere to attach one and the wires were very short. I installed a 2 x 4 between the studs in just the right place to mount the box using the existing cable lengths and re-connected and tested.
Late in the day I worked on the exterior of the living-room picture window. This is the one window we will retain when we install the replacement vinyl windows. I removed all the old caulking and sanded the frame. The underlying frame is in good condition and should look fine once I get the new paint on.
We wrapped up at 1700 and headed for home. We had a drive-through supper at the Dillsburg Wendy's in order to get home before dark.
At home we watched three episodes of '30 Rock'-- Season Four. I'm disappointed. The stories seem strained this year. The writers are throwing in off-the-wall references and non-sensical comments just for shock value. That's a bad sign.

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Tuesday, 19 October-

Ah, yes. This morning I had a mess sanding the floor-leveling material. The good news is it sands fairly easily. The bad is it creates a fine dust that gets into EVERYthing and tracks through the rest of the house. I really need a vacuum cleaner (and should wear a mask) when working with this stuff.
I painted the first coat of the bathroom walls and then did some electrical work. I had painted the fixture for the carport ceiling this morning (before starting the bathroom walls) and installed it late in the day.
I turned my attention to the GFCI circuit breaker and almost got myself in trouble. My first read of the instructions led me to start installing a short piece of neutral cable to the panel bus. But then I realized that didn't make sense--- the main white lead is supposed to go to load-neutral not panel-neutral. Since it was close to the end of the day I waited for Maypo to come home from work to confirm my revised interpretation and we installed and tested it successfully after supper. We now have GFCI-protected outlets above the kitchen counter.
I also did a final coat on the leveling material in the bathroom.
That evening Labashi and I watched 'The Hitmen Diaries- Charlie Valentine'. Wow. The Blockbuster box said it had won awards at 21 film festivals. That's hard to believe. It's a Tarantino-pretender and it was just awful.

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Monday, 18 October-

We're at the Chambersburg house today. Labashi's still painting the kitchen cabinets with tinted-pigmented shellac undercoat. 'Painting' means all the prep work has to be done too and the cabinets need quite a lot of wood filler and multiple iterations of sanding and of course multiple coats of paint.
I went back to final readying of the bathroom walls above the tub so we can later install a multi-piece tub and shower surround. I've been chipping away at the old globs of construction adhesive and repairing broken plaster.
Late in the morning we drove over to Lowe's for supplies. It was almost lunch time so we decided to try the new Sonic Drive In for lunch. I liked my sandwich (jalopeno burger) but I'm guessing the nutrition breakdown has WAY too many carbs and calories.
We gassed up, iced up, and rented a movie from the new Blockbuster DVD vending machine in front of the Sheetz store (beside Sonic).
Our shopping took awhile so we didn't get back to work until 1400. I then took what seemed an eternity to fit two pieces of lauan underlayment for the bathroom floor. I mixed up some texture paint for the too-smooth places on the wall (where I had patched and sanded) and took care of that, then put down another layer of floor-leveling so the lauan will lay completely flat. Someone in the past had fixed the floor about half-way across with a thicker piece of plywood so I needed to level things out so the underlayment for the linoleum doesn't flex. The instructions for the levelling material warn against trowelling too much and I think I know why now-- I trowelled too much.
After supper I blogged a bit while Labashi went into the house to fix some uh-oh's in her painting project. We then watched 'Ghost Writer', a Roman Polanski film with Ewan MacGregor and Pierce Brosnan. It was okay but a bit too predictable. I was disappointed to see Ewan's character bed the wife of the prime minister. He seemed to have some common sense but then did such remarkably stupid thing that it's clear the point was merely to titillate us.

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Sunday, 17 October-

Today was another work day at Cburg. We were at it by 0830 and worked until 1700, then back at it from 1800 – 2030. With all that time you'd think it would have been a productive day, yes? Labashi had a productive day painting cabinets but I seemed to have to battle every project.
I made a bit of progress patching up the plaster walls and re-caulking the sink cabinet in the bathroom but when I turned to electrical work I had all kinds of odd things going on. I mounted a new front porch light and that took me a good two hours for a half-hour job. The screws for the mounting plate were bad-- the starting threads were crushed--- so I had to find new ones. The screws to mount the light fixture to the mounting plate were too long so the acorn-style cap nuts could not tighten down. I had to drill holes in the siding to allow the screws to go further in so the cap nuts would go on properly. I even had trouble with the light bulb. When I tried to remove it, the entire socket rotated and I had to take the fixture apart just to remove the light bulb. And after I finally got it all together we saw the warning label (60W maximum) was WAY too prominent. I had to take it apart AGAIN and move the label and then reassemble everything and remount the light.
After all that I thought I'd mount the new 2-foot fluorescent fixture above the sink (in a recess). That actually went fairly well and the light came on when I flipped the circuit breaker on. But wait, there's a problem. The light switch under the kitchen cabinets doesn't control this light after all (we couldn't tell because the old fixture hadn't been working at all). In fact there's no switch anywhere in the kitchen to control it. I found the old fixture on the trash pile and sure enough there's a pull-chain on it. We'll need a different fixture, apparently.
I then spent the greater part of an hour trying to figure out what the switch beside the sink DOES control. So far I've found it is in the same circuit as the kitchen counter outlets but it doesn't control them-- or anything else so far as I can tell. And while doing that I found another problem-- several dead outlets in one corner of the basement. All the circuit breakers are on so why are there non-functioning outlets?
I then tried to replace the first-in-the-chain kitchen outlet with a GFCI outlet. But when I opened the box I found six wires instead of the expected four. Something else is connected here (and there's no way to trace the wires visually). The wiring instructions for the GFCI outlet clearly state that this outlet cannot be used if there are more than four wires. Looks like I'll have to put a GFCI circuit breaker in the panel and return this GFCI outlet, turning a $15 expenditure into a $50 one.
After supper things went a little better. I did manage to put down floor leveler to fix a large bad spot in the plywood subfloor (and will have to put another layer on tomorrow as well as do another large spot.) I also managed to cut-in (with paint) the wall-ceiling corner in preparation for painting the walls (the ceiling is already done). But first I have a lot of texturing over the many patches I've been making.
Time for bed.

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Saturday, 16 October-

After our two rest days it was time to get back to work. We drove to Chambersburg this morning and worked from 0900 until 1300, when we broke to attend a birthday party for our three-year-old grand-niece. We had sandwiches and cupcakes and enjoyed the little rascal's party for a couple of hours, then headed back to work.
I finished up the repair to the bathroom subfloor (joist-hangers and doubled 5/8” ply) and installed a ground-fault safety outlet and re-wired the light over the sink.
We worked until 1800, then tried the Japanese steak house across town ('Aki'). We enjoyed the change of pace but both of us ate WAY too many carbs (the white rice accompanying the meal) and both of us were feeling the effects of too much food afterwards.
We then spent an hour or so at Lowe's, doing some shopping for the house-rehab project. We returned to the work site (our camp site) for the night and I blogged while Labashi read.

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Friday, 15 October-

This morning I continued reading everything I could find on vandwellers.org but the weather outside was just getting too good to stay indoors. I thought I'd run a few errands on the F650GS and started out riding up to Cycle Tech to talk to Skip about repairing the Concours exhaust system sometime this Fall. I've had the GS to ride all summer but with colder weather coming on, I want to get the Concours ship-shape again. Once the daytime highs start dropping below the Fifties, I'll put the GS in the barn and depend on the Conk's full fairing for comfortable riding.
I had intended only to ask Skip (at Cycle Tech) if I could come by on the old war-horse for a look-see sometime next week but the shop didn't seem busy so I asked if I could bring it up yet today. When he agreed, I zipped home and rode the Concours back. And when Skip said he'd fix it sometime next week and I could leave it now if I wanted, I called Labashi to pick me up.
I then rode the GS into town, both to get some miles in on a nice day and also to get a cappuccino.
Back home I got back on the Web to get our Netflix queue squared away with some new picks. Our queue had gotten down to some 'also-rans' so I needed to get on the ball and find some better movies.
That evening we finished the first season of 'Entourage'. OK, we're intrigued enough to order up Season Two. We also finished the first disk of “It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia” but I think we'll pass on additional disks.

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Thursday, 14 October--

Today I recovered from my over-taxing three-day work week. I ran a few errands-- checking with our bank about a transaction that took longer than I thought it should and grocery shopping for a few harder-to-find items. But all in all I spent a good portion of the day on the web.
My new discovery today is vandwellers.org. It's a web site dedicated to living for extended stretches in cars, vans, campers, etc. I'm not about to sell my house and move into Mocha Joe but I do love reading about the ways people have adapted vehicles for living and adapted their lifestyles, whether by choice or necessity.
That evening we watched three episodes of 'Entourage'- Season One. We're still not sure on this one.


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Back to house-rehab project ; Dolly Sods weekend trip

(posted from home)
(This post covers October 1 – 13, 2010)

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Wednesday, 13 October-

We continued working on the rehab house today in Chambersburg. Labashi spent the day cleaning, wood-filling, and sanding cabinet doors and drawers. After working on plaster-patch around the bathroom window and wall (where I had removed the tub-surround and glued-on window trim), I spent the rest of the day outside, digging out old caulk, re-caulking and then painting the gable-ends. I had caulked the east end yesterday so went to work on the west this morning, then gave each a coat of primer and then a coat of exterior. The worst part about it was the repeated collapsing and extending the ladder and moving it every couple of minutes. By day's end I was exhausted.
We worked until 1700 and then headed home.

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Tuesday, 12 October-

This morning we continued with the carport-ceiling project. I rolled the first coat of light-blue on the ceiling and then the second coat on the cut-in sections while Labashi painted the white trim.
After lunch I worked on the gable end of the carport roof, cleaning out old caulk and re-caulking. I then rolled the final coat on the ceiling and finished off brushing the lattice-board covered seams. Late in the day I cleaned out and re-caulked the east gable-end of the house.
After supper I had a couple of errands to run so Labashi went back to deep-cleaning cabinet doors in preparation for painting. We'll also have some wood-putty repairs and sanding to to on them before the painting begins.
I needed to send an email so we drove to the nearby McDonald's for a wi-fi connection for that and to pick up our other email.
I spoke briefly with Orat, too. He'll be coming down soon to install the replacement windows we bought for the house this summer.

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Monday, 11 October-

This morning we drove to Chambersburg to get back into the rehab. I spent much of the day sanding the carport ceiling using a random-orbit sander from a scaffold which was both too high and too low. The too-high part was the higher of the two standing platforms, the too-low one the other. They need to make adjustable legs on these things. A couple of inches would have made a big difference in comfort.
Late in the afternoon we bought paint at Lowe's and spent a few minutes shopping at Kenny's Market for groceries, then returned to paint until dark. I did get the first coat of cutting-in done and almost finished the lattice-board seam covers (which have to be painted by brush rather than roller).
That evening we had an excellent cod fillet we had picked up this afternoon and then I tried to catch up the blog. I'm WAY behind.

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Sunday, 10 October-

Another nice day (weatherwise) today. After my morning patrol of the web Labashi and I cut each other's hair and then I rode the F650GS down to the Tollgate Starbucks for a cappuccino and the papers.
That afternoon I turned my attention back to the repair project on our mud-room door. I had replaced the aluminum and wood threshold with a new one and had used a construction adhesive to put it in place on the concrete entry step.
Today I took off the door and removed the sweep strip from the bottom, then installed a special sweep-and-cap strip. This aluminum strip fits on the bottom of the door and has a standard rubber sweep strip underneath. But the special thing about this one is it has a quarter-round lip sticking out which shields the sill from rain. It only sticks out about 3/8 of an inch but that's enough to keep all rain on the out-side of the sill's rubber seal.
That evening we watched a documentary on cross-country truckers called 'Big Rig', an episode of 'Art Race' (wherein two guys are 'racing' across the US but there's a catch-- they only started with $1 and they have to finance their living and travel expenses by trading the art they create along the way) and a show called 'ArtLand' where a couple tours the US in an RV, taking us to various flavors of art installations and to museums.

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Saturday, 9 October-

I was awake for a bit around 0430 this morning and noticed one of the guys camped nearby starting to re-light the fire (I could see what he was doing as he had an extra-bright headlamp). I went back to bed at that early hour but when I woke around 0715 I could see he was still over there tending the fire while all his friends slept. Where there had been two tents and one car when I went to bed, there were now a dozen tents and nearly as many cars. I hadn't heard a thing. I walked over and talked to the German-teacher-guy for a few minutes to thank him for inviting me last night and to see why he was up. He told me he's just wired to get up at 0500 every day and he likes tending fire (it relaxes him) so why lay awake in the tent?
By 0800 I was back on top of the mountain at the Bear Rocks (north) end of Dolly Sods. I found a nice viewpoint looking west and sat there for the better part of an hour enjoying my Doubleshot while the sun warmed up the van and I decided what I was going to do today.
We had another sunny day but a bit windy and cool. But the big surprise today was how many people there were. I had been here Thursday afternoon and there was one other car. But today there were upwards of 30 cars here and people everywhere, most with cameras. I had the impression there was a photography class underway but I couldn't confirm it.
I had moved away from the worst of the congestion to a vantage point I had seen the other day. It also happened to be near the trailhead of the Bear Rocks Trail. This allowed me a tempting view of the first five minutes of trail and it definitely beckoned to me this morning.
I thought I'd take a little stroll of four to five miles, probably turning back when my GPS indicated I had gone two to three miles. But once I was on the trail I loved it and didn't want to turn back. The trail was stunning. This wasn't a narrow corridor amoung trees, it was largely wide-open heath with pretty little evergreen copses spread strategically about and rising toward a plateau which promised a great view.
I continued walking until the end of the Bear Rocks Trail and then took the Beaver View Trail. At the trail intersection I was overtaken by another hiker (more on him later) and that's part of the reason I chose the Beaver View Trail as he chose the continuing Raven Ridge Trail. It was time to turn back according to the GPS but after checking my map closely I saw I could make a loop and not have to backtrack.
The Bear Rocks Trail had led me across open heath and now my trail led into pine woods for a bit, then to a wide-open vista overlooking a small valley. What a perfect campsite this would be.
The trail then led back through deciduous woods to the Dobbin Grade Trail, this one leading me into a valley with many marshy spots. Try as I might I couldn't avoid all the wet spots and soon had damp feet.
But Dobbin Grade wasn't done with me. I kept running into swampy areas, each a drainage from the slope the trail skirted. I would very much like to have had a pair of overboots.
As the trail rose a bit nearing its intersection with the Beaver Dam Trail, I met a very interesting trio from Charlottesville. This was a older (not elderly, just older than me!) couple and their friend. We struck up a conversation about the trail and somehow that led to a very wide-ranging chat about everything from the joys of retirement to the one fellow's job as a Java programmer at the university to the lady's winter she had spent in New Zealand to the other guys extensive travels to Vietnam, China, and Russia by folding bicycle and train. He would travel by train with his folding bike to an area he wanted to explore and then take off on his bicycle. VERY interesting fellow....
At the Dobbin Grade/Bear Rocks trail intersection I stopped to talk with two guys taking a break there and that allowed the same hiker who had overtaken me at the Beaver View Trial to once again overtake me. He couldn't understand how I could have gotten ahead of him but once we checked the maps we saw that he had simply made a larger loop than I did to get back to that point.
So my hike for today was 8 miles total and I had no pains, blisters, or soreness. This is great!
But now it was time to gallop for the barn. It was about 1415 and I had told Labashi I'd be home tonight.
My trip up through West Virgina took me to Cumberland (MD) and onto I-68, then I-70, I-81 (at Hagerstown) and US30. Everything went very smoothly until I ran into traffic from the weekend's Apple Festival around Biglerville. I've never seen a traffic jam there before but today we had one! It only delayed me about 20 minutes so I'm not sure that really qualifies as a traffic jam.
I made it home by dark and after a quick unloading of the van, Labashi and I watched several episodes of House, M.D.

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Friday, 8 October-

This morning I arose a bit earlier than normal and walked over to check out the bird-banding station. Labashi and I had visited it years ago and were impressed with their all-volunteer operation. And 2010, I learned, has been a record-breaking year for them. The volunteers have banded over 10,000 birds this year (!!!). I met the daughter of the man who started the bird-banding station here 53 years ago. She said this season's numbers bring their total birds-banded count to 243,000 over that time span. I asked whether they've re-caught birds which they had previously banded and she said only about 50 of them.
I didn't stay long at the bird-banding station since the volunteers were busy at their task and didn't have time to talk. The logger-lady was working quickly to band and record birds and had three grocery-bags of them ahead of her at that point (about 0730). Each paper grocery bag contained a dozen-or-so paper lunch-bags, each with a bird inside. These had been captured from the nets strung across the steep-sided valley below the banding station. The hillsides on each side of this valley fall from the sides into the middle and each has 'net lanes', or paths running across them in front of the nets (I seem to remember from last time that they're called 'mist nets'). The nets aren't high but appear to be perfectly placed since the birds tend to fly up the tops of the bushes and low trees right into the nets. As I watched I saw a half-dozen birds caught, one hit a net and bounce off, then recover and fly under the net, and several skirt the ends of the nets. The nets are strung loosely so when a bird hits the net, it tends to wrap itself into the net. After a few seconds of trying to escape, they generally just hang there until a volunteer picks the bird off the net and puts it in a paper lunch bag. After the volunteer collects a half-dozen or so, he or she takes the lunch bags to the banding station where they are examined, banded, and released.
I walked for a mile or so back the Blackbird Knob Trail and then back to the campground and finished breakfast and cleaned up a bit before heading south on PR ('Public Road') 75, the dirt road running through Dolly Sods Scenic Area and along the Dolly Sods Wilderness.
I waymarked several of the trailheads (i.e., recorded their position on the GPS) as I went. At one I struck up a conversation with a guy from Baltimore who was waiting for his friends to join him for an overnighter. 'Wayne' lives in the Timonium area just north of Baltimore and has done quite a bit of hiking in areas I'm familiar with in PA. He's a retired HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) contractor and gave me some good recommendations for hikes at the reservoirs north of Baltimore.
I had lunch at the scenic lookout and then drove on to Canaan Valley State Park to see the leaves. Just inside the main entrance there's a tree I call the 'tell-tale' regarding the autumn color in the Canaan Valley. In the best years, this tree is so brilliantly colored that it's unbelievable. Today it was very nice, but not the best I've seen.
I talked with the Nature Center ranger for a half-hour or so after learning she had taken a series of Master Naturalist courses in West Virginia and had taken an alligator course in Florida while visiting her sister in the Orlando area. I had learned of the Master Naturalist courses in Florida and would like to take the whole curriculum to earn certification but don't know how to make it work. The courses are generally given weekly and the way I travel doesn't lend itself to taking a series of courses. But then again, perhaps I'm making it too hard. I could take a course here and there just for the experience of it without trying to take the whole curriculum and get certified. I have no intention of trying to get a naturalist job or anything; I'd just like to take some interesting courses. I also had no idea that West Virginia has a Master Naturalist curriculum for the public so I'll also have to look into the courses for that.
After Canaan Valley State Park, I drove to the town of Davis and explored the Canaan Valley Institute's campsites along Camp 70 Road. I had been looking for access roads to the Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge and learned of this road running along the Blackwater River. I was pleasantly surprised to find ten free campsites along it. Very cool-- nice free campsites just outside Davis and nearby Thomas.
I then drove on to Thomas and visited 'Mountain Made', a West Virginia crafts consortium. Labashi and I visited before and found some really nice crafts and that was the case again today.
In Thomas's store-front district I went to 'The Purple Fiddle', again a place I had visited with Labashi. It's an old general store converted to a hippie cafe and music venue. I had an espresso-and-half-and-half (their version of a 'frappuccino') and a 'Fiddle Platter'--- warm tortilla wedges with small containers of feta cheese, tapenade, hummus, and fresh salsa (with mango bits!). They also had wi-fi so I checked email and afterwards had a surprise Skype-Video call with Labashi. Love it!
I then went looking for 'A-Frame Road' off Route 93. This road leads into the far side of the Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge. The dirt road in was okay but had some humongous potholes to dodge (sometimes more successfully than others). But once I crossed the Refuge boundary the road was good and I had an easy ride to the far-end parking area. I had a magnificent evening for a walk but unfortunately several duck hunters had beat me to the area. I thought I'd walk around behind them but started hearing duck calls and shots fairly close by and decided to call it a day since I also have a long drive to my campsite for the night. I had seen two deer driving in and saw another three on the way out.
I still had almost an hour until dark so drove back through Davis and past Canaan Valley State Park and back up the mountain to Dolly Sods. I had hoped to stay at Red Creek Campground again but it was full and I was amazed to see so many cars parked along the road-- apparently backpackers already out in the woods for the long holiday weekend. This morning all the pulloffs and parking lots were empty but this evening they are parked full.
As darkness fell I drove on to the freebie campsites I had waymarked on the way in yesterday and found the nicest one still open. I parked for the night and talked briefly with a hunter camped nearby for the squirrel season opener tomorrow. Around 2130 two young guys came in and took up another of the campsites nearby-- this one between Mocha Joe and the road. I walked over to say hello and let them know I would need to be able to drive out tomorrow morning so they'd have to avoid blocking the path. They were the advance party for a group of 15 and had started a fire. Their buddies had just left Pittsburgh at 2000 and would not be in until after midnight so they invited me to hang out around the fire and talk. One was a system administrator for the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center and the other worked as a German teacher in a Pittsburgh-area middle school (Yes, German language studies in a middle school!).
We had a great time around the fire but I called it a night around 2300.

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Thursday, 7 October-

This morning I headed out for a few days in West Virginia while Labashi stays home to work on her gardening and lawn projects. I spent much of the day driving west to Cumberland, MD, then south to Keyser, WV and on to Dolly Sods Wilderness area by 1530.
As I drove up to Dolly Sods I checked out some freebie camping sites in the Monongahela National Forest which looked pretty good but I wanted to walk yet today. But I did take time to waypoint them on the GPS for the future.
Once atop the mountain I took a two-mile walk at Bear Rocks, walking out into the sub-arctic heath. It reminds me a lot of Labrador and parts of Newfoundland in that there are flag spruce (black spruce with limbs only on the downwind side), arctic cotton, low-growing juniper and willows, and inches-thick lichen everywhere above the boggy areas. The land is mostly open with a few pine thickets. I found it useful to walk on the downwind side of the pines to give me a bit of a break from this evening's 20 mph breeze.
As I walked this evening I saw a vole, a hawk (a goshawk, perhaps?), and kicked up a grouse. I also saw cranberries and I believe some dried-up high-bush blueberries. I was hoping to see Labrador Tea but none so far.
As darkness neared I returned to Mocha Joe and drove to nearby Red Creek campground for the night. I had a sumptuous supper of beef stew and then made up a Starbucks Via coffee with St. Brendans Irish Cream for dessert. I'm livin' large on Dolly Sods tonight!
Before retiring for the night I walked over to talk with two guys camping nearby. I asked whether the bird-banders were still working and learned tomorrow is their last day for the season.

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Wednesday, 6 October-

This morning I cut the cross-member to block up the sagging joist but could not fit it into palce due to interference from pipes. I decided the only way would be to use several 2x4 pieces rather than one 2 x 10 piece for this and went ahead and cut and prepared them for installation. I then chased down a floor jack and 4x4 post and jacked up the sagging joist. I'll have to wait for joist-hangers to finish this but its pretty straightforward now since everything is lined up and ready.
I spent the afternoon replacing receptacles and removing an old fluorescent fixture over the sink while Labashi worked on kitchen cabinet doors (getting them ready for paint).
We headed home after 1700 and stopped in Carlisle at Chili's for supper. Afterwards we shopped at the next-door Home Depot for a tub-surround and vinyl floor covering. I think we've found the 'right' surround but we're disappointed in the options for flooring.
We made it home by 2130 and watched a bit of television before falling into bed exhausted.

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Tuesday, 5 October-

Today was my first day on new blood-pressure meds and as expected I noticed some light-headedness when exerting (tearing up the underlayment). And at one point I came very close to fainting when I jammed a lauan splinter into my thumb and had to pull it out. But by afternoon I was feeling pretty much normal.
I spent the afternoon planning and then executing a series of cuts to remove a 12 x 15 -inch plywood section (of the bathroom floor) which had rotted, apparently due to a water leak sometime ago.
That evening, as Maypo and I looked at it from below we noticed a sagging joist. I'll have to install a cross-piece and joist-hangers to fix that.
That evening we had supper with Maypo-and-family at Norland Pub.

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Monday, 4 October-

I had a bit of a scare last night, or rather early this morning. I woke with a nosebleed. I had been feeling that my blood pressure is higher than normal and was shocked to find it in the 150/100-ish range around 0430 this morning. And though it settled down into a more normal range, I went ahead and called my doctor and got in for an appointment this morning. There's no apparent explanation for the nosebleed but we decided I'd go ahead and start a very low-dose blood pressure medicine.
We had intended to leave for Chambersburg first thing this morning but my doctor's appointment and picking up the bp medicine delayed us until afternoon.
We arrived at the rehab-house around 1500 and took a short tour to remind ourselves of all the projects we still need to do. We decided to start in the bathroom so I spent a few hours ripping up the old tile and I started tearing up the lauan underlayment.

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Sunday, 3 October-

Today I spent a few hours installing the new aluminum threshold at the mud-room door. This should have been an easy replacement but with the old one out of the way I think I see why it rotted. The concrete step it lies upon is uneven and caused the aluminum threshold plate to tilt backwards a bit, which probably funneled water to the wrong place. Using a two-pound hammer and a cold chisel I leveled off the high spots and then used the construction adhesive to install the new threshold. With rains due tonight I also had to seal off the doorway with duct tape and plastic sheeting so the water doesn't ruin the adhesive.
In mid-afternoon I rode the GS to the Tollgate Starbucks for a coffee and Times.

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Saturday, 2 October-

This morning I decided I need to take advantage of the good weather to work on rotted threshold of the mud-room door. This is an aluminum threshold but it has an underlying wood frame which was in contact with the concrete step and apparently water was getting into it. In any case, it has to be replaced.
I tore out the old one and then drove the Miata in to Lowe's for a replacement on this very nice, sunny day. I had intended to replace it with an all-aluminum or fiberglass threshold but the only thing that fits without a lot of hassles is another aluminum one, again with the underlying pine. I bought some copper sulfate to treat the pine and a tube of construction adhesive to install it (since the door frame the other one was attached too also rotted away). I also bought some Great Stuff sealant to plug the various voids left behind when I removed all the rotted wood.

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Friday, 1 October-
Today we shopped at Home Depot and Lowe's for items to restart the house-rehab project we had started this summer. After the weekend we'll get back to it.
I also pulled the F650GS out of the barn and took it, the Miata, and Labashi's car up to the gas station to check the tires and I drove them a bit to get the accumulated rust off of the disk brakes.
That evening we watched the first disk of the history-of-Quebec DVD set I picked up for a quarter at the Marystown, Newfoundland library. I'm not too sure about this one. It looks like the provincial government collected various unrelated art projects which happened to have something to do with the history of Quebec and put them all on one DVD set. The individual pieces seem to be unrelated to each other. But we do like seeing the old footage and photos of Quebec City.

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