January 2010

As a great start to 2010, in January, Jim, Katie, Mary Beth and I started cleaning up the lodge at Emigrant Gap.  Jim added a new side door (the original was bashed in and beyond repair).  Carol, Katie and Mary Beth swept, washed and scrubbed everything. Then we  proceeded to tear out carpeting in top floor bedrooms.

Since we had a bad burst in the copper pipes, we were unable to turn on the well.  For cleaning and flushing water we used melted snow.  We brought up potable water from home for cooking and drinking.
Melting started with coleman stove, then was upgraded to old cabin stove once that was cleaned and hooked up to the propane tank.

Things were a bit rustic at first. We used a cooler for our refrigerator, the coleman for cooking and melting.  We had no washer or dryer so we used lots of buckets and rags.  We slept on the sofa bed and blow up mattresses.  And since the ceiling around the free standing fireplace had sagged and the stove pipe collapsed - we could only warm the lodge with portable heaters.

Pretty soon we had two bedrooms set up downstairs - one with a queen mattress the other with a trundle. We had no TV at first - but quickly brought up a TV and VCR.

We quickly realized that we would need to get the pipes fixed so that we could used our hot water heater and toilets (without snow melt flushing).  And that we would need to work on circuits to help avoid popping them when the heater was on.