So here is what has been going on at Emigrant Gap since our last post.
Jim ordered some planks for our scaffolding and has started working on the west side of the building, adding Hardie Panel to the lower 9 feet of the building.
Above the Hardie Panel, he is removing the old tongue and groove siding and resetting all of the windows. Whoever installed the lower floor windows originally, placed the fins on the outmost plywood siding, causing them to leak. As he removed the windows, he added one new plug outlet to each bedroom. He also pulled the old insulation out of the walls and added new. The last window on the wall unfortunately did not have any header or side 2/4 to keep it in place (how it managed to hang as long as it did is a mystery to all of us). Jim fixed that, but had to open a lot of the wall in that room (more drywall in our future).
Jim also added a deck to the game room (where the sliding glass door was added in July). And our wonderful neighbor at the school (Adrian) was taking down his back chain link so he decided to take ours down as well. This was a huge and wonderful change and I can not wait to get back to the lodge to see it.
I have been working on fixing the towel rack in one of the downstairs bathrooms. We have had a lot of trouble keeping towel racks tight to the drywall. We have tried all kinds of molly bolts - but have had not success. So I decided to add a chair rail to the bathrooms that have the most trouble. No photo of that yet - but I will add it as soon as I get it painted.
I also expanded our stone patio a bit and worked on gathering more patio stones to add another patio on the deck side of the house. To get patio stone, I have to drive back to some sandstone outcropping by the campgrounds and look for road kill rocks (basically rocks that have split and fallen down to the road). It takes quite a while to find these rocks so more often I augment with Craigslist purchased or free rock. On the last trip back to the campgrounds, I drove about 4 miles on a dirt road, picked up about 5 “pavers” and unfortunately hit something that blew my left front tire. Since I had no cell phone reception, no way to change the tire (I was on a very narrow road on the side of a mountain in the middle of nowhere), I had to drive the truck back with the failing tire. I made it as far as the campground, and had to send someone 8 miles to the cabin to let Jim know. A good samaritan helped me change the tire before Jim arrived. My tire was shredded. I was thinking it was going to cost about $300 for another one - but I was lucky that I purchased tire insurance and only had to pay $50.00 for the repair.
I have also been working on repairing the walls in the game room (lots of wall board to put back up and patch after the window and slider installation).
My work has been a bit slower than usual due to an injury I sustained just before we left on vacation. Our vacation was changed quite a bit due to COVID. We went camping in the National Forests (dispersed camping mainly) to try to avoid the crowds of the campgrounds. Our trip took us to South Dakota, Montana, Utah, Nevada and Idaho. We saw a lot of amazing country and got used to camping longer term (about 3 1/2 weeks).
When we returned, we had an unusual dry lightning storm that resulted in thousands of strikes and 100s of fires in California. That has left us with months (yes months) of unhealthy air and lots of scorched earth. Fires continue to ignite around the state. We have been lucky in Emigrant Gap to see only one wild fire so far this season (knock on wood). I was driving back from a Reno trip and saw a plume of smoke on the hill behind Nyack. I immediately called 911 and they patched me over to the fire service. We were lucky that a helicopter was dispatched immediately followed by a plane that dropped fire repellant on the plume. The fire was out quickly and the forest service checked on it for a few days.
We have also had quite a few power outages at the lodge due to extreme winds and high heat. Jim is thinking of solar in the future to manage our electrical needs. Solar is difficult in snow country. At our snow depth, I don’t think that mounting on the roof is an option. That means that the panels would need to be placed on solar “palapas”. This makes them more apt to be stolen so the panels probably would need to be used or cheap. Then of course, we would need to have PG and E set up the solar converter. So this becomes a big project. Plus we would be losing a lot of ground space for the palapas.
My mom can no longer come up to the gap. She is 91 now and has A-FIB and a blocked valve to her heart. Coupling that with low blood pressure, the lodge is a dangerous elevation for her. This is sad because I know how much she loves it at the lodge and of course, we love having her stay with us. And she recently had two minor strokes which is now keeping me at home mid week so I can visit her. We know we are living on blessed borrowed time with my mom now.
We continue to miss our Quincy. It has been 4 months since we lost him to bone cancer. I still find myself crying with the thought of him. I will never love another dog as much as I did Q. It is hard to wake up at the lodge, knowing that we will not be going for our routine morning walk, or playing tennis ball and sticks in the back yard, or going swimming at the river and the lake. COVID quarantining is not helping this. Alas 2020 is the year from hell for most of us.
Photos of lodge below.
