Quarantine Accomplished!

 I last left off with our Covid-19 test kits as having been tagged as received by the testing laboratory and wondering whether they would get the analysis done before before Christmas Eve.  I had little doubt that we were going to test negative but taking the test and getting results back were crucial to our kids allowing us to come to their house and being with them and the grandchildren.

Christmas Eve was the 14th day of quarantine but that alone was not enough to satisfy our kids, getting negative test results were part and parcel of the deal.  To our relief the tests were completed on time and the expected negative results were confirmed in writing.  We were on for a Christmas family gathering.  Well, sort of.  It would just be Cyndee and I and our daughter's family of four.  Our son, an essential worker in telecommunications, could not quarantine at all.  So he took his truck camper and pointed it south for a holiday long weekend in the Everglades and south Miami.

Our son, Miami bound for Christmas since he won't be able 
to join us because of not being able to quarantine.

But after nearly 10 months of not being in physical contact with our grandkids it finally happened Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and a two night sleepover with the soon to be six-year-old and the day we took her home and then a couple days later for her birthday.  The six year old was beside herself in anticipation of our arrival and she just about tackled us as we came in the door the first time.  The two year old we expected would be a slow process of getting to know us as he had a tendency to be clingy to his mom the last time we saw him.  But instead of the couple of days we expected it to take it was barely two hours before he was asking me to pick him up and hold him.  Heaven.

Now we will have one last day together on New Years Day and then break quarantine.  We'll share a meal of black-eyed peas and cornbread, play with the grandkids and then head out to get back to fulfilling our volunteer duties.  Next gathering will be when vaccinations have been obtained.  I guess that means several more months of daily snapshots and facetime calls.

All of our planning to do the quarantine paid off.  We had adequate supplies of household goods and our meal plans worked out as good as we could have hoped for.  Some of our fresh fruit such as strawberries and blueberries ran out but that was expected.  We no longer have stacks of food in every nook in the camper, as well as all counter tops.  With the exception of a few cans of soup in the broom/coat closet everything is down to just what is in the panty and refrigerator.  It looks way less cluttered in the camper and that is a good thing.  Seeing clean counter tops and not having food fall out at you with every cabinet door you open is a welcomed relief.

We are going to make the best of New Years Day and then get back to the routine of living in a pandemic.  See you next year.

Day 9 of Quarantine

 My last post we were in day 4 of quarantine.  Boredom had set in but now in day 9 we are starting to get a little stir-crazy.  400 sq ft of living space in our 5th wheel is pretty roomy as far as RVs go but not so much for extended periods of confinement.  But we do what we must and yesterday that meant we did our covid-19 test.

To stay in quarantine and get tested without breaking quarantine we ordered a home sample collection kit.  One has to go online and request the kit, we used a company called EverlyWell.  The kit is sent to you by United States Postal Services.  It should arrive in 1-3 business days but with all the shipping/mailing services being overwhelmed our kits took eight days to arrive.  That had our kits arriving on Thursday the 17th of December.  On Tuesday the 15th, EverlyWell sent an email telling us that we had to get our samples taken and sent back to them no later than 5pm the 18th.  Between shipping delays and a backlog of testing they had to have it on the way to them by Friday afternoon if we were to get our results before Christmas.  So on the 15th when EverlyWell sent the email saying the drop-dead day to return kits was going to be on that Friday we had no idea if our kits were even going to delivered to us by then.  The tracking number just returned a message that the package was in transit and that it was arriving late.  No estimate of delivery day.  Ugh!

But late in the day on the 17th the Post Office came through and delivered the kits.  Now it was time to coordinate with the kids for us to all take our samples and get the kits to a UPS drop box.  So, if you didn't catch that, the kits came to us by USPS and they are going back by UPS (overnight express).  The instructions were explicit, the kits were only to be placed in a drop box.  You could not take it to a UPS affiliate, a UPS store or anywhere other than a drop box.

The kids and we took our samples and then they found a drop box that was on the way back from our campground to their house.  You should have seen the pick-up of our samples by the son-in-law.  I laid the sample kit packages on our picnic table and backed off about 30ft (this is outdoors).  The SIL told me to go back in the camper while he retrieved the samples with both hands gloved and a full-face gas mask.  The samples were in by 2pm and by 7pm Friday night they were showing up on the UPS tracker.  Mid-morning Saturday, the 19th, the tracker showed "delivered".  It seems like we're in business.  Only thing now is that the lab has to get their thing done and then we'll be good to go for Christmas with the grandkids.

The grub and household supplies are holding out well.  It was a lot of work planning almost 20 days of menus but so far so good.  I do admit I am hankering an all you can eat hotwings at a place I like in town.

Here We Go Again and Decision Time.

 Well, the post-Thanksgiving covid surge is happening exactly as predicted if people didn't stay diligent.  The whole country is experiencing positivity rates, hospitalization rates and death rates well above the peak surge in the summer.  As I write we are losing in excess of 3,000 souls a day!  More, day after day, than those we lost in 9/11.  So, here we go again with shortages, closures and restrictions.

The county we are in in Georgia, Bartow, is spiking as a hot-spot and that's not good because access to advanced health care is minimal.  They are pretty much shipping covid cases to counties closer in to Atlanta.  The county I grew up in in Texas, Hutchinson, had been relatively unscathed until now.  Since this was home for both Cyndee and I our first thirty years of life we watch the local news and are in close contact with family and friends still there.  One of the things Cyndee keeps close tabs on is the obituaries.  There are three funeral homes in the area and between them average about six people a month combined.  In the first 12 days of December there are already twenty burials.  We are praying that our upper-80's family members can be careful and hang on until the vaccine is available.

The Corps of Engineers is taking note too.  The division headquarters in Mobile, AL has issued orders once again to work in a way that does not put people in close proximity to one another.  For us volunteers that means we are allowed to come into the office only for the purpose of getting keys to a vehicle and only then if it is to do something that will not put us in contact with people while doing our assignment.  And of course masks are to be worn at all times.  For the rangers this means there will be almost exclusive teleworking.  They have been told not to show their faces in the office until further notice.

But for Cyndee and I it is going to be none of the above.  In a previous post I mentioned that our oldest and her family have been extraordinarily diligent in their isolation.  So much so that Cyndee and I have not been allowed near their house or the grandchildren since March.  It has been an agonizing nine months of being so close to the grand kids but not able to be with them in person.  So, a couple of weeks ago we made the decision to quarantine ourselves for the two weeks leading up to Christmas so that we could be with them on Christmas day and at least a couple more after.  Our daughter and son-in-law agreed with the provision that we also take a covid home test.  We ordered two of them at $109 each.  We didn't just unilaterally decide to quarantine, there was a check with our volunteer coordinator.  Clearly we were not going to make our hours for the month with essentially being out of service from the 11th until after New Year's day.  But that turned out to be a positive experience as he was aware that we usually turn in 25% to 50% more hours than the minimum requirement.  He was perfectly fine with us taking a three week "vacation".

Quarantine started on December 11th.  We spent the 9th and 10th grocery and supply shopping.  With the recent surge in infection rates we had switched to the curb-side pickup that is now being widely offered.  Our pick-up at Walmart saw a cart with nine of those big blue totes come out, then there was Kroger and lastly, Publix.  When we got it all back to the camper we had food and household goods stacked everywhere.  Every cabinet was bulging, drawers would barely close and still the countertops and floor are covered.  And we don't know if we are sufficiently stocked to make it the two+ weeks.

As I write we are in day four of quarantine.  We've already watched more movies than we usually watch in a month.  We are both looking for books to download and I have been walking laps around the closed campground adjacent to the Volunteer Village.  I did three miles one day and two-and-half miles the next.  Unpleasant weather has kept me in the other two days.  As a bonus on my first day of walking I was treated to a bald eagle sighting.  I was not carrying a camera that was capable of shooting at the distance it was but I was sure to take my long lens the next day.  But of course the eagle was nowhere to be seen now that I had a capable camera in my hand.

Our volunteer neighbors know what we are doing and they have all (9 other rigs) offered to help with bringing in supplies we run out of, taking our trash to the recycle center and take our scheduled jobs.  Other than being in quarantine, we are in a good place.

Haircuts and Vandals

 There was a period in the early part of the pandemic when everything was in lockdown that a lot of folks got pretty shaggy looking and even now, eight months later, there are changes in hairstyles that reflect less frequent access to barbers and beauty shops.  Our daughter and her family are pretty serious about isolation so they have taken to cutting each others hair.  From the pictures we have and the FaceTime we do I'd say they do a pretty good job, everybody looks nice and tidy.

For me there has been no change whatsoever in my hair cutting.  There has only been one person touch my hair with a pair of scissors since 1973, and that's Cyndee.  However I can't return the favor.  I'm scared to death of getting anywhere near her head with anything that could chop chunks out of her hair.  I'm comfortable with doing things that require precision but in the case of hair cutting I must have a block or something, I just can't do it.

I tipped my hand a little about how long we have been a couple.  There was a five year courtship that started in 1973 with marriage in 1978.  In August (2020) we celebrated our 42nd anniversary as husband and wife.  But you add on the years that we were "exclusive" and it's 47 years of an amazing life together.

Our supervising ranger caught us fraternizing on the job.

To celebrate we decided be risky and went to a sit-down restaurant and did a three course meal of salad, steak and a gigantic chocolate concoction for two for desert.  It was great, it was the first food we had had without cooking it ourselves or got from a fast food drive thru window since May when we took advantage of a Mexican food restaurant opening.

Back in October I posted about some painting work we did to correct some vandalization to a trail overlook deck.  As we knew in the back of our minds, our handiwork was not to last and sure enough within a couple of weeks the deck had been spray painted again, with a vengeance.

Trail overlook deck - vandalized again.

I've got to hand it to them, somebody put in a lot work converting the dark brown paint to a white base coat and then polka dotting the whole thing.  Don't care for the messages they left but I admire their dedication.  We left the deck as you see it for a couple of weeks and then on a particularly beautiful day for working outdoors we once again backpacked in all the paint and equipment to make the deck right.

Cyndee is doing detailed trim work where the vandals even got the underside of the seatback rails.

Once again restored to the Corps of Engineers standard brown.

As of the time of this writing we have gone several weeks without being vandalized.  Fingers crossed it hangs in there a little longer.  But while we were in the painting "mode" the Corps dropped a work order on us for freshening up a campground host storage room.  

Since we were painting already, the Corps sent us to
Upper Stamp Creek Campground to put a fresh coat of paint
on the camp hosts storage rooms.

There has been some turnover of volunteers in the Volunteer Village.  Some have headed to Florida for the winter and others to various locations west of Georgia.  Two of our ten spots are empty but this won't be for long.  Our volunteer coordinator already had replacements interviewed and background checks in process.  We'll be back to a full compliment very soon.

Pandemic Summer (not) on the Road

 June, July and August, a pandemic summer spent in semi-isolation on an "island" called Volunteer Village.  We are in about a 40 acre compound comprised of 10 well-spaced campsites, a meeting room/weather shelter with full kitchen and everything you need to prepare a banquet, a screened-in pavilion with BBQ pit, and a garage/shop loaded with power tools and grounds maintenance equipment.  In fact, that has been the big thing to do all summer, mow The Village.  All this behind a secure gate about a half-mile away.

Being where we are, staying isolated does not take a lot of effort but like everyone else, it takes a lot of patience to go from day to day with little to no variety in our routine.  We did pick up one of the summer routine jobs as a volunteer though.  One night a week we are radio dispatchers and help-line operators.  With the campgrounds open there are rangers on duty until 10:00pm and we are their radio dispatchers from the time everybody else goes home at 4:30 until 10:00.  We have the front desk, which has been closed to the public since March, all to ourselves.  Answering the radio calls from the rangers is usually pretty dry stuff but taking calls from the public on the help-line can be, shall we say, entertaining.  Even though it has happened several times I am always shocked at the callers that ask me where they are and how do they get to campground so-and-so from there.  Do they think we have a geo-tracker on them or can triangulate their phone??

I think the break in activity for volunteer work came just right for a personal project.  Our daughter and son-in-law bought a travel trailer last fall and what they thought was going to be okay for parking turned out to be problematic. 

Our daughter's family travel trailer parked with us while parking pad being built.

There is a spot adjacent to their driveway that is the perfect size for parking the travel trailer and leaving the driveway free to use for day-to-day activity.  The problem was that when weight was placed on this spot it turned into a bog.  The trailer, over time, nearly sank to it's axels.  When I backed my truck up to it to take it to our campsite in The Village, it did sink to the axel on one side.  Thank goodness my other wheel was still on concrete. This little parking area was going to need some sculpting and soil improvement, i.e. lots of gravel.

The trailer sat on our campsite several weeks while waiting for an equipment rental company to open.  Once they did we jumped on renting a Bobcat and got busy reworking the grade.

Bobcat loaded and ready to go to work.

Getting the approach to the parking pad prepped.

At first we thought a Bobcat might be a little over-kill for the job but once the grading started it was clear that the Bobcat was a minimum requirement. 

I don't have any "after" pictures but it was a good job and we got the travel trailer home to its owners.  They got it plugged in and while the kids explored our daughter was installing all the custom things she had been accumulating for making the trailer serve them for the way they camp.

They're already making reservations for Jekyll Island and Red Top Mountain for the fall.

Other than a couple of the above spurts of things to do this summer there really was not much to do.  The bulk of our time was trying to manage the thermal gain of our 5th wheel.  The full length of our 37' is broadside to the sun.  We get full sun from the time it comes up until it sets.  Even with our two 15,000btu air conditioners the temperature rises to an uncomfortable level in mid-afternoon.  We have devised a strategy for fan placement that improves circulation and helps it feel like it is a little cooler as long as you don't do anything exerting.

Our original plan for our stay at Allatoona Lake Volunteer Village was to winter over and hang out until our grandson's first birthday in March.  Being exposed to full sun all day long was a great thing, we only ran heat during the day on the coldest days.  But March came and so did the lock-down.  Our opportunities for a summer volunteer position at high elevation, and cool summer temps, evaporated.  We stayed put (thankfully the COE did not shut down its volunteer operation) and are bemoaning the heat.  But not begrudging, we have a place to stay, many fulltimers are seriously scrambling to find someplace to stay.

The Repetiveness Continues

 By the end of April 2020 the Corps of Engineers in the Mobile district had decided to open campgrounds, albeit with covid-19 restrictions.  The campgrounds were to open in May with shields over the registration windows, just a small slot at the bottom for the gatehouse attendant to pass the camping passes through.  No reservations were done at the window, every camper had to pre-register online and pay in full by credit card, in advance.  The gatehouse attendants had already gone to credit card only transactions last year but this year they were instructed not to even do that.  Paper work would pass one way, from inside the gatehouse to the outside and that was it.

Normally this would be a very busy time for me as I provide tech support for all the gatehouse attendants use of the reservation system.  But with their interaction with the reservation system being little more than checking a box to check people in and check them out, I am not getting any calls at all.

Now that there is a better handle on things the Governor of Georgia has lifted the shutdown on almost everything.  "Main Street" has opened, with restrictions, as have restaurants and even gyms.  I have not rushed out to use the gym just yet, still feels a little risky.  But we have taken advantage of restaurant openings.  We have not had any Mexican food since late February and we hit our favorite spot within a couple of days of opening.  Very limited seating and we had to look up the menu on our phones as well as wear masks any time we were not at our table eating.

For most people reading this post I can imagine you are saying; "Yeah, so?  Might as well be reading about myself."  We've all been restricted in our movements and activity, we've all seen way too much TV, especially covid-19 news and political stuff (well, it is hard to not look at a train wreck).  But this is a blog about full-time living in an RV.  There is no fallback living option, no house to return to, we have to figure out how to make our nomadic lifestyle work in an environment we never thought of building a contingency plan for.

Our plans for 2020 were to be in Georgia for our grandson's first birthday at the end of March and then move west (somewhere where the elevation was above 8,000 ft) and enjoy a cool summer.  We had a few volunteer positions that looked promising, that is until the pandemic hit.  State and federal operations shut down all across the country.  Private campgrounds bucked the trend and most stayed open, however they were inundated with folks like us that had been put out by the shutdown where they were.  It was a  rough few months for some of our brethren to find a place to drop anchor.  We consider ourselves extremely lucky that the Allatoona Lake operation made the conscious decision to leave their volunteers in place to ride out the pandemic.  This has been a huge weight off our shoulders.  We'll gladly bake in Georgia summer heat and humidity instead of being cast adrift.

Fortunately Cyndee and I were able to pick up a few odd jobs to occupy our time.  There were several photography assignments.  The one below was an annual event; Wear Your Life Jacket to Work Day.

Wear Your Life Jacket to Work Day 
photo assignment.

It was weird doing this with a mask on everybody but that is how it was.  And this was only about half the staff.  The others had been furloughed or were on a staggered work schedule.

One of Allatoona's day use parks is Riverside.  It lies just below the dam on the south bank of the Etowah River.  It is also home to one the top ranked disc golf courses in the country.  In June an annual tournament was held and I was asked to photograph the event.  There was not a mask in sight (it was still a little early in the pandemic and recommendations for masks in dispersed outdoor conditions were not being promoted yet).  However gatherings of large groups were being strongly discouraged so the event went to a timed registration, having no more than a couple people at a time at the (outdoor) registration table.  The bar-b-que and picnic were also canceled.  It was a pure disc golf only day.

This simple map belies the ruggedness of the course.

Hole 4
The basket is up the side of a mountain and in the mouth of a cave.

 I took several hundred shots this day, all with a long lens.  Most golfers didn't even know I was there.

You have to be part Billy goat to play this course. 

Up here in North Georgia one is in the worn down section of the Appalachian Mountains, some call it the toe hills.  In fact, the Appalachian Trail terminus is a short drive away.  These mountains may be short but they are mountains none-the-less.  And when you are playing the Riverside Disc Golf course your legs are affirming it is a mountain course.

As time passed Cyndee and I got more opportunities to do work in isolation.  Several things around the project are/were in dire need of a fresh coat of paint.  We got asked to tackle the worst first.

Trail overlook deck, before.

There are a number of trails around the Allatoona project but there is only one that has an overlook with a deck.  For some reason people think this is an invitation to spray paint their satanical beliefs and political commentary over every square inch of deck surface.  We lugged all our supplies and equipment up the relatively short distance to the overlook and put in several hours getting down enough coats of paint to cover everything.

Trail overlook deck, after.

After spending a good deal of time on our hands and knees digging debris out of the gaps in the floor boards and then using a small brush to paint down in those gaps the day had turned from pleasant morning temps to stifling hot afternoon temps.  Even though the walk out was downhill it proved to be tougher than our uphill walk in.  The old knees and back just aren't happy about being abused like that anymore.  But at least we were not sitting in front of a TV.

I guess somebody in the front office liked our deck painting job because two weeks later we were requested to paint all the metal doors on the outbuildings at the Project Management Office.

Cyndee painting one of the three garage doors at the 
Corps of Engineers Project Management Office.

 Paint was peeling pretty bad on all the doors (three 12 x 12 roll-ups, four walk-thrus) so we had to wire brush every surface top to bottom before we could start painting.  But once we got going it went pretty smoothly.  When we were down to our last door our Volunteer Supervisor came out and asked how much we had left to do and when we told him we would be done within the hour he stood there for a moment and said; "Dang, I thought this would keep y'all busy for at least a couple of days.  Now I got to find something else for you!"  But since it had become really hot again we said; "Nah, we're good, unless it is in front of an air conditioner."

So, with the exception of a few brief jobs our next six weeks were a lot like our first ten weeks of the pandemic.  Although we did get a little more organized about our TV watching and got in on some episode 1's of marathons of series we used to watch.

Wash, Rinse, Repeat

 In my previous post we had just been told to self-isolate in the Volunteer Village here on Allatoona Lake.  The United States Army Corps of Engineers district headquarters in Mobile, Alabama had initially gone into full lock-down mode, closing all public interfacing operations.  At the beginning, Rangers were still reporting to work but then there were some virus outbreaks at some projects (for instance the whole staff at Lake Lanier) and they soon switched to staggered office hours and teleworking.  Us volunteers were again instructed to keep our distance from each other and stay put in The Village.  And for twelve weeks that is what we did, almost.

While the campgrounds were going to remain closed beyond their traditional opening day there was still preparation work that needed to be done so that when opening day did come the gatehouses would be ready to operate.  And that was lucky for Cyndee and I.  We had been assigned to install all the computers in the seven gatehouses on Allatoona Lake.  We were able to do this in total isolation with the exception of having to pass through (wearing masks) a mostly unoccupied building to get to the storage room for the computers.

The Volunteer Supervisor in late April coming to
The Village to reinforce our continued isolation.

Daily life in the first twelve weeks for us has been essentially the same for us as it has been for everyone in large metropolitan areas.  Everything but essential businesses are closed and our trips outside The Village are limited to grocery stores and fuel stations.  We are taking advantage of the "old people" hours and do our grocery shopping at 6:00am.  In addition to the reduced exposure because of the small number of people at this hour we also benefit from being the first to have access from overnight stocking.  It has been less difficult to obtain items that are in critical shortage.  Regardless, we are still rationing those hard to find items.

Another significant change we have noticed is that we are practically buying no fuel for our vehicles.  The truck sat for nearly a month without being driven and our little SUV has just been to the store and back.  I actually started the truck and did a loop around town just keep all the moving parts lubricated.  Fuel prices have also plummeted but so what, nowhere to go, nothing to do.

So most days are just rise, watch TV, take a walk through the closed campground adjacent to The Village, watch TV, FaceTime with the kids/grandkids, watch TV, go to bed.  Repeat.

Although it wasn't all TV watching, Cyndee and I both knocked out a slug of books.  Five of the ones I read were over a thousand pages each.  I rediscovered how much I enjoy using my Kindle.

By May healthcare workers across the U.S., indeed the world, were suffering from burn-out and feeling un/under-appreciated.  Densely populated areas saw healthcare worker appreciation flyovers by various military aircraft.  Bombers, fighter jets, precision drill teams, etc. flew a planned route that would take them over a number of the larger hospitals of metropolitan areas.  Even though we are on the outer edges of the Atlanta metropolitan are we got our own flyover.

The Volunteer Village is on the west end of Allatoona Lake and the town of Cartersville is adjacent to the west end of the lake.  A flight of two C-130's from Dobbins AFB in Marietta, GA made a pass over, among other small towns, Cartersville.  I was able to get a long-range shot of them passing over the Etowah River Valley as they departed Cartersville.

Monday, 16 March - Stay Away!

On Monday, March the 16th we were carrying on with our duties as usual but we could tell there was a tension in the Operations Management Office.  The routine Monday morning managers meeting was taking longer than usual and when it broke up the people we saw returning to their offices seemed in duress.  There was no normal greetings or friendly banter that we were accustomed to.

We finished our assignments for the day and headed to The Village trying to decide whether to eat in or go out for something.  Turning on the news we heard information that cinched the decision.  The covid-19 virus was upon us.  Our nearby community had confirmed cases and one hospitalization while the next large community south of us, Kennesaw, already had a death.

Later that evening, around 8:00 pm, both Cyndee's and my phones alerted that there was new email.  It was a group distribution to all the volunteers in The Volunteer Village from our supervising ranger.  It read in part; "Please stay away from the office until further notice.  More info to follow tomorrow".

On Tuesday, March the 17th with nothing to do, we decided to go do some shopping that would give us a supply to work off of for cooking at home for every meal.  Four days earlier we had gone on our routine shopping trip and were a little surprised to see food shelves absolutely bare.  We had heard about panic buying but we thought it was isolated to areas of high density populations.  It caught us off guard that the little community we are near was in full-out panic buying mode.  We were hopeful that supply had caught up with demand by now.  Wishful thinking!.

The trip to the store this time was not much better than the last.  All the things that were first to go, bread, TP, disinfectant wipes, etc. were still out of stock.  But now the meat counters were bare too.  We haven't eaten canned or boxed food since 2011, just skinless, boneless chicken breasts, fish, and no more than 6oz of a lean red meat once a week or so.  Everything else was fresh vegetables and fruit.  There was still a pretty good supply of the fresh stuff but you can only take so much of that because its shelf life is so short.  So we fell back to our old pre-2011 eating habits and added things to our cart like mac & cheese, canned chili, and canned vegetables and soup.  But to get those things we had to visit three different chain stores, Walmart, Kroger and Publix.  Even got one small package of TP at one of them.

At 4:00 pm this same day we got another group email.  This time it said that the Corps of Engineers was shutting down all public interface operations and that we were to "isolate" ourselves in The Village.  No end date specified.

Big Catch-Up 1-2020 to 3-2020

January of 2020 has found us in an above normal warm, wet weather pattern.  So much so that we are having tropical-like rain and occasional storm conditions that would make you think it was late spring.

Good-size branches turned spear.

We had one of those spring time storms visit us in the first third of January.  Torrential rain and howling straight winds plowed through the Allatoona Lake area late in the afternoon and did a number on a slew of trees.  The Volunteer Village was not spared.  There were large branches separated from their trees and whole trees snapped off 10 to 15 feet above ground.

Snapped off high up.

This tree, in the center island of the The Village loop, held firm at the roots but succumbed to the wind's force at a week spot high up.

It was a tall, spindly pine and the part that broke off stretched across the island, over the road and into the trees on the opposite side.  Chainsaws were on it in a matter of minutes and the road was usable again.  But nerves were still a little frayed for the volunteer who's rig the tree fell so close to that she felt the ground shake.

If the road blockage had been all there was to it, all would have been well.  But this tree also fell across our sole source of electric power and shredded a three hundred yard stretch of power lines.  Usually one does not find a three hundred yard stretch between power poles but I guess the installers decided it would be okay to make that kind of jump to the terminating pole.  Regardless, our power lines were a mess and we were without power and were told it was going to stay that way for at least a couple of days as trees had taken down power all over north Georgia.  Power crews were coming in from far and wide to handle the work load.

For seven years we have managed our power needs during blackouts with the big battery bank (four large six-volt AGMs, weighing nearly 500 lbs) we had built into our rig.  If we lost shore power we simply dropped back to our 12-volt system and waited for the power to come back on.  If we were relatively sure that it would be less than a day we would also turn on the inverter and power up the satellite receiver and big screen TV.  All this worked well and good unless environmental control was needed.  If it was hot weather, air conditioning was not an option.  The inverter was big but not that big.  If heat was needed, that system was all 12-volt, so other than putting a pretty significant drain on the batteries to run the furnace blower we could manage for a couple of days at low temperature settings.  However we did have to turn the inverter on at night to power both our CPAP machines.

In February of 2016 we ran into just that situation.  The remote region of the country we were in had a system wide outage and it lasted days.  Our batteries did well but they can only last so long and it was cold.  We had a couple of uncomfortable nights where layering up and sleeping semi-vertical (no power for the CPAP machines so being as close to vertical as possible was the only way to sleep) was the new normal.

Cyndee wrapped up like a burrito, braced for a cold night.

We've had numerous power outages since, all multi-hour until now.  Once again we face needing to be in off-grid mode for an unknown number of days.  And again it is February.  And now that the storm has passed we are supposed to return to "normal" cold temperatures at night.  So after seven years this is the straw that broke the camel's back, we're buying a generator.

Nothing fancy mind you, just big enough to add charge to the batteries.  A Honda i2200 should do the trick.  It's quiet, light enough I can move it one-handed and has a small footprint, taking up very little space in the bed of the truck when stored.  And it is good, clean power, I won't have to worry about damaging electronics with "dirty" electricity.  After an $1,100 trip to Camping World we had bagged our quarry and were set up and running.  The only thing that could be considered inconvenient is the need to acquire ethanol-free gasoline.  Fortunately there are couple of local gas stations that have it, for a price.

The generator works great, it charges the batteries faster than we are using them.  Looks like we will be sleeping horizontally and have enough power to also operate the electric blanket. Woohoo!

About 56 hours later we had a contract power crew pull into The Village and two hours after that we were back to full shore power.  Our new generator used exactly one full tank of gas (1.9 gal) to keep us powered up while the grid was down.  Not bad.

As mentioned earlier, the damage was pretty wide-spread.  Locally, in addition to The Village, a neighboring campground, McKaskey Creek Campground, was hit even harder.  Here a whole stand of mixed soft and hardwoods were completely laid down.

All roads in the campground had multiple trees laying across them.  Some campsites had railings and picnic tables crushed by the fallen trees.

All in all the rough count was 45 trees had gone down. In the photo above the main road in the campground is under all that timber.  By and large these trees went down by having their root balls pulled out of the ground.

For the trees that had deep roots, the wind simply snapped the tree off at its base.

January leveled out weather-wise and we got back to our routine, albeit in a raincoat because it rained what seemed like every day.  With things back to normal and being in the slow season we decided to take some days and do a train trip to Washington, DC.

From Atlanta, Amtrak offers a choice of one train to travel between the former and Washington.  It departs in the evening and travels all night, arriving at its destination the next morning, both ways.  Cyndee had made this exact trip with the Girl Scouts 20+ years ago and I had spent my entire career traveling long distances between hemispheres.  We both knew what traveling all night would be like, or so we thought.  It is amazing how age changes things.  Neither of us could get comfortable enough to sleep more than a few minutes at a time and by the time we arrived we both felt as if we had been beaten with a phone book.  Regardless, we were still amped up about being in the capital.

With it being February we were definitely in town during the off-season.  For the most part we had the place to ourselves except during rush hour.  We did have to work our schedule around sites we wanted to see that were operating on a scaled back schedule for the winter but we did get to everything we wanted to.

Of course there was no way we were going to miss the main attractions on the National Mall.  Here's a few highlights:

Notice that bright blue sky?  Washington was having record-breaking warm weather for the first week of February.

See how the mall is devoid of people?  We seemed to hit town at the peak of off-season, plus Super Bowl Sunday, plus State of the Union Address and also the early days of the realization we were on our way to a serious problem with a virus pandemic.

The Lincoln Memorial never fails to impress.

I was taken with the shear beauty of the Lincoln sculpture.  The details, drape of his clothes, pose of his hands, everything was so exquisite to me.

For Cyndee and I the Korean War Memorial was most haunting.  We lingered here and observed from many different angles for quite awhile.

A detour across the Potomac River to Arlington National Cemetery was worth the extra effort.

And speaking of extra effort, we had to rent a car (everything done up till now was on the hop-on, hop-off trolley) and navigate our way in the direction of Dulles Airport to get to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum Annex.  That was definitely worth the extra effort.

Three of my top ten favorite aircraft were on display at this location.

Space Shuttle Discovery

Space Shuttle Discovery.  Looking up her skirt.

SR-71 Blackbird

Corsair

But the party is over, it is time to get back on the train and get to Atlanta.  And just in time too, the weather is turning ugly quick.  We are getting rain back in the forecast and it looks like the whole East Coast is going to get it.

And it does.  It rained buckets all night long from Washington to Atlanta.  Going through towns with enough light you should have been able to see buildings and other structures, but not this night.  About all we could make out was the red glow of the crossing signals.

Arriving in Atlanta the rain was coming down in sheets, getting us and our luggage the short distance to our car shouldn't have been a big deal but it looked like we might as well have gone swimming in our clothes and used the luggage for floats.

And that rain continued for days until a cold front came through and pushed it out only to be replaced by snow.

The Village under a light blanket of snow.

 While enjoying the winter scene I noticed a turkey making its way out of the woods and into The Village.  Didn't think much of it being alone, it is not that unusual.

But moments later about a dozen more came slowly walking out of the woods, all pecking and scratching their way through the campground.

I guess that first turkey was a scout.  And a lookout too, it never did do any foraging, it just kept walking a patrol and scouting for danger.

February was a month of mostly rain, as was January.  North Georgia is breaking records of all kinds concerning rain; most days in a row with rain, largest amount in a single day, largest amount in a month for both Jan and Feb and so on.  Lakes north of Interstate-20 are seeing levels well above summer full pool and their downstream rivers are running so high that the lakes cannot release water without causing severe flooding in river communities.

 All campgrounds on Allatoona Lake are at least partially flooded.  We are approaching the scheduled opening day for campgrounds but from our experience with last year's flooding debris, we realize we probably will not have everything back to a usable state in time.

For now the only ones able to enjoy the campgrounds are the ducks.

After about another week of rain (light compared to previous weeks)  we finally got a break in the weather and river levels dropped enough to allow release of water from the dam.

Last year when the release was done it was all spillway gates opened just a little bit.  This year it was every other gate opened more.  It makes for a nice picture but being at the bottom of the dam was impressive.  The roar of the water was heard at great distance and you could feel the power of the water rushing down the spillway.

When word got out that a release was being done spectators showed up in droves, and for good reason.  This was an event not often seen.

Turns out that getting the lake levels down so that we could open campgrounds by mid-March was the least of our worries.  The covid-19 pandemic has taken hold and all things now revolve around it.  At first we volunteers were to just stop doing any activities that engaged the public but in just a couple of days after that announcement we were told to cease all activities and to shelter in place until further notice.

Big Catch Up 3-19 to 12-19

The last post was getting a little long so I'm breaking this "catch-up" into more than a single post.  When I last left off it was late March, 2019 and we had just attended our daughter's baby shower.  The newest grandchild is just days away from arriving.  To get to that baby shower we first had to remove a tree that had fallen across our one and only road in and out of The Village.

The baby shower was a success but days later I began to experience intense itching with red whelps.  Some of the whelps even developed small blisters.  A hasty appointment was made with a local dermatologist where it was confirmed I had a raging case of poison ivy.  Ten days of  steroids plus a healthy-sized injection of steroids to kick it off was the (slow) cure.  That old dead tree that we moved out of the road a few days ago was covered in ivy vine, it just wasn't obvious since it was winter and there were no "leaflets three let it be" to warn us.  You can bet I have since learned to recognize poison ivy from the vine texture.  In the mean time the steroids have me grouchy and eating anything I can get my hands on, not to mention being constantly thirsty.

While we are in countdown mode for the imminent arrival of our second grandchild (cell phones charged, frequent calls to check in, fuel tank full on Big Gulp) we are continuing our routine volunteer work here on Lake Allatoona.  One of those routine tasks is a security patrol of the closed campgrounds.  Also as a matter of routine I carry a 35mm digital camera and zoom lens.  You just never know when something interesting is going to happen that a phone camera is just not able to handle.  Today was one of those days.

The Corps of Engineers provides habitat for a variety of animals in, on and around the lake.  One of the habitats is a nesting platform for large raptors.  There are several telephone poles with a half-sheet of plywood on top for eagles and ospreys to build their nests spread out all over the lake.  In one of the campgrounds we are in today one of these platforms has been claimed by a pair of ospreys.  Based on their behavior as we watch them it would appear that they are sitting on a clutch of eggs.

When it comes to wildlife photography I'm an opportunist.  If something happens to present itself, I take a picture.  It is a rare day that I will set up a shoot or stalk my quarry.  I guess my biggest pursuit of a photo was for that darn Kaibab Squirrel on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  That little rodent was one tough animal to photograph and it took me several months to get a shot that was something other than a blur.

On yet another campground patrol on a cold March day we came across this guy:

He was just hanging out on the asphalt trying to gather any warmth he could.

But then one evening the call came.  The baby was on its way!  We grabbed our go-bags and headed 35 miles south to our daughter's house where Cyndee loaded her and our son-in-law up for the trip to the hospital while I stayed with the 4 year old granddaughter who was already down for the night.  She and I will catch up with everybody in the morning.

Unlike last time there were no delivery room complications.  Everything progressed normally and naturally.  When the granddaughter and I arrived the next morning she had a new brother and I had a grandson.

Welcome to the world baby Eliot

With the coming and eventual birth, a trip to Texas (just a quick out and back, no RV) and several other day trips plus multiple car rentals while Big Gulp was in for repairs, we finally tipped the scales far enough that it made sense (to us) to buy a car.

After more than seven years of having no other transportation than the large, diesel guzzling truck that is necessary for the transporting of our 5th wheel, we think we can justify having a small second vehicle.  

Cyndee's little Santa Fe is now part of our traveling show.

While we are not moving, things are simple, we just drive the little car and leave the truck parked.  We get more than twice the mpg using a fuel that is 50 to 80 cents/gallon cheaper.  Sweet.  Not so sweet is when we are moving.  I will be solo in the truck towing the 5th wheel and Cyndee will be solo in the Santa Fe.  We coordinate movements via cell phone.  It works but I far prefer being together in the same vehicle.  Neither of us realized just how much navigating the passenger was doing.  And even though we are together all day every day since starting this adventure we would prefer to ride together.  It hasn't come up yet but we may choose to leave the car when we make a short trip that ends where we began.

Speaking of cars and gasoline, have you ever heard of Buc-ee's?  At it's core I guess you would call it a gas station but, WOW, it is so much more.  Even though Cyndee and I are native Texans we had been gone from the state since 1984 and only became residents again in 2012 when we retired.  It would seem that in our absence this business came to life and spread across central and south Texas, south Alabama and north Florida (think I-10).  Since we avoid major interstates when pulling the 5th wheel we only became aware of this establishment when traveling from Atlanta to Austin by car.  When we got to Austin I asked my brother what was up with this outfit, it looked like more than just a big gas station.  He said I was right and that we had to stop at one on our way back to Atlanta, and be sure to be hungry.

This is the inside of a gas station??

I took a quick iPhone snapshot.  It doesn't do justice to the place.  If you click on this link - Buc-ee's, you'll get a much better look at what they offer.

We spent a solid hour in this place and could have stayed longer but we had miles to make.  But we did it on a full tank and full stomach.  The pork sandwich and brisket sandwich were definitely worth the stop.  My brother swears by the beef jerky.

But, back to the routine.  It's the winter off-season and most of the recreation areas are closed.  We're doing the routine chores I mentioned earlier and picking up some special projects too.  One is a scanning job of old dock permits converting them from paper to digital images.  We have a cubicle with all the necessary equipment for the task.

It's a tight squeeze but we get the job done.

Winter does not last long though.  It's time to start getting the campgrounds ready for opening day.  All the gatehouses need their computers installed, inventory for operating supplies and cleaning.

With the mild winter and very wet February things are bursting with blooms quickly and all together.

The bees are out and the hummingbirds have already returned.  Cyndee and I are spending a lot of time working in gatehouses and it is really beginning to feel like camping season, except for one small problem......

There is supposed to be a campground where this water is.

Flood of 2019, spring.  All seven of our campgrounds were at least partially underwater.

Looks like opening day is going to be pushed out a little bit.

There are campsites out there somewhere.

And it was.  The flooding happened at the end of February and the campgrounds that open first are the third week of March but it would be another two weeks before lake levels got down to normal levels.  And that was with every flood gate on the dam open.

Allatoona Dam flood water release

It takes a couple of weeks but the water level is finally dropped to its summer full pool level and we get all the campgrounds up and running.  Spring has sprung and that means it is time for the water safety programs to commence.  Volunteers operate "booths" at Safe Kids events at popular beaches around the lake.  There are lots of trinkets given away and water safety themed games played.

A big change for this year is the reservation system for campgrounds.  All federal and many state parks use a common system, recreation.gov.  The government being the government, they had reached the limit for which they could do business with a contractor and had to switch to someone else.  Never mind the current system is working efficiently and economically.  So this year a new contractor began operating recreation.gov and they had to do it with all new programming as the old contractor owned the previous software and were not willing to make it available to the new contractor.  As we helped the Corps rewrite the operating manuals for gate attendants it became clear that the new software was at best "half baked".  It was missing so many features and capabilities, not to mention the bugs, that it caused gate attendants to have to revert to a paper system from time to time.

These troubles opened a window of opportunity for us.  The gate attendants were making so many calls for technical help to resolve computer crashes, locked-up screens, mangled reservations and misbehaving credit card readers and receipt printers that we were asked to provide off-hours technical support.  So Cyndee and I were fielding calls on evenings and weekends, alleviating the need for a call-out of a Park Ranger.  Luckily most of the problems could be dealt with via remote access but there were plenty enough in-person calls.

Another job that volunteers do during the summer recreation season is man the after-hours phone and radio dispatch.  Cyndee and I had Wednesday nights.  Mid-week is a good time as you don't get quite so many "crazies" calling in or dispatching a ranger because of noise or vicious dogs .

Outside of the volunteer duties our summer of 2019 was punctuated with lots of time with grandchildren.  We about wore out Cyndee's new car going back and forth between Catersville and Marietta.

After record rain in late winter and early spring, summer turned dry and extraordinarily HOT.  I don't know how many records were broken but I know there were many for heat, consecutive days above 90 deg was the one that got us.  Factor in humidity and it felt like we were above 100 degrees for 40+ days in a row.  RV air conditioners do okay with this kind of heat when the sun is down but totally fail at it when the sun is shining.  Our 37' rig sits broadside to the south and catches full sun from sunrise to sunset.  We might as well be in an EasyBake Oven during the day.

Fall finally comes and we are transitioning to winding down from peak summer camping at Allatoona Lake.  But the thing is the heat has been so intense that people held off on camping and now that temperatures are getting more agreeable the place is hopping.  Campgrounds are sold out right up to closing day at the end of October.

Every year at the beginning of October, Allatoona Lake has the "Great Lake Cleanup".  Thousands turn out to pick up trash all around the lake's shore with several tons of debris being the product in the past but in recent years it seems people have been getting better about not letting trash get away from them and landing in the lake.  Cyndee and my assignment today is to photograph the event.

One of several registration tables.  This one has a troop of Girl Scouts signing in.

And here is a pack of Cub Scouts scouring the shore line at Kellogg Creek.

Also in October is Corps Day (think company picnic).  It is a day for all the Corps employees and their families to gather, bar-b-que some chicken, throw some horseshoes and give out service awards.

Volunteers help set up (leaf blow the pavilion, clean the tables, get the bbq pit going, get the game equipment organized) and stick around to break everything down and clean up.  But it is not a bad deal, everybody pitches in and it is all done in a few minutes.

The "Pit Master"

The Pit Master getting some serious heckling from the peanut gallery.

The bean bag toss and horseshoes were hotly contested games.

Cyndee sharing a laugh with two of our rangers.

Allatoona Lake touches three different counties in north Georgia.  Local organizations hold all kinds of events and many times the Corps is asked to participate.  This year Cobb County is throwing a Fall Festival (PC for Halloween party) and the Corps has been asked to partner with SafeKids and host a booth.

The penguin was the DJ for the evening.

That's me and Cyndee with our Mascot Buddy Beaver.

That's Cyndee in the red shirt, middle of photo.

Our venue for this festival was a rodeo arena.  The field was large and it could take a thousand people without being crowded.

We got a nice surprise this fall when our daughter and son-in-law decided to dip their toes into the RV world.  They bought a small bunkhouse travel trailer and are planning on doing some boon-docking camping.  But they get their maiden voyage in first at a developed campground.

Maiden voyage, McKinney Campground, Allatoona Lake

Happy to be out of the tent and off the ground.

Our newest happy camper in-training.

 Now that it is not scorching hot we can enjoy a little after-hours time in the village.  One of our members is pretty talented with guitar and voice.

It's November now and all the seasonal campgrounds are closed.  After hours phone and radio dispatch is over as is supply delivery to gatehouses and tech support for gatehouse contractors.  We have one year-'round campground and the other six close for winter.  The six that closed have to be winterized (done by contract maintenance) and all electronics removed, which is what Cyndee and I do.  We've bundled up all the computers and their peripherals and taken them to storage in the basement of the ranger office.

And now Christmas is upon us.  We are in winter routine (dropped from contributing 150+ hrs/month to struggling to get in our required 80 hrs/month).  But we are back to making frequent trips to Marietta to bounce grand-babies on our knee.

Christmas gift wrapping station in an RV

Again, a long post.  Stopping here and picking up with next post.