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.