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.