Hiding Out

The New Year came and found me at camp. Pardon some of the clutter in the interior shots, but not everything has been straightened out after the garage and studio were finished off. Like the antique boudoir table that is blocking off part of the bookcase. Where does one put a fancy Queen Anne boudoir at her camp anyways???? oh, and don't count the empty booze bottles piling up by the back door. Those are , uh, from a few visits ago. Yes.

Get a load of the snow outside though. No wonder no one wanted to come in with me. All that digging. The road hadn't been plowed for a week and a half and so there was an old rut and about 20 cm of snow overtop. On the second last day I shovelled off the 30-45 cm on the main cabin, and the moment I finished (2 hours later) it began snowing again. No, the booze bottles are not from this time. Really.

So on the final night it snowed about 20 cm of new snow. I was pushing snow for much of the 8 km out to the logging road. Three attempts to get up the big hill. Twice on another hill and a third one I sashayed somehow at the very top and slipped over with a grunt. But before all that I got to the gate and found that my key wouldn't work in the padlock. There I was on the inside. I thought maybe there was ice inside and dreaded what I might have to do to melt this. Or to hike all the way back to camp to get the bolt cutters. (no backing up in this kind of deep snow). Luckily I had a second set of keys with me and the key in that set worked!

Because I was pushing snow the entire way, it was coming in the front grill and entering the ventilation system. The interior was rapidly fogging up as I manuevered skillfully (and blindly) up and down the snow covered hills. Jubilant, I approached the final run to the main logging road. Because I couldn't really see out the windshield, I drove ahead with some speed , into a high snowbank that a grader had left alongside the road. And I was good and jammed. Twenty to thirty minutes I had to dig to get myself out, and I was a mere half a metre from the main road. Shoot. The wheels rolled ahead one revolution and I was back on the road.

I had gotten off too easy up until then. But with only a minor amount of sweat I was out and on my way back home.

The sunny shots are at the beginning of the stay and the cloudy ones are the day before I left. Imagine another 20 cm overtop of all that.

I'm home, and yes, the back muscles ache somewhat. Still. But the whirlpool is open for business.

It was a great and quiet visit to camp, exactly what I needed.

Happy New Year Everyone