Grand and Glorious CurmudgeonI am getting underway for the cruise with Jen, Patrick, Charlotte and Kate for a cruise from Vancouver, BC up into Alaska. I flew into Vancouver yesterday, after United Airlines squeezed the timing to be unable to make the connection in Denver.
I learned a lesson and next time I won’t try to save some money by relying on third party reservations. It is about 1:30pm and we are already on board waiting to get underway about 5:00pm. This is more a placeholder to see how posting will work.
A quick review of the completion of the front deck.
First is the completion of the ramp along side the west side of the front of the house. We moved the ramp from along side of the trailer down to the house. The ramp turned out to be much lower slope than when servicing the trailer.
This is the first of two sections of the front desk railing. It was rediculously expensive pre-fab sections but does look very nice when completed.
This is the finished front ramp and deck. The ramp railings are slightly different and designed for stairs and slopes. There is a slight gap (about 1 ft) between the sections that I’m still noodling on.
This is looking Westward, up the stairs and down the ramp.
Close up of the solar lights on the deck posts. They are only
When I was last here it was early April in the middle of the snowstorms. It is now mid-May and the weather couldn’t be different. It is now upper seventies – low eighties and spring has definitely sprung. Last month, after the Snowpacolypse, we moved the Starlink antenna up to the roof.
After we moved the antenna, we started working on the Front Deck. I had long planned on an expansive front deck, on the north side of the house to be shaded during hot weather. I had planned to move the ramp from the trailer to run along the font of the house for easy access.
Above is the underpinning of the deck. The white PVC pipes are clean outs for the plumbing drains. The next picture shows the cement pad for the NE stairs
The above shows the stairs on the NE side of the porch. Note that the steps and the deck are the same colors, just a difference in reflectivity.
The white ramp is painted to protect the strand board. It will be covered with planking running crosswise.
Last week I saw a turtle climbing up the slope from the pond between my house and Jills. According to AT it wasn’t a snapping turtle (shape of jaw is different).
The turtle was very skittish and so rather than perching it on a fencepost, I herded it back towards the pond.