Mar 27th PM - Still Raining

I’m not sure how much it has rained since the middle of last night but it has been a LOT. By 9 AM the normal road to Sebastopol was flooded. Apparently having the road flood at one area is not unusual during the winter (the rainy season). Frank gave us a map showing “flood routes” to get to town when the normal route is flooded.

When you drive through the area that is the first to flood you can see why it floods. It is down in a “bottom” and close to a creek. In all its wisdom the state of California will not allow any modifications to roads within 100’ of a natural waterway, so the road floods and people just have to deal with it. It would not be all that disruptive to drive sheet piles along both sides of the road and raise the road surface at least 5’. Of course the government would be involved so they would probably require that taxpayers pay for a bridge across the low area. Money is never an object when politicians and bureaucrats are spending taxpayer dollars.

I worked in the warehouse/maintenance shop today. Four of the Tuesday volunteers were in there working on a “portable” shower house. Previously the camp  rented units but that got to expensive so they are now building their own. They can’t build permanent shower facilities because the government won’t let them; but they can have portable/temporary shower facilities.

I spent all day working on some trim boards for a door. Frank had showed me where there was some rough sawn redwood boards that have laid outside for years. The boards were about 1 3/8” thick by about 6” wide and the one I dragged out of the pile was around 16’ long. I should have put it inside the warehouse yesterday but I didn’t want it to be in the way of others. It took me all day to plane the board down to 7/8” thick and cut it into the proper width for the door trim. I still need to cut them to length and put polyurethane on them before installing them. It is so cool and  humid that the polyurethane will take forever to dry.

I got to spend some time chatting with the guys but most of the time I had in ear plugs because the little planer was VERY loud. Kathy and I sat with two of them during lunch. Chris and his wife pulled their travel trailer to Alaska last year. They stayed there three months. The spent six week volunteering at two different camps while there. He said he is ready to go back but his wife isn’t. He spent six months volunteering at a church in New Orleans, after Katrina. He was their Operations Manager. They had a large facility and could house a lot of volunteers. They would tell  him how many volunteers were going to be there for the week and he would have all the necessary tools out and ready for the volunteers to go to work.

We just finished supper at the dining hall. Yesterday we had some great roast beef. Tonight we had bloody chicken. (Kathy would probably say she liked it.) No way did I eat any of it. They also had salad, vegetables and rice. The rice was good. Cake for dessert. I also passed on it, but it did look good.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.