August 8

Today we wanted to complete cleaning the warm room. Although empty since mid-June, the room was kind of grungy. The walls had weep marks on them and blown dust and the floor was pretty caked with dust that became thin mud at one time and dried. We needed a place to cool off and relax during our work breaks and we were getting tired of sitting under only the canopy with a big block building next to us.

We had to make sure we had the equipment we needed. Getting a power washer wasn’t a big deal; getting 400 feet of water hose was. Last weekend I paced off the distance from the nearest water tap at the club’s main observatory and determined it was about 380 feet. This week I managed to borrow both a power washer and 400 feet of water hose. The hose was on a large portable spool that was pretty heavy so I drove it to the club observatory. John and I hooked it up and unwound it back to our observatory, following the same foot paths that I had paced off the week before. We ran out of hose at the head of our driveway, about 50 feet short. This is the time you start scratching your head. As it turned out, the people who loaned me the hose shorted me fifty feet.

We searched several of the storage sheds on site that we have common access to and found all sorts of gardening equipment except a hose. Then we tried to run the hose straight thru all the brush. That was a big sweaty effort that we were very careful, watching out for rattlesnakes, but we still were about 25 feet short. Time for a road trip! We had to drive into the bustling metropolis of Anza and find a hardware store. Anza is kind of a throwback place that is slowly changing. The last time I was there the main street had one lane each way even though it is a state highway, plus there were hitching posts! That’s right – like in horses! Stand in the middle of town and you can see at least a mile in each direction and see 20 structures and maybe a car or two on the road. Now its been upgraded to a two lane highway thru town, still only a car or two, but no hitching posts.

We picked up two 50 foot lengths of hose and got back to the observatory by about noon. We cranked up the power washer and I started. We did the walls pretty quick and went on to the floor. The grime came loose very quickly but I got my socks and sneakers pretty soaked thru. John got the wet vac out and started sopping up the water and also turned on a powerful fan to blow out the room. Only took about an hour including vacuuming up all the freestanding water.

Warm room after power washing floor and walls

We took a break for lunch while waiting for John’s good friend Tony to visit from Rancho Cucamonga to see what our place looks like. Having three high amp usage pieces of equipment on at one time without blowing a circuit gave us some added co

nfidence about our electric supply. Tony ended up stuck in traffic so, since the warm room was power washed so fast, we decided to tackle the outside walls. That was no problem at all and it took maybe an hour and a half so we were ahead of schedule because we thought the outside walls would take another weekend. The soil here is so dry that despite all the water that we used for an hour and a half, there was not only no pooling by the foot of the walls, but the soil was just dark from the dampness.

Outside walls after power washing. Lower block surface erosion extends to floor level of observing room and will be repaired

Tony finally showed up and after a short tour ended by 2:30 and the weather was not too hot, we decided to tackle the 18 foot diameter steel rail and its supports on top of the observing area walls. Tony and I were the brute force and John was the cutter. John cut the rail into four equal pieces as well as several layers of plywood that were part of its support. Since the pieces were shaped like triangles but with the hypotenuse curved inward and they weighed several hundred pounds each, we had to be very careful about slowly pushing each piece to the edge of the wall, then quickly shoving it over, and getting it out of the way as it fell off and it swung up in the air. We were done by about 4:30 and were quite surprised at all that we did. We were pretty tired and silly by that time so we took some pics of the day’s work in a comical light.
John and I pointing that we moved the rails from the top of the wall to the pile on the ground




Tony giving me Last rites as I'm pinned beneath a piece of rail structure



Tony giving John CPR while he's pinned also



Now we also have an even larger debris pile that we have to move soon:
Summing up, we had a slow start to the day with the shortage on the hose, but we not only achieved the day’s plan of power washing the warm room, but we also washed the whole outside and took down the steel rail ring. Not bad for a day’s work.

Just as a follow-up, by the next day my feet were covered in over a hundred bites. The diagnosis on Tuesday were sand flea bites. John didn't get a single one. I guess I stirred them up and then drowned them with the power washing.