Driveway Repairs, Continued

The dump truck driver called about 9:00 a.m. to tell us he was on the way to the quarry to pick up a 20 ton load of gravel for the driveway. We ate breakfast, and drove over to the house to wait for him. He arrived in good time, but he couldn’t get the dump truck up the drive way. It was too soft and muddy, and his rear tires started spinning. He had to back the truck out of the driveway, while we tried to decide what to do. You can’t hardly return a 40,000 pound load of gravel. It was ours whether we could put it where we wanted it or not!

We decided to have him back the truck up the driveway until he reached the mudhole, then start dumping the gravel out as he pulled back out. It created a beautiful gravel drive on the “good” part of the driveway, but this still left us with a rutted mudhole halfway to the back yard.

It was just about this point that I wanted to cry. My stomach turned to knots and I had to run to the bathroom really quickly. Fabgrandpa and I had to decide what to do about this. So far, we had spent a $650 and still couldn’t get up the driveway with our trailer. And we’re still paying rent at the campground. I was beginning to feel like I was in that  movie, “The Money Pit“, only it wasn’t a comedy.

After discussing the options with the dump truck driver, we decided to buy a load of slate. The driver, Mark, told us that slate is what loggers use to create a road in the forest when they are cutting trees and need to haul heavy equipment and log trailers out. It can be spread out and then you can drive on the same day, and the  more you drive on it, the harder it gets. That sounded good to us, so he left to go get the load, another $150 added to the total.

Mark had to back up the driveway again to the mudhole to dump this load of slate. He also told us the name of a a guy who is our new neighbor, who has a bobcat who can spread it and get it right. The guy we had hired on Saturday has a fulltime job during the week, so he was not available to do it until the weekend. So, we called the new guy, and he invited us over to his shop to look at his driveway that he had put slate on so we could see what it would look like when it was done.

We drove over there, and I was still feeling a little sick to my stomach at how this job was adding up to more and more expense. We met Toby, and talked with him for quite a while. He is so friendly and nice! When we asked him how much he would charge to do the grading on our driveway, he just looked at us like we were crazy, and said, “I can’t charge my neighbor for that!”

I feel like this new home purchase is in the exact right place. We have come into a really nice, friendly, caring neighborhood, where people look out for each other. I thought such a place no longer existed. When we got back in the truck to leave, I started crying, because I just couldn’t believe how nice this young man could be to us. He said he can get the slate spread out on Thursday, so now we are hoping we can get moved in by Friday. Keep your fingers crossed for us that this will do the trick.