Travel Prep – The Driveway

Anyone who has come to our house in the past twelve years has encountered quite a bumpy ride down the driveway. Bumpy as in “4-wheelin’.”  We bought the house complete with broken up driveway, and unlike the windows which we replaced right away, we never got around to fixing that driveway. The pine tree roots just kept pushing upward and the driveway just kept getting worse. We had bids to fix it a couple of times, we had dreams about completely remodeling our house and reconfiguring the driveway several more times, we had dreamy-eyed husband thoughts of “I’ll bet I could fix that myself” a few times, and not surprisingly just as many wifely deer-in-the-headlights “oh, please, no!” moments of fright. But mostly uncertainty and cost paralyzed us in inaction.

Now with a departure date looming and plans to rent out our home, we had to face the inevitable: finally do something about the driveway or face a liability suit from the renter’s Great Auntie who tripped and broke her head as she fell over a chunk of broken driveway concrete. So we called our friend Fred. Fred is in the concrete business and had been to our house in the past and gotten the shudders from our pitiful driveway.  He lives three hours away so Zeus gave him the details via email, cleverly using a satellite map to draw the dimensions. Providentially for us, Fred happened to be having a slow week and was up for a bit of long distance concrete work. He emailed the bid with the blank for our address filled in as “Big City,” and when we got back to him in the affirmative on Friday, he said: “How about Monday?” Startled, we countered hopefully back, “Tuesday?” and quickly called the “Call before you dig” utility people. 

So Tuesday it was. Fred and his son Freddy arrived at 7 a.m. with their dump truck and hoe and got straight to work breaking up old concrete and hauling it away. They worked twelve straight hours, and thinking about it makes me tired. We fed them dinner and away they drove, leaving the landscape all graded and graveled and ready. Thursday morning they were back to pour the concrete – another exciting day for us. The boys took up their posts at the living room windows. Talk about a great show!

So now we have a fabulous new driveway! Kids might even be able to ride their bikes down it without wiping out. Don’t know if we’ll ever be able to drive on it, though. It’s so fancy! When it was all done, the kids said, “It’s a driveway worthy of a Rich People House! Thank you, Fred. One more step forward towards the Big Plan.

 

Before – the 4-Wheelin’ bumps are not as prominent in this photo but they are there

During – Moe the Hoe hard at work

My boys at their post watching the action

After – ahhhhh! So beautiful!