AMAZING, AMAZING, AMAZING.

The beginning of the weekend could easily be called... lackluster.. at best.

We decided to go to the cabin property and do a little work, last minute.  I tried to find a room online, and no luck... every single room was sold out, except for the one that is too tacky for words...  I'd sleep in my car before I'd stay there again - but, that's a whole other story in itself...

So, I decided to get a hold of my friend, Cheryl who owns the Blue Pines Motel in Panguitch, Utah.  Cheryl said that she would call me back on Saturday morning, and let me know if anything came available... At 10:30 on Saturday morning, she called and they had a room!

So, Jim and I are rushing around, throwing a change of clothes in a bag, and loading up the trailer to make the trip down to Bryce Woodlands.  We had a meeting set up with a builder for Saturday or Sunday, but, we weren't able to get a hold of him.  We must have tried calling 15 or 20 times and he just never answered the phone.

Another contractor was supposed to be out there over a month ago, and he hadn't showed up, so were really were losing hope.  I finally got to the point that I called our realtor, who sold us the property, and told her that we were really considering selling the property because getting help was near impossible.

Well, after talking to our realtor, a small miracle happened....  The original contractor called, and said his guy was going to be at the property on Sunday morning, and was going to dig the basement, and on Tuesday morning, he was going to be out there and put in the temporary power pole.. Well, we were encouraged.

On Saturday night, we have dinner at a little cowboy barbecue place in Panguitch.  We've had dinner there before and the food really is amazing... We are sitting talking to a group of guys at the table next to us, and they tell us they are from New Jersey, on vacation, riding motorcycles through Utah...  They kinda looked like they belonged in an episode of The Soprano's..  We actually had a nice conversation with them, and as they stood up to leave, one of them asked if I wanted to go on a ride on his motorcycle with him... I was like.. Um....Jim answered sternly with a, "No!"  First time a biker dude has asked me to go riding with him... was weird...  We go to breakfast this morning, at a different restaurant, and the same guys are there... awkward..

We spent the night at the Blue Pines, got up in the morning, and drove to the property... I really didn't expect to see any forward progress, but guess what... there was this guy on a big, huge backhoe, and he was digging our basement!  It was so freakin' exciting... And, he was driving that thing like it was a regular car.  There is no way I could drive that backhoe AND backup in a car, the way he was moving that thing around... it was amazing.  He said that he had been there just a couple of hours and had already made amazing progress.  Talk about stoked!

Then, while we are there, another guy shows up, a guy that was new to the state and was a handyman that Jim wanted to do some other work... Brandon had operated skid steers and big loaders, but never a backhoe.  He showed up, with his father in law and wants to start work this week also...  Again, we are totally stoked and amazing.  Jim gave him an hour of lessons on the backhoe and he still needs more training.

I decided to go into town to get some drinks for everyone.  On the way down the mountain, I see this other family building a fire to cook some dinner - they just have a trailer on their property, but on the side window of their car, they have a little maple leaf.  I stopped to say hello, and ask them about the little maple leaf, and they say they live in Vegas now, BUT, they are originally from Surrey, BC.. A FELLOW CANADIAN!  This is truly exciting.  They aren't going to be building on their land until the spring.

Later in the afternoon, a couple who live just around the corner from us stopped by and introduced themselves.  Apparently, all the noise from the two backhoes garnered attention from the neighbourhood.  They are originally from Vegas and he was a gardener for Harrah's.  They are now retired and built up in our neighbourhood several years ago.  They stay on the mountain spring, summer and fall and go back to Vegas for the winter.  Makes sense...  Nice couple.  They gave us their phone number just in case we get stuck on the mountain again.

By about 3 in the afternoon, the basement was completely dug out.

There are two small mountains of dirt in our driveway.

Jim brought up the ridge beam for the large shed.  It is a 4 X 12 X 14 feet long.  Not a gluelam beam, one single piece of wood.  We plan on sanding it down and it will be seen in the playhouse attic, with exposed roof joists that are polyurethane coated in the natural color.

Here's the dirt pad we made for the shed to sit on.  We'll have to compact it first but hopefully the shed will go up this fall.

Travis is going to start putting up the forms for the concrete work next week, and Marv, Jim's friend is a plumber who's going to set the underground piping first....That's all going to happen next Saturday.  We are still totally amazed.  It is happening!


I don't know what our realtor said to anyone, but, big thank you, thank you, thank you goes out to her.  She's a little powerhouse that worked a miracle.

Cheri & Jim