BIG THINGS ACCOMPLISHED THIS WEEK!!!

When we left off last week, we had purchased a 45 foot Conex container and it was to be delivered on Tuesday... Well, that didn't quite happen.  Our contractor wasn't quite ready for the delivery on Tuesday and it was moved to Thursday... Well, that didn't quite go off as planned either...

On  Thursday morning, Jim was contacted by the company we bought the conex from and was told that the driver was on his way.  Jim had already contacted our contractor who was supposed to be on site to help the driver place the box where we wanted it.  Well, Jim gets a call from the contractor on Thursday morning, and is told that the guy who was supposed to be there, called in sick and wouldn't be there.. BUT, the contractor was on his way, and it would only take him about 30 minutes to get there..The conex is coming from Cedar City, which is one hour away, so .... so, we're hopeful at this point...  This is at 9 in the morning...

At 11:00 am, the conex truck driver leaves because the contractor hasn't showed up yet...  um... (I thought it was a 30 minutes drive, dude...)  Because nobody was there, the conex driver dropped the conex on the road in front of our property... um.. really?  This is a 45' steel box, in a development where we aren't supposed to have a conex box...  well, we're freaking...  Our plan is to hide it where no one will see it from the road. . . .

About 30 minutes after the box was dropped off, the contractor shows up and is ticked because the box was dropped off, and the driver left... Well, um, there's a time issue going on here, dude...

Jim contacts the Conex seller, and he says first of all that he will come down on Saturday morning, and help move the box.. So, we are hoping that the owners of the development, don't make a little tour while this huge box is in the road... we're on pins and needles...

We thought the concrete was going to be poured on Friday, but... noooo... not that much luck.  The inspector who came to give his OK for the rebar, said that the plans call for this huge concrete block in the middle of the basement to support the fireplace... fireplace? We don't have a fireplace in the cabin..  They're "inefficient" and we have a wood burning stove planned instead...  But, where did this fireplace come from.. We look at the plans and sure enough, the architect (you know the one that we grew to hate and wouldn't listen to us... ya, that one...) drew the plans with a fireplace...  groan...  So, the plans have to be red-lined and sent back to Kane County building inspectors, and they need to come back out this next week, and reinspect with the red-lined plans, so hopefully, we'll pour on Tuesday or Wednesday...

Well, we leave for Panguitch on Friday night and get there in reasonable time.. We got a little bit of a late start and we showed up in Panguitch at about 9:50pm..  We go to the Gem restaurant to get some food, and as we walk up to the doors, the "OPEN" sign goes off... We then go to the gas station on the corner of the main drag, and the doors are locked.. We then go to the gas station which is a little further down, and finally got a little something to eat.. Jim had a little microwaveable bowl of ravioli, and I had a cup of Ramen...  wow...  I don't know what to say at this point...  Giggle.

Saturday morning, we get up and have breakfast.. can I say, I was starving?  We were supposed to meet our contractor at 9:00 and then the time got changed to 12:00 noon.. We head up the mountain and get a text from the contractor saying that there is a big wreck in Alton, and he was delayed... groan...  We pull up to the property, and sure enough, there's this big conex box in the road in front of our property... BUT, there was no letter or note on it telling us to get it moved, so we're in good shape...

Jim had called the seller of the box in Cedar City, and told him that we were on site and could he come and get the box moved, and he says that one part of his truck had broken and he wouldn't be able to have it fixed and out to our property until Tuesday...  really?  I would like to say that it was getting funny, but it wasn't.. This thing weighs 10,000 lbs.

The contractor finally showed up a little after 1:00, and Jim and the contractor said that they though that with the two backhoes, they could get the box moved out of the road and into the space we wanted...

I was skeptical...  But, they actually did it..  one backhoe pushed, and one backhoe pulled, and they got it exactly where we wanted, and nobody was injured...I was on Facetime with people the whole time just in case someone needed to call 911...

All that took about 3 hours and we were exhausted afterwards, so we decided to head back to the hotel..  We made a quick detour to the Panguitch Craft Fair (bought the cutest little outfit for Ben) and then got some dinner at the Gem, and then back to the hotel.... It was about 6:30 at that point, and both of us fell asleep...

When we walked into the hotel room, it was the funniest thing ever.. We were staying there for two nights, and we kinda like it when the room is made up when we come back from working...  Let's just say, the person who was making up our room, must have been in a hurry...  giggle.  This is what the bed looked like when we walked in.

We napped for a couple of hours, and then when it came time for us to actually get a good night's sleep, we're both awake...  I fell asleep but woke up about 2 in the morning to noise of a "little mouse" eating the cookies from the nightstand...  I told Jim that perhaps we should set some traps, and that little mouse just kept crunching away... giggle... he still makes me smile.

Woke up, got dressed, had breakfast and decided to go check out the RV that was in storage...  At the end of the season, while the RV was still up at the property, we actually had a mouse... I had set a plethora of traps trying to catch the sucker, and I did make a kill... But, I was nervous that some of his friends had taken up residence in my RV, so as Jim says, "you set a mine-field"... I was expecting a mouse or two to be caught, but was thrilled that not a single mouse was caught down at the storage site...  It's either they don't like peanut butter, or there aren't any... I'm going with the "aren't any".

We went up to the property, and decided that we didn't know when we would be back, so we had to get the property all ready for winter.  We were planning on putting everything into our Conex!

On the way back to the property, a coyote ran in front of our vehicle.. he was fat and absolutely beautiful with a thick coat of fur and a beautiful thick tail.  I don't think I have ever seen a coyote before, although at the property, you hear them sometimes at night... howling at the moon.

We put the BBQ and the fire pit and plastic pipes and nails and all sorts of stuff in the Conex, including the Honda four wheeler.

We picked up all the garbage around the site area...  I think I need to get a big garbage can up there... cans and bottles and trash and everything else was all over the place from the sub-contractors... was driving me crazy...

Jim was going to put the backhoe into the conex for the winter, and as we tried to drive it into the container, we realized that the backhoe was about a foot too tall for the 9 1/2 foot tall Conex... so, the backhoe is going to be out in the weather this winter.  We're going to have to get a tarp or something and put it over it. Jim also winterized the drain pipes with anti-freeze that go under the house, just to make sure they didn't crack this winter.

On the way out, we picked up our little trailer that was left on site and filled it with all the garbage and dead tree limbs..We're supposed to have a cold snap later on this week, so I'm glad that we got everything cleaned up.

Was a busy, but very, very productive weekend....

As always, another amazing adventure.

Cheri