Wow. You guys ready for a weekend? Me too. I have had a busy little week I must say. I worked all of one day this week. Regular people in the business world call it, "Monday". But see I've stacked up 50 days of leave and I've protracted out this year and it's going to be insane. There'll be business trips to Hawaii (ouch, you're hurting my arm!!) there'll be two trips to Arkansas, Little Rock, there's a baby coming in November. There is a family vacation in June/July. There's the lot...
Speaking of the lot, which is what I really wanted to talk about, let me update you on my little slice of Heaven. My five-acre slice. By the way, if my lot were pie, it would be pecan. I can't afford New York Cheese Cake, but I could swing pecan. See, most people dont have an affinity for pecan. Which is precisely why it fits me. See, pecan pie you sort of have to have a love for. The first time you try it, you love it, or you hate it. There's no equivocating when it comes to pie. Sure, some of your lesser Lemon Merengue's you can be iffy on, but not pecan. So anyhow, this past week I took off Tuesday through Thursday of my normal week. That gave me a bonus Friday, Saturday and Sunday to waste on important things like, family, yardwork, and the upcoming "Cinco de Mayo" party. Which, as it turns out, is actually taking place on "Siete de Mayo".
To deconflict with the, "Stake Relief Society Birthday of the Relief Society Relief Society Social, Dinner, Talk Thing."
Where were we? Ah yes, so I went to pick up the trailer from Camp Williams (I store it there) and when I got there, my valve stem had been kicked off one of my tires. Lucky for me, I have a spare like that. Oh, so, anyhow it's important to note I now check for the keys to the trailer BEFORE I make the trip. Learnt that little one the hard way. So, I took dad with me. He's great help that guy. He's so kinetic you can just point and shoot. Anyhow, I was busy looking at the macro-view whilst dad was checking the micro. We make a great team that way. So, we loaded up and headed down the road. Redwood Road for that matter. Wherein we passed the True Value Hardware store. Only, the ex-owner, "Bob" was there, so he talked to my dad like it was Old Home week and put us a little behind. Oh, so it's important to note I dropped 40 bucks on propane in the three miles we'd traveled. From thence we missed the left turn twice on 12600 South and then pulled into David Early Tire. Dropped the aforementioned tire, saddled up, and away we went.
So, here at the house, we ran around like the proverbial head-less chickens and threw everything we thought we needed into the trailer. Oh, I put 75 bucks in gas in just to top off mind you. So, from thence Stacey asked if we wanted to eat while we were there, so she made us a little pick-a-nick basket with some breakfasts/lunches/dinner. Oh, at that point I had to pick up the little red truck, "Rebeka" for the catalytic-converter/flux-capacitor she was missing. So again we traveled over hill and dale BACK to Redwood Road to Randy's Tire/Muffler/And Other Shiz. So, I dropped dad off, we parted ways, and he went to pick up two new deep-cycle batteries. (we'd had four batteries tested at Randy's) So, I went East and he went West. He went towards Wal Mart and I to Lexi's singing thingy. So, I again parked Big Green and her haul and jumped in with Stacey and headed to the School.
It is important to pause here and note that Lexi did a phenominal job. I'm not just making that up. She really is a fantastic little stage presence. Wonderful sweet voice. I guess listening to all that Selena Gomez at an unacceptable volume is really paying off.
So, back at the ranch, I reimbursed my pops for the THREE batteries he purchased (because I gave him three old ones he assumed...) Anyhow, 176 bucks later we were ALMOST ready to go. So I looked through my drawers and picked out two of my most favoritist pairs of undies and socks, a pair of pantalones, two spare shirts and away we whisked to the magical land of Fruitland, Utah.
We interupt this regular scheduled programming with my most recent directive to, "Start some bacon, we have a busy day ahead of us". See I'm coaching today for Isabelle's soccer game. Then I'm going shotgun shooting with dad, THEN it's the Siete de Mayo Party, and THEN...well, *wink* busy day. OK, hold that thought, I'll be back tomorrow morning.
Just...hold that thought. I gotta go be Super Dad a while. You just....run in circles or something until I get back. TTFN, CU Later...LOL, LMAO,OMG...Buh and the Bye for now...
***********THREE SHORT HOURS LATER*******************
Meanwhile, back at the Hall of Justice....Captain Kenworthy has again returned to pen the completion of our little story. So where were we??? Ah yes, so I elected not to go shotgun shooting. Instead I'm going to blog while Stacey makes me feel guilty in the kitchen. She's making two different kinds of salsa. There's the regular salsa, then there's something called, "Jicama" which she got in her, "Bountiful Basket". She's been burning up the airwaves in a quest for jicama recipes. I guess the Bountiful Baskets also come in a, "Mexican Basket". Something which I just naturally figgerred she'd had a bushel-full of the past forteen years. Anyhow, so I'm back.
So, back to the story. So, dad and I went up to the lot. It's about an hour forty-five from the house up to our lot. There was about four feet of snow still at Strawberry as we cruised past. Well, anyhow, we got there, and set up the trailer. Our trailer, is I think a 1999. But I got it from some fellah out of California. From the looks of things, he may have used it about ten times. There were still stickers from the manufacturer on the mirror in the bathroom. So it's been either well taken care of, or just not used. It's 28' from tip to tail. Two bunks in the back, a kitchen in the middle along with a couch and then a separate room with a queen bed. No slide-outs, nothing fancy. But it suits us just fine. I paid $6500 for it a year or so ago with our taxes. Anyhow, we got it leveled out for the night. I had a little trouble getting the water to work at first and the hot water heater. Turns out there was just air in the lines from when I winterized it last Fall.
So we got it set up around seven p.m. then had nothing to do but play cards. I'd forgotten my Ipod so listening to the radio was reduced to whatever is on my P.O.S. phone which has a few songs by Brad Paisley, Patty Loveless, Big and Rich and Beyonce' (meow meow kitty meow meow!). Anyhow, knowing that dad wouldnt appreciate the grand curvature of Beyonce's urban tone, I elected for some Patty. So we each played our own separate versions of a couple of games of Solitaire. Then nigh on about nine-ish, with our bellaye's full of fried shhicken, we turned in for the night. It's important to note, that running two lights, the radio, and the heater all night, I was still pleased to awaken to two full batteries charged and ready in the morning. Something which we'd not previously enjoyed.
So the next morning, we took a walk around the mountain (cowboy boots are NOT made for walking, I dont care WHAT Nancy Sinatra says!). Then Bert, or Vern, or Brett or whatever his name that delivers gravel called. We hoofed it back to the lot and then saddled up Big Green to meet him at the highway. Oh, of important note is that on the first night we went and met the neighbors the Bud N_______ Klan. So, if you've ever heard that song about Marie La Voux, well I met her at Bud's place. Poor kid was maybe in her early thirties but had this witchy woman hair that was all ratted out. Wearing a black robe and I am relatively sure missing at least five of her main toothens in the frontal region. Anyhow, Maggie, our dog wouldnt get close to her. To be honest, I kept my distance a little too. I dont care if she offered me a million dollars that'll make me rich...all I could think was, "OOOOooooohhhhh WEEEEE! Another man done gone!"
So, we filled up around 100 gallons of fresh water betwixt my 55 gallon barrel and the two 25 gallon barrels in the back of the truck. Bud is a great guy, about 75 years old and just like an old farmer. Every word out of him you have to pry out. He's not exactly forth-coming or spewing-forth and effervescent stream of mental conciousness. I think he plans each and every word out as though he was being interviewed by the State Police over some missing teenagers or something. Anyhow, as another side-note, not ONE person I've met out there as my neighbors are in anyway right in the head. There's a guy across the street, "Kerry". He's a fanatic when it comes to kids riding their ATV's too fast up the road. He'll call the cops on you and everything. He lives there full-time and has a premanufactured home and a tidy yard. Seems nice, but I imagine him to be a Vietnam Vet who's now hiding from his past and the world.
Then there's the people above me that own the giant rocks. They are like two hippies that finally went sober and realized it was 1980, only it's now 2011. The man looks like Santa in the off-season. He builds high-end furniture for famous people in Park City, and she, "Mrs. Claus" just talks and talks and talks. I finally zoned her out but she's very nice. Oh, lest I forget Mr. W_____. He lives across the way above Kerry. He and Kerry dont get along on account of Mr. W's son is a ne'er do-well and still lives at home in his thirties. He has parties and some get out of control probably listening to Motley Crue or maybe even Poison. Some real heavy metal devil worshipper stuff I'm sure. Anyhow, Mr. W apparently watched us from his deck using high-power binoculars which sorta..weirds you out.
So, last Fall while I was up there, we cut in (well Bud's brother Bill did) about an 80'x80' patch out of the sage to park the trailer. It became readily apparent after the first bought of wind and the second bought of rain that leaving it as a patch of dirt was a non-starter. So the whole quest for the day was to lay down about five loads of gravel and or roadbase. I expected about 150/truck, but it turned out to be 200/truck. I elected to go with 1 1/2" minus road base. Which, you dont care, but it's easier to drive on and doesnt migrate into the soil we alluded to earlier. (There's a test on this so dont fall asleep here).
Anyhow, I could only afford five loads this trip. We spread it out, well, the guy dropped it as best he could and we chained Bud's "Skid" behind Big Green and cut various patterns and circles trying to level it out. Well after about two hours of making ever-and-ever different patterns in it, I ran low focus and told dad we're headed to Duchesne to get some chocolate cookies or something. So it's about twenty minutes into Duchesne. I knew they roll up the sidewalks about eight p.m. so we hustled on down to, "Al's Foodtown".
Well we went up and down all six isles in Al's and picked up all the stuff in the trailer we'd identified shortages of. I dont wanna brag, but I bought some cutlery, some oil, some pancake/waffle/biscuit mix and some bacon eggs, and some of those cookies that look like oreos but have a lighter cookie on the one side. I dont know what the name of them are, but they really suck. I should have spent the extra buck and grabbed the name brand Oreo's. Anyhow, I dropped 96 bucks there at Al's. The teller looked bored at our jokes and after the third attempt at making her laugh I realized that she just might be related to Mr. W so the joking best be kept to a minimum.
The next day, we got up, emptied the re...oh wait. So dad rigged a twelve-volt pump to get the water out of our mobile tanks and into the trailer. However, the lines that he bought kept collapsing so we made a run back to Duchesne to their Ace Hardware Store. It's a pretty sweet setup, and they have rows and rows of stuff you dont need, and none of the stuff you do. So we trucked on over to the IFA (yes, an IFA!) and looked for some new Carhardt gear for dad. See, I'd made the mistake of letting him know his azz was hanging out of his current set. So after the third store looking for name-brand Carhardt, we elected to have the "Buffet" at the local greasy-spoon.
So in Maggies, or Marges, or Rosie's or whoever's diner, I had the Navajo Taco, and dad had the Kung PAO! Chicken. I told him that's what George Costanza always gets and he was sold. So we sat at the bar and joked with Maggie, or Marge, or..Rosie and choked down some of the local cuisine. So I dropped twenty bucks on lunch. Then we stopped at the gas station and I put anothe 99.66 in the tank and headed back to the lot. Oh, dad came too. (wearing the same ass-less Carhardts you once heard about).
Anyhow, after a day and a half of not being with Stacey, I was getting lonely. I mean, dad was there, but I realized I really like sharing that place with my lover girl. I mean I seriously missed her. That queen sized bed was nice, and I slept all night uninterupted, but...I sorta missed the "ugghhh...ouch" of a pregnant lady getting up for the third time to check the teething baby, or more likely empty her two-ouce bladder.
So, I guess if I had to be honest, I had a decent time. I really enjoyed time with my dad. But, our lot has really become a place that I can share with Stacey the things I like to do. I like to putter around and make stuff for the kids. I like knocking down sage brush. I like building play-houses for the kids. I guess the lot represents a new start for Stacey and I. It's kind of like...a new canvas on which to paint. It's really been a God-send for us this past year. When things down here in the flats were so oppressive, we could always escape there and just be together as a family. In fact, right now, there's a song on the radio, "I dont have to be me till Monday". Sort of fits the mood of what I'm trying to get across. When we head out the the lot, it can be a huge pain in the butt. Just getting four kids, a dog, a wive, six bags of clothing, 150.00 in groceries, three bikes, and whatever else we can stuff in the truck is huge pain. But once we're there, none of this other stuff matters.
I guess I like having a place like that. I love getting up Saturday morning and making bacon and listening to the radio. I love running the generator that afternoon. I love yelling at that stupid dog so she doesnt chase the errant horse, or the deer. I love that the kids can climb all over those rocks and see the glint in Josh's eye when he asks me when we're going to finish his play house. Speaking of which, right now, as I type, Grandpa Clint is working on welding a swingset for me to affix to the play house. Right now there's an elevated platform, a 4x4 play house atop it and a semi-finished deck. By this Fall we'll have a three place swing set and if I can...ahem..."swing" it, a teeter-totter. Big dreams I tell ya.
Anyhow, I have to go help Stacey get ready for the party now. I haven't really said anything of any real import anyhow. I hope you have a great day. I hope that your Saturday is a fantastic, bright and blue-sky type Saturday. I hope you grill up some brautworst. I hope you push your kids in a swing, I hope you smile and laugh and enjoy this day. I gotta run now, but try to be good kids and live a little at the same time.
I'm off to pull the grill around the house and straighten up the garage. Make sure you call your mom tomorrow and lay it on real thick how great she is. Oh, just a side note, Josh just called from shooting clay pigeons with my dad. He won a turkey. I told you that kid can shoot. I'm so dang proud of him. Maybe I'll make him a swing set or a climbing wall for that play house to reward him.
OK, gotta run guys. All the best.
Yer Bud,
J
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