Deal Off

I wasn't happy when we came back from England and the ditch still hadn't been dug. I knew that once it was dug and the culvert installed, I would once again have to get on the contractor's schedule. I called the city engineer to ask when they were going to dig the ditch.

"You're on the list."
"Okay, I assume I've been on the list for several weeks. Can you give me a better idea."
"All I can tell you is that you're on the list."

Well. Fine. I'm on the list. I'll bet my friend who never got anything more than little flags thrown in his yard was on the list, as well.

We would just have to come up with something else. I'd been trying to get a driveway put in since August and by this time it was nearing the end of November. Nothing was going right. The contractor was uncommunicative - I'd paid him to deal with the city yet I was having to do it. The city couldn't tell me when anything would be done. I had no confidence that anything would be done. Ever. And we were leaving for Florida in the middle of December.

In the end, we decided to get gravel. You don't need a permit to dump gravel into your yard. I asked the contractor to give me a price on rocking in the entire area behind the fence plus throw in a load of river rock to landscape inside the fence (something we'd been talking about for several years). And we could build a "bridge" out of wood to go over the swale. Not a permanent structure, completely movable and no permit required.

In the meantime, I wrote the city a letter telling them that I was withdrawing my agreement to pay for the culvert. While I was at their mercy on whether they chose to dig out the ditch, if they wanted to install a culvert, they would be doing so at their own expense. I handed it to the city engineer in person. He read it and just said "Okay". I think he was a bit peeved. I believe he was truly trying to be helpful - probably the only person in the whole scenario who was making any effort at all. But apparently he was powerless to overturn his own rules.

The contractor indicated that we could get all the rock for the same price as the concrete. I told him to give me a written quote and let me know when it could be done and we went off to Florida in the middle of December still waiting on the quote.

The Taj Mahal of Driveways

I decided to go with the ONLY city-sanctioned company that bothered to give me a quote. I wasn't happy that none of my new choices were on Angie's List. He was only charging me a few hundred more than the company I'd originally chosen although I had to pay him extra to go get the permit.  You would think that pulling permits is just part of the job.  But at that point I was willing to pay any price not to have to deal with those folks at the city who just couldn't decide how things should be done. In addition to the 12-year old and the 20-year old, there was also a 50-year old who had a completely different story from the other two. Better someone who at least knew something about concrete should deal with them instead of me.

The next step was to get on the schedule. I was hoping we could get it done within a matter of days because Mark's dad had died and we had to return to England for a couple weeks. But no, like the other concrete company, I would have to wait a month. This would put us into the time we were due to be away. It would have to wait until we returned in November.

Remember that I left the contractor to deal with the city? I remembered it. I paid him for it. Cash. So imagine my surprise when I got a phone call from the city telling me that we could not build the driveway as planned because it didn't meet the city specifications. It appears that while everyone was spinning around in a state of confusion, the city engineer managed to complete his specification. And instead of calling the contractor, they decided to call me.

It also turns out they wanted me to build the Taj Mahal of driveways. The culvert was to be made of two-inch thick concrete with a 24-inch inside diameter. Then it was to be four-inch thick concrete on top of that. Math was never my best subject but that tells me that I need at least 32 inches of space to accommodate all that material. Big job for a swale that probably isn't even a foot deep. At this stage it was a swale, not a ditch. And it would all connect to a street that really isn't in good condition at all. It would be the finest driveway around here. But I didn't want the Taj Mahal. I just wanted to be able to park my camper and I wanted it to look nice. Neat. Tidy. I didn't see why I needed to meet the same standard as a supermarket. This was to be a private drive, not a public parking lot.

I pointed out that NO ONE else in the neighborhood anywhere around me had that kind of concrete on their drive. That was because the driveways are old and don't have to meet current code. I pointed out that some of the driveways were indeed new and questioned why they didn't have to meet code. That was because they were merely repairing an existing driveway and not building a new one. I don't believe it. Some of the people had just filled in the swale and didn't even bother with a culvert. My best guess is that they just did it without getting a permit. It's always easier to get forgiveness than permission. In retrospect, that's probably what I should have done. But I was trying to do it right. I was informed by the city engineer that I could not fill it in or use anything less than their specification required because it would interfere with drainage. Apparently all of the drainage problems in the city are dependent on my little corner. I pointed out that the house being built across the street from me had just put in a NEW driveway and had filled in the culvert. That was because that road fell under the jurisdiction of the state rather than the city so they had no say about it, unlike the side street where I wanted to put my extra driveway. I also pointed out that exceptions to code were made all the time. There's a house about a block away that got an exception to build a frame house instead of brick. The two houses being built across the street got an exception to build two houses on one lot. But no. No exception for me to put in a concrete driveway with a steel culvert. It all had to be concrete.

I tried to phone the city council members. Something you can't really do anymore because their home numbers aren't listed. They are all hiding behind a generic "city council" phone number. But their email addresses were all listed. I wrote to all six of them as well as the mayor and the city manager. I included the pictures that we took of other driveways in a three-block radius.  I was sure that reason would prevail. It was very disappointing that only the city manager and one, just ONE, city council member even bothered to respond to me and that was to inform me that the city codes just could not possibly be violated. (Look around, dude! It's happening everyday.) As for the rest of them who couldn't be bothered to respond be assured that I will never vote for any of you again! And I will discourage everyone I know from doing so.

The city engineer did come out to look because I explained that to fit it all in, I wouldn't be building a driveway, I'd be building a ramp. I really didn't want to have to back the camper over a hill of my own making. He did agree that the swale would have to be dug out to accommodate the drive. Then he called the contractor to make sure he didn't gouge me on the price because of the changes to the specification. Then the city engineer called and said the city would put in the culvert, but I would have to pay for it and it would be $200 less than the contractor was charging. I agreed.

Within a few days someone from the city came out and put down flags so they would know where to dig the ditch. I was sharing my dilemma with a friend who told me he'd been through the same thing with them. He also told me that they put down the flags, which blew away or otherwise disappeared after a couple months but that they had never dug out the ditch so he could build his driveway. He'd been through this exercise at least twice. This didn't bode well at all.

We went off to England in the middle of October. They still hadn't dug the ditch. We came back on November 1st. They still hadn't dug the ditch. This really didn't bode well at all. 

The Penalty of Procrastination

After we bought the camper it became obvious that it couldn't stay on the driveway. Our street is so busy that you have to wait until the traffic dies down (usually around 9 pm) to back it onto the drive without causing a traffic jam. Plus the drivers around this part of the world are all in a hurry and won't actually wait for you to back up. If you wait for the traffic to die down, it's often dark. A completely new set of problems. The other problem is that Mark isn't yet good enough at backing up that he gets it in the right spot the first time. Not to mention that if anyone parks behind the camper, it blocks the view of people who are stopped at the stop sign. And if Mark and I park behind one another, we often have to play musical cars - a game I dislike, especially when he needs to leave the house before I do.

But we have a solution. We live on a corner. While the street that runs in front of us is extremely busy, the side street that runs beside the house is not. And behind our back fence is about 25 to 30 more feet of property that runs the width of our lot. It belongs to us and we keep our little Ford Ranger pickup back there. Plenty of room for a camper. We just need to have a proper driveway because it wouldn't be a good idea to try to back the camper up through the little swale.

I called a concrete company to get a price on building this driveway. They did work for us before and they are highly rated on Angie's List. We agreed on a price in August but we couldn't get on their schedule until September, well over a month away.

As it turns out, instead of going and pulling the necessary building permit right away, they waited until the day before the job was scheduled to get the permit. And couldn't get one. She came back to me and told me that I'd have to get it because they weren't registered to do business with the city. Which means they hadn't paid the necessary fee to the city or provided the city with evidence of insurance. She suggested I go get the permit and told me to pick up a copy of the city specification for driveways. 

Okay, that shouldn't be a problem. I immediately went to the city offices and tried to get a permit. As is generally the case these days, there was a 12 year old behind the counter who indicated that there was no spec but that if I just wrote up what I intended to do along with a list of materials and provided a copy of my survey outlining where I wanted to put it, it would be approved.

Now it's a problem. And it would probably have been a problem even if they'd tried to pull the permit the day I accepted the quoted price. But we would have had over a month to resolve it. I know nothing about concrete. I have no idea how thick it's supposed to be. I have no idea what type or size of rebar should be used. I have no idea what size the corrugated steel for the culvert should be. I also have no survey drawing. This house was built in 1950. It's not part of a modern subdivision that references plat maps. The deed has a metes and bounds description. I had it surveyed and staked a few years ago when one of my neighbors put up a fence that I knew was encroaching on my property just so I could make him move it, but I don't have a drawing.

I went home and called the concrete company back and explained my dilemma. She was confused by the spec issue. She told me that when they built driveways in Plano or Frisco or any of the surrounding towns that she did not tell them what they intended to build, they told her. The way they told her was to hand her the spec for residential driveways, which apparently the City of Celina was working on but did not yet have.

I went back to the city. The 12-year old was gone. Now I had to deal with a 20-year old. He said I should not use a contractor that wasn't registered to do business in the city. The primary reason was that if they caused any damage, I could be held responsible for it. When pressed for what kind of damage they might cause he gave me the example of knocking out utilities. I could be held responsible for repairing any damage they did. He was most insistent, asking me why I would want to put myself at risk for an unregistered contractor. He then gave me a list of about seven contractors who were registered with the city.

I went back home and called my concrete company to tell them that I could not get the permit in time for the job to begin the following day. (Tell me again why they waited until the last minute to get the permit. I'd already waited a month and who knows how long I'd have to wait now.) Then I logged into Angie's List and started looking up the companies that were on the city's list. Guess what? Not one of them were listed on Angie's List. Not one. Several of them were in Fort Worth. I could see that they would be super-stoked to come out and pour roads and driveways for new subdivisions. I could not see that they would be at all interested in a job that is a "one-off". I wouldn't be if I were them.

And of the four companies that were not in Fort Worth, only two called me back. One was a concrete company, the other was a landscaper. The concrete company could come out and give me a quote right away, the landscaper just didn't have time. My other option was to be my own contractor and hope nobody damaged anything. At least that's what I thought my options were. I would be proved wrong.

Progress

Progress is always good. Right? Right now I'm not sure.

I've lived in the same house, in the same town for over 30 years. When I first moved here there wasn't much to it. Sleepy town. I had to drive all the way to Plano to buy groceries because there wasn't a "real" grocery store in either Celina or neighboring Frisco. But it was okay because Plano was just a straight shot south on Preston Road - no traffic lights and only two four way stops between me and Kroger - it took less than 30 minutes to get there. But now we are "uptown" - we have two or three traffic lights all our own. We also have a grocery store so unless I want something exotic, like celery root or daikon, I don't even have to leave town.

But it wasn't perfect back then. When I first moved here, there was a pack of wild dogs that roamed around the town. You didn't want to drive through town with your windows down because one of those dogs was just crazy and would jump at you. It seemed like he was the leader of the pack. It was a wonder he lived. And apparently nothing could be done about these dogs. You could call the mayor or a city council member to complain. (Back in those days you called their homes. They did not hide from the general public behind "one size fits all" phone numbers.) But they'd point out that there was no law requiring residents to control their animals or keep them fenced in or on a leash. Then one day, it changed. The dogs were gone. There was a law that dogs had to be controlled - on a leash or within a fenced yard. I consider this progress.

In addition to some minor problems with the town, there were issues with the house. When I came to look at the house, I assumed (wrongly) that the garage door was up. When I moved all of my stuff into the garage and went to close the garage door, I discovered that there wasn't a garage door. I realize now that it would have been okay to just leave the boxes there overnight and move them in the morning. But at the time, having just moved from Garland, we felt compelled to take all the boxes inside the house. I contacted a garage door company the next day and I had a door on my garage in a matter of days.

When I first moved into this house, I discovered a number of other things. (There were no home inspectors in those days so I had to make these discoveries on my own. Actually, it's likely that if there had been inspectors, I probably wouldn't have bought the house - at least not without serious repair negotiations!) Some of the things I discovered:  My blow dryer would knock out all power to the house for several hours. The heat and air did not extend to the upstairs of the house. I ended up spending most all of my redecorating budget on electrical and plumbing - things no one could see.

But there were other things we needed that you could see. The yard wasn't fenced and the driveway was gravel. We put up a fence, which has since been replaced and is about due to be replaced again. I am filled with dread. You'll know why later.

We also had a concrete drive poured. As I recall, it was fairly simple. We called a concrete company, they came out and laid the forms and then poured the concrete and a week or so later we could use the driveway. No trauma. No drama. But now we have "progress".  Now we have trauma. And drama. Stay tuned.

More Power

Apparently the problem of not being able to accelerate fast enough and not driving the speed limit can be solved with a bigger vehicle. Even though the Jeep was rated to pull the camper, it struggled. Mark started doing his best Internet investigative work.

It seems that a Ford F-250 diesel with a towing package will solve all our problems. It will go farther, (so in Florida where it takes 30 minutes to fill up, we won't have to stop as often) and faster (so we'll be able to drive at the posted maximum speed), and people will get out of our way instead of pulling in front of us causing us to hit the brakes hard enough to break our Corelle dishes.

So here it is folks. A Ford F250 diesel with a towing package. The solution to all problems related to the camper. It can pull the trailer up a mountain. It can exceed the speed limit pulling a trailer (at least we think it can). It can pass a gas station because it runs on diesel. And not only will people NOT pull out in front of us, they will actually get out of our way!

Although, I've got to say that this picture does not give you a true picture of the size of this beast.

Camp WalMart

If getting there is half the fun and being there is the other half where does that leave getting home? No fun! It seemed like we were only on the road for a few hours before it got cold and we needed our coats to get out of the car.

The Jeep (only 6 cylinders) was having a tough time pulling the camper. It was hard to accelerate and sometimes the transmission would overheat. So we had to go slower than the posted maximum speed. This was a problem.

Because it can be time consuming to "set up" and "break down" each day, we tended to stop for the night in a WalMart parking lot. This actually isn't too bad because you can always go buy food (as long as it doesn't need to be cooked because the only power you have is to operate the lights). Plus there are typically restaurants nearby. We try to look at Google earth before stopping because sometimes the restaurants are all on the other side of a four to six lane highway and there's no way to get there.) Stopping in a WalMart parking lot is quick and easy. You only need to stay in the back of the lot, as far away from the store as you can get. (Unpleasant when you need to go buy something and it is cold or rainy.) You can drive until you just don't want to drive anymore and then stop without worrying about backing in or hooking anything up. If you're stopping at a campground you have to worry about getting stopped before it's dark so you can get into your space before it gets too dark to see or the office closes and forgets to put out your packet. And there probably won't be a restaurant across the street although you'll have full power if you need to cook, which is not usually something I want to do after riding/driving all day. We were lucky at Fiesta Key, the campground had a restaurant and the food was way better than we expected.

Anyway, staying at WalMart is fine for a night or two. The trip down to the keys was three days. We stayed in a WalMart parking lot two nights. But coming back was horrible. It took us five days to get back. I think we spent three nights in a WalMart parking lot but it seemed like a month. This is a problem. I don't like it. I don't mind a night or two, but three or four nights? No. I am not doing that again. Poor planning on our part. We need to rethink how we plan these trips.

We need to solve this problem. 

Wildlife and Nature

We went out on an early morning paddle looking for wildlife. We hoped to see manatee, birds, maybe an alligator. While it was very pleasant and the mangrove tunnels were especially beautiful - we saw very little wildlife.

Surprisingly, we saw far more wildlife on the golf course than we saw in the mangrove tunnels. We saw a sea eagle catch a fish. (Too busy watching it to even try to photograph it.) More iguana than you could shake a stick at. (The alpha male was ready to defend his territory. - So very brave!!)

And such unusual plants.

Also the water surrounding Fiesta Key was teeming with wildlife. Jelly fish, crabs, conch, all kinds of things that were so easy to see in the water. I could watch these things for hours.

I love how pelicans look so "pre-historic."

Things you find on the beach:

I love to see rainbows after it's rained.

A Day Trip to Dry Tortugas

Dry Tortugas isn't the easiest National Park to get to - roughly a two hour boat ride on the Yankee Freedom from Key West. You can also get there by seaplane. A bit faster but a lot pricier and tends to book up faster because, obviously, there are fewer seats. (The Yankee Freedom easily accommodates several hundred people, even though it's their practice not to operate at full capacity.) There are some primitive camp sites available (no, thank you). The most prominent feature is Fort Jefferson which was started after the War of 1812 and abandoned by the military after the Civil War before it was completed.  

It's called Dry Tortugas because, there is no water and Ponce de Leon, who first discovered it, caught hundreds of sea turtles.

It has beautiful beaches, tropical fish that can be seen in the water and in the surrounding moat, sea birds (it's a sanctuary for frigates), ghost and hermit crabs, and plenty of history.  If you want to know more, visit the park's website.

We were concerned because it was raining in Key West and for most of the trip. But when we arrived, the sun came out and it was beautiful. And it stayed that way until we were boarding the Yankee Freedom for the return trip.

We had a beautiful day!