Sunday, March 27/2016 - Friday, April 15/ 2016

campfire

These next few weeks were a combination of busy, busy and busy!!   The park demolition was in full swing  so there were a few fires that needed to be put out and dealt with.   Ray was still in Mexico so that left Kay and I do deal with what ever came up.  Of course the Southwest Gas folks came into the park looking for their meters and were unable to find all of them so that apparently was a "big deal" and an investigation would be launched at some point to see what happened to them.  Apparently people like to steal them so that they can use them to steal gas from the company.  Well, who would have thought!!  Theft remained prevalent in the park this year and right up until we left, the hoses and the sprinklers for the watering of the trees were disappearing!!  Thieves were simply taking anything that wasn't nailed down!!

The trailer demolition begins....

Vinny and his crew where very busy in the park over the next few weeks doing the demolition and the clean up.   There was quite a mess but his workers were very good with the cleanup and levelling the ground after.  They were very polite and did what ever Kay and I asked them to do.  It was awesome to finally see some action..... besides what Kay, Ray and I had been doing towards cleanup.

The trailer beside us was the second one to feel the wrath of the machinery

Before too long, there was nothing but a pile of rubbish

One of the many "fancy" cars that come through town.  This
particular one sounded awesome.

The first of April marks Kay's Birthday so we had to take her out to the bar for drinks.  Mitch was still in town so he joined us for a while then headed back to Kurt's where he has been staying since his return from Payson, Utah.  Kurt has been slowly recovering from end stage liver disease and while initially required a lot of help, is doing much better as the weeks progress.  Mitch too will soon be headed back to Utah where he will start his summer work.  Both him and Kay are on final countdown for return to work.

The "mozaic" around the register.  Marie was in charge of this
creation while Mark continued to lay tile and Kay laid backerboard
in the anteroom so that Mark wouldn't have to stop to do that....
he needed to continue tiling......time was running out!!

While Ray was in Mexico, Kay thought she would get the grout around the tiles in their trailer redone.  Mark (a friend of hers), who has been doing a lot of salvage work in the park apparently knows how to do tile and agreed to do it for her while Ray was away.  It would be a three day job so it would be done in plenty of time before Ray arrived home.
Well, as it turned out, it was a MUCH bigger job that what was initially thought.  Apparently the guys that did the initial work did not use enough thinset to properly set the tiles and it was actually the existing grout that was really holding the tiles in place!!  To make a long story short, this three day job became a 14 day job and included pulling up all the tiles, grinding the existing thinset (glue) down to the backerboard, purchasing new tile and then installing that.  It was a huge job and we almost got it all done before Ray arrived home.....Almost!!
Kay and I spent hours on clean up as the grinding of the thinset sent fine dust throughout the house. It was as if someone had  taken a 50 pound bag of flour, opened it and let a fan blow it around the joint.  Oh My God, I have never seen such a mess in my life.  It was simply everywhere and that included the front and the back porches!!  Holy Buckets!!    Kay and I worked like Trojans and eventually got things looking much better but it did become apparent that we would not have things all back to normal before Ray arrived home with his friends Mike and Judy in tow.
By the time he did arrive, the kitchen was pretty much clean and both bedrooms had been cleaned so at least everyone had a place to sleep, even if there was only a couch to sit on for furniture!!
The walls seemed to take to the fine dust wonderfully and eventually we had to admit defeat in the cleanup of them so we simply cleaned as well as we could then, put a coat of varathane on them to shine them up.  We had no time to do this but it still had to be done.  All in all, once we got everything cleaned up, the floors looked awesome.   Oh, did I mention that Kay decided that the ante room between the master bedroom and the living area got a new floor as well!!  Jesus, like we didn't have enough to do already!!   It too ended up looking awesome!!

Too tired to stand and eat so he simply laid down and chewed
on the corn!!

Of course while all this tile nightmare was going on next door, the camper still had to be packed so whenever I wasn't busy over at Kay's, I was busy packing.  Needless to say, I was as exhausted as the little javalina in the picture and often felt like lying down while I too ate supper!!

a good sized lizard chilling in the beer cans!!  

a parasailer buzzing the skies above the yard.

Man, with the marathon of work that these last two weeks entailed, I was actually looking forward to getting into the truck and starting the trip home.  At least the work load would be much improved and I could simply sit in the passenger seat and just read and relax!!
Man.....what a busy winter......Home is looking pretty damn good now.