Abbey's Road

They say the first step in fixing a problem is recognizing it. I now acknowledge that I am addicted to doing Habitat builds in Jackson, however, I have no intention of curbing this “habit”. It’s not the construction work I do while there that is a problem. It’s more the “active social schedule” that I am forced to keep while I’m there and the two weeks I need to recover and dry out afterwards that are the problem. But I figure I’m doing a good thing so I might as well have some extra fun in the process.

I arrived at the familiar confines of the fairgrounds on Sunday, the 16th, just in time for our group meeting. We had a new team leader this time. Bob signed up early to be the team lead, which worked out OK since Charlie, our previous fearless leader, wasn’t able to stick around for the build. He later mentioned something about missing his dog. It took a little while getting used to Bob’s leadership style. You see, he took the word “leader” literally, whereas Charlie took it to mean something more on the lines of “upfront organizer, but once on the jobsite let Trace do the leading.” Charlie’s modus operandi had been much to our liking so there was some adjustment for those of us used to his style, and even for some of us who hadn’t worked with Charlie. But we did manage to smooth things out for the most part (read this as we tolerated working with Bob when we had to, but poor Bill got stuck with him the most) and we accomplished quite a lot in the two weeks. And I have to say in defense of Bob, he did keep us moving and was a big reason why we got a lot done.

Bruce and Vina (pronounced like the end of Carolina – poor thing has to constantly correct people) were the only repeats from previous Jackson builds, but I finally convinced my RV’ing buddies, Doug and Liane, to join me on a build. They tried using a lame excuse that they already had plans to see the Buffalo Roundup (in my home state of South Dakota), but I finally convinced them when I said it wouldn’t be a problem if they left a tad early to catch the roundup anyways. Funny thing is that they left on Friday afternoon and the roundup didn’t happen until Monday. They somehow managed to omit that part when explaining why they HAD to leave early. Besides them, we also had another new couple from Indiana, the aforementioned Bill and his wife Barb. The only slacker in the bunch was Bruce (just kidding, Bruce!) who never failed to call out the exact time of morning and afternoon water breaks and lunch with amazing precision. Of course, I was always hungry long before lunch arrived so the warning was not necessary for me. Bruce was also good at giving Vina orders, but, true to form, after all those years of marriage, she had developed an acute sense of when to ignore him. (Bruce did admit to me in private that he is one lucky guy to have her for his wife, so it’s all just a façade.)

On my first two builds in Jackson you may recall that we did mostly roof work. There was rarely a picture of me, besides the ones at happy hour, where I wasn’t on the roof. Well, this time we were on the opposite end of the construction spectrum – foundations. We built forms, bent re-bar, shoveled gravel, poured footers and stem walls and the usual assortment of “move this over there, now move it back over here, take the garbage to the dump” kind of stuff that would make us feel lost if we didn’t have to do some of it now and then. We were actually working on the foundations for 2 different houses and we did odd jobs on 2 others.

On the final day we did manage to get the subfloor on one of the houses, but we never did have that barbecue and hoe-down that Trace promised us if we finished it. He’s still the slave driver! He did have a softer side this year, or I should say, Katie, his construction assistant, provided a “softer” side to Trace’s whip-cracking. (He’s also very forceful when it comes to my social schedule which explains the need for drying out afterwards.) Actually, she’s a great carpenter and is probably stronger than most of the guys that were there. Bruce is probably still talking about how she “just picked up the re-bar bender and threw it in the truck!” The only softness came in dealing with us. She was way too polite in the beginning, but by the second week she was learning to dole out the abuse pretty well.

This time I also was able to bring my RV to the job site so Abbey could come with me every day and she had company in the form of Max, Doug and Liane’s dog. They at least got to get out at lunchtime and beg for food from everyone and not just their owners. We had a few happy hours back at our beloved fairgrounds – the flies and the manure smell finally died down in the beginning of the second week – but the weather wasn’t as warm as last September so we had a few indoors. The middle weekend, are only days off, it rained both days, but we managed to get out still. On Sunday Doug, Liane and the dogs and I went to see Periodic Springs. It was a bit of a drive, but the leaves were quite colorful and the springs had quite an advanced billing by some of the others. It’s technically known as a cold-water geyser, but I have my doubts. If it’s true, it’s actually a pretty interesting phenomena. The spring comes out of the base of a cliff and the water cascades down this little side canyon and forms a creek. Every 20 or 30 minutes it stops flowing completely and the cascade dries up, and then, after another 20 minutes, it starts all over again. The funny thing though is that someone has put a concrete “cover” above the opening and there are flaps and a pipe under there. We thought it looked like something out of Disney World and were joking that there is a pump somewhere that cycles on and off every 20 minutes that pumps the water back up from the creek. In any case it was a nice little hike on an otherwise rainy day.

On Monday Trace asked me to do some recon with him on the Granite Hot Springs. It’s not that far from Jackson as the crow flies, but it was slow going for 10 miles on a dirt road. It was worth the drive though. We passed up the public “pool”, and $6 fee, and hiked down to some natural pools by the river. There was one that had a hot waterfall flowing into it. The scenery was incredible. The only downside was that I was with Trace and not Tracy. But the “work” paid off the following week when Tracy came up to meet me after the build was done. She and Trace and I also did a nice hike on one of the days she was there. And, I squeezed in a hike the Monday before we started with Mills and Trace up the nose of the Sleeping Indian, aka the Schnozz. That was a pretty grueling hike exacerbated by the wrong turn that someone took. We totaled about 4000ft. of elevation gain. Mills’ dog Bette made it the whole way with us and was a great companion. She rarely strayed far from us and always came back right away. And somehow she managed to ride in the bed of the pickup and not get thrown out while we drove on this very rough 4WD road to the trailhead and back. I’m sure she slept well that night.

As usual, Jackson was a great time and I saw some friends that I had made on previous stays. I’ll always love going there but I don’t know if I could live there. I definitely have a good time for 2 or 3 weeks though.