01-08JUL11 - Monroe & Kittitas, WA

As we did in our last three BLOGs we start with the latest on the construction of our house on our property outside of Sultan, WA:

On the 4th of July(!) the siding crew showed up; & spent two days siding the house with Hardie cement board & installing 3 exterior doors. Meanwhile Corrie bought a refrigerator & a dishwasher.

On 05JUL two guys show up and spend an hour spray foaming all the holes drilled in the framing for ventilation, plumbing & electric; plus around the windows & doors.

Meanwhile we spent the beautiful days of 01-05JUL at the property while Dan built a pump house to contain the future water treatment system; & Corrie spent her time moving soil with the tractor to fill in low spots & spraying to kill non-native blackberries. As we have done the last two summers we flew our kids, Rebecca & Joseph, in on 06JUL to join us for a week. First stop after their arrival was the under construction house, where each kid wanted to know which bedroom was theirs? The contractor has agreed not to work on our house while the kids are in town; lets hope he lives up to his word!

http://theryanrvexpress.blogspot.com/2010/08/test.html

On Thursday, 07JUL, we all headed to cousin Steve’s & Bonnie’s in Kittitas, WA. Soon after our arrival Steve’s oldest sister, Kathie, showed up with her mother-in-law, Marge (for more on these two fine ladies, see the below BLOG link). We had an excellent afternoon & evening reminiscing about family memories. In addition Steve BBQ’d elk, deer & & Copper River salmon from Alaska. When Dan lived in Seattle he never heard of Copper River salmon. Somehow it has obtained the reputation as the best of all wild caught salmon. The end result is that the first fish of the season is flown direct to Seattle on Air Alaska, & the pilot of the plane is shown on all the local news stepping off the plane & holding the prized fish! It was very good salmon, but we are not sure what all the hoopla is all about. The day was capped by delicious root beer floats.

http://theryanrvexpress.blogspot.com/2010/09/01-05sep10-various-wa-olympic-peninsula.html

http://theryanrvexpress.blogspot.com/2011/05/01-11may11-monroe-wa-via-kittitas-wa.html

The next day Dan & Joe took off with cousin Steve to go fourwheeling through the surrounding hills, while Rebecca & Corrie headed into Ellensburg & Kittitas to explore. The rest of the day was spent relaxing. Steve decided that he would spend the rest of the afternoon rebuilding a gear box on some piece of farm machinery used to harvest hay. Dan & Joe assisted by standing around looking & asking dumb questions like – what’s this do? Once again we were treated to some excellent BBQ, along with fresh corn from the local farm stand. We were going to finish with root beer floats once again, but everyone seemed to have eaten a little too much in the last two days?

13-30JUN11 - Monroe, WA

Since our last two BLOGs have discussed the start of our house construction on our property outside of Sultan, WA, we will commence this one with a brief summary of what has occurred to date:

Monday, 13JUN, framing “package” delivered; the delivery forklift gets stuck twice & we had to pull it out with our 4x4 Toad. The sill plates on top of the foundation were installed before we departed property for the day.

14JUN, Tuesday morning arrive on scene to find floor joists mostly installed; one man framing crew continued with rim plate. He couldn’t go any further until county inspector finally showed-up. After inspection floor decking installed along with garage walls, again all by one person.

Thursday, 16JUN, house completely framed & outer walls sheathed; along with framing all interior walls. Meanwhile Corrie finds an exceptional deal (& we mean exceptional deal) on floor models of a high end washer & dryer. So now we have them long before the house is done! To celebrate we have burgers & shakes at King Charley’s, a roadside institution on State Road 9 near Snohomish.

17JUN, which we count as the 12th day of construction, we arrive later than normal to find roof trusses had been delivered & 75% already installed; by the end of the day the trusses are done & the roof sheathing is installed.

21JUN the shingle roofing is done & windows are delivered; 22JUN, Wednesday, the windows & sliding doors are installed.

Thursday, 23JUN day 16 of construction, the plumbers (2) arrive & do their thing.

Nothing much happens until 26JUN when the electric furnace, air handler, & ventilation ducting are installed in half a day.

Then there is another lull until Thursday, 30JUN, when three electricians (father & 2 sons) show up & complete 90% of the installation in one day. Meanwhile three exterior doors & the siding “package” are delivered.

During this entire time we have tried to be on site whenever a contractor is there. In addition, when there are no contractors on site we still spend many hours at the site cleaning up after the contractors, since they “are not paid” to clean-up after themselves. Some are better than others at making an attempt at picking up their trash; but others make absolutely no effort even though we have placed a full size garbage can on site!

Also during this period Dan departed from 20-23JUN, to Tempe, AZ, on business trip for NCBRT; leaving Corrie to deal with the roofing, windows & plumbing. Thankfully everything went well, even though she is fully capable of handling anything that arose. Since 26JUN, Sunday, was forecasted to be an above average & sunny day, we headed to Snoqualmie Falls Park to view the Falls. This was a very scenic drive along what we call the valley road through the small towns of Duvall, Carnation & Fall City. The Falls are the second most visited tourist site in WA state after Mt Rainier. Thanks to the record high snow levels in the Cascades that is now melting, the Falls were much more impressive than usual. Snoqualmie Falls is the site of the first underground hydroelectric facility in the USA & is still generating non-polluting energy after almost one hundred years.

Right next door to the Falls is the Salish Lodge which is famous for their food, especially their breakfasts! You almost always need reservations for breakfast/brunch on weekends but Dan’s opinion was – what do we have to lose by just walking in? They found us a table, but obviously not one overlooking the Falls. The one brunch/breakfast menu item that they are renowned for is their country breakfast. This is a multi-course meal that a normal person can not finish (check out their website for complete details). Back in the late 70s, Dan & five of his friends each ordered this meal & managed to finish it! Today it costs $34 & we were thinking of splitting it; but they wanted anther $20 to split it! We went with the eggs benedict & croque madame; both outstanding. As usual Dan asked for tabasco, & was handed the world’s smallest bottle!

http://www.snoqualmiefalls.com/

http://www.salishlodge.com/

14JUN11 - Monroe, WA (construction photo)

01-12JUN11 - Monroe, WA

After the unexpected rapid start on construction of our house described in the proceeding BLOG things didn’t slow down! On 01JUN, Wednesday, the foundation walls were poured on top of the recently poured footings. When Dan arrived at the property he was just in time to find that the concrete pumper truck was stuck & our rock/gravel driveway was severely damaged. A “stuck” construction vehicle is a major headache & cost for the owner of the house, because most construction contracts have a clause that says the property owner is responsible for all charges for a stuck vehicle unless you can prove their negligence! This means that not only do you pay for a very big & expensive tow truck, but you pay for every minute the stuck vehicle can’t get to its next job! Thankfully they were able to get it free & back on the road; leaving us with a pretty trashed driveway.

The next day all the foundation forms were removed & we were advised to let the concrete “cure” over the weekend before back filling around the foundation. We then asked the lead contractor to give us all of next week (06-10JUN) to repair the driveway; install foundation drainage; backfill around the foundation; & “shoot” gravel into future crawl space. He agreed, & we spent the next two days, 03/04JUN, picking up debris, & purchasing the necessary piping & pieces for foundation drainage.

We did take time on Sunday, 05JUN, to have lunch with Dan’s brother Shawn & his girl friend, Cyndi, at the Buzz Inn by the Snohomish Airport. This is a small local airport that is used as a base of operations for hot air ballooning & skydiving. As we had a very relaxed late lunch we were constantly treated to the spectacle of dozens of skydivers bailing out of perfectly good planes over our heads & landing fifty feet from us. Hopefully we will see more of Shawn & Cyndi this summer, but first they are taking off for a two week road trip to Montana next weekend on their Harleys!

Monday first thing it was back to work on the property. First thing was repairing the driveway. This took three loads of rock (we’re talking 6 to 8 inch rock!), followed by two loads of small two inch gravel. Next up was filling the foundation walls of the future garage with washed sand in preparation for pouring a concrete garage floor. Lastly was installing French drainage tile (its really pipe, but they call it tile for some reason) around the outside of the foundation to reduce the possibility of water seeping into the crawl space below the house & causing mold.

This is not required by code but we decided on it just to be safe. It was not a simple task! First we had to lay a bed of gravel; & although we had a trackhoe to move & dump the gravel, we still had to level it with shovels. Then we had to place a “tubular” filter material around the drainage tile before laying it on the gravel (think stuffing sausage casing without the nifty sausage machine butchers have). Then the rest of the gravel had to be placed on the drainage pipe; & that covered with a four foot wide filtration cloth to keep dirt out, before the foundation could finally be backfilled! It was an all day affair & back breaking to say the least, even with the aid of a trackhoe!!!
On 09JUN, Thursday, we hired a gravel “conveyor” truck to “shoot” pea gravel into foundation in the area that will become the crawl space. Again this is not required by code, but we are taking this extra step to further reduce the possibility of water seepage after the house is closed-in. The conveyor truck was a very interesting device to watch in operation. It consists of a hopper that can be loaded with dirt, mulch, beauty bark, small gravel, etc; the hopper empties through the bottom onto an auger/conveyor mechanism that feeds to the rear of the rig. A 20 foot portion of the conveyor extends off the rear of the truck & can be swung side to side by the operator. By increasing the speed of the conveyor the operator can “shoot” the gravel from the end of the belt, all the way out to one hundred feet!

This is all remotely operated by the driver using a radio control device. The neatest thing to Dan was that the operator could also drive the truck with the remote control while standing seventy feet away! We’re talking forward, backward, & turning! To finish the day we rented a compactor to compact the sand in the garage foundation.

After taking all day Friday to recover from the week’s construction activities we headed into Seattle on Saturday to have a Mexican dinner at Dan’s cousin Steve Ruttner’s & wife Janine. Joining us was Steve’s brother Rick Lee & wife Sharon; & their sister Kelly, husband Les & their three kids. But before arriving there, we stopped at Kerry park on Queen Anne hill, which is famous for the view of the Seattle skyline & Mt Rainier. Unfortunately Mt Rainier was not visible but the skyline was beautiful.

The last time we had seen cousins Steve, Rick & Kelly, was Mother’s Day in 2009 at Rick & Sharon’s. We had made some effort via e-mail to get together last summer; but despite everyone’s good intentions, it didn’t happen. Anyway we managed to get together fairly quickly this time & had an excellent evening with good food. Hopefully we can visit a few more times this year before we hit the road for Louisiana.

http://theryanrvexpress.blogspot.com/2009/05/01-14may09-monroe-wa.html

Sunday morning, 12JUN, we loaded up the rid’em lawn mower on the Toad & took it over to cousin Steve Kiesel’s in Kittitas for emergency repairs. Seems that all the tree stumps Dan has tried to run over the last couple of years have finally caught up to the mower. He has managed to completely break the steel mower deck in several places. With Steve’s welding skills & the help of a sledge hammer, it was repaired good enough for what we need it for.

Even with all this construction we do on the property Dan still goes into Everett every Wednesday to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity.

16-31MAY11 - Monroe, WA (house construction starts)

After returning to our RV spot at Evergreen State Fairgrounds in Monroe, WA, on 16MAY, we began to prepare our property outside of Sultan, WA, for construction of a small three bedroom rambler. If you have followed our BLOG for the last couple of years you will remember we spent most of the summer of 2009 drilling the well from hell, dealing with environmental wetland issues on our property, & finally getting a permit for a septic installation.

In 2010 we settled on a house builder, while spending the entire summer trying to obtain all the other necessary permits, & finally getting the local power utility (PUD) to install permanent power. The permits & power installation occurred at the end of SEP10 & our contractor wanted to start construction immediately! Since we didn’t want to spend the next four months in the rainy season of Seattle, we said “no & we’ll see you sometime APR11 or MAY11”.

So once the local weather was reasonable (did we tell you the Seattle area has experienced the wettest & coolest winter & spring in decades?) we headed out to our property to do prep work like - installing a silt fence to protect the wetlands, staking out the exact house location, improving the gravel driveway for heavy construction equipment, installing temporary power, etc. In addition, there is the unpleasant task of finding & getting bids from sub-contractors for the digging of the foundation, digging & installing the septic system, & installing a water treatment system for our well (did we tell you that our water is safe to drink in every county in WA state except the one we are in?).

On Sunday, 22MAY, we took a break from the property work & headed to Dan’s cousin Paul’s & wife, Shannon Peters for a family get together & BBQ’ing hamburgers & hotdogs. Followers of our BLOG will also remember that we try to visit with them often during our annual stays in the Pacific NW, & that Aunt Jan (Paul’s mom) lives on the property. We were also joined by Paul’s brothers Jim & John (& John’s kids). So it ended up being a small family reunion. However, it was a bitter/sweet time because John’s wife, Michelle, had unexpectedly passed-away less than two months ago. Another sad reminder that life is far too short & nothing is guaranteed!
http://theryanrvexpress.blogspot.com/2010/08/08-20aug10-monroe-wa.html

The following day, Monday, our excavation contractor arrived on scene to dig our foundation. Dan thought this would be a two day job, but it was done in six hours. It was amazing to see how much dirt one man can move with the right machine (ie track hoe) & a laser survey system. On Friday, 27MAY, we learned that the forms for the concrete footings would be installed Saturday morning! So first thing Saturday morning Dan headed out to the property to find two workers staking out the location of the footings. Dan was surprised to hear that the entire job would be done in two hours (it actually took them three hours)?

The next step in the process was for the Snohomish County building inspector to come out & bless the footing forms. Since this was Memorial Day long weekend, the contractor assumed we wouldn’t see anyone until Wednesday, 01JUN, at the earliest & that he would probably return on Thursday or Friday to pour the concrete for the footings. So we were very surprised to hear late Tuesday, 31MAY, that not only had the county inspector approved the work, but the contractor had poured the concrete.
Dan immediately drove out to the property to find that the work had indeed been done; & also the concrete truck had dumped its excess load right in front of the future garage! So a less than cordial call was made to the lead contractor to inform him – 1) that we wanted to be informed before hand of any work being done; & 2) we wanted the mound of now hardened concrete removed. Hopefully the rest of the construction will go smoother than this, but we have a sneaky suspicion there will be other bumps along the way.

12-15MAY11 - Arlington & Anacortes, WA (casinos)

12MAY, Thursday, we departed our almost permanent RV spot at Evergreen State Fairgrounds for four days. We did this because the semi-annual western Washington car swap meet was scheduled to start Friday & run thru Sunday at the fairgrounds. This swap meet, & the one in the fall, are very big events; & we just didn’t want to be bothered with the late night noise (ie parties), people not controlling their dogs, etc.

After deciding not to stick around during the swap meet, the next decision was – where to go? Since it was still pretty wet throughout most of western WA, we decided to re-visit a couple of the Indian casinos we visit every now & then. First stop was Angel of the Winds, in Arlington, WA. But at the very same time we received a call from our daughter, Rebecca, voicing some concern about possible flooding in Houma, LA, from the approaching high waters of the Mississippi River. Dan spent some time researching on the internet & talking to some inside sources from his Coast Guard days; then re-assured her, & gave her some phone numbers to get latest info & suggestions on how to prepare for absolute worst case scenario.

After checking in at Angel of the Winds; we received two coupon books, one for each day of our stay. As we have previously described in this BLOG, we feel these coupon books are an excellent deal (if you control your gambling)! You pay $17 for an RV spot each night, but you get a coupon book for each night. The coupon book has one coupon for a “free” $5 bill, one coupon to match your $5 bet on any table game, one free $1 Keno game, one $1 snack food item, $3 off at the restaurant, & $5 off their shrimp feast.

Saturday morning after loosing more than our fair share at Angel of the Winds, we moved to Northern Lights Casino (aka Swinomish Casino). After setting up camp, we then took a scenic drive through the North Cascade Mountains & the towns of Sedro Wooley, Concrete, Rockport, Darrington, Oso, etc. The most scenic town was Concrete. The town of Concrete has undergone several incarnations, the earliest being a settlement at the northwestern junction of the Baker and Skagit Rivers, known as "Minnehaha". In 1905, a settlement across the Baker River came into being due to the building of the Washington Portland Cement Company and was named "Cement City".
After the Superior Portland Cement Company plant was built in 1908, it was decided to merge the two towns. Inhabitants of the new community settled on the name "Concrete" and the town was so christened and officially incorporated on May 8, 1909. We wonder why the town isn’t called Cement, since concrete was never manufactured there; & everyone knows there is a big difference between cement (which was manufactured there) & concrete - right? The name of the town is more representative of the construction material of most of the buildings in town. After two devastating fires in the early 1900s, most of the buildings were rebuilt out of poured concrete (not cement). Upon first glance from the street, the buildings look like they were built out of wood siding in the early 1900s; but upon closer examination (ie touching) you discover they are poured concrete. For some reason Concrete believes it is the “center of the known universe”! We are not sure what the difference between the “known universe” & the “universe” in general is?

Saturday & Sunday nights were spent at the Northern Lights Casino; which didn’t give anywhere near the freebies that Angel of the Winds did & cost much more for a RV camping spot. The nice (or lucky) thing was that Corrie did very, very, well on the penny slots; such that, we almost broke even for gambling on all four days. One evening we went into the town of Anacortes for dinner & a walk about. On our previous visit(s) we notice they had city trash cans decorated to look like “old time” packaging on cans of packed salmon in homage to the numerous salmon packing houses that existed in Anacortes at one time. This time we noticed they also had painted “cutouts” of people, cars, boats, etc, etc, on the sides of various buildings. The 3-D effect is something different than the “usual” wall murals you see in a lot of other cities.

01-11MAY11 - Monroe, WA (via kittitas, wa)

Saturday, 30APR, we arrived once again at cousin Steve & Bonnie Kiesel’s in Kittitas, WA. Followers of our BLOG know all about the Kiesels & how often we stop & spend time with them. Turns out Steve was off fishing for trout with the guys. So we decided to take Bonnie out for a belated birthday dinner. Sunday Steve returned with fresh trout for dinner & Bonnie prepared a delicious clam chowder. We were also fortunate that their son, Kenneth, joined us for dinner. The rest of our visit was spent just relaxing & visiting; with no heavy duty farm chores!

http://theryanrvexpress.blogspot.com/2010/08/01-07aug10-various-wa-if-its-tuesday-it.html

Tuesday, 03MAY, we finally finished our cross country drive to our almost permanent spot at Evergreen State Fairgrounds, Monroe, WA. That afternoon we headed out to our property to check on things. Apparently western WA experienced a very wet winter/spring as shown by the amount of water on our property. Wednesday was an excellent weather day so we hauled a bunch of stuff to the barn, Corrie trimmed some trees & Dan washed the car.

http://theryanrvexpress.blogspot.com/2010/05/01-08may10-monroe-wa-casinos.html

After a delicious Mother’s Day brunch on Sunday, we met Bonnie & Steve at our property to “trade” tractor implements. We gave up a fertilizer spreader for a five hundred pound block of concrete that you can hang on the back of the tractor. Why? Because we won’t be growing any crops on our property, so don’t need a spreader; & they had an “extra” concrete block, which greatly improves traction on wet ground. Although tractors have massive rear wheels often filled heavy liquid calcium (like ours), tractors still need additional weight on the rear when maneuvering on wet or loose ground; especially when using the front end loader.

Wednesday, 11MAY, Dan headed into Everett to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity. For a couple of years in Houma, LA, Dan volunteered with the Bayou chapter of Habitat. For the last two summers in WA he has meant to connect with the local chapter, but hasn’t. Anyway he finally got off his butt & tracked down the local representative, & was told to bring his tools to the job site first thing Wednesday morning. Although the two houses under construction are almost done, it was still good to do something constructive that benefits those less fortunate then us.

http://www.habitat.org/