10 Tons Of Fun

I think I mentioned before that the wife has been working part time for a few months now.  She is putting the money she earns into projects around the house.  She has already paid for new gutters all around the house as well as some work done in other areas.  Next on her agenda was our driveway.  Last winter we had a snowstorm or two that made getting out of our driveway and onto the highway that runs in front of our house quite difficult.  Due to the slight incline as you head toward the road, the overall lack of gravel and a row of trees partially obstructing our view of the east and west, getting out of the driveway was quite an adventure.  Toward the end of one snowstorm (after the son and I did our best to shovel a path) we basically had to get a running start.  We had a “point of decision” or “point of no return” about 15 foot from the road where you had to decide (quite quickly) if you thought you a) had enough velocity to make it up the incline and b) could successfully avoid any traffic coming from either direction.  Fun times.

Anyway, a fresh layer of gravel is needed and that was next on the wife’s list of projects with her part time job money.  She called around a little bit and found a place very near to us that could deliver gravel and spread it out (to some degree) for us.  She had to measure the square footage of the driveway and the small area to the side that we have for extra parking and decided that we needed 11 to 12 tons of gravel.  Evidently, due to some weight limits for a single axle truck, going from 10 tons (allowed on a single axle truck) to 11 or 12 tons would greatly increase the delivery cost so we made do with 10 tons.

Above is a picture of part of the driveway and the extra parking area (note the large rocks that mark the end, also note the much nicer looking driveway of the neighbor to the east of us).  The grass was taking over and I had to mow the driveway a few times this summer.

Here is an action shot of the truck dropping off some of the gravel.  You can get an idea of the size of the truck compared to our Kia minivan.

Here is a nice shot of the finished driveway.  I had to do some raking as you can only be so accurate in spreading out the gravel with a big dump truck.  The driver really did a good job and we (the wife especially) is happy with the results.  We also came in at about 1/2 the amount we thought it would cost to do this project.  I can hardly wait for the first snowstorm to see how much easier it is to get out of the driveway.

Jon