The Black Canyon of the Gunnison

Lots of stuff going on this past week. The "volvo" garage got an uplift with installation of wallboard. That was mostly Evan's doing. Chris continued on spackling in the "great room" ... he's not real fond of heights so being up on the scaffold made him really happy. I'm best at ground level, so painting the resulting walls in kitchen and dining area with primer fell to me.

Meanwhile, the stucco crew arrived en force and got right to the "brown coat" which is the first application that readies the wall for the following layers. I rather liked the look of it when it was wet ... not so much when it dried a lighter cement color. We are a little betwixt and between on the final color, so stay tuned.

Our stone mason has come back to finish the walls below the kitchen windows and wrapping around to the wall which frames the volvo garage door ... after that, he'll be done. The schools here have off on friday (to save money) so young Jared is not playing hookey from school when he works as Aden's assistant.

Steve is making and installing bases for exterior lamps ... we need a flat surface to mount the lamps on the board and batten wall. He is also installing extra insulation in the walls of Chris' workshop, so those walls will be really thoroughly insulated ... the 6" SIP panels plus however thick that pink fiberglass fluff is. We're not messing around here as you can see.

A visit from back home in Pennsylvania gladdened our hearts this weekend: Josh (who works at Leydon Restorations) and his gal Betsy passed through for an overnight to check on us. Betsy is relocating to study for her masters degree at Stanford in California. We know Betsy's parents from the wonderful years when we were all Buckingham Friends School parents back when our kids were of elementary school age. We were dismayed to see that the resident cows had left their calling card on the shop floor while we were gone ... I hope those garage doors come in soon.

Dom and Wendy lured us away one day for an outing to go on a pontoon boat ride through the Black Canyon of the Gunnison River. What a magnificent experience! It's a deep gorge which was much deeper before in was dammed ... we learned that the bed of a narrow gauge railroad line lays submerged in the murky depths.

The Denver & Rio Grande Railroad had build this crazy amazing line through the canyon to cash in on some of the wealth generated by all the gold and silver extracted in the mountains during that bygone era of our raw and rugged past. The line was advertised as a primo tourist destination as well and the first passengers climbed aboard in 1882. The logo for the RR at the time was the Curecanti Needle which we saw from both water level and from up above at the rim of the canyon.