Amazing what twelve loads of rock (
the total is now closer to sixty loads! - d) will do for a few holes in the road.
That all arrived yesterday afternoon and early evening. It made an
almost immediate difference in the road. For the most part, yesterday afternoon was dry, well that is, without rain. The roadway was as wet as it has been for weeks, even with the rocks being delivered.
It was interesting watching vehicles go by - some not trusting what was going on on the road, so they took the bypass through the vacant lots. Most of those got stuck, even if it was only for a few minutes. Did I mention last time that we're pretty sure that slightly more than sixty vehicles have become stuck since this began? Better than watching television, I tell you.
Here's the first dump truck load of rock being delivered. It really was a welcome sight. And, as I'm writing this, load number 13 was just dropped. So far, that's about 195 yards of rock in the roadway. Not bad. And, the rain is just now starting again, after having slacked off for most of the morning. It had rained pretty much steadily all night long, and for the road to be passable this morning, I'd say that was a good test.
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| Load One |
Second load showed up shortly after the first (as you might guess).
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| The Next One Arrives |
A little after the second load was delivered, the Belize Water Service guys, who had also gotten stuck in the muck for an hour or so yesterday afternoon, arrived and began conducting what appeared to be rudimentary tests involving a long skinny stick, to see if any of their pipes had been broken. Of special concern was the deep ditch running across the road where the worker is below. That is where a feeder line from the main runs over to Mae and Craig's house. Apparently nothing had gone amiss, as shortly after, rock was dumped all along that way.
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| BWS Protecting Their Pipes |
As in, like this load being dumped below.
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| Another Load Going In |
Initially, the roadway looks deceptively smooth and even. You can't tell that it's hiding a hole across the roadway that's about three-and-a-half to 4-feet deep.
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| Deceptively Shallow Looking |
And here's the load that's actually going into that hole.
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| Bombs Away |
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| A Little Here, A Little There |
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| Incoming |
Quite a few load go into making this bit fairly solid again. And even the dump truck runs the risk of getting mired in the muck. He spun his wheels a good little bit before he was able to work himself free to dump his load.
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| Almost Stuck |
And, just as a change of pace, let's face the other way as we dump our load, OK?
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| Doing It The Other Direction |
For the last load of the evening, the truck is almost hidden from view as he runs the bed up.
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| Almost Hidden From View |
This morning, I ran the Isuzu over the rocks into town to make the mandatory stop at the Belikin distributors, and at the grocery store for necessary supplies. This was about 7:30 AM. The roadway was very bumpy, but still, it was far better than trying to float across the sea of mud.
After I dropped off the beer, groceries, and the doggies, who had gone with me for the shopping trip, I went back over it again, even rougher than the first trip, as the grader was back and had things really messy. I had to get the car up to Rick the mechanic so he could work on the brakes. The way it usually works is, I pick Rick up from his shop and we come back to our place. Then he takes the Isuzu and does his work on it, and brings it back to us when done. So how many of you up north have home visits from your mechanic?
After I got dropped off by Rick, The super-duper '
single-drum vibratory road roller' showed up and began really getting the rockery smoothed out on the road way. That big wheel vibrates a lot, and just bashes the rocks down. Pretty cool machine really. We last saw it here about two years ago when it smoothed the whole road.
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| Road Roller |
After this last shot below, showing the whole team, the dump truck, the grader, and the roller, the dump truck dropped the fourteenth load of rock, the others smoothed it out and bashed it down and now they've moved just south of us working around Dr. Mike and Shelley's place and Denis and Vivien's as well. I'm not going to go down there and take photos. You've probably got a pretty good idea of what's going on down there by now.
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| Load #14 and the Whole Crew |
I'm not sure if they're going to be bringing any more loads in for our area. It'd be nice if they brought in some loads of marl eventually, as sort of a top-dressing for the road, but as long as we're having almost constant rain, bringing marl in would probably be a waste of time. Anyway, it's like a 'whole nuther road' out there now. All nice and not full of holes and ditches and stuff.
