In July of 2000, when John's grandfather died, cousin Dana had mentioned that they would like to come up for a visit soon. A general plan was made, and we all went our separate ways.
Several months later, we received a phone call one evening from Eric. They had been sending E-mail to my home account about coming for a visit, but I had not replied. I told him that I rarely check my home E-mail, but that we would like to see them. I asked when they were planning to come see us and he said TONIGHT! I was a bit surprised, but said to come on over.
They all drove up that night and camped out (their choice) beside the cord crib.
I had to work, so I did not get to see anyone until the following evening.
During that time, Kathy took Dana, Patti, Catlin, Eric & Deric on a tour of the farm.
For reasons that still confuse us, they decided that removing the gravel from
the turret would be the thing to do on their vacation.
In this picture, You can see Eric down in the turret.
On the left side of the wall, you can see the stains where the stairs once were.
He and Dana used shovels, buckets, and pure hard work to remove the gravel in the pit.
When they first started, the gravel was up to the level of the top of the concrete.
Here you can see Dana working in the pit.
He has dug out a lot more that the prior picture.
Note that he is below the level of the top of the turret (keeping mind that Dana is
over 6 feet tall).
If you look closely, you can see where the stairs once were down near the level of the gravel.
They spent two days digging the thing out, hauling gravel, and in general working
VERY hard on what was being called a "vacation".
While not visible in this picture, we also found the old water tank that was used by
this abandoned pump house. The tank is located to the left of this image.
Here is Kathy being silly.