The weather ended up pretty good yesterday. With rain and thunderstorms in the forecast we just decided to do a short day of going to the used bookstore and a visit to this historical thing at a state park. After the bookstore, on our way to to the next place, we realized the weather was ok, so we ended up doing dh's original plan.
He wanted to visit this logging site just over the border in Idaho where he spent 3 years of weekends as a teenager at, cutting and hauling logs and firewood out. This is what he grew up doing for his dad. His dad had a full time job in construction, but this was his other full time job, to feed his family of a wife and 5 kids. Dh hated it growing up, but of course now that he's older has learned to appreciate what all his dad taught him. Anyhow, when we first moved here we tried going up there, but hit snow and never made it all the way up.
This time was a success. 43 years later, dh had a fairly good memory of how far along the logging road the landing was. He remembered another road shot off to the right and not to far down was where they worked. The steep forest had been logged via helicopters and at this landing they dropped the stuff they didn't want. The forest service put it out for bid to take out. I guess they and dh's dad thought it was just firewood stuff and dh's dad bid $200 for one season and got it. Turned out it ended up being a whole bunch of logs that were big enough for log homes and there were several log home building places where they lived, so they hauled it out and sold it to them. The rest was cut up and sold as firewood (their normal side business). For 3 years! So for $200 dh's dad made a good profit margin.
It's up 6000 feet in elevation. This offshoot road had a gate now. The road was still there, but a little over grown. We got out and started hiking and it was about 3/4 of a mile to where the spot was.
It was getting late by the time we came back over to our side and we were only a few miles from the restaurant so we decided to do that for dinner, instead of me having to make dinner at 7pm.
The evening's sunset was also very pretty
The kids left around 1pm. Their 2 mornings here were with cups of coffee and playing checkers on my marble chess/checker board sitting up in my loft area.
How nice for DH to finally be able to get to the logging spot that he remembers from his childhood. Sounds like his dad was a pretty sharp guy and knew a good deal, when he saw it. Lots of hard work is involved with that type of business. Seems DH has benefited, in the long run. Nice he was able to experience this and good on him, being able to remember the area and location of the roads etc. Ranee (MN)
ReplyDeleteI think it was just luck that they ended up with more than firewood, but his dad also wasn't going lose the opportunity to make more money, so he figured out a way to get the logs out.
DeleteThe Saturday trip sounds like it was a good experience for all. DH saw places from his youth and now you and daughter did, too. I am happy for him. I am sentimental about things like that, too. I can see where dh gets his skills and work ethic. What kind of work did he do between youth and moving here or his disability status?
ReplyDeleteDH worked in heavy construction, mostly road building
DeleteI can't imagine bidding on "a bunch of firewood" and then finding out you'd bought half a log cabin!!! But you're right, I think we only realize how hard our parents worked as we get older, don't we!
ReplyDeleteprobably was logs for lots of log cabins, haha. Makes one wonder what log homes around the area are still around from those logs ;)
DeleteYour weekend had a very nice sound to it; doing family things with your DD and SIL instead of rushing about and getting too tired to enjoy each other's company.
ReplyDeleteHow nice that they liked using your loft to play draughts! ( the UK word for checkers! )
well I learned something new! I didn't know checkers was called draughts ;)
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