Let's talk about the good stuff first.
Everyone in the family - us, our children and their significant others - has been vaccinated! Son-in-law Joe just received his first shot; everyone else is all done. We've managed to get through this pandemic without anyone being infected with this dreadful disease. Although we've all had to weather disappointments and disruptions, we HAVE survived.
With vaccines in hand, we needed to get up to Seattle to see our beloved granddaughter Parker. Oh, seeing Heather and Dan, and Scott and Sara would be nice, too! We hit the road with the dogs and drove up to Seattle over Easter weekend. Since Heather and Dan's house is well set up for guests, it's easier, faster and cheaper for the four of us to simply pile into The Beast and drive like crazy up I-5. It's right at 1,000 miles, and we can do it fairly easily in two days drive.
Parker is at an absolutely adorable age. She chatters up a storm, and doesn't slow down from the minute she wakes up until she goes to bed. She's got a will of her own. Her "NO!" followed by an emphatic shake of her head lets everyone know if she disagrees with what's going on.
On Easter Sunday, we drove over to the University of Washington campus, a few miles away, to see the magnificent grove of cherry trees on campus. We also wandered around their arboretum and botanical gardens on the edge of campus.
Other Stuff
We got thrown a massive curve by SLO County's Planning and Building Department. We were expecting to have final review of the permits shortly after we returned from Seattle. We knew that we needed to have a well dug on our property, but we'd held off on getting that started because where we want to site the well is a spot that also needs to be graded. Both the drilling contractor and the grading contractor felt it best to grade first and then drill the well; this minimizes the chance of damage to the wellhead. Our general contractor also felt this was OK.
Well, the county disagreed. Our permit, which is otherwise fully approved, won't be released until they have a water quality test report in hand... which requires the well be drilled! NO ONE saw this coming. In fact, when we told the drilling guy about all this, he asked us "Is this a new policy?" Had we known this, we could have had the well drilled months ago!
So, now the drilling guy is moving full speed ahead on getting a drilling permit and has us on his drilling schedule. The problem there: he's shorthanded and the current queue is about a month long! We figure that this delay will cost us, at minimum, 4-6 weeks. Oh, well.
The first step in getting a drilling permit is to simply drive a stake in the ground at the desired location. The county will come out and check that it meets their location requirements. So, as you can see below, we have visible activity on our home site!
We have been informed that everything else is good to go; the county has said all we need to do is pay the fees and submit the well water quality report. There shouldn't be any last-minute surprises.
On a bit of good news, MHS, the local manufactured home vendor, has received a model home that is the same model as ours. Although it differs in some details and options, the basic layout and dimensions let us plan and measure to our heart's content. We've been there twice already, with another trip (at least!) in the near future.
