This is a story about me, a technician's technician, mechanically capable and an absolute perfect gentleman. Any resemblance to real live people, places or things is purely intentional and is completely ridiculous and absurd. My name is Tom. Oh yeah. Also in the story is my kid sister, Barb. Okay, she's only ten minutes younger than me, but I am the older child in our family.
We're almost 20; and
yes, my sister and I are twins; but if you didn't know it, you wouldn't even think we were related. I got the height, at 6'4"; she's only 5'2". She might be a hundred pounds wet and with rocks in her pockets; I weigh in at two hundred and fifteen pounds. She got the looks; I got the muscles. She has the easy tan skin of our Greek mom; I got the fair skin from our Irish dad. Even our hair is different, mine is the red that is almost orange and I keep it really short; hers is halfway down her back and the deep auburn that is almost brown, just red highlights in the bright sunlight.
This part of the story picks up on the fifth day of our vacation. That first day had been a real bummer, all about traveling to the cabin for our planned two week stay. The second day seemed to start out bad, but turned around pretty well shortly after lunch time. The third day, actually I learned a lot more about my relationship with my sister. The fourth day, I was in heaven all day; the day started well, pre-lunchtime was fantastic, afternoon was stupendous, and the day ended in the best way that a day could. For today, I'd probably have a lot less activity, but I think I'm going to really enjoy my quiet time today, too.
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Bam, bam, bam! I awoke to Barb pounding on the door of my room.
"Tom, you meathead, why didn't you wake me up before you put me in my bed; I nearly peed myself before I could get into the bathroom?"
"Well, you were the one who said you'd stay awake and make sure I didn't burn the cabin down. I guess all that dancing around to your music and putting so much effort into sunning doesn't prepare you for such a long walk in the woods."
"Okay, I guess I did conk out on you. But did you at least try to wake me so I could go before putting me in bed?"
"No, you were really sleeping deep, even snoring. I just figured you were too far gone to wake, even for the bathroom."
"I don't snore! How could you say that I do? I'm a delicate little girl, and girls don't snore."
"That's what you think. If I hadn't been a little tired myself, I could have used you to cut some more firewood. It would have gone lickety-split."
"Mom, tell Tom to stop teasing me. He's claiming I was snoring last night..."
"Now Barb, everyone snores a little bit when they are really tired, even us girls. Dad claims that sometimes he's afraid I'll shake the pictures off the walls with my snoring. I just never hear it because I'm asleep."
We all got a good chuckle out of that and I started getting myself together to head into the bathroom so I could start my day. Mom was sitting on the couch already, and Barb said she was ready to fix some French toast for breakfast, so if I wanted any I should say so now. I never passed up French toast and asked for my usual four slices. Coffee, French toast and sausages; my kind of breakfast; we all sat down to eat our fill.
I wondered if dad had fixed himself anything to eat before he left this morning. I know he hadn't tried to cook anything because there wasn't a burnt smell coming from the kitchen area. He probably had his usual bowl of cereal and any fruit that was available, just like always when mom wasn't there to fix something for him. Dad could grill over a fire with the best of them, but at a stove, he was all missed timing and burnt food.
Barb had found a note that dad left for us explaining that he had taken the left over rabbit to eat for lunch and that he planned to check on the next cabin site down before he came back at supper time. He always checked each site when we came up here since he had designed the basic cabin plan and made the blueprints to be followed by the builders. He wanted to be sure that no changes needed to be made as each of the cabin erections took place.
I told mom that we could just all hang at the cabin so we'd be there if she needed anything. She said that was fine by her, but that maybe I'd walk Barb up to the waterfall pool for some splash time later in the day. Barb said it was more important that we be here for mom than to go play in the pool.
I had an idea that I wanted to check out down at the creek right at the foot of our walkway up to the cabin. So while I was doing that, Barb would be playing her music and mom could sit and read from her tablet. My idea was that with a little work, we could clear enough of the rocks from the creek to enable us to have a small pool right there, maybe even have one deep enough for some swimming. Of course for that deep, we'd probably need to use some kind of backhoe or bulldozer, but since dad wanted to put in a crossing and a drive partway up to the cabin, we'd be using one here eventually anyway.
I was just going to move enough rocks to see if the bottom of the creek was a flat shelf of rock all the way across, like at the waterfall. I could do that in an area that was only about a foot to a foot and a half wide to see how deep it would be also. So I pulled off my shirt and shoes and in my trunks waded in and started moving rocks. There was no rush since it was all an experiment for now. If it worked out, each cabin could have its own swimming hole in the creek without having to dig a complete swimming pool.
After about an hour up at the cabin, Barb came roaming down to see what I was doing. She told me that she had talked with mom about the camera and the pictures and that everything was cool, that I should just not mention it at all. She said mom liked the idea of separate memory cards too.
Barb actually sat on the tree-trunk bridge that dad and his buddies had built when this site was selected for the first cabin. It was made of two trees, each about 10 inches in diameter and spaced about 3 feet apart. They were anchored at each end between several large rocks to keep them in place. Cross pieces were 8 inch diameter logs cut in half, arranged with the cuts up and touching side to side, and with the ends shaped to fit over the trees and pegged down to them. The middle of the bridge was about 8 feet off the ground so the highest water levels wouldn't touch the bottom of the trees.
I was doing my experiment about twelve feet upstream from the bridge since I knew that dad intended to put in the vehicle crossing right on the upstream side of the tree bridge. He had already ordered four ten foot long, 24 inch diameter corrugated steel culvert pipes to allow the creek to flow right through them while allowing a roadway to be built across over them.
That twelve foot wide section was a natural ford before dad and his buddies had apparently dumped on an additional ten inches or so of big gravel which brought the bottom up so that in the dry part of the year, there was only about 8 inches of water going over that ford bottom. They had done that so they could bring in a bobcat to dig the foundation hole for the cabin. The path up the hill to the cabin is where they had driven the bobcat up and down hauling in supplies to build the cabin. It would be too steep for any kind of car; the drive would loop off to the side so as to angle up the hill and form a switchback to a parking spot near the front of the cabin.