Build Day 6 and, the week-end!

What a great week-end! On Sunday most of us toured two great tourist sites - highly recommended to those of you travelling this way.

First, we went to "Big Spring" - Kitch-iti-kipi where, legend has it Indian braves and maidens made decisions about their love lives. 200 feet across, 40 feet deep, with 16,000 gallons per second flowing from the underlying limestone. You float across the Spring on a self-operated observation raft, and get to take pictures through the crystal clear water of the water bubbling up through the sand. For more info, and location go to www.uppermichiganwaterfalls.com

Then, on to Fayette Historic State Park, which is a townsite formerly owned by Jackson Iron Company. It closed in 1891, and in the late 50's the State bought the site and has been restoring in since then. Many buildings, or their foundations still exist, and the free admission, and free guided tour and good signage make a visit very informative. Learning about life in a company town in mid-19th century makes me very grateful for being alive today, not then.

For more information, go to this website

Here's a photo of the old smelter.

Then, on the way back, the foreign visitor in the group (me), was introduced to a new American tradition - frozen custard at Culver's. I had a brownie blaster cement mixer with chopped up heath bars added - think Dairy Queen, on steroids! yum.

Today at the build we continue to make good progress. The insulation is on most of the outside of the house; the tar paper is on half of the roof; we'll finish both tomorrow. It was another hot day - high 90's, plus humidity, so we sweat a lot, a lot. I should lose weight, right??? I spent the day with the Skilsaw; and cutting insulation with a box knife. We were disappointed to learn that the windows won't arrive in town until next week, so we can't put them in; that also means we can't insulate or sheetrock the interior walls; or finish the siding. Darn - we really would like to leave Joe and Aimee further along, but it's definitely out of our control.

Here's where we got to by end of day today. Bye for now.