Wednesday morning, July 10, Jon and I had just finished breakfast, when Namen James with Messer Paving came to tell us the paving job would be started in a couple hours. Namen was suppose to notify us two days before the paving would be done. He slipped up on calling us. The first job Jon did was fill in the ditch along a part of the driveway. Next had to dig the water line across the driveway in front of the workshop in a hurry. With a pick and shovel he dug the trench. He wasn't only dealing with clay and rocks, but with an area that had been packed over a 6 year period.
Donald Messer drove the road grader up the hill to start grading the section of driveway to the new house. The gravel truck driver followed Donald and dumped the gravel as he came down the driveway. The section to the new house is one of the three sections we had paved.
Santiago did a good job of leveling the gravel. He certainly knows how to operate the box blade. When he finished this section, he helped Jon with the water trench digging. All three men had to wait until Jon was done digging before they could cross the trench to get to the section below the workshop. After they finished the section below the workshop, they proceeded to prepare the driveway entrance off Burningtown Road. Early Tuesday morning, the water truck arrived and spread water on the three sections.
The young man operating the packer, was diligent to get the entire width of the driveway packed well. Once he was done packing, the other men went into action getting their equipment ready. Then they took a break and waited for the asphalt truck to arrive. The process started at the back of the new house and proceeded down hill.
The truck of asphalt was driven in front the spreader and dumped the asphalt into the spreader a section at a time. The 400 degree asphalt was steaming for quite some time. After the asphalt was completely spread, the men continued to pack the edges manually. It was still steaming, when the final packing and smoothing was done. The young man worked the edges first, by walking outside the pavement's edge. As it cooled he worked his way onto the pavement until he covered the entire surface. We waited 24 hours before driving on the driveway. Our van pulls up the drive without having to work so hard now.
