Bob's Eyes

Wednesday April 23, Guerneville CA.

Road work

With our seasonal rains mostly finished for the year, I’m able to make some real progress getting stuff done on this job, after a real wet winter that really slowed me down. On a good note, with all the rain, I was able to find all the real bad spots in the old road and repair them, one by one, so this will be a very good old road when I’m done working on it.

I’ve arranged to get some rock hauled by the state park dump truck, so I want to finish enough stuff off so the guy can drive the heavy loaded dump truck up and down the road without getting stuck.

Water crossing

This water crossing needs some work as the water isn’t running off the road properly. I plan to dig it a bit deeper and roll it out some more to make it easier for low cars to get across it. I plan to put some rock  in it to make sure it doesn’t turn to mud.

Here’s another view of the water crossing showing how shallow it is. During a heavy rain storm, there’s lots of water that will cross the road here so it needs to be constructed to take that and not wash out.

Culverts

It turns out that the state park has lots of new culverts I could use, but I want a low maintenance road so will not use any of them. In general, people use too many culverts that aren’t really needed which just makes for a high maintenance road when it doesn’t need to be. I would use a culvert, it I really needed one, but these crossings don’t really need culverts. It’s not like there are creeks that run all year long.

Getting to work

I continued on up the hill to where Skiddy was parked and got it warmed up and went to work on that crossing.

I got that water crossing all finished up then moved to the next spot. I put the extra dirt on the edge of the road to build up the outer part of the road in this spot. It’s the outside of the road and not a part that one drives on, unless maybe, when two cars meet and have to pass each other.

Another old road

There was another old road that takes off from this road. A lot of the water from the main old dirt road washed down it originally and caused a lot of erosion debris to wash down into the park, so I needed to repair the damage on it and get that old road opened up. There were a lot of old dead trees that had fallen across that road over the years, so I worked on clearing all the debris off it. These were some of the old trees across that road. These are all across that road and I’m pushing them down the road and then off it. This kind of work is a lot more fun than hauling rock all day long.

I worked on that until the fuel gauge warning light came on and had to quit for the day.

Nice day.

Monday April 24, 2025 Guerneville CA.

Ride in the forest

Of course I headed up the old road to check it out. All was good. I did stop at the state park shop to talk with the guys there about hauling some rock, but no one was there, so there were all out working somewhere.

The old road was looking good. I did stop here as the water is running down the road some, instead of across and off it. Even though it doesn’t look like it, that area is all wet, but for some reason the camera didn’t pick it up. I do some adjusting on this crossing the next time I come down this way with Skiddy.

Rode around the neighborhood

Since I didn’t have much to do, I rode around the roads, mostly the ones that go to the neighbors as I had a couple things to check out on some work I promised the neighbors I’d do.

On the way back out one of the neighbors caught up with me so we shot the bull for a bit.

She just go this new car and realized she didn’t have her gate key with her and it was a long ways back to their place. I let  her out of the gate with my key, but was wondering how she’d get back in as she drove away.

I went on home for a nap from there as I didn’t have anything planned for the day.

Later

After my nap I walked over to this neighbor’ by my house. I walked on through this old apple orchard in bloom.

The creek that runs by my house looks just like this as my place is just out of sight. It dries up in the summer as there are no beaver on the creek like there would of been in the old days before the settlers arrive from the east.

Park visit

After another nap, I hopped on my dirt bike and headed back up to the state park to catch up with the park guys. They are usually at the shop just before quitting time.

The guys I wanted to talk with were there, so among other things; we talked about them hauling some rock for me.

Dirt bike ride

As long as I was on my dirt bike, I rode on up the old dirt road again to check some stuff out, I wanted to rock when the park guys get some for me.

I the way out, I ran into the same neighbor lady with  the new truck, which was lucky for her as she still didn’t have a key for the gate. They did have a key arranged their son was going to come by with after his work, but they’d have to wait about an hour or so for that to happen. I let them through the gate.

Back home

I put the chainsaw back together I’ve been working on and tried to start it. It putted once, but that was it. I either flooded it or it has some kind of gas problem. I put it aside and will gave it one more try, later, to see if I just flooded it.

Nice day.