Construction

I recently sent an e-mail to my friend Beverly.  She works for the City of Seattle.  To her horror I reported how she might have brought up our plight of the bad food we were being served while in the hospital.  All while she was being served something wonderful from Specialties.  I am glad the Lisa Brandenburg learned my whining is unending.

Anyway, while we were in-patient Beverly sent me a notice from the city explaining the lengthy construction project to be done between February and late September.  The plan was to completely re-do 85th from 15th Avenue NW to the freeway.  Huge project, long project, difficult project.  85th has become a major transportation route over the past few years.  I am not the only person that moved to Ballard.

So we have been living with the project.  Big equipment, big things that go into the ground.  We pound and dig and saw and make all sorts of noise.  We lay cement, we lay pavement we paint and putter and do more stuff.  

We have lived here long enough to know how to avoid it.  Then something happened to me.  Maybe it was going to happen anyway, but it certainly happened sooner than I thought.   I became intensely curious about the project. 

 I started driving on 85th as much as possible.  I loved seeing the progress, the big holes that appeared and disappeared.  I love watching the skill with which the digging guys picked up large items and small and moved them.  It really has been and education in what happens and what is below a street.  Granted there are lots of places and times that guys just stand around, looking in the hole or
 at the curb and contemplate the cost of beer or the best place to find a hamburger.

I realized the other day they were on the last part of the project.  I will miss them when it is gone.  The street will be perfect, the curbs continuous and the pot holes gone.  No more daily surprises.  Just a road. 

Meb has been under re-construction.  I won't miss when the bulldozers and grinders and cement trucks leave the site.  I will always remember what went into making the path smooth.
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