Before I started this project, I'd never given a lot of thought to driveways. It turns out, they're pretty important.
Let's state the obvious: Rosy is a minivan, and has about six inches of clearance underneath. Which makes her a great vehicle for traveling and sleeping in, but no good at all for getting across an 18-inch culvert separating the land from the road.
In D.C., this would have taken many forms and a lot of waiting. But in Hector, I just called the highway superintendent and he told me to put out some stakes where I wanted the driveway. They sold me the pipe for about $7/foot, but installed it and supplied the gravel for free.
"Buy the pipe from the city," the excavation guy told me. "The gravel is the last free thing you'll ever get from them."
The time from my email exchange with the highway guy to the driveway being installed was something like six days. And that includes a Friday they apparently don't work, and a weekends. So, three days.
I'm not sure if Hector is just that efficient, or that tiny. I think seven people work in Town Hall.
Brother: "You should have asked them if they got a permit for the town hall building."
Me: "They didn't need one. Structure is too small."
Jokes aside, I have a driveway.
And an address. On Friday I called emergency services and asked if they'd been able to locate the land, as a "fire number" is needed for a building permit.
"I was just out there an hour ago," said the guy who answered the phone. "Scared away a bunch of your deer."
