You've Lost That Sinking Feeling

Ever since we had the big tree cut out of our front yard 2.5yrs ago, we've had a sinkhole in the lawn where it used to be. When they ground out the stump, they only ground it down to just below the level of the lawn. Which meant that over the intervening years, the root bowl has slowly rotted and decomposed, and the ground has sunk further and further down because of it.

It's been annoying, but we have plans to re-do the front yard completely, so we've been putting off dealing with the hole, and it's keeps getting deeper and deeper. I had originally planned to have a guy with an excavator come out and scrape the yard to make it all level again, which would have been great, but it didn't come cheap.

The sinkhole had gotten deep enough that 6 months ago Jess couldn't get the mower into it to mow that section. Recently, it had even gotten too difficult for me to navigate with the mower, so in my laziness I'd resorted to using the weed-eater on that section. But it finally came to a head when I nearly fell into it one week, and then the following week the neighbour's visitor's kids were playing in it, and I didn't know how our liability insurance would stand up, given it was a pretty hazardous situation that we knew about, and it was in our front yard, without a fence or anything around it. Since both Jess and I have worked/still work for a personal injury law firm/s, it's probably not something we could plead ignorance about!

So one weekend I attacked the hole and dug up as much rotting wood as I could get out. I figured that the more I removed now, the less it was going to sink in future. Then, I broke out the handy 4WD/steamroller, to compact the existing base of the hole as much as possible.

Doesn't look that bad from this angle, does it?

Still not too bad.


Now you're starting to get a bit of an idea...


I think I touched the sidesteps down a couple of times, but only just. The hole was probably about 40cm deep at it's deepest spot - maybe a little more, but it was about 2-3m round, as you'll soon see.

After having a disproportional amount of fun (and giving the Pathfinder the toughest 4WD low-range workout it's had in months...), it was off to borrow the ute, and pick up half a cubic metre of crusher dust.


That proved a little optimistic - the hole still wasn't full. A week later, we went through the process again, and deposited another half-metre of dust into the hole. This bought it basically level, but in truth, it could do with a bit more, just to finish it off.


We've planted some grass runners into the middle of it, and have been watering it every night if we remember/every second night if we forget, and it seems to be coming along.


Even though we're out of our peak grass-growing season, I'm confident that if we can keep the water up to it, it'll have grassed over in no time. Even as it is, it looks considerably better than an overgrown mine shaft in the front yard. When we get more crusher dust for the side yard (more details in a future exciting instalment!), we'll make sure we get a bit extra to top dress this with, and finish it off nicely.

Slowly but surely, we're knocking over some of these little jobs that are just making the house much, MUCH easier to live in, and making it look so much nicer as well.

Holidays - Grand Canyon

Whilst we were in Vegas, we had arranged a day trip flight out to the Grand Canyon. It meant getting out of bed at 4am so we'd be ready in time to be picked up by the bus at 5, but was well worth it. We drove out to Boulder Airfield, and took off just as the sun broke over the surrounding mountains.

The flight out lasted about an hour, and took us from the middle of the desert over mountain ranges, forests, gorges and the canyon itself. We had assumed that since we were heading out into the Nevada desert, being winter the morning would be cold, but the day would warm up quickly. As such, we were dressed reasonably lightly. What we hadn't accounted for was that the canyon rim is on a plateau, at roughly 7,000ft elevation. As we were nearing our destination, it could be clearly seen that there was still considerable snow on the ground from the falls the week before. Obviously it's not been above 0 degrees since then!

As soon as we landed, Jess and I shuffled from our nice heated plane and into the small airfield terminal, where we proceeded to fine the two warmest jackets we could get our hands on. Having already bought jackets once this holiday, we didn't really need any more, but I was determined to enjoy the day, and you can't do that if you've for hypothermia! The day did warm up, but it was never what you would call "warm". Thankfully though we had perfect weather - not a cloud in the sky, and visibility for miles.

Suitable rugged up, we jumped on our bus and were taken out to the canyon rim, and the most unimaginable vistas you've ever experienced. It's breathtakingly beautiful, and the photos we took cannot capture the immense effect it has on you. Everywhere you look, it's different. As the sun rises, the colours change, and the shadows move. It's completely stunning - you could sit and watch one section all day, and still be noticing new things when you've finished. The scale is deceiving - it doesn't look that big until you are able to make out a faint walking track 2/3rds the way down the canyon, and then everything falls into perspective.

Suffice to say, this was one of the standout highlights of the trip, and was well worth experiencing yourself if you can. We were a bit disappointed, as we had booked a tour that included a helicopter flight through the canyon - something that I was excitedly looking forward to, and had been the whole trip. However, on the day, there had been some sort of mixup, and we had been booked on their normal tour, which didn't include the chopper flight. Very, very disappointing.

So, without further adue, here's the photos of the Grand Canyon!

2009-02-12, OS Holiday - 5 - Grand Canyon

Holidays - Las Vegas

Viva, Las Vegas! This week's episode finds us in sunny Nevada for a few days in Las Vegas. We were staying at the MGM Grand casino, right in the heart of The Strip. As luck would have it, there was a UFC title fight at the MGM the night after we arrived, and the Superbowl was on Sunday (we had arrived Friday)! So there was a couple of people around!

Vegas was a lot of fun, and if you were a big partier or a big gambler, you could really lose yourself there. After putting the odd dollar into the slots all weekend (as much gambling as we ever do) and pulling out nothing, Jess struck it big time just as we were leaving for the airport, and pulled almost $60 out of a machine! We cashed out straight away, and that more than paid for our taxi ride!

Upon leaving Vegas I was happy that we'd been, but couldn't see myself going back. I'm slowly changing that opinion though, and wouldn't mind going back again at some point. It's not high on my list of places to re-visit, but I would like to.

Anyway, no big write up today - onto the photos! Next up, the Grand Canyon!

2009-02-12, OS Holiday - 4 - Las Vegas

Holidays - Cincinnati

Slowly making our way through the holiday photos! Today's episode finds us staying in Cincinnati with Warren and Angie. If we thought that New York was cold, then we were in for a rude shock in Ohio! Most days we'd wake up to an outside temp of between -10 and -20 Celsius. Especially considering that a week before we had been in 35-degree tropical Cairns summer days!

We had a blast in the week we stayed with Warren and Ange - can't thank them enough for putting us up and for taking the week to show us around. The end of the week came around far too quickly, unfortunately, even though we did pack as much in there as we could.Still - that's as good a reason to go back in a couple of years as I've ever heard!

We had hoped to see some snow, and weren't disappointed - there was some ripper snow storms that came through! Unfortunately the down side of that was that we were stuck at home for a couple of days, and a lot of people had their power cut - luckily we escaped all that. Having never seen snow before, both Jess and I were excited to get out and play around in it. After the second day of shovelling off the driveway though, I think I've had my fill of snow!

As you'll see from the photos, whilst we were there we:
* Hung out in their basement which Warren had converted from a bare, concrete box to a multipurpose rec room complete with bar fridge and fireplace, playing airhockey, guitar hero a Simpons game;

* Drove 4hrs down to the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green. Was wonderful to see the history of the car and see all the collectable cars that are on loan to the museum. Unfortunately their gift shop could use some work, as I don't think any of us could find something worth buying!

* Had some Chilli for lunch at Skyline Chilli - a local Cincinnati institution. We had a three-way each, and a brace of Chilli Coneys (like a small hotdog). Was very tasty!

* Sledded down the hill out the back of Warren & Angie's place on some cardboard and a sheet of plastic. The day after, we actually had proper sleds to use! The rosebushes and concrete culvert at the bottom of the hill proved interesting though!

* Explored around Angie's Dad's barns, and his collection of restored cars. Had a ride in Warren's mustang out in the snow to get some gas!

* Walked around a local park in the snow, and watched the kids sledding in a big natural bowl - hilarious chaos!

* Walked along the river in downtown Cincinnati, and across the river to Newport for lunch. As we were walking along the river, a fine day turned to a light dusting of snow - magical!

* Played with the cats

* Visited the local Harley dealer (Aces and Eights HD) and marvelled at the price of brand new bikes. $10k for a brand new Buell - where do I sign up???!!!

* Visited the local GM dealership for a warranty repair to Warren's truck. Marvelled at the price of the second hand Dodge RAM SRT10 in their yard - $24k! Where do I sign up???!!!

And heaps more that I won't bore you with. Suffice to say, we had a ball. Was great to see both Warren and Angie again, and they went out of their way to make us welcome. Easily the best week of the entire holiday for me. Would love to go back, but maybe a direct from from AUS to the US next time!

Thanks again to Warren and Angie for putting us up, running us to and from airports at ridiculous times in the morning, and just generally having us there. We had a blast. Hope you enjoyed it too!

Here's the photos:

2009-02-12, OS Holiday - 3 - Cincinnati

Next up - Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon!

Holidays - New York

New York, New York! What a wonderful place. Despite being such a big, busy city, the people were lovely, friendly, and all too eager to help. Big shoutout there to our very flamboyant concierge at the hotel, who not only procured last minute Lion King tickets for us, but was sure to follow up the next day and make sure we enjoyed ourselves immensely.

2009-02-12, OS Holiday - 2 - New York

The City That Never Sleeps certainly didn't disappoint us, even though we didn't scratch it's surface. We stayed in a hotel in Manhattan, 2 blocks from Central Park. Our first day there was Obama's inauguration, and apparently a huge party at Times Square. Unfortunately that had slipped our mind, and we had already booked ourselves on a tour out to Orange County Choppers and the big discount shopping village, where we stocked up on warm coats and gloves!

We had a three-day pass for the big red double-decker buses that run tours around the city in a hop-on, hop-off fashion, and they proved to be worth their weight in gold. We could jump on one a couple of blocks from our hotel, and get on and off as many times as we want, and basically self-guide our way around the city that way. The tour guides in the buses though did a (mostly) great job of explaining and pointing out bit and pieces of the city, and filling in the story around it all.

The Lion King was showing on Broadway, and as mentioned above we managed to get tickets on the day. We could have gone to one of the two "half price ticket" offices in the city, but we didn't want to waste half the day standing in line. The show was superb - easily the best performance of it's type that I've ever been to. Better even than The Phantom of the Opera which we saw in Sydney, with Anthony Warlow, and that's a big call!

Central Park was beautiful in the snow, and it's easy to see why New Yorkers love the place. during summer it would be completely different, and I'd love to go back and see it when it's all green someday.