Somewhere in the Peace and Quiet

I have always dreamed of having a retreat. A place where I could go to get away from the daily grind. Maybe the mountains or maybe the ocean (Nah! No way with all her hurricanes and stuff). OK! The mountains then. That settles that! The problem was that I continued to dream and never actually did anything about it ... until 2004! I had no idea what I was in for so my ignorance was bliss as I set out to build a house on top of a mountain in Western North Carolina. I had become friends with a man who put a porch on my house in Kennesaw, Georgia. We had several conversations, then took our thoughts to an architect buddy and the next thing I know, we're staking off the footprint of the house. Simple!

ELECTRICITY: No problem! Not so fast. We had to dig a 900 foot-long trench through rocky soil and it had to be 4 feet deep. Duke Power told us that after the cable was placed, we would have to fill the ditch by hand because large machinery would drop rocks onto the cable and cause damage to the plastic coating. Did I mention that the 900 foot-long ditch was up an average 20-30 degree incline? In the summertime heat!

WATER: No problem! Just dig a well, right! Not so fast. We had to go 850 feet. At $11.00 per foot. And it cost $6500.00 to hook it to the house and we only got 2 gallons per minute. I learned one lesson quickly: Water is KING of the mountains!

Now that we had water and electricity, everything should be smooth sailing from here on in! Right! Not so fast again! We encountered stormy seas! I discovered that when turkey season, deer season, friday afternoon or just about anything else came up, laborers in the mountains ceased to labor. We had to bring in framers, carpenters, HVAC people, roofers and all the building materials from Atlanta. In addition, we had to give them room and board in this distant city. My dream home was turning into a nightmare! At least the big-city workers were competent and my builder had used them before and had a great relationship with them. We were able to find a great local bulldozer man, gutter man and plumber. But that's about all.

After 14 months and lots of money, we finally finished and moved in the weekend of the fourth of July, 2005. If I knew then what I know now, there would be no house, but the Lord takes care of little children and fools! Since I'm 54 years old, see if you can guess which category I'm in.

Now that it's all over, my wife and I can sit on the upper porch in our rockers and wonder out loud, "How in the world did we get this thing built?"

My experience on the mountain has verified the truthfullness of an old adage: Everybody wants to be on top of the mountain, but very few are willing to do what it takes to get there.

I have to be honest, I'm kinda' proud of myself.