The Big Adventure
We (Sam and I) got the word that the house was going to roll about midnight, so stocked up snacks and a coffee thermos and drove up to Harris, MN to intercept and take pictures.
A quiet night in a quiet town. A sheriff’s deputy cruised by a couple times then pulled up behind us with the flashers on. She did a quick flashlight sweep of the inside of my car (messy) and asked if we were okay.
We acted all innocent: “Yes we’re fine, we’re just waiting for our house to come by. You haven’t seen one, have you — there should be a state trooper escorting it—?”
Finally, just shy of 2am, a glimpse of flashing lights in the distance. Behold the glory of a house-moving parade/convoy/procession:
Then zooming back south on Highway 61 on a zigzag of township roads that would get us to Sunrise ahead of the convoy. At one point on a flat spot, we could see them across the fields, maybe a half-mile away. We were going faster, no doubt, but they had a much shorter route.
By the time we popped out onto the same road, they were only a quarter-mile behind us. We took a shortcut to the driveway, and got out of the car and into position just as they appeared at the end of the block.
The house is nearly home! There followed a flurry of action: I think there were only four guys but there could’ve been 5 or 6 — I lost count as they unloaded the Bobcat and various equipment and materials, and eased the truck into the driveway, continuously adjusting the angle of the dollies to keep everything lined up right.
Once they had the house safely off the road, the plan was to put it up on cribbing and call it a night (which by now is about 3am). They’ll come back on a later day to “roll it off” into the foundation hole.
When’s the “roll it off” part going to happen, you ask? Hmph. As of this past week, the Minnesota drought is breaking up and we’ve had rain, and more rain. And more in the forecast.
And this will get to be a problem. Because not only does the foundation hole need to be dry-ish, but more importantly, the edge of the excavation needs to be stable and solid so this truck and this house can pull up nice and cozy to the hole.
So, no idea when that next step can happen. But at last the wayward little house is here on my (waterlogged) land.
More to come….
