Day 5...

To make up for yesterday - lots of photos. Carl in photo 1 took on the task of nailing every 4 inches around the bottom of the building (scores of nails and a task John said the rest of the men were all too willing to "let" him do). Photo 2 - that's me in the front helping nail together the interior walls (Now be honest - you probably thought all I did was take photos....) Photo 3 - Adrian & John (not my John but as my John says, "there can never be too many John's") displaying their matching thumb bandages with smiles on their faces (they both claim they were pounding nails, just not always the metal variety). Photo 4 - interior walls are up and the roof trusses are going up. Photo 5 - an exterior view of the "backyard" (I still can not believe anything grows here!). Photo 6 - cement truck arrives to pour the porches. Photo 7 - view from the front. Photo 8 - wrapping it up for the day. Photo 9 - a view of the neighborhood (our house is "special" - it's the one with the tree!)

After work John & I and another couple walked around downtown Lake Placid looking at the murals (more about those tomorrow I hope). Lake Placid is the actual location of the house we're building. For your history lesson of the day...
In 1895 Dr. Melvin Dewey (who invented the Dewey Decimal System) built a summer resort for this wealthy friends in Lake Placid, New York. 35 years later (probably as his friends got older and wanted a warmer place to go in the winter) he "discovered" Lake Stearns in Florida. In "exchange" for building a water tower and getting the railroad to build a new depot, he got the Florida legislature to change the name to Lake Placid. He also built a sprawling lodge on Lake Childs and had that lake's name changed to Lake Placid.

Back to walking around.... As it was getting near dark we began noticing old school buses coming into town and unloading lots of migrant workers in this one section downtown. Then we began smelling food and discovered a small little Mexican grocery/bakery/eat in/take out store. Figuring those guys have GOT to be eating well we found our way in and had an absolutely DELICIOUS dinner of tamales, beans & rice, spiced beef, gazpacho w/shrimp. (We were still in our working attire so we fit right in.) Pat & Ann had been driving us to the work site all week so John & I wanted to buy them dinner (total bill $18.88 - that's for 4 - our generosity knows no bounds!).