Swamp Things

13th and final week....

2006-05-07T19:24:00.000-04:00

Well guys this is it. Our last week of construction here in Ocmulgee Nation Park. I will miss being here. I have been blessed with spending so much time here. I've watched this park transform from the dead of Winter to the thriving life and amazing colors of Spring.... The shot above is of the last morning we were here.

I finally got my shot of one of the many deer here in the park. I almost always see them early in the morning or at dusk. On this day I was driving the golf cart down the boardwalk with a load of 2"x4" Trex boards when I caught a glimpse of this deer. I slammed on the brakes, almost loosing my load. The deer was not 10 ft away from me. She was not afraid of me at all.

I believe this is the same doe I've seen often in the same area. She let me take pictures of her as she grazed in the swamp. This meant a lot to me. I felt she had become comfortable with our presents here. I want to believe she was there to say good bye....

I had to show you this shot of the biggest Garr I had seen here. What an amazing looking fish this is... It's like part fish and part alligator.

Well the gangs all here. This is a shot of our final inspection. Mike Stanley (Architect) looked over the work we have done and for the most part he was happy with the final product. We had 3 things that needed to be corrected for him to sign off on the boardwalk. The meeting started at 10am and ended by 1pm. By 4:30pm Ray and I had finished the punch list needed to complete the boardwalk. It's done...

Here is the beginning of the boardwalk completed...

This shot is of the first stretch of the boardwalk up to the observation deck.

And here is the observation deck looking from the first stretch

The observation deck...

From observation deck to last stretch..

And here is the end of the boardwalk.

Thank you all for following me on this journey. I invite all of you to visit this park. This place is truly an unknown place of beauty and deep history to many people and that includes the people of Macon. We all must help to protect places like this one. I encourage all of you to help...... Cheers!!

12 week

2006-05-01T22:40:00.000-04:00

Wecome my friends to our 12th week here. So much has been going on here... we had a very productive week.... The above shot is one of the many beaver homes here.

We finally were privileged to see the night life here (dusk). On this night we watched quite a show. Here you see a shot of 2 beavers as I followed them down the boardwalk.

Ray and I followed them quietly up to the observation deck. They didn't seem to mind. We watched as 6 beavers went about their nightly duties. This one took all the time in the world just hanging out on a log and eating. I was not more then 20 feet from him..... I can't tell you just how amazing this was to watch.

I had never seen otter in the wild... not till this night. I watched these 3 otter swim all the way across the swamp. They made it all the way to the boardwalk and popped their heads up to check me out.... what a rush....

On this day we had a great show of snakes... They're everywhere... We must of seen 5 cotton mouths today. This is 1 of 3 shots taken from the boardwalk just above him.

And this is shot 2 of 3.

And this is shot 3 of 3. Working on this boardwalk has allowed me to fully see this place for what it is........ amazing.

My brother Kevin came down for the weekend. We walked the park on Saturday and he was a big help working with Ray and I on Sunday.

Here Kev is gearing up to help me finish spacing and tacking the last run of deck boards. We set over 200 ft of deck boards today... that's a lot.

This is a shot of the area we covered. I will still need to screw down these boards.... a lot of screws!!

While Kev and I took care of all the deck board, Ray started tacking the cap rail on the first section of the boardwalk in place.

He also mounted the bottom 2 rails up to the observation deck.

By the end of the week Ray and I installed most of the railing. There is still a lot to do... we have inspection next Tuesday.. So we will push...

I also managed to install all the screws needed to finish the deck boards.

Here is a shot of the hardware that is being mounted for the cap rail. There is over 200 post that need mounting..... That's a lot of hardware!

We've come a long way through this project. We should be done by next week... I will miss this place. I have been blessed to watch this amazing place move from Winter to Spring.. Never have I had the time or pleasure to be somewhere for so long as grand as this place.

11th week

2006-04-26T21:53:00.000-04:00

Spring is showing her full colors here in the park. Everywhere I look there is always something worth taking time to view. This park has so much to offer.... not for just those who visit, but what lives here. The wildlife that thrives here.. is precious.

Week 11 has been a very productive week for us... leaps and bounds..... We've spaced and tacked all the deck boards up to observation deck. Now we will start the deck board on the observation deck. These cuts are very tricky. The front of the observation deck will be the easiest to notch because we installed these posts... we know that they are straight. The rest of the posts on this boardwalk we can only do so much with...

This is the front end of the observation deck with the decking installed.

What a nice and tight transition from the first run of the boardwalk to the observation deck. From the first run of the boardwalk (shown on the left of the photo) to the observation deck , we make a 30 degree kick to the right. The observation deck will go some 32 feet and then make another 30 degree kick to the right to the final stretch of this boardwalk.

Here is Mike Ragin. It is Mike's 68th birthday today. I am amazed at what this man can do at his age. The week or so that he was here, we ferried out quit a bit of decking board (Trex) across the boardwalk. He kept up with us.... The heat of the sun beating on us made this even harder. There is no shade at all over this boardwalk. This week the temp. got into the high 80's..... Here is Mike set up and opening some 1,650 holes with a cordless drill. Opening these holes will allow us to mount the hardware a lot faster. These brackets will help us to fasten the cap rail down (2"x10" Trex).

Most of the decking for the observation deck has been laid. We now have to notch out the decking for the back posts. These cuts are a lot more tricky then any of the other posts on this project. Because of the root base here, most of the posts that were installed by the crew ahead of us..... are not straight at all.

Here you see Ray laying out the deck boards at the back end of the observation deck.

Ray has done an amazing job notching these out. None of these back post are straight.... So the angles are really crazy. Ray nailed all of these cuts

Done.. all the deck boards for the observation deck are laid out and mounted... We still have to come back and trim the edges to size.. What a grand observation deck this is.

We managed to load about 34 deck boards on the golf cart to ferry down the boardwalk. I can't imagine caring these them out by hand.

Ray and I had a bet... He said I couldn't get the front end up on the golf cart... I told him I could. You see Mike here blown away at the fact I could... Just kidding :) .. The cart flipped up as we were taking material off. We thought this would be a great picture if I climbed up and acted like I was driving... Good stuff!!

We finally figured out how to stack this many boards on the golf cart.... Things went a lot smoother.

We had a great week here as far as production. I know our time here is short and I am trying to take in as much as I can before it is all over...... See you next week.

10th week

2006-04-17T21:13:00.000-04:00

Once again.. Thank you for joining me here at Ocmulgee National Park. This is our 10th week here of constructing this boardwalk over the Walnut Creek Swamp in the park. If this is your first time here with me then please go back through my previous posts.... This was a frog that we found under our Trex material. I'm not sure what type of frog this is. What a cool looking frog and he seemed relaxed just sitting on my hand.

Just off the boardwalk two beavers have made a home for themselves. For over two months we had not seen these guys at all. We knew that they were there because as we were building our boardwalk they were building their home. We could see there progress over the weeks we've been here. Now that we started laying our Trex deck board, we figured that one morning we would show up and the beavers would of built a deck on there home out of the Trex. Wouldn't that be funny?

And this is a shot of the first time we had the pleasure in seeing them. It's not the best shot but, you can see towards the center... on the left and right of the photo their heads as they were swimming around.... We decided to work some 12 hour days here to make up for the lack of deck boards that had been delivered. This shot was taken at about 7:30 pm . It was the latest time we've worked till. Now we know what time these guys come out...

This is a small Eastern Ribbon snake that was hanging out by the boardwalk. I can't tell you how many snake we see here everyday.

And this is a Black Rat Snake. It's been a treat to see these snakes on a daily bases.

This is a great shot of a Garr. This is the first time I have ever seen a Garr. What an exotic fish this is. This fish was about 22 inches long. They can get up to about 7 feet long and they have razor sharp teeth.....

This is another shot of the Garr. These fish are related to the Pike. They tend to get along very well with other fish such as Bass and Bluegill etc..

Ray's father-in-law came down from Atlanta to help out. Mike is one of the coolest, funny, big hearted guys I know. He was a big help to us. Here you see Mike in the swamp helping to install one of the last supports on the boardwalk.

This week also brought Michélee (Ray's wife) and their daughter Téa (shown here). Michélee's mom (Kitty), sister (Margie) and new born baby girl (Ciana) also came with them.... The camera died on me so I am very sorry to not have photo's...

Our long awaited shipment of Trex arrived today.. Driver Craig unloaded two truck loads of Trex today... which will help us to rapidly make progress on the boardwalk.

Here you see that we have started the railing for the boardwalk.

Since we have close to all the material needed to finish this boardwalk, we decided to see how the top rail (2"x10" Trex) would look.. We will hope to start installing it next week. We still have a lot of the deck board material to layout and mount first. The rangers asked me to hang the no fishing sign here. I was more then happy to do so....

We just about made it to the observation deck with the deck board. Ray and I will still have to space and mount this section.......

We are very happy that we have almost all the material needed to complete this boardwalk. Ray and I plan on pulling some long hours to make up for the delay in materials... see ya next week!!

9th week

2006-04-07T00:27:00.000-04:00

Wecome back to our 3rd month of construction here. I can't believe the time that is flying here... This tunnel was built for the rail road here in the 1870's... I pass through here every morning on my way to work.

Now that we have started laying the deck board down and we are out of the water.. we can start to see what is in the water.. In the center of the photo you can see a very big fish. This is a Mud fish. These fish are called Mud fish because when the water level is too low, they will bury themselves into the mud and wait for the water level to rise and then come out. How crafty is that? This fish is a good 22" or more. It is amazing to watch these fish right from the boardwalk.

Here is a shot of a Bass taken from the boardwalk. This is the first time that anyone has seen how big these fish are from this area of the swamp. They do allow fishing in the park. The good news is that there will be no fishing from the boardwalk. The people who fish here leave a lot of trash. I really don't feel that there should be any fishing here.. All the other animals here are protected.. Why not the fish?

This is a Eastern Ribbon snake. These snakes can grow to 30" and are very thin. I see this same snake almost every day now.

Another shot of the same snake. As I was taking it's photo, It came right up to me.

And this is a Eastern King snake. What a beautiful snake. I have also seen this one a lot. I like that I can watch these snakes and most of them are the same snakes everyday.

This is a shot of the same snake. It's not easy getting a shot of these snakes. They move very quickly which makes it hard to document them.

Ray and I decided to get some golfing in... Just kidding. The Rangers here are letting us use there golf cart to hull our deck board material up the boardwalk...

Here you see us filling in some gravel to allow us to drive up on the boardwalk.

This is the maiden voyage of the golf cart onto the boardwalk. This boardwalk was designed to support the Rangers golf carts and there ATV's. This way they will be able to manage the Old River Trail that they haven't been able to manage for 12 years.... The good news is that the boardwalk holds the golf cart..

We managed to load up to 20 of these 2"x6"x8' deck boards at one time thanks to the golf cart. These boards weigh about 20 pounds a piece and the further we the deck goes, the further we would have to carry these boards by hand... The cart is our friend.

Here is our first 192' of deck boards mounted and cut to size looking from the beginning of the boardwalk...

And this is the first 192' looking from the right side.. all in all we had a good week. We hope to get the rest of our material delivered next week to speed up to construction. I hope you will join me next week to see our progress.

8th week

2006-03-31T17:54:00.000-05:00

Who is the smallest, cutest frog in the whole world? .... This one is.... This little guy was hanging out in front of the boardwalk..... how cute is this frog? Thanks again for joining me. This week was a short one as far as construction. We only worked one day here this week due to the lack of materials. Still, we got a lot done in a day..

Once again the big saw has proven to be priceless. Here you see us making one cut. Because of this saw, we are able to have 64 boards ready to be mounted on the boardwalk in a matter of minutes. This stack is 8 boards across and 4 deep.... The time we saved is unreal.

This is the first deck board we've laid down.... Each board must be spaced 1/8" apart, so first we set a few screws in each board to tack them in place. We'll put in a 100 or more boards in first and then we will set all the screws at one time... It's faster this way.

These are the 2 drills we picked up for this job. We can load a clip of 30 stainless steel screws in at a time. These drills will save us time and make it so much easier on our backs.... Today we will install over 1,200 stainless steel screws.

Once we've screwed our boards in we trim off both sides of the boardwalk to size... Here you see me catching the drop from the cut. We've been super good about keeping this swamp free of any of our drop material. I trust Ray in this situation. I know that Ray is focused on cutting the chalk line we have snapped to get a clean finish. It's important to focus on these steps. One wrong move and you could end up in a bad situation.

The "Death Saw" has proven to be a time saver. To finish up trimming the deck board, this saw makes life a whole lot easier.

Here you see how clean of a finish this saw makes. The drops from these cuts I will fish out of the swamp. Better to be safe then sorry......

This is 48.5' of the deck board laid down and trimmed to size. If Ray and I had more materials we would have gotten a lot farther.

This shot is from the left side...

And this shot is from the right side... I can't wait to see the railing installed... This boardwalk is really starting to come to life. We hope that next week we will have enough material to keep us going.

7th week

2006-03-22T17:01:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the 7th week of construction here in the park. Ray and I have put in a lot of work up to this point and were looking good here for time...

For added strength we decided to install metal straps that will tie in the stringers to the supports on the observation deck framing.

We've also reinforced the framing on the cantilevered side (front end). This is a large deck and we want to insure that it will support several visitors at one time. With the observation deck secured, we decided to start cutting our railing posts down to size.

A saw to be respected.... This saw would prove to be priceless in cutting the 6"x 6" posts down to the size and the angle that is needed to mount the 2"x10" Trex top rail..

Who's your daddy?.... I had to show you this saw next to a standard circular saw. This shows you how big this saw is.. The blade is 16" and weighs about 35 pounds.

This is the 2nd post out of 206 post we will cut. To counter the weight and get the correct angle, we made two jigs out of a 2"x8" boards. These jigs allowed use to fly through this stage....

The first stretch of the boardwalk has been cut. It has taken us less then a day to get to this point. We were surprised at how fast Ray and I were able to cut these post down. If we were to use a standard circular saw, it would have taken 4 cuts and then we would have had to use a reciprocating saw to finish the cut on each post. That would have taken us all week to cut these posts down.

This was still a lot of work. The saw is very heavy and just balancing on the stringers took a lot of concentration. All but the last 10 sections have been cut. We maxed out our power cords and decided to get to those posts when we lay deck boards down in that area... Not bad for a day's work....

Enter the "Death Saw". This is a standard Makita circular saw that Ray and I found at a job site. We modified this saw to help us cut the deck board down to size. Cutting the front end off and removing the bottom plate will give us the cutting depth we'll need.

We used this Bosch angle grinder to rip the entire front end off..

If any of you have ever had to cut through a board with a circular saw and there was something on the other end that you don't want to cut.... or your bottom plate would stop you... then you could understand why we modified this saw.

By the end of the week our Trex arrived on the site. This is a small fraction of the material we need... but we'll take what we can. This is the first truck that would not get stuck making a delivery.

And it took a driver named Snake to do this... This is a swamp....

This is the Trex.. We can start laying deck board. I'm really excited to see the Trex mounted on the boardwalk.. We hope to start this stage next week.

This is a shot from The Great Temple Mound. You can see our boardwalk to the right side of the big tree. You can really see how large this boardwalk is. On the left side is the Opelofa Trail. Thanks for sharing this project with me and I hope you join me next week....

6th week

2006-03-17T20:45:00.000-05:00

Thanks again for joining me here in Ocmulgee Nation Park... If this is your first time with me then please go back to my previous posts to see how far we've come. This is our 6th week of bring this boardwalk to life. I have meet countless visitors here that can't wait to see this thing finished. They thank us over and over for building this structure. They know that this boardwalk will allow them to see some of the best views this swamp has to offer. This shot is taken from the swamp and looking back towards the boardwalk and The Great Temple Mound. I like that I can put on waders and walk out and see this swamp from the swamp... few get do this.

After a lot of labor we've installed all the stringers, drilled and bolted the supports and the stringers from the observation deck to the end of the boardwalk. We stiil have to tighten all the bolts and nuts using a power drill and a 3/4" wrench. The next step is to concentrate on the observation deck....

Here I'm showing you a view from the observation deck to the end of the boardwalk. Notice the radio in the center of the photo. This Dewalt radio is great. It's a charger/radio. It has a 1/8" adapter for aux. that allows us to plug an Ipod in and listen to the music we want in the middle of the swamp. When this charger/radio is plugged in to 110 voltage... it will charge our 18 volt batteries.

And this shot is from the observation deck to the start of the boardwalk. Now that we pretty much have framed out the 2 sides, it's time to focus on the observation deck.

Here we've started installing the 2"x6"x14' boards . These boards will complete the observation deck frame. There are 24 of these boards that we will install. 3' of these boards will be cantilevered off of the main supports.

Here Ray is cutting this deck to the dimensions we both felt would be safe and would give the maximum space for this deck. This deck was not in the plans. Ray and I were more than happy to put it in though.. The final dimension of this deck will be 32'x13'. This is larger than most homeowners' decks.

Well this is the observation deck. We still have to put our posts in on the left side.

And there she is..... We've framed out and tightened this entire deck. We are ready to start decking. We have been waiting some time for the deck materials. We are using a special type of material for the decking. It's a pressed board called Trex. It has taken some time for this shipment to come in. We hope to have it in next week. We also hope the rain holds off so the trucks can get back here.

All in all this was a really good week. We managed to finish framing the entire boardwalk..... Our next step is to lay all the deck board and cut down the 6"x6" posts to size for the hand rails...... see you next week.

5th week

2006-03-10T16:27:00.000-05:00

Welcome back to my blog.... This starts our second month of construction. We still have a lot to do, but we are making really good progress. This photo was taken early in the morning. We hit a cold spell the night before which created this beautiful fog on top of the swamp....

This was the same morning as the shot I showed you above. The water was so still as the sun was coming up. What a great view... I don't mind showing up to work... Not at all!

Yep...Snakes... They all are starting to come out. You'll see one and then turn your head and see another. On this day we found 3 snakes in a matter of 30 minutes.

This is a closer shot of the first snake I showed you. This snake was right under the boardwalk. I was able to walk over it and get these shots. It was so cool to watch this snake do it's thing in it's domain. The snake was no threat to me at all. He was just doing his thing and not worried about me. I have to say that I have a great deal of respect for snakes. I like to get close but.... I'm not sure about them. I don't really know what I would like to know about them. This project is helping me to understand them.

They are so beautiful.... watching this one swim away was awesome. The snake moved so gracefully through the water. As we were watching this snake.. a hiker came up to the boardwalk and let us know there where two other bigger snakes just up the trail...

Wow!! This is not a small snake.... This snake was curled up right off the trail.... just sitting in the sun.

and this was the 3rd snake.... It's real close to mating season for them.... The weather is slowly getting warmer... between 1pm and 3pm, they just bask in the sun. Soon they will be even more active... It's a rush to watch these snakes ....... did I say that sometimes it's hard to focus on the job at hand?

Coming around the bend... This picture shows a view of what will be the observation deck. This picture shows all the supports mounted up to this point. We still have to finish framing out the observation deck and then bolting it tight before we are ready for the flooring to be installed. Our focus for the rest of the week is to finish framing this boardwalk. That means the last 200 some feet we still have to deal with.

This is looking from the observation deck to what will be the end of the boardwalk with all of the supports in place. Ray and I had to go through a lot to get this material through this section. Our goal is to get all the supports in which will enable us to lay 2"x8" boards on top of them. These boards will allow us to walk above the swamp.

We did it.. All the supports are in and bolted down the last section. This picture shows the path we have made out of 2"x8" boards to walk the material down this section. Now we have started bringing in the stringers (2"x8" pressure treated boards that will span a 12' sections to lay the deck boards on). These boards can weigh up to 35 pounds a piece. Ray and I moved over 80 boards in just over a 10 hour shift. It was a lot of work with balancing the material and wearing heavy waders.

Here we've managed to bring down the last set of stringers. We decided to work from the end of the boardwalk back to the observation deck.

And this is the last 5 sections... by the end of this week we managed to get just about all the material out to complete the framing for the entire boardwalk. I don't have a photo to show this... It started to rain and we decided to pack it up.. Next week we hope to install this entire section...

4th week

2006-02-28T19:15:00.000-05:00

This place holds so much beauty. From the time I arrive at the entrance to the time I leave, there is always something to look at now that spring is starting to show herself. This place is quickly waking up from a mild winter sleep.

This is an early morning shot of the Great Temple Mound from the Opelofta Trail. This trail is where our boardwalk is starts. I have had the pleasure meeting so many visitors that pass along this trail. Everyone here is in such a good mood and they all are excited to see this boardwalk built...

Yep.. The muddy road has once again taken another victim; this time, Warner Robins Suppy. We had been waiting on a shipment of 2"x6"x18' for some time. George Cavanaugh has been a driver for 20 years.... This is his first time ever getting stuck.

And this is the truck that that would pull Warner out. It is the wet season here which makes it hard get our materials to the job site.

Here is Ray and Trevor modifying our barge so that it will better serve us in this next stage.... Trevor has been working with us off and on. He comes down from Atlanta to assist us. Trevor has been a big help with cutting a big chunk of the material at this point in the game. He has also been taking some great photos. Some of these photos I have used in my earlier postings..... Cutting this barge down will allow us to ferry out all materials needed to complete the framing out of the entire boardwalk.

We've tacked all the supports up to the observation deck. These supports are all first tacked in place with a gas driven nailer. We still have to come back to drill and bolt each section... It's a long way back from here. The further we get.... the longer it takes to get the materials out here. You'll kick yourself if you forget something after you've loaded the barge and brought it out to this point. This is pretty much the end of where our barge will go. The rest of the way, we have to hand carry all materials, tools, or anything else by hand. Tons of logs and stumps make this a difficult task.

This is looking back from what will be the end of the boardwalk. Ranger Lonnie Davis is chain sawing large trees and stumps to clear the way.

These logs are very heavy and some have been sitting here for some time. Cutting these logs and moving them in these rubber waiters... with the sun beating down.... will take it out of you.

On this day, as we were gathering material and loading them onto the barge, this crow seemed very interested in what we were doing... He keep calling out and whereever we went, he would follow. He even came out to the middle of the swamp where we were working.

This was a cool shot I got of that same bird. Sometimes it's hard to focus on work when so much is going on around you. The warmer the days are getting, much more is happening here. The trees are budding and color is being added to this beautiful landscape..

3rd week

2006-02-22T15:17:00.000-05:00

Thanks for joining me again here.... This week we had a few snags to untangle. Getting material out to the job site has been our biggest challenge. With the rain that we've had here, the muddy road has once again played a factor (see the first week post of the forklift flipping). We still had quite a bite of work that needed to be done to keep us busy....

By the end of our 2nd week through the 3rd week We drilled a ton of holes and installed hardware.... lots of hardware. This picture shows a fraction of the bolts needed to secure this boardwalk. Each bag is loaded and is sent out with the barge. Believe me.. these bags aren't light.

This is Ray sporting the waders needed to work on these stages of the project. There is a warning label on the waders to wear a "floatation device" when using them. Most of the time we are able to touch the bottom... There are a few spots out there that we can't. If your waders fill up with water and you have nothing to hold on to... you might end up drowning... Really...

This picture shows how deep some areas can be. In the center of the photo you can see what was the old bridge's handrail for the "old trail". Not since tropical storm Alberto changed this place in 1994 have visitors been able to access this part of the swamp.

And this was the beginning of that same trail..

On Wednesday the 22nd we had a meeting with the architect and the guys from RCA. This meeting was to make sure everyone is on the same page. Ranger Lonnie Davis escorted the team to the site on this day... Later, I will upload a post to highlight the outstanding Rangers here at Ocmulgee.

This is Ray bringing them back to shore after inspecting the boardwalk..

Mr. Michael Stanley.. He is the architect on this project. Ray and I met with Mike for the first time today. He came out to see that things were what they should be and he gave his blessings. That's a good thing.. it would have been a shame to rip out anything at this point. Mike has designed boardwalks in the Everglades, so he is well aware of what is needed here.

This is the father- son team that runs RCA Construction. They are the ones we've contracted with to do this project. Good guys.... Charles Allen (on the right) and son Reginald Allen (on the left) have been a pleasure to work with. In fact, everyone on this project is 100% dedicated to see this thing fly.

I know this is a bad photo.. but a good story.. During this meeting a doe walked right up to us! I had my back turned from her when she walked up. Ray said "Steve, Steve" and was looking past me in the direction of the deer... I, for the life of me, couldn't get the camera turned on and focused... She walked towards us, at first, then ran straight at us. I really thought she was going to trample us. There was no room for her to get around us as there is water on either side of this trail. She went right, then left, then skidded out right in front of us before running back down the same "old trail" she came from (the trail shown 5 photos earlier). Wow! How cool was that?

I have to share this story as well... This is a photo is of Johnny's floor board in his truck. It shows were he blew a hole in his floor board with his shotgun. He managed to only take out the oil filter. Ha!! When I asked him "how did the gun go off?" All he had to say was "it just went off". Johnny is one of the "Good Old Boys" I highlighted in my 2nd week post. This event did not take place in the park.

Friday the 24th the local news station (NBC) made it out to film the boardwalk project. Ranger Jim David escorted NBC's Ashantai Hathaway to the site....

And this is the lovely Ashantai.. She was a pleasure to meet up with today. I look forward to seeing her footage. I hope to hear from her to find out when it will be aired.

To wrap up week 3, we managed to install most of the hardware on the frame for the first 216 ft. or so. We're still looking good as far as time here. Next week we hope to do even better.

2nd week...Macon the front page

2006-02-21T08:24:00.000-05:00

Last Wednesday the Macon Telegraph did a story on our project.... Just click on the link to view story.

Click here to read the story.

2nd week

2006-02-19T20:02:00.000-05:00

This is one of the signs you see here when leaving this park. When visiting this park, you really see how this sign holds true. I think alot about the deep history here, that I'm standing on the same ground that these once great tribes did. I am honored to be a part of this project which will better paint the bigger picture of what was once a mighty tribe... a great tribe..... Imagine yourself as if you were in a different tribe than the Mississippians and you were traveling down the Ocmulgee river at that time. You would have come accross these great mounds.. and would have been in total awe of this tribe.

This is the Great Temple Mound. This is one of 7 mounds here at the park. Just on the other side of this mound is where the boardwalk project is being constructed.

This is the barge that is used to drive the pylons into the swamp. It's an old barge. A gas driven motor is mounted on the barge which pulls a weight up and releases it to bang the 6 X 6's in like a sledge hammer. After the first 340 feet or so the water level won't float the barge so, they will have to drive the rest of the 6 x 6's in by hand. Better them than us.

And these are the guys that are driving the pylons in. Johnny and Johnny or as Ray and I like to call them "The Good Old Boys" (HEY!!). Moore Construction is the company they are working for..

This is Alberto ....

And this is Fransico. These guys by far have the toughest job here. It is their job to clear all the debris from the bottom of the swamp to make way for the pylons to be driven in. The swamp base is a web of debris... some of the logs weigh up to 400 lbs.

This place wasn't always like this. The water structure here was changed quite a bit in 1994 when tropical storm "Alberto" hit this area, altering the lanscape here forever. It's like the woods are under water. So, setting these pylons wasn't an easy task. The root base and all the logs made it difficult to get each 6" x 6" in line with the other. But, all these guys have been doing a bang up job....

My oldest brother Mike and his beautiful wife Pilar stopped by this week on Wednesday. They took a road trip up to Asheville N.C. to attend a friends birthday party ( Eric Brown). They also visited my other brother Kevin (#3 of 4 brothers) and his beautiful wife Joy which live in Spartanburge, S.C.. On their way back, they stopped in for a few hours before heading off for Orlando and then home to Miami.

This is Ray, Mike and Pilar on one of the many trails here in the park. It was a great day for them to visit the park... I think it was in the upper 60's or so. They arrived about 1:30pm and stayed till almost 5pm. We all had lunch in the hustle and bustle of downtown Macon... ain't no strangers... just good people......

This is the entrance to the oldest known meeting house in North America (wow!!). One of the places we visited that day. This site was uncovered in the 1870's and reconstructed by archeologists to simulate what they thought this place might have looked like. At some point before its rediscovery, a fire in this meeting house helped to preserve evidence of many of the features of this site.

This is a shot that was taken inside the meeting house.. There are 50 or more seats carved out around the interior of this place. Three of the seats are in the middle of this bird. I would think that these seats were held for the highest ranking individuals in this tribe, their 1st, 2nd and 3rd in command.

Find the two doves.... win a prize.

1st week

2006-02-16T06:08:00.000-05:00

Welcome to my blog! This is to document the construction of a 800 ft. boardwalk through the beautiful swamps of Ocmulgee Nation Park. This park is located in Macon, Georgia.

Precision Custom Builders is heading up the construction of the boardwalk. Ray Bechthold (owner), started his company in 2004 (shown on the left). Me? My name is Steve Watson (on the right). I've worked with Ray on countless projects. This one is unique.....

This shot was taken from what will be the end of the boardwalk. The completion of this boardwalk will tie in the vast history here. This history is 10,000 years strong. Before anything is done to change this park, 12 different tribes must be consulted.

Natives known to us as the "Mississippians" called this place home between 900 and 1100 AD..... Before them, three different cultures dwelled here, The Paleo-Indian, The Archaic and the Woodlands ( between 9000 BC to 900 AD). From these beautiful mounds to the Ocmulgee river, this boardwalk will help show visitors how important the river was to these tribes. It was their means of transportation. The Mississippians far out numbered any culture known here in Ocmulgee. This culture is thought to be 2,500 strong.

This is the start of the first week. We've never taken on a project like this one. We had to adjust to the landscape here. There is thought to be at lease 20 different snakes that call this place home and evidence of gators, makes you think a bit.

We built a barge (7ft x 8ft) to transport materials out onto the swamp. This barge will only work for the first 300 ft. or so. The swamp is too shallow after that.

Just getting to the site can be tricky. On this day, material were being transported from the job site to trucks that awaited just off the muddy road. We had some heavy rains the day before which left the ground a mess. The large lift was attempting to carry out a full load of 2" x 8' x 16' pressure treated boards and caught some trees on the load which flipped him backwards.

The driver (shown here), wearing his seat belt, did not suffer any physical harm. One small tree kept him from ending up in the swamp. We helped them retrieve the heavy boards from the steep, thorn infested, drop-off to the swamp.

They had no choice but to bring the big truck down the muddy road to pull the lift up. After getting the lift free..... The big truck ended up getting stuck! ( no photos for this). A second truck had to pull the first one out. By 8pm that night all was well.

By the end of the first week, we managed to get all the 2ft. x 8ft. supports and all the 2ft. x 8ft. stringers in up to about 216 ft.. There is still a ton of drilling and bolting to be done...

Spending time here has been good for the soul. The sights here floor me.

I'm thankful I get to really soak in this amazing place. Over the next couple months, I hope to share this special place with all of you.