CDOT: Memorial Page 8

CDOT related news in Cotopaxi, Colorado. Region 2, Section 4, Patrol 60

Below, the tree. After some research, a "sterile" flowering crabapple was chosen based on a nursery's recommendation regarding climate, soil and space.

The old gravel was looking pretty poor. I checked around for decorative gravel prices.

Colorado Quarries of Canon City said if we took a truck to their pit just outside of Westcliffe, we could have it for $25/ton.

Rick Perschbacher and I met Aaron Tezak of Colorado Quarries early in the morning with a tandem and a midrange dump truck.

Rick and I hauled the rock to 905 Erie and dumped it in the back parking lot. We dug a trench for drip lines and power.

Stella moved the fountain location closer. She added steetlamps. First one then two. Elan didn't want rock around the outside of the planter in the corner, because she wanted to put flower outside the planter (go figure). Then Dave Peirce shows up,(electrician) said our trench had to be deeper. The outlet had to be at least 5 feet from the fountain. We had the wrong kind of pipe, etc., etc. Well, I wasn't crazy about the fountains either. Anyway, after a lot of arguing all around things got done.(I liked Dave's expression when Stella told him she didn't need power to her electric street lamps, because they were just for decoration).

The lines were dug, further, deeper, and more of them than necessary, my back was killing me as the digging was hard pick work, but it made everyone ~~happy~~ somewhat satisfied.

While all this squabbling and digging is going on, the Indian Sunset is being placed! Thanks to Everett Archuleta for running the Bobcat, David J. Montano, Steve Martinez, Cale Purvis and David Valdez for spreading the gravel!

Large decorative rocks and leftover Indian Sunset gravel were placed along the side of the HQ building and across the street at the State Patrol building. By the way, the office overlooking the site belongs to Tim Harris, R2 Regional Transportation Director.

Above photo shows how the Indian Sunset rock changes color when wet. I like that; when it rains, it gets better.

I wanted to put in a underlayment weed barrier membrane, but got shot down on that one.

Oh, and the fountains. They are in the background on pallets. by the Bobcat loader.

I bought new planters for Elan, ran new drip lines to them, and fixed all the leaks around the engineers building.

Stella had a florist come and he set plants all around & ran drippers to them. More water around the Memorial. Great.

Potential future problem; the rock is cracked.

The photo above, right, tells the story. This special piece (the edges were sawn, not split) was discarded. The two holes are holes for pin & feathers - tools used to split/shape the rock. They were trying to square up this side of the rock and it split on them.

So there it sat for 50 years, exposed to freeze & thaw. It's sort of a gamble, but I'm not too worried about it. If it cracks further, some holes can be drilled and tie bars grouted in. If it gets real bad, I have another rock located.

This was the only rock we could lift that the 3'x5' aluminum sign would fit on. It was mandated at the time that we use the blue aluminum sign. We couldn't have a rock etched, or have a plaque installed on a rock. We had to use the blue sign. We couldn't do anything that might copy the State Memorial.

After we had the granite at the site, I was informed that if I paid for it, another sign/plaque/etching would be allowed. In fact, over a period of a few days, it came out that we could do whatever we wanted. Nice.

The April 8 deadline did not allow for enough time, in my opinion, to start over. So I proceeded with what we had.

It may be that the crack should have been placed at the bottom so that the joint would have acted to hold it together. However, the shape of the rock tipped the decision to put it on the top. Again, I'm not too worried about it. If something catastrophic occurs, we can fix it. My suggestion would be to get a nicely shaped granite block and attach a bronze plaque to it. The problem with a bronze plaque for a rock of this one's dimensions, is that it has to be quite large in order to look right. I checked into it, and was quoted at $8 - $10K.