We live in the country, well, at least by big city comparison it feels like the country. In this countryish locale we also have a gravel drive. My beautiful wife and I moved in a few years back, and one of the first things we noticed was the terrible shape of the driveway. It was recycled asphalt which is this strange crumbly black stuff that looked like someone took a thick gauge cheese grater to a normally paved road. There were very shallow trenches that held more mud than water when the snows and rains came and a straight up hole where the millings met the concrete pad that led to the garage. Being the do-it-yourselfers who we happen to be, we had a few tons of beautiful red gravel delivered, rented a skid-steer, and started smoothing, spreading, and shoveling.
It was a long weekend. For sure. But after those couple days the drive looked quite nice. The clean, red rock of our new drive popped. I still remember the first time I saw the house on Google Earth with the new rock. It looked great. The red made it stand out from the other driveways including the ones that were paved with actual asphalt, because it’s ultimately same stuff as the recycled version.
Fast forward a few years. It looks like crap. The shallow trenches formed again in precisely the same place they were prior to that weekend’s hard work and the bank account hit. The hole? In exactly the same spot. Maybe bigger now. Certainly muddier than I remember.
Seems even if you put lipstick on a driveway, or rocks on a pig it doesn’t matter. Foundations are foundations and they are hard to change. Is change even possible? Rarely seems likely.
Throne Time 