Our New Street!

                               

Our street is Done!  And it's beautiful!  We went out for some errands and returned home at about 12:30 and there were small trucks on the lower end of our street.  We also saw larger trucks at the top of the street.  We pulled into the driveway, and thought "We're not going anywhere now!"   I should say that this first photograph is the best of all, with the worker close to me and the steaming paving machine with all the men on it, in the background.  It's really the best photo and the only one I need.  Please click on this because I posted a larger size than normal so you can see more detail.

The next sign we saw were these huge trailer trucks which are filled with asphalt paving material.  There is a lot of material in each truck, and it was amazing how quickly the tracked asphalt paver emptied each truck.  

This machine is really complex in all that it does, and with great precision.  The asphalt truck backs up to the paver and starts emptying the hot asphalt into the hopper on the front of the paver, as the paver slowly crawls along the street.  The worker on the street who is holding on to the paver, is making minor adjustments on the height, or depth of the asphalt the paver puts down on the street on his side, and another worker is adjusting the other side.

Right after the paver passes, what I used to call a "steam roller" as a kid, but is now called, get this, a "Caterpillar Smooth Double Drum Vibratory Ride On Roller."  Not only do these compress the asphalt which has been put down, but both drums have vibrators inside them that help compact the asphalt!  Look how big this thing is!

This is the back end of the paver and it's a busy place.  The driver is up on top, and the men on the left and right are carefully monitoring the thickness of the asphalt, while the man in the center checks the depth of the asphalt with a metal rod and a round disk on it.

This other road roller follows right after the paver and compacts the asphalt in the more central part of the road, and the other roller, shown in a previous photo, carefully rolls the asphalt right up against the curb.  The way the whole crew worked in a practiced method was wonderful to watch.   It really didn't take all that much time to pave the street because everything was really efficiently done.  I also need to tell you how friendly all the workers were!  A few asked why I was photographing and I said that I was really a 12-year old kid who loved big machinery, and when I said that a couple of times, they broke out in big grins, because they know the fascination.  They were so good in answering all my questions of how everything works as well.  It was such a really nice experience photographing all of this and talking to the crew!  A fun day for this 12-year old!

And last but not least, here is our beautiful new road!  And we are all happy about that!