Finishing feels good

We finally finished building the floor in the Bailey Country Store, and it feels good!  Neither Brian (teammate) nor I had ever laid a floor before, so not a bad day's work for a couple of rookies (who had the help of a couple of experts, to be fair).  I can finally see some light at the end of the hallway that leads to the staircase that leads to the corridor that leads to the end of the tunnel.  We had to raise the floor so much (15 inches) that I feel like an NBA player when I stand in there now (except I'm not black and I can't jump worth a darn).  Now we just need to tackle the plumbing, the walls, the broken windows, insulation ...


Last night we watched the episode of Finding Bigfoot that was filmed in Bailey last September.  A friend of mine took several screen shots as proof positive that Gwyn and I do exist, and that we were present at the town hall meeting.  They even had a shot of my Sasquatch cut-out holding a sign that said, "I do not believe the evidence supports the existence of humans."
Of course, several guys from church texted me about Unicorns and fairies and such nonsense.  Skeptics can be so immature.  You'd almost think I believe in some mythical, hairy, 8 foot beast that roams the woods around Bailey.  Now THAT would be crazy.

Believe it or not, there is a recent report that an adult male Bigfoot was shot late last year while a British film crew was making a documentary about Bigfoot.  Apparently, they'd set a bait trap high on a tree and a Bigfoot came to investigate.  The crew's guide woke up, saw the bigfoot, jumped out of his tent in his underwear and shot it in the back of the head.  The film crew wrestled the gun away from him, but too late. According to the article (see the link below), the Bigfoot measured 7'8" tall and weighed 490 pounds.  I would be highly skeptical myself except for the fact that the film company - Minnow Films - is well known and has made a number of excellent, award-winning documentaries.  They claim that they're keeping the carcass until the film comes out in April.  We'll see.  Here's the article I read on this project - the film is tentatively going to be called, "Of Monsters and Men".

http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/bigfoot-news-december-12-2012/


They apparently filmed several seconds of the Squatch eating the bait from inside their tent before it was shot. Below is a clip of that video; judge for yourself.

Bigfoot news

For all my Bigfoot skeptic friends, this blog entry should be amusing.  A few days ago, a friend of mine who lives in Bailey sent me an email that she'd found some "interesting" tracks on her property.  I went over to investigate the next day, and took a few photos.  Unfortunately, we had a light snow after the tracks were made, so the definition was poor.  What was clear, however, is that something walked across her property with 7 foot strides, in a straight line, and the prints were 16-18 inches long.  One of the prints - see below with my boot next to it - still shows what might be the imprint of toes and a mid-tarsal break (believed to be a sasquatch characteristic). 

Of course, my skeptic friends - I'm talking about you Brian - say that it is clearly a hoax.  OK, let's go down that road for a minute:  the prints are located in a remote part of the property, and had to have been made during the night in sub-zero temperatures, on stilts (7 foot stride), without making one mis-step in the process.  I'm not saying the tracks definitely WERE made by a Sasquatch, but to believe this is a hoax is an insult to my intelligence.

Speaking of Bigfoot:  Apparently, the episode of "Finding Bigfoot" (Animal Planet channel) that was filmed in Bailey will be airing this Sunday evening.  I'm hoping that Gwyn and I will show up in our bright, green Sasquatch Outpost T-shirts on the front row of the town hall meeting, and that they'll show my Life-Size Sasquatch cutout as well.   Maybe this is the beginning of something really big... (no pun intended)...

New Floor

We made huge progress on the new floor in the country store yesterday, thanks to all the Journey staff guys who came down to lend a hand.  Basically, we're raising the whole floor up 14 inches over the original floor.  You can see the new joists in the pictures on the left - the floor will go down on top of those joists.  We have some technical issues to overcome - namely how best to raise the front door up to match the floor, and then we'll need to build a handicap deck and ramp out front.  Still, it feels good to get so much work done in one day!  The old girls still needs a huge amount of work, like repainting, fixing the walls, fixing many broken windows, adding shelving and counters... and the list goes on and on.  However, we're still shooting to open at some level by the first of February. Q This continues to be a faith adventure, as we do not have the funds to finish the renovation work and we're trusting that God will provide what we need, when we need it.  He already provided the resources to build the floor, so we keep trusting Him for the rest.

Quote from Steve Brown's book, "A Scandalous Freedom":
     (regarding the common viewpoint that Christians should always be "nice")  "Christians can be dangerous!  No, not those.  The real ones.  The weenies aren't dangerous.  They are irrelevant.  But those Christians who have discovered they don't have anything to protect and nothing to lose, who have learned that Jesus is Lord and that it doesn't matter what others think a bout them or do to them - they are dangerous... really dangerous."
     "Why are we so bound and so imprisoned that we feel afraid to speak up, stand up, and be Christ's witnesses in the church and in the world?  In other words, if we're free, why don't we use our freedom to be bold?"
     

Back to Blogging

After a hiatus of several weeks due to my computer being on the fritz (AND I fixed it all my byself) I'm back to blogging.  Duke (my yellow lab) is snoring on the floor next to me as we both try to stay warm by the fire.  Speaking of Duke,  I finally bit the bullet and bought an invisible fence to keep him contained on our property after getting at least 10 calls from neighbors... "Um, I have your dog here at my house; what should I do with him??"  I've never used one of these devices before, but even when I turn the collar up to the maximum setting Duke just strolls right across the wire without so much as a flinch.  I've thought about putting the collar on myself to test the shock, but in the end I'm just too chicken.  I've watched the YouTube videos and that's enough proof for me.  got to think on that some more.

The town of Bailey and the Bailey Country Store still take up most of my time now.  In the last 30 days we initiated a Christmas decorating contest among the businesses in Bailey, for which I created a "fitting" trophy made of a deer antler strung with battery-operated Christmas lights; I was elected to the board of the Platte Canyon Area Chamber of Commerce (think Mayberry);  and I wrote an article for one of the local mountain newspapers about "new beginnings" and the country store.  I was particularly happy about the article and several people commented on it last Sunday at church (I'd forgotten all about it by the time it was published).  The article describes well what the Lord has put on my heart for this little town and this forgotten country store.  So here it is:

She’s 130 years old, built when Bailey was young and steam trains still rolled past along the Platte River.  One of the first buildings constructed in the town (1878) the Bailey Country Store has always been there – providing not only groceries, but also a sense of history and stability to this little mountain community.   The past few years have not been kind to this old girl, however.  When the store was closed in late 2009, Bailey lost not only a town icon but the only functioning grocery store as well.  She’s sat quiet, dark and cold for almost three years – the paint peeling from the walls and the sign that once proudly announced her presence vandalized by bored teenagers.   Tourists would occasionally stop by for a few staples on their way to go camping, but the locked door and butcher paper covering the windows left no doubt that it was either back to Conifer or on to Fairplay to buy their marshmallows, graham crackers and Hershey’s chocolate. 

Until now.  Three months ago we ( The Journey Community Church) leased the building from its new owners with the goal of re-opening the Country Store to provide a much-needed and sorely missed service to the town of Bailey.  If you drive to the bottom of Crow Hill today and look to your right you’ll notice that the store has a new paint job and a brand new sign… and a life-size Sasquatch holding a cup of coffee.  The new Bailey Country Store and Sasquatch Outpost Coffee House are on-target to open their doors in early February.  The exterior looks great now, but inside there’s still lots of work to do.  The original floor is rotten and unsafe so a whole new floor must be built above it for the old girl to be useful once again – not to mention painting, repairing pipes, fixing the heating… and the list goes on.  It’s a time of new beginnings, not just for this old store but also for a community that’s been hit hard in recent years by tragedy and recession.  Bailey folks need a fresh infusion of hope: hope that better days are ahead and that their lives – like the old country store – still have value.  We can all start over again if we just have a little faith in God and in ourselves.

I believe in Bailey, and it’s time for this community to stand up tall and declare: “We are strong.  We are resilient.  We are community.  We are Bailey!”