Royal Flush

I was a member of our Town's

Trails and Greenways committee

for a couple of years.

(3? 4?)

It was a fun run!

We accomplished a LOT of stuff.

Some of it as small and simple

as cutting trees after wind storms,

cutting, marking and maintaining trails,

laying old carpet on some of the more

deteriorated and eroded trails...

There were a couple of larger projects.

Like the storm shelter we did last year.

That was a lot of hands on work.

But in the background,

we have been working on putting in a new

ADA restroom at our main trailhead.

It started years before I even joined 

the committee.

They had submitted FIVE different 

grant applications to the state.

Once I joined, we decided to give it

one more good try.

We did an AMAZING grant submission.

It was turned down.

But we now had a friend "on the inside"

who told us the reason we were rejected

was this was money for trailheads and we

were trying to install a restroom in a park!

Somehow, somewhere, in some of the

boilerplate stuff we used, there was 

the word PARK used to describe the property.

But it is absolutely a trailhead.

So with that word changed,

we were ACCEPTED!

The state kicked in $80,000, the Town

kicked in $10,000 and $10,000 town paid labor.

And that was the easy part.

We figured we would get approved,

order the prefab bathroom,

it would be built, brought in on the back

of a big truck, the crane would lift it 

into place, the plumbers would hook up

a bunch of stuff and we could have our

grand opening in about 3 months.

That was 23 months ago.

We had 2 hurricanes.

Flooding.

Septic that had to be moved TWICE.

More problems getting potable water.

Site planning that had to change

multiple times.

(Since it is ADA compliant we had

to provide 2 ADA paved parking spots

in the middle of a grass pasture...)

The whole process was a royal pain.

Nancy may recognize this place.

When she was in town, we rode

our horses over here and met 

Jim and Kyle for a picnic.

At that time there was a nice 

blue porta-potty.

TODAY we had our official grand opening.

I was joking around at a meeting and

said we should call it the Royal Flush.

They loved it.

The structure you see are four horse stalls.

We get lots of people who trailer in and use

this as their "base camp" for a day's riding.

(We have 10 miles of trails!)

But they have also been used as rescue stalls

for people whose barn burned down,

another farm that flooded out,

and even during the hurricanes!

I was amazed at the number of people who attended!

I expected our little 5 person committee,

some local politicians,

and the photographer.

Nope!

My friend Dorothy - the town secretary and a really sweet lady!

There were representatives from the County,

folks from the neighboring Town (we have

partnered on several trail projects)

LOTS of politicians,

LOTS of biking enthusiasts,

the entire town staff,

even our "insider" friend from Tallahassee!!!

(That's a 5 hour drive!)

And there she is!

We are SUPER proud of her.

(And SUPER glad THAT's over... LOL)