The finished product, new AC grills

Here are some excerpts from Jack's diary. He spent nearly two weeks in Salina, Utah helping his brother get his recently purchased motel in better shape.

On Monday, April 21, Gary flew me to Salt Lake City, picked me up, and drove me to Salina, Utah where I have been helping get his motel into shape. I spent the first three days putting new cover grills over the air conditioning units (60 of them). It was a very difficult job for an old guy like me. I worked on my knees having some difficulty removing the old grills. They were fastened from the inside so I had to drill out the bolts. Some had outside screws and others (2 or 3) were very loosely attached. The person who measured did not measure all the openings so some openings were too small and others were a little too big. We had to cut the brick to make the small ones work and the larger ones just added to the difficulty. I attached the new ones to the brick by drilling six pilot holes and driving screws into plastic anchors. This created quite a mess which I had to clean up each evening.
Next I fixed old anchor marks in the bathrooms by knocking them back enough to make a small hole and filling them with chalk and then painting. I also put in new threshold rubber inserts in 20 units. Helped change a hose bib and re-chalked 12 bath tubs. I also put in several door stops.
On Saturday the 26th Loretta, Gary & I went on a drive down hwy 12 which is known to be one of the most scenic drives in the country. It was very nice but the morning was pretty hazy. We then went on to Bryce National Park which I found to be magnificent. We had a good trip together. I took lots of pictures.
Thursday, May 1, I finished up some of the work I was doing in the morning. I went to lunch with Gary’s contractor, Craig and his maintenance man, Chris. We had a good visit and I explained what I had done and what I hadn’t done so they could finish up. Around 2:45 Loretta took me to the airport. Gary thought I was going home on Friday and Loretta would only have to make one trip. He was wrong; he had made my flight a day Above is a shot from HWY 12 earlier so now she will have to make 2, four hour trips to the airport. They have to make another trip on Sunday when Loretta fly’s with their daughter Kelly to Texas.

This is my brother Gary and me at Bryce Canyon. It is the only time you will see me look taller than Gary as you can see the angle of the ground by the rail.

Saturday, May 3, I took Chase to his soccer game. He has a reputation of not running very much. While he did stand a lot, today he played a lot more. He even took the ball the length of the field and scored a goal, which amazed everyone. When he fell down he would just stand there until someone cleaned him off. Quite a four year old. This afternoon I got on the trampoline with all the kids had them all squealing as I bounced them around and tickled them. It didn’t take long to wear me out. The trampoline is set into a hillside so you can enter on ground level. I was sitting just outside the net opening and little Chase would come out every so often and give me a big hug and then go back in and jump some more. They can all just melt your heart.