Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 30, 1994 TAG: 9406300124
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Jim Baldwin and Steve Meeks gave up going home weeks ago.
By the time quitting time rolls around, it's simply too much trouble.
"At this point," says Baldwin, the naturalist at Virginia's Explore Park, "the intensity is at a pace; it's better and easier if you just make this your life. You can't afford to be distracted."
So why let a little thing like nightfall interfere with the rush to get the living-history park ready for its ribbon-cutting Friday in front of a crowd of 1,000 VIPs and its grand opening to the public Saturday?
These days, quitting time for the two Explore Park staffers may not come until well after midnight.
"I've seen them out here using the headlights on their cars while they finish up some work," marvels park engineer Richard Burrow.
And when the headlights dim, even the moonlight will do for some jobs.
"Moonlight is the light to plan by," Baldwin says. "Everything's black and white and gray; you can see the contour lines then better than you can during the day."
So just when do these two Explore Park workers sleep? Maybe the better question is where do they sleep?
Baldwin beds down in the back of his car, a beat-up Army green '72 Catalina Safari station wagon, with packing-crate foam for a mattress.
Meeks curls up on the front porch of Explore's frontier-era farmhouse - unless the frogs are croaking too loudly. One recent night, they were so loud he had to retreat inside.
Baldwin and Meeks are hardly alone; on some nights, up to a dozen folks working on Explore choose to stay on the job and sleep beneath the stars at the wooded park in eastern Roanoke County.
Baldwin shrugs off the all-nighters as just part of the job.
"It's not that it's that heroic," Baldwin says. "It's just a matter of being focused on a very creative process." And Explore, in its own way, is a work of art, he says. "The only difference is our brushes are a bit bigger, and our canvas is over 1,000 acres." And as the sign on the door to Explore's office points out, "Only 2 more days until showtime!"
\ The place, to be honest about it, looks unfinished.
Last week's rains were "a killer," Baldwin says.
There would have been a lot to do before opening day in any event, but now there's less time in which to do it.
The road into the park and the parking lots must be paved.
The walkways through the park, now a jumble of mud, must be graded and covered with mulch.
A year's worth of construction debris must be cleaned up.
And the animals - don't forget the animals. Today is moving day for Explore's sheep.
Explore workers are optimistic they'll make their deadline. "It'll come together," vows Perry Forbes, a retired Kroger maintenance worker from Bedford County who has volunteered his time and labor as a carpenter.
A few things, though, simply won't be ready for opening day - most notably, the restrooms. They're about a month behind, and engineer Burrow confesses, "I feel bad about that." Portable toilets will have to do.
However, Burrow points out, "we've made it clear we're a work in progress, and we've started that progress, and we'll be progressing through the rest of this year and all next year and all the following year. We're really just getting a start on doing the full park. But we need to get open."
So this week, some 45 people - from Explore's staff to hired construction crews to college students earning spending money to volunteers - are putting in long hours at the park.
Most of the big, glamorous jobs have already been done, such as reassembling the frontier-era farm buildings.
What takes the most time now is the little things.
Wrestling up stumps. Putting in picnic tables.
Or rewetting the wetlands.
Three years ago, under Explore's previous administration, the park drained a small wetland that bubbled up in the middle of where the park's frontier settlement would be. Rupert Cutler, now the park's director, vowed to put it back. That's been easier said than done - and Baldwin the naturalist has spent much of this spring trying to work out the details. A little gravel here, some excavation there.
Last week, Baldwin made arrangements for the Mount Pleasant Volunteer Fire Department to hose down the dry depression with 10,000 gallons to see if it would still hold water.
Before they could start, thunderstorms boiled up. Baldwin sent the firefighters and their tanker home, then sat in a nearby car to wait out the rain. Lo and behold, the rainwater filled up the bowl. The newly configured hydrology worked. But suddenly the showers turned into a downpour, and rivers of orange mud from Explore's work sites began cascading down the hill toward his precious wetland.
Baldwin jumped from the car, grabbed a mattock, and raced to the hillside, hacking away at the squishy earth to divert the mudflows. The college students slogged through the mud to join him.
"Everybody was just swimming in the mud," Baldwin recalls. "We were just caked." But, in the 90-degree heat that followed, there was one advantage to the mudbath, he says. "It kept the flies off of us."
by CNB