David C. McLavic - 24. Chapter 24

School started and I put all of my energies into finishing high school. I continued to draw at home. It was good practice and the buildings I created were posted on the room's walls. Beth Ann wanted me to design a house for her. As it turned out, the house was very fancy, like an elaborate doll house. In fact, with Uncle Joe and Dad’s help, we made a model of the house which she used with her dolls, Of course, Cleo had to have a special room, she was a princess. It was fun working with her, “Can you build this, make this room larger.”

When I finished high school, Dad bought me a car—actually, I asked for a jeep. That summer, I went with Dad on one of his excursions. It was three weeks in Mexico, and I took my jeep. Dropping Beth Ann off at the reservation, Dad and I continued to Mexico, where we met some of his students.

This was the first expedition I had ever gone on, and it was also the last. Not that it wasn’t interesting, but I was more interested in modern buildings. I wanted to see some construction projects by famous architects, like Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum, his Fallingwater, the Frank Gehry home, and others.

Between my college years, I would select an area noted for rememberable construction and visit. I saw several museums and noted projects in New York and Chicago. I wasn’t just interested in looking at the building, but I was interested in how the overall design was constructed and the building was erected. These trips filled many of my notebooks with comments and pictures.

I was sure many people thought I was weird. When I saw a building of interest, I told Carl about it. In my mind, he was traveling with me.

While I was in college, Beth Ann met a young man in high school and became engaged. His father owned a furniture store in Los Angeles and wanted to open a store in our town catering to the college set. Upon my graduation from the University, Beth Ann got married. I was happy for her.

I wanted to go somewhere where I could sketch and maybe build a memorable structure, something that would Draw attention to the area. Something like on a mountain, maybe a home-like Fallingwater. Dad made this possible.

The yellow stones that we melted were assayed by the bank in Los Angelos. The bank in our little town was a branch of that bank. Dad arranged to open an account locally, which included a locker. Some of the gold he converted to cash which he deposited in my name and the rest of the chips he put into the locker.

With that money, I bought a trailer to attach to my jeep. I staffed the trailer with a refrigerator and a stove that ran off propane gas. Of course, I had to have room for the propane cylinder, so I had two of them attached to the wall of the trailer. Now I was ready to go, or so I thought. Uncle Joe had a very thick blanket to sleep on as well as a blanket to cover ourselves. I wasn’t sure what Uncle Joe thought our trip would be like. As it turns out, Uncle Joe was right on.

I wanted to look for a place that was mountainous. Living close to the Canadian border, there were large tracts of land with trees. At first, I thought I would follow the wood cutters. They would have made roads to get to the trees and remove them.