The Pit of Despair

"Did you see the sinkhole in the driveway?" Um, excuse me? Not the words I was expecting to hear when DH got back from picking up Luke after school. As he was backing out of the carport, he felt the back end of the car take a dip. He thought he had cut the wheel too sharply and run off the edge of the asphalt in the back yard. He moved forward and didn't think anymore about it.

Until he got back home and saw a hole in the asphalt! And I'm not talking about a softball sized hole. It's about 18 inches (45cm) across at it's widest point, and a little over 2 feet (61cm) deep at its deepest point. Why yes, I did measure it. DH calls it "The Pit of Despair," because it depresses him every time he sees it! LOL



No clue what caused it. Other than the top layer, where they smoothed out the ground for paving (the gray immediately below the asphalt, visible in the photo), the "soil" looks like red clay, which doesn't usually wash away like that. Given my affinity for forensics shows, you can imagine what my first thought was! I certainly didn't see any bones, but I didn't go digging around in there either. Based on the position of the other trees in the back yard, I *think* someone may have cut down a tree and ground down the stump years ago. Then they paved over it. It has since rotted away, but it took us driving over it for 15 months now to finally cause the asphalt to give way. There are still pieces of rotten wood inside; nothing else really. Now we just have to figure out how to get it fixed, and pray there are no more.

Currently feeling: holey