'The' Fort

It snowed four inches over the time of two days.

On day two, I set out to examine the snow in my backyard. It looked plenty deep but now it was a matter of how long it would stay there.

I got on my iPad to look at the weather channel app. According to the info, it was supposed to snow throughout the entire week. The temperature would remain a little bit above freezing but that wouldn't melt any snow quickly enough to ruin my structure.

My checklist was complete and I was qualified to build a snow fort under my trampoline. The only thing I had to make sure I did was stay committed.

I dialed my friend Albert. Last year, we had built a half complete snow fort under my trampoline and this year, I planned to build a full one, all 360 degrees.

His mom picked up. Albert was playing piano. Bummer.

"Oh well" I said. "Can he come over after he's done so we can build a snow fort?" I asked, "That is if he wants to", I added.

"Sure."

At this moment, I was flying solo. Well not actually. I decided I would just play in the snow.

I watched Albert's house until I saw him walk out his garage door carrying his orange snow shovel.

"Alright. Let's get started." He said with enthusiasm.

I went into my garage and dug out a new trash can about 2.5 feet tall. I told Albert that he would be making the bricks with the trashcan and I would pile the bricks.

Our trampoline was a medium sized trampoline. We guessed it would take about 75 bricks and we could make 5 bricks an hour, so that was 15 hours. That was a long time but I told Albert that we couldn't quit like last year. We had to dedicate our free time to finishing the fort.

We began our biggest goal of the entire week!

Brick by brick, we piled, stacked, filled in, patched up, reinforced, trimmed, cut, and flattened.

It was tiring work and we took a lot of breaks because the snow would melt on us and we got soaked or at least Albert did. Occasionally, one of our hard effort bricks cracked and split into 13674 pieces and we would get all sad for about 39 seconds. And then we got back to work.

At noon, Albert went home to eat lunch and he told me he would come back after he was done. I was exhausted so I went inside and took a nap on our couch.

(ZZZ)

SNOW FORT! I woke up suddenly and saw my sister reading on the recliner.

"Is Albert here yet?" I mouthed.

"No" she mouthed back.

I peered out the window and saw a strange sight. There was Albert, hitting the mini trashcan as hard as he could try to force a brick out.

I looked at the fort and saw that the entire first layer was complete. What time was it? Darn it. It was already 3 in the afternoon and I had slept 3 hours!

I got off the soft, warm, comfortable couch, put on my coat, and stepped out into the freezing temperatures outside.

"Albert, how long have you been out here?" I asked.

"I don't know" He said. "I ate lunch in 10 minutes and I came back so I decided to start working."

(I think he took my stay-dedicated speech too seriously.)

"Ok" I told him. "Let’s work."

The work was so boring but halfway through, I realized that a while ago, my dad said that if we built an igloo, we could sleep in it. That's what kept me motivated.

"Hey Albert. If we build an igloo, we can sleep in it."

"Ok."

We planned in finishing by at least the next day that was a Saturday so we could have a sleepover. By the time Albert had to go home for the day, we were within 30 bricks and we were excited about how close we were. We began to make plans for sleeping in it tomorrow.

That night, I went to sleep thinking about sleeping.

Sunlight was streaming through my window. It was already eight in the morning. I got up and ate breakfast. 2 hours later, I was standing in front of our fort again.

Well, I thought, it will go faster with two people so I went and got my sister to help me.

Like always, with her help, things became much easier and smoother. We kept a steady pace going as I made the bricks and she stacked and piled them. An hour passed and we finished another quarter of the igloo.

In the middle of filling in the cracks, I told her the neighborhood cat Butterscotch was here and she turned around and found out I tricked her. Again and again, that got her all mad at me so she ditched me and left me to work by myself. She told mommy I had tricked her over 100 times, actually it was only 10.

I wanted to sleep in the fort really badly so I had no choice but to put more hours of labor into the frozen architecture.

As hard as I worked, everyone gets tired and I did too. I went to go get Albert for the fifth and last time.

Albert was home but his parents weren't so he couldn't come outside. That left me by myself again. My arms hurt and my legs were sore. I told myself it wouldn't hurt to take a little break.

I sat in the snow and kind of played with it until I saw Albert's Mazda van drove down the road. I sprinted through the neighbor’s backyard to Albert's house and I think I even beat the van there.

With the sun setting early around 5:30, we had a little less than 2 hours to finish it up. We walked back to the fort and started work immediately.

Albert made the bricks and I stacked them. We did the best we could to patch up the holes in the gaps between the bricks. I stacked brick after brick after brick after brick after broken brick after brick…

Soon enough, there was nothing left to do but finish the roof. There was only one major problem: the sun was down and it was getting difficult to see what we were doing. One misplaced piece of snow or ice, the entire brick would crumble back into its original form.

I wedged in pieces of ice in to the cracks and then there was the last piece. In my hands, I held the final piece to all of our hours of hard work. I stuck it very carefully into the crack and it stuck! We were finished!

Now, Albert had to go home and eat dinner. After dinner, the adults talked about whether or not it was possible to sleep in the igloo overnight. They debated it for a while and the final answer with a sigh of relief was YES.

Inside the igloo, we managed to squeeze an air mattress, five sleeping bags, and a lantern. That was all we needed for this mission and we got to bed early so we could have an early jump-start in the morning.

It was cold outside. Very very cold. But in my sleeping bag, it was very very warm. We used three sleeping bags as blankets and two for actual sleeping bags.

I got up feeling good and warm and I had to shake Albert awake. We made a break for the back door of the house. It was unlocked.

We took one last look at our wonderful fort. Our expedition was officially over.