October 1st.

Been off 4 days. 

Expecting to go back to work tomorrow.  If they don't send me a decent run by 2 pm I'll be contacting them.  They really should have sent me out yesterday - but who am I to complain about time off? My only concern after a while is slim paychecks.  

Anyway, I've been making phone calls about getting stuff done on the property since last week and this morning was no different.  I was actually deep asleep before I heard little feet pounding on the floor in the living room going into the kitchen - that didn't make Uncle Ben too happy, I went out there to find another little kid Taylor had brought home. Turns out the power was out and the kid was actually there with his mother, I just didn't see her at first.  

The power wasn't out at our house but apparently a lot of the town was blacked out.  I guess I feel people bringing their kids over to other people's homes should exercise just a bit of control over their offspring and mind some manners.  It was a pretty rude awakening and I'm still out of it. 

Regardless, I got up, sat down at the kitchen bar and started making more phone calls.  The last call I made was back to a company I had called the week previous last week and the gentleman had informed me to just call him next week - which was last week - to have him come out and give quotes.  He called me back after I made the initial phone call and we ended up meeting out at the property.  

We discussed everything.  Literally, everything it was going to take to build the first portion of the park including clearing out all of the front land.  His ball park quote for septic install for 14 sites was $7,500 give or take and another $4,500 to put in the sewer pipe to each pad and run the water line to the sprinklers.  That was an astounding difference from his first quote over the phone.

Note the first quote was for 25 sites.  My next quote I originally thought 10 sites, then went up to 12.  But he said it wouldn't make any different between 10 and 14, so you might as well go with 14.  Hearing that price tag was the first really good news I've heard yet.  A far cry better than 26 to 30k.  After hearing that, I just said fine, let's get a quote for 14 sites and a quote to clear out all the land.  

The quote will include installing the septic, lines, water line and electric.  At least I had the right size water tap installed, he said they only deal with 2* line - which is what I have installed.  He was impressed that I had already called the power company to install a pole.  He went on saying most people don't even think of that.  Well, I did, I was going to do all of this myself, just be the general contractor and tell everyone what I want done.  If 1 company can do everything at competitive price that's even all the better. Any problems? Call that company up and tell them. Power ain't working, water line broke, septic is backed up, please come and fix it.

Oh yes, I fully expect some sort of guarantee on all the work if I go this route.  It just really depends on what the quote comes back at.  I'm hopeful, I'll say that much.  He also said electric parts prices are all over the board right now, just like the other electrical contractor stated and that it would be impossible to give a ballpark on that, prices are going up and down. Let's get this done before the prices go up so high I can't afford to do any of this.  The 4 thousand dollar power pole kind of gave me  a clue.

I've got that guy's number, the power company - he's local - if I don't hear back from him by the end of the week I'll call him at the beginning of next week and see where we're at with it.  The man today said they take their sweet ole' time and you are on their schedule, lol.  Yup, not the first person I've heard that from and I suspect my rather incessant phone calls to them is the only thing that got me to getting that guy out there as fast as he did.  I don't have til' the second of never to get power out there.  

It's perfect weather for camping right now.  The sooner I get this thing up and running the sooner I can hopefully start seeing guests coming and spending a day, several days, a week, whatever.  I've contacted an online reservation company.  They charge $2 per reservation to do everything online.  My price for a stay will go from $30 to $32 plus tax.  The going rate around these parts is around $30 to $35 with a few places much higher that have a lot more amenities.  But I doubt I will ever raise my prices unconscionably high, I just need to be able to make a living off of this and hopefully give some out to the community and God's work.  If I ever did put a pool in, the rate would go up $5 per night to pay for the maintenance of the thing.  And yes, I absolutely intend on putting a medium sized pool in some day - Lord willing and I'm still breathing and alive on the face of this earth.  

He said somewhere around 5 grand to install a half acre pond.  Not bad. I'd rather have a full acre. If they bring all that equipment out here to clear the land I'm going to want to have them dig out even a small pond to start with just to get something going back there.  A much larger version - as with any other upgrades - can come in the future.  

And another thing I just learned yesterday after reading through SBA loan documents.  Yes, that's still in the offing -- at some point I actually intend on going that route I just want to get an operation up and running nowish, not a year or two years from now.  That the info says is that any money spent on start up costs goes towards the down payment........keep the receipts.....of course, receipts are necessary for tax write offs.  You don't think I"m not going to take advantage of any tax write offs I can get?  Lol, I don't even think Biden is trying to do away with that (he's now officially one of the most unpopular presidents of all time, even democrats are turning against him because of inflation). 

Anyway, that was great news.  If I spent all of this 401k on the property, all of that goes towards the down payment for the SBA loan.  I don't have to come up with yet even more down money on top of what I have already spent, something that lingered on the edge of my mind while I was attempting to decide what to do.  So now that I have that established, yes, I do feel like I'm on the right path.  But if it's in the financial realm of possibility right now, I would like to get all 7 acres cleared to start off with.  But if it saves a bunch of money to not have 2 or 3 acres done right off the bat, so beit. 

I'm going to make this work - Lord willing - and get this thing going.  I always say Lord willing because that's what the Bible says about people going to a village to earn some kind of profit - you're tiny little self - me included in that description and calling myself nothing more than dust from the land "And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes" You are not guaranteed tomorrow, you have today.  I had today, I made the calls, I feel like I got something done, we'll see.  I expect he'll have a quote for everything fairly quickly, he had ball park numbers off the top of his head, that's his job is the numbers game, he should be able to give a specific quote for everything in short order.  

I'll say it again, because it's what it is: I really have no idea what I'm doing here.  I change my mind about things because I get new information.  I consider the new information and make decisions based off of it.  By the time I'm done with this, I"ll know exactly what to do if I ever wanted to start another park - or more specifically - buy a smaller property and put some mobile homes on it.  Pretty much the same difference as an RV park excepting your septic system has to be bigger per unit.  

I know what I want in terms of the finished product, it's the path to get there I am completely unfamiliar with.  I still sit here in wonder, after all of that research I did it's still like wading into unknown waters, wondering if there's a drop off I can't see I'm about to step into and really just hoping I meet the right people who can give me the specific information I seek at that point in time.  I can tell ya right now, if this guy comes back with a price I can afford, I'm going for it.  I'll have the whole thing built quickly and have the lion's share of it done with.  

Then, if need be, take out another loan, pay off 2 loans that are now down to a grand a piece - and $300 per month total payments, knock those payments out plus finish the project. One of the loans is for the crowns I had put in the other is for credit card debt consolidation. I could go through a list but I think I need not go there right now. I do need to write all of it down and start looking at the things that I need to get to work on now versus later.  

But yea, I definitely think I want at least a small pond dug out back there right off the bat.  It's just a part of the setup that I feel needs to be done at the beginning.  I can get a small business operator out there to finish my walking trails. I went out there again today since I was already there and walked around the trails.  Pretty nice, actually.  If I need to, at some point, have a well dug back there to supply the pond then so beit. I'm hoping that tiny stream will be enough, especially when it rains it grows in size substantially . 

Well there it is.  Eternal waiting games are plenteous in this proposition.  But the ball is rolling, if ever so slowly. It will gain momentum.  I hope, lol.

As for the rest of today?  I just need to hear about tomorrow's run, for there needs to be one.....

g'day