Home. No work for tomorrow.  

Of course, likely meaning work another entire weekend.

No worries, we are taking the 23-25 off and that is - an entire weekend. If I want one off, I have to ask for it in advance.  I don't really ask for much time off, this shouldn't be an issue unless others have already asked for it. 

The interim dispatcher for the normal one - who is on vacation - is also the really cool one that used to deal us out the runs before she got promoted to manager.  So, she said no problem, but let me check tomorrow when I'm at work the schedule?

Ohhhh, I didn't even realize how late it was.  

Moving on.  Interesting but perplexing.  Uhh, ok.  Here's the situation. This property?  I measured 197 feet from the driveway on the east side to the edge of the property on the west at the front.

But I was looking at the surveyor's notes, it says the width of the entire front portion is 233.5 feet wide.

HOW? 

So I pulled up the county tax assessor's appraisal site again, found the property and answered the question.  The property line is going through a good portion of what the next door neighbor is calling their front lawn.  It is also literally right up against a garage they have built there.  From all appearances, it's actually encroaching on "my" property probably a foot or so.  

Would I make them tear down their garage? No.  But I'm looking at all this space on the east side of the driveway at the front that if I just let it go, I can't use.  

On the left,  you can see how much space is to the right of the driveway.  It's literally right up against that garage.  Those maps are accurate on that site and hence the confusion of where this "extra" property is at, property I could use.  In fact, the whole front portion to the right could be used as a fenced in doggy park.  Or a kiddy playground.  Or, perhaps, install the septic system there.  I added the dark lines (not perfect just did it quick to show the line more clearly)  I'm not sure how they could build like that without checking property lines first and understand what belongs to who?  

 I looked up every property showing up behind that front one. It's all owned by the same person, there is no reason that person should have put that garage right on the very line of his property.  Further, he doesn't live there. He lives in a ritzy house in a pricey neighborhood south of Fort Worth. I know this because I looked it up lol. I dunno if he rents that place out or what.  The rest of the property I have no idea why he owns it since he's done nothing with it. Not that that's any of my business, but perhaps at some future point he'd be interested in selling some of it.  

In my view, now that I think of it,  that entire driveway could be moved over to the edge of the property and free up some space.  I'm pretty sure the neighbors wouldn't like that, but property lines are property lines.  Now before you jump down my throat, even in the Bible property lines are pretty important stuff, if you look it up in the Old Testament.  I really could use the land for something. 

Okay, so let's say I leave this dude alone, but I want that area circled in black. They aren't using that property tho they apparently mow it or brush hog it.  Either way, that could be septic system or doggy park there.  Doggy park doesn't need to be huge.  Why? Because of the following picture. 

The useable rear of the property minus the well and easement junk.  Still a lot of property back there, around 14 acres I'm guessing. The blue line approximates where that stream is, running right through the center of it coming from the right near the top.  The center is a perfect place to build a medium sized pond.  The rest of it I can build walking trails and possibly even put in primitive or not so primitive cabins.  Walking trails are easy, the headache with cabins would be trying to figure out how to build a driveway back in there.  The satellite view doesn't show the steep down grade near the edges of the well pad.  I could see building a drive way vehicles can go in there with, I can't see how I could incorporate it with RV trailers. Perhaps I don't need to, just advertise these cabins as non RV units that only cars/pickups can get to. Regardless, that is where I want to put in a network of walking trails. If I want to do something else with some of it at a later date, walking trails can be easily altered.  

Okay, that easement all the way down the left side could be used as a road to get back there - possibly. But to be honest? I haven't actually found a way back in there on foot yet. It is so incredibly thick with underbrush and those evil thorn vines and thorn bushes, it's just impossible - so far anyway.  I haven't given up, I might even go out tomorrow and try again. I can go all the way to the back of the property on the right side of that pic, but finding a way across?  Just haven't been able to do it. But I might attempt to find a way yet once again going to the right, all the way back and see what I can do.  I really need to see if I could access the rear of the property with that easement.  There is nothing saying I can't put a road on that easement, they just restrict you from putting any structures or even a fence on it.  

Well it's getting late and I want to get a good night's sleep. That dilemma at the front with the neighbor using that property, I'll just have to think about it. Possibly contact the owner and get their thoughts on it.  I don't want to start neighbor wars just like I didn't want to start a war with the gas well operator.  At least try an amiable agreement.  Although I'm really thinking that pic with the property in the rear of that house would be a perfect place for a septic system.  Out of the way and off to the side.  

Look, I intended on using every inch of usable space in the front. My concession could be to go 35 foot wide lots instead of 40, 65 long pull throughs instead of 70 and somewhere around 40 foot for the rest of the lots.  I'd really like around 70 lots in the end of this setup.

 Several loads later since the last entry, I'm sitting in a very small town in Oklahoma waiting on an empty trailer.  Got here around 1:15 am last night. Yesterday was a we-didn't-have-any-fun day.  

Besides taking forever at the loading plant just to get weighed in, then I had to wait for an iso tanker that had showed up 1 hour and 50 minutes late for his appointment time.  Yea, that's late.  So, it was 45 minutes before they even started loading me.  

Then, I drove to the scales again, another wait and then an hour and 45 minute wait for paperwork, gag. After that? I was walking out to the truck. It was hot outside, something told me to go check the pressure.  When I left the loading rack, it was at 18 pounds, they always get it down low before they let you leave with it. But when I left the scale house? 46 pounds!  That's very high in such a short period of time. At 94 pounds on that particular tanker, the safety valves pop off and then you have a very serious problem.  They don't necessarily shut off even after the pressure is brought back down, you get into trouble with the company, EPA can get involved, etc etc etc.

So, a series of phone calls and then my manager had to consult with upper level management. The decision was made to take it to the yard and sit on it and see what happens. The loading rack crew had gone home, there wasn't anyone there to offload the product.  So, I got back to the yard. The sloshing around in the tanker caused the pressure to plummet down to 28 pounds and I was informed to "take it".  

Uhh, ok.  I stopped many times on the trip up here checking the pressure. It was going back up - abornally fast btw - but not near as fast as it took for it to shoot up to 46 pounds. So, I made it up here at 42 pounds, informed the personnel here of the issue - you might want to keep your eye on it overnight.  We just drop the trailers at their offload rack and then it's all on them.  

If you think there's any word on the property, you thought wrong lol. I am not even contacting the lender or the realtor at this point. It's just an eternally long waiting game.  Today is the first of July and there is still a month left to wait.  There is a possibility they will get to it sooner than expected, but not that much sooner.  I've taken a little break from doing any research on RV parks just to get my mind off of it.  

Now, I did see a new property come up yesterday - an amazing piece of land. 127 acres for only 330k.  That's really cheap price per acre.  The things I could do with that much property.....but I don't have 60k down payment money and the monthly payments would be twice as much as my house payment.  Maybe some day I can get a much larger piece of land, for now, I'll be content with this 25 acres - if it goes through.  Give it a couple more weeks to see if the title agency finds any problems.  It's really only that - if there are no problems, that property will be mine. The only other thing that could happen is if the seller decided to bow out of it.  The option was extended for both parties until well into August.  

The option to bow out of it, of course.  

The munchkins are going to grandma's later this month, we are planning a mini vacation - go to a hotel somewhere nearby with a swimming pool and a hot tub and act as if we're a long way from home and nothing to worry about lol.  It's the idea of taking advantage of the kids being gone and being able to do stuff without the constant whining, fighting, complaining, etc.  That's what kids that age do.  Well, the older one is learning that whining about things mostly means he isn't going to get whatever he is whining about. The younger one, however, is defiant, stubborn and wants his way, every single time. Which inclines us to not give him his way, pretty much, every...single...time.  "I want" are the most commons words that come out of his mouth.  How many times have we told him to say please? A thousand? 5 thousand? 

I haven't been on vacation in quite a while, btw and I wouldn't mind just getting away even close by.  Something that doesn't remind me of home, work and this attempted business venture.  Ok, I'll have ot backtrack a bit, I am going to up my research on business loans.  It's not a matter of temptation - to get a loan and get this over with. It's more a matter of - what if I don't have enough money in that 401k to get this thing going?  

Here's the thing, I did the math on just one driveway at 20 feet wide for the gravel. It's around 300 plus tons.  At 20 tons per truckload (not sure how much they hold, just a guess on average empty truck weight) that's at least 15 truckloads.  That's a lot of material. Couple that with another driveway plus all the pads?  Could easily be at 900 tons or more.  It could easily cost 20 grand or more just in crushed concrete or whatever material I decide on.  I like iron ore better, but apparently there is high demand on it, raising the price to ridiculous levels/. 

Regardless, even just starting out with say 20 spots, I can see near 100k to get everything in place. The structure would be laid out for adding additional pads at the get go.  I won't have 100k is the point.  I can't really get a solid grasp on costs until I have companies come out and give estimates on the utilities to get them to the property.  The septic system for example could cost far more or less than what I'm guessing which is around 20k.  

I've read so much conflicting information about septic systems that I don't trust any of it.  Only having a local professional come out and give me a real life bid and tell me how it's going to be will I trust.  But I'm not going to succumb to the negative stuff that some of them post.  I can't let myself get dragged down into the depths of despair because a few people on the internet tell you you shouldn't even try doing it.  People always degrade others in business ventures - I've seen that my entire life.  There are alternatives if a septic system was really that much to install, such as putting in a 5,000 gallon tank and just having a dump station. Then you have the expense of having a truck come out and emptying it, but it's better than nothing (and much cheaper actually).

However, the trend is to have sewer hookups at every single site. And I would like to follow the trends, because that's what RV'ers are following and you can read some extremely negative reviews from hoards of RV'ers who are definitely not in love with any particular RV park for a host of reasons. 

Regardless, they are finally done with an empty and are about to pull it out. I must be off of here and get driving on down the highway. 

G'day