Tuesday mid-morning

The roads are icy as a winter's hell.  I just saw pics the police department posted, you can tell there is an icy sheen all over the roads.  I need to go to the park, I never did yesterday because of the same factor: poor driving conditions.  But today? It's far  worse.  The roads looked nothing like what the pics are showing this morning.

It's very simple: the roads everyone was driving yesterday, creating slush and such, then overnight, all of that stuff froze up and now? You have hellish driving conditions, especially for 2 wheel drive vehicles. 

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That was this morning.  Never left the house, the roads were not good and I didn't see any reason to risk going over to the park.  Someone called and said there is water leaking onto the floor in the bathroom. After some questioning I figured that the drain pipe outside must have frozen up and backing up the drip I had going. I asked them to turn the drip off. The shower is still dripping according to them, hopefully that's enough.  I have it dripping out of the hot water faucet, so it's going to keep the hot water line that is outside going inside moving inside of the line and also keep water moving in the main line going into the shed. 

The rest is up to the heaters to keep it warm enough in there to keep the interior lines from freezing up.  the electric bill is going to go way up and it's really starting to eat at me.  Not just because of the shed, but because it's "free electricity".  In a pig's eye it is, it's free to use as much as you want if you aren't paying separate for it.  It's already decided for me to start buying the conversion kits as I can afford them and install them until I have the entire park done.  

At first, I can monitor what each lot is using. People going way over may get a notice, or I will probably end up charging separate to everyone for electric and reducing my monthly rate to make it more appealing. So, cut my monthly rate $50 but guests have to pay for their own electricity.  This move, when I get there and it will be a while, I certainly can't afford 14 of those setups right now, but then again, it's not terribly expensive - will undoubtedly drive out some people who love the taste of running everything for "free" and most parks around are giving one price for everything.  

But I see no point, now, in giving away free electric to people who will abuse it to the point you aren't making that much money.  If I could fill up the park with people paying for their own electric, I would be making so much more money.  I am in competition with other parks, yes. It might be spartan for a while, I don't know. I won't be charging overnighters for electric, that's included in the nightly rate. Just long-term guests.  

It's $39 for the kit and another $40 for the meter, plus tax and delivery.  So I dunno, $90 we'll say, or just say $100.  Installation? I would do that, not paying anyone, I have already looked at some youtube videos, doesn't look like anything particularly difficult.  Just have to shut the power off each time you do it.  But if you have everything in place, it's only maybe 10 minutes shutting off the power.  

What's pushed me to this point is the fact that i am just not making that much money off of this park and I see no reason to continue on with this in this manner.  I didn't get into business to make spartan income, I want to make decent profit off of the investment and that's just not where it's at right now. A full park is great - until you start spending the gross profit on expenses.  It's electricity, water, power, property tax, income tax, maintenance, repairs, upgrades, etc.   Just not seeing it.  It just seems to me that it's more prudent to do this first before thinking about adding another sewer system.  

So, once I get these property taxes paid - which I don't even know when, I have to come up with the money soon or they will start imposing late fees - I will start on this and I will also have to think about summer grass being planted in the Spring. See how that works? Money, money, money for everything.  

One more laundry payment and I will have a couple hundred plus more per month to work with.  After that, it's the shed and after that? There's nothing on the immediate horizon that's going to be paid off.  Get rid of those 2 payments, however, and the only recurring, monthly payment for loans is the mortgage which is sitting at $440 per month, hardly any great expense.  It's my personal expenses racked up doing the stuff I had to do after the cash ran out that's eating me alive.

And will continue to do so until I can figure something out - the best option would be a big loan to pay it all off. Just not going to do that until interest rates come back down. If they ever do?  

Work. Well, I never got over there but I did inform the company today that truck isn't starting.  I also said I have a battery charger on it, so hopefully tomorrow morning I can get it running.  I dunno, but it's not supposed to break the freezing point until noon tomorrow.  You think I want to run on roads in 8 degree weather? You should have seen the pics they were showing of the roads around here this morning....

I called the washout place, the man said he was going to go over there early, but not guaranteeing me that he can do any washouts before noon.  I wonder what kind of crowd is going to be there waiting? No one has been able to get washed out in the last several days now at that facility or any other for that matter that is experiencing these kind of freezing temperatures.  

I texted the dispatcher - she isn't really useful.  She didn't call them or do anything but say "I don't know, it's a go unless they call and say otherwise". What the hell good is that? Never heard of being proactive?  CALL THEM AND FIND OUT, I'm thinking, which is what I did after I got that info from her.  Roads good or bad, why should I drive down there to find out they can't do it until noon and I have to sit there for almost 4 hours?  I texted the manager, who called me - he doesn't like texting - and just discussed the situation and he just said probably don't plan on being there until noon.  

I expect tomorrow is going to be a very long day.  It just is.  

If you want to know what's really weighing on my mind, it's that if these pipes are, indeed, frozen, what's going to happen when they start thawing out? Are some of them busted and just not spewing out water because it's an ice cube inside? I'd like to be there for any kind of event like that.  You know, if it is just getting above freezing at noon, any frozen pipes are going to take a long time to thaw out and then? It's going to get below freezing at night until Sunday.  

I dunno. Hopefully nothing or not too much anyway will have to be repaired and we can all go on living our lives without mother nature throwing curve balls at us.