Tuesday - 7:45 pm

Washout - 23 minutes in and out of there. I thought, wow, this is great hope the rest of the day goes like this!  It did not.  I got to the plant and waited over an hour and a half before they even got to me, then they were doing "something" back there and disappeared for another 25 minutes and then finally got to me.  It was almost 3 hours in there where I am normally in there an hour or less.

Oh well, it happens.  I get fuel and am driving back and see a call from Allen - Park Host, you know, the one that left to go work near Austin and his family came to take over?  Hey Allen, how's it going? I said into the phone when I answered - yes I was using bluetooth, perfectly legal to use while driving.  

The female voice that replied was obviously not Allen. Hi Ben, this is Renee (Allen's wife), I wanted to call and let you know that Allen died yesterday morning.  

I mean....huh....what?!!  There was a bit of silence on my part after she said that for I had to digest that for a few seconds.  He wasn't on his death bed the last time I spoke with him, I wondered why he hadn't returned my text message.  Well, we are going down to Austin, his body has already been transported there, do funeral arrangements and take care of things.  I offered my apologies, condolences, sincere respect and said do whatever you need, take all the time that you need.

I then asked what happened to him, considering he was - well not perfectly healthy but certainly not dying the last time I saw him a few weeks ago and talking to him on the phone here and there.   She said he had actually come up to the park on Sunday - which I didn't know, his whole body was swelling up and his family told him he needs to go to the hospital.  He refused but they persisted.  

So, they took him.  His body was shutting down.  He had sepsis - from what I still don't know I didn't want to get too carried away with personal questions - his condition got worse overnight, his kidneys failed and he died Monday morning, yesterday.  Completely shocking, didn't see that one coming. I knew he wasn't in good health, you could tell that by looking at him.  He also had a severe hernia which he was going to get an operation on I think next month. 

We weren't best friends, we had hung out quite a lot tho before he left to go to work.  I'm only saying that because this is the third person this year that I know that has passed away.  I'm seriously hoping I am not on that list as well.  I mean, to the point I was asking God today if He could find it to give me at least another 20 years of good life and preferably without Alzheimer's - which runs in my dad's family lines.  I even asked Him for a sign, I didn't specify what or even that he "has" to do so, just a respectful request.  God is real and I have seen Him in operation many times over, especially when I was serving Him on the mission field in my 20's. 

They then contacted me and asked if I could help out with funeral expenses, so I sent some money. Not a huge amount but I felt like it was the least I could do.  He had no life insurance and he was broke besides the money he was bringing in from his job.  As far as I know, that trailer in my park is the only thing he actually owned, he didn't even have his own vehicle.  His wife has an older Ram pickup, it's in decent shape.  

I have no idea what this means for them in my park, I didn't ask or even think about it at the time but I'm thinking about it now.  Are they going to stay? If so, who is the son going to be accountable to since he's gone?  I know it sounds dreadful to even be pondering such things, but they don't know about this blog and therefore I have no problem discussing it in my mind out in writing, so to speak.  She said they'd be gone 5 or 6 days and I reassured her again that I completely understand (which I really do) and take as much time as you need.  

If I want that grass seed scattered, I'll have to do it myself tho I was planning on it anyway but was going to ask for a little help from the kid.  I want to do it myself for I want it done right, or at least done the way I want it done so I know that it's going to have a good outcome.  

As it stands, I have work tomorrow and then I'll have to decide whether I am going to go have the tanker washed out or take it back to the park and spray the inside walls of the thing down myself with a garden hose.  I'd do that at the plant but they don't allow you to get up on top of the tanker.  They won't even allow flatbed haulers up on the deck of their trailer to deal with tying down the load and putting the tarps over it if it's a load requiring tarps.  Well, you can tie it down on the property, you can't tarp it.  It's impossible to tarp a load on a flatbed without getting up on the flatbed. 

BTW, I don't make demands of God. I just ask very humbly and if it's within His will, great, if not, then there's something else He has in mind and I'm ok with that too.  I just feel like I have a purpose still being here on this earth in this human body and I'd love to stick around a while longer.   Any of us can click off at any time and this is a direct reminder, at least to me, of that fact.  

Politics. It's gross now.  Just repulsive. I don't get how these politicians believe that lashing out like some of them are to the point of even using vulgarity and extremely hostile speech is going to motivate voters to vote for them. It's a huge turn-off to me.  Democrats are desperate, they have been for a while. The polls have shifted in favor of Trump so now it's no holds barred, apparently.  Blacks and latinos are starting to turn on them, the unions have been turning on them, some democrat politicians have also turned their backs on Kamala/communism/extremism.  People are finally waking up, I think anyway, to the fact that their policies are not good for the common man/woman.  It is self serving to them and the elitists that are on the receiving end of their generosities.  

Anyway, if my sleep is good tonight, I'll go deliver the glue, come back, get in the Ford with the trailer already hooked up to it, go get 5 50 pound bags of grass seed and then go ahead and put it down.  I need that park nice and green again.  The seed is only $40 per bag.  That's still and amazing price. 2 years ago it was $35 per bag, only $5 increase in this inflation oppressed economy is not bad at all. It's a local feed and seed, everyone else is charging much more for it.  In my view it's a necessary thing to do to keep the place looking nice.

But, I was reading today on an RV manager's forum about the slow down that I have personally witnessed in my park.  I had no idea this was an industry wide thing going on.  It's the economy, stupid, I told myself.  That's why people aren't traveling as much. The stats showed that a majority of people are not traveling more than a gas tank's worth of fuel away from their homes.  He - this is an expert in the field of RV parks - noted a few other things and then said to reference the KOA ND camping report. I haven't done that yet, but I am going to. He specifically stated that a "new" style of ads needs to be directed to the new "audience", he called these new RV'ers that came about during the COVID crises.  

It is all very fascinating and I will be reading that report tonight or definitely tomorrow.  I have far  less travelers coming through this year than at this time last year.  I didn't know what to think of it. I really didn't know.  I sort of thought it was the new guy - but he's so far away from the Interstate that he's not likely to get a lot of overnight people coming in there.  I thought maybe someone has lowered their prices, but I am clearly the lowest price in the area for overnight stays.  Overnight stays are not my primary target grouping, but they can be profitable during this time of the year - I thought anyway if it was going to be the same as last year.

My target is long term/permanent.  Much less money.  The problem as I have already stated previously is there are only so many of them to go around to a pretty good amount of RV parks around here. The point? I have to get people to leave other parks and come to mine.  How do you do that? I really feel that covered parking is a good starting point, beyond pools and hot tubs.  

I don't want to go too much into that tonight.  I'm tired.  I slept maybe 5 hours last night - just another night of poor sleep - and then when I got home today I passed out on my bed and went into a very deep sleep, too deep. James came home on his motorcycle and woke me up - probably a good thing.  I might have slept for hours and then not be able to get to sleep tonight.  The thing is, during daytime and falling asleep like that? You are in a fog when you wake up.  

Finally out of that fog I will be able to go to sleep in an hour or so.  I have no drivers to contend with tomorrow, I am the last load as far as I know and I know for certain I was the only one loading today.  I believe after I deliver my load, there aren't any more going up there until Monday.  I am not loading until Tuesday.  I got lucky, actually, in having to do a full turn in one day, that's 2 days pay in one day's work.  

Time to get offa here.