The Problem With Today

 Wednesday  semi-early

I wasn't going to get up this early, but something woke me up and I just said oh well and got out of bed. The dog wanted out as well.  He's a real trooper wanting to go outside in 10 degree weather and tromp around all over the place - that won't last long tho, lol, and he'll be whining at the door. Yes, I let him in, we aren't making the dogs stay outside in this below freezing weather.  

Yes, it's 10 degrees and it feels like 10 degrees.  

So what is the problem with today? Well, to start with, the roads are still covered with this sleet/snow mixture that starts to melt down on the top and the refreezes and has done that several times now. I can't imagine trying to get to my park right now much less down to Nacogdoches to wash out the trailers.  

Second is the fact that the truck refused to start 2 days ago. Batteries didn't have enough juice in them to crank the engine.  I put a charger on it, left and thought I was coming back. But by the time I was going to try to come back, the roads had iced over again and I said no thanks, not worth it.  As it is right now, not worth it. 

Third, if I can even make it down there, how many trucks will be sitting in that washout yard ahead of me, waiting to get cleaned out? How many hours might I have to sit there and wait?  If I drive down there, will I even get the truck loaded today?  

4th.  Is the fuel gelled up in the fuel tanks?  I know they put anti-gel in the fuel at the truckstops, but is it enough and strong enough mixture?  

5th.  Just how long is this day going to be in terms of leaving here and getting back home?  I truly wonder if I even do make it back home today.  If I can't get the truck running? They'll send someone out to jump it.  They will get it going, I can guarantee you that unless the plant in Lufkin says nope, we don't have anything ready because we are shut down.  

6th. The fact that the dispatchers are no pro-active. They don't call the plants, they wait for the plants to call them.  It's kind of dumb.  Who cares since it's the drivers paying the price for their lack of initiative, right? 

So what to do now? I'm going to sit here at least until the sun is beaming and doing something to the ice on the roads. I can't drive my SUV over there in this stuff. It's not a 4 wheel drive and it's got highway slicks for tires on it, not all terrain tires.  Next time I have to replace tires I will definitely be putting something that gets traction in mud, snow, whatever.  In fact, 2 of the tires are getting close to replacement time but guess what? 

There isn't like a huge pool of money laying around to pay for them and I am trying to not put anything else on credit cards.  It is going to have to be an extreme emergency to use credit for anything right now.  

I'm not going to see any big paycheck with all of this time off that's been going on.  The pay period ended on the 15th and I think I had 8 days of work on it.  That's a 15 day pay period with only 8 of them having had worked.  I do have a full park - we'll see how much of any profits are eaten up by excessive electric bills for running people's electric heaters.  These people will and do take advantage of free electricity and eventually, I am going to put a stop to that even if it means people leave the park.  

And yes, I'm still worried about the water situation.  We'll find out about that either later today when things thaw out or, if it doesn't thaw out today, it definitely will tomorrow.  Today is only slated to get up to 40 degrees and then back down to freezing or slightly below 32 but tomorrow? Mid 50's.  

Anyway, I have no idea when to actually try to leave here?  It's almost 9:00 am now, considering trying to get out of this neighborhood. I got stuck the other day trying to climb up the hill, the wheels just spun. I had to back up around 300 feet to get to level ground, turn around and try another route home.  But, if I can make it out of here, apparently the highways are relatively clear. Well, take that back, 59 is doing ok, 43 looks pretty bad, I'd have to go out of my way to get to 59 and take an alternate route down to Nacogodoches.  

_________________________

9-1/2 hours later.  The drive over there was a bit white knuckle. Roads were still covered with that sleet/snow mix and has iced over several times now.  I slid a few times, kept it very slow and did, indeed make it. Once I got the truck out onto the Interstate and then the state Highway, it was great.  The roads were clear.  

The visit to the washout was not fun.  There were no other trucks there and there was a reason for it. Their equipment was down. They originally told me it was water frozen in the feeder tank to their machinery that pressurizes the water and also heats it if they so desire.  But that wasn't the case at all. It was their machine that wasn't working. I suspected right away that the pump was simply frozen and they needed to do something to warm it up.

I didn't bother to tell them that, they wouldn't have listened to me anyway.  It took them over 3 hours to get it running. I was the first truck they had tried to even get the stuff up and running for since the winter event took place.  It was nearly 4 hours before I left there.  The plant was great.  They loaded me up quickly, it was after hours and the people running that place after hours are quick and efficient. 

But, it was still a 9-1/2 hour day due to the washout.  

Tomorrow will be another long day. That's because the trailer is out of inspection and needs to be inspected immediately. Who knows how many hours that's going to add to the day.  They are talking having me go to El Dorado to the yard to get it done.  That's easily another 3 hours.  

Anyway, it's getting late and I am beat.  I just knew this day was going to be something like this. 

 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. 

__________________

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.