So I have some sort of sores that have developed overnight in the roof of my mouth.  Weird that it happened that quickly and had such a ridiculous effect on eating and drinking.  I'm going to try to get into the dentist or doctor today to have it checked out.  I read about possible causes. They all say to give it a week or so and see if it just fixes itself, that they eventually go away.  But I don't necessarily think it's such a great idea as one of the issues it says it could be is mouth cancer and it's best found early as it is far more treatable.  

Yea I hope I don't have mouth cancer, that would pretty much ruin my life, doncha think?

Anyway, after the exchange between the dispatcher and I last night, I heard nothing more.  I at least half expected my manager would be contacting me this morning about it.  Or, the dispatcher's manager - who is really cool and used to give me a good mix of decent runs and low paying runs - but never giving me a bunch of crappy runs in a row or having me working 2 out of 5 days and making a gross total of $450 in that 5 day span unless we were absolutely out of work.  

That is simply not the case.  I know because my manager told me that it was odd I was not working as much when several other drivers are on a 34 hour reset.  Well you only need a 34 hour reset if you've worked 70 hours in the last 8 days.  I could do 3 Brownsville run in that amount of time.  Or a palm pennsylvania and a Brownsville run. Or whateer.

So I dunno what's going to happen now.  Just ignoring me isn't going to make me go away or the problem disappear.  I'm guessing that since I haven't heard from my manager about this, she either said nothing to anyone, or presented it to her manager, or presented it to her manager and my manager and for whatever reasons they aren't saying anything.  

I dunno, but I don't get a run - and a decent one at that - tomorrow I'm just going to continue on - respectfully and courteously of course, nothing rude, demeaning or demanding - with it until someone actually says something to me.  At this point, tho I don't really want to start looking for another job, I could actually considering taking a pay cut to be home more often and that one job - home every weekend.  My expenses are not that great and I never did the deal where you earn more money and your lifestyle upgrades with it - meaning spending money on stuff you never used to or buying things you would never buy otherwise.  

My house pays for itself, I have utility payments here that I am responsible for every month.  I have a car payment that is still 2 years before it's paid off.  I have some credit card debt and a couple of loans.  Even going back down to the 3 grand per month net range I could still make it work, probably wouldn't have my 401k deductions set so high as they are now and other savings, but I can live with that.

What I wouldn't like too much, tho, is the idea of not having the money to be able to do this entire project which is, hopefully, coming up soon.

The point in saying all of that? I understand the company I work for is just another trucking company that views you as a number on a computer screen.  Drivers having conversations about it? We came to the conclusion we are all expendable, like piles of household trash, they can get rid of us as easily as keep us.  So, making "waves" about my workload, I took that into consideration.  The "like or leave it" mentality, the "don't let the door hit your @$$ on the way out" type of thinking that I have grown accustomed to in my trucking career.  Well, not quite so much now, the demand for drivers is high. That doesn't necessarily mean the pay for drivers is also high, but the median wage is going up.  Making a minimum 60k per year is pretty much mandatory excepting in some local jobs where they think they can take advantage of you and give you in the 40 to 50 k range.  

I think 60k is the lowest I would go in considering a new job and I would not be willing to enter a rat race where they're working you to death and you never see the doorframe of the house you live in excepting once every couple of weeks.  Or just make a job change altogether.  i saw an ad for a forklift operator fair that is going to go on next month here at the convention center.  I'm a bit rusty but my forklift skills are A plus, I'm as good as anyone out there after a dozen years of operating one to pull parts and load trucks.  No, I wouldn't be making 90k per year doing that, lol, but I'm so tired of the trucking industry. Not just my job, but the trucking industry as a whole.  The amount of federal regulations.  The constant meddling by state troopers pulling you over for no reason except to do inspections - which they can legally do.  The companies installing inward facing cameras and monitoring everything you do.

I can remain hopeful, tho, that this current situation will improve and I won't have to or be forced to go look for a new job. Again, I was not disrespectful at all - but...these Oklahoma runs don't make a decent paycheck.  Well, 3 of them per weeks would amount to .... around $1,400 per week gross pay.  I guess I could make that work now that I think of it.  But only if I got 3 per week and make up somewhere else if/when that plant shuts down.  Doing the math and making assumptions about the average pay, it would gross 72,000 per year.  

I would be home much more often.  I actually might think about that now that I looked at the numbers.  No one would care if I took only Oklahoma runs, no one likes them because they are low paying.  But it's an easy run, out the first whole day and usually back by noon or a little later the next day, depending on load time.  Nah, not right now I don't want to do that. If I ever get this business up and running I could think about asking for that, close to home and able to be there the next day at the latest if something arises.  However, I am going to need someone to do small repair jobs if I continue to work and be able to get over there fairly expediently. It would keep me on health care and I doubt the company would care about that truck only doing that run. As long as it makes them X amount of money, they are good with it. It's an old truck, they likely don't owe anything on it so that's an expense they don't even have to make with it.  In fact, none of our trucks are new by any stretch of the imagination.  

James can do that, of course, but, he has a full time job and he's going to school. Yet, he's still looking for side jobs on top of all of that. To be young again, lol, I simply don't have that kind of energy any more.  I have energy, just not that much of it.  I like taking naps here and there now.  

So it's whatever, perhaps I made my case and just shut up about it now.  If they don't like it and tell me to leave, I will do so and I will have no regrets.  I'm not going to start looking for new jobs just yet tho, the one I saw the other day popped up on my screen from a saved search I have in one of those job search engines.  It was definitely intriguing.  Hazmat tanker, I don't know what they haul, but they adamantly stated that it's weekend off and home either every night or possibly out 2 or 3 days. Well I already do that now, that wouldn't be much of a lifestyle change.

Well, it would be a change that I would have weekends off. I heard a driver complaining to my manager yesterday at the office about wanting at least one weekend off per month.  I get what he's saying, but I also get that my taking weekend work gets me good runs a lot of the time - except recently.  I've gotten so used to working weekends that I don't even think about it anymore.  Well sometimes I do when I see people going to church and think, gee, it would be good to get back into church again. Kind of difficult when you're on the road all the time.  

I do know that some drivers refuse to work weekends.  I dunno how they get away with it, I guess because enough of us will take whatever comes our way at whatever day of the week we get it.  I never asked about it because I really don't care.  I do care about the drivers that are getting special privileges in the types of runs they are getting.  One driver boasted to me the other day that he got "only Brownsville and Oklahoma runs for 2 months. It got kind of boring".  Yea, he was making bank and he left out the part that he demanded that situation because of Cornoavirus and making excuses to get his way.  That's what these drivers do, they make up stories to get their way about things and for some reason, management/dispatch allows it.  Hence, my request - I didn't demand anything - that I get more work.  

So here it is, day 5 of nothing pay.  No one would be expected to live off of $450 gross pay per week. After taxes, health insurance and 401k deduction, I'd have in the low $200 range.  Lol.  This is what I told the dispatcher yesterday and she couldn't and didn't even try to refute it.  

So what will I get tomorrow, if anything? An Oklahoma run to spite me? Lol.  An out of state run to make me go away? Not likely a Brownsville run.  I dunno, but if they're sending me out of state, I'd like to know about it pretty soon so I can get the keto cook to make me some dinners for the road.  

Seriously think I should at least go to Urgent Care and have this thing checked out. At least get a doctor's eyes on it and get some kind of determination of what it is. If that includes blood tests, I'm definitely not going to like that, at all. I get nauseaus and I come close to passing out when they draw blood.  Call me a wuss, I'll take it, it's a life long thing. I have to be laying down to give blood, and I have to be able to lay there for a while.  It just makes me feel funny.  If they did take blood, they might as well take extra and check my cholesterol levels while we're at it. 

Ugh, that doesn't sound very ... fun.  

Property? Nothing new there.  Just the lender asking the question about which side of the property I was getting.  But checked email just now anyway, lol, he sends stuff and I sometimes don't see it for a while, but there's nothing there.  The appraisal they are going to do or are doing?  Should come back good for the price per acre.  I'm trying to put all of that out of my mind for the moment.  I've done so much research I'm kind of done with doing that for a while.  It's not helping me do anything ATM anyway. It has prepared me for the potential day that we close and it's all mine, a sketch of an idea what to start with at least.  Lots of people saw my comment on a local facebook group - no it wasn't a post I put up, it was a comment on someone asking about getting land cleared and I mentioned I would potentially need those services done as well - and they contacted me via messenger.  We can do it! How much?  We'd have to look at it! Or, my grandson (adult version thanks) does this kind of work, here is his number! and others just saying they can do it.  

Of course they can do it. With proper equipment, land clearing is probably one of the easiest jobs they do and makes good money doing it.  The lowest I've found so far is $75 per hour - that includes the machinery and the operator.  That's not bad.  The next was $125 per hour and I thought that wasn't that bad.  I'd take the $75 per hour guy as long as he has some good reviews somewhere.  The rest were a "take a look and give you a flat price" for it deal.  I don't think I want to go that route. I'd rather pay by the hour and get as much as I need done at likely a cheaper price than some flat price where they crank it up.  But, I might have one come out and take a look and see what they offer.  

Or rent the machine, take a week off from work and do it myself.  Just not sure at this point in time which is the most cost effective.  I have no experience clearing land, tho I do have experience operating earth moving equipment. I doubt it's that hard. But I have to factor in $650 per week to rent the machine, plus fuel, plus not working.  A "normal" week - forget the recent complaints - is anywhere from $1,750 to $2,800 gross pay.  So, losing that plus $650?  Well, do the math, likely cheaper to just hire someone out to do it for me.  Average 2 grand for lost pay plus the $650 and nothing else and that equals 34 plus hours of the $75 per hour dude.  That's a lot of hours. 4 plus 8 hour days and I only want about 4 acres of the property cleared out at the beginning.  I doubt it would take that long, in fact, I would want more of the property cleared out if I was going that route.  Let's get 6 or even 8 acres done. The rest I could do later on, clearing out brush and creating walking trails.  

See? These things swirl around in mind endlessly, hence I want to try to turn it all off for a while. 

Well, I just remembered my manager asking me to do the endless online training stuff that they demand we do.  So, I'm offa here, going to do that and eventually decide whether to go to the doc or wait a few days and see what happens. 

G'day

 So, I had Friday and Saturday off.  Then Sunday and Monday tied up with a low paying run. And now told by the dispatcher that there isn't any work tomorrow - 2 runs.  In the last 5 days as of tomorrow, I will have had a $450 paying run.  I know for a fact others have been running and so - I couldn't just take this anymore.  I didn't unload on the dispatcher, I just stated the facts.  Of course, she may take that as unloading on her, but it was respectful and courteous.  

I can't pay my bills on $450 per week. That's 5 consecutive days with only one,  low paying run. No, no thanks.  There's a local job running 5 days a week and no weekend work that pays more than that that I can take and have weekends off. Not that I want it, it would be a huge pay cut.  But I'm not going to continue to deal with whatever is going on with this dispatcher.  I'm already taking a pay cut with these weeks where there's a normal paycheck and then there's a - nothing paycheck.  

Whatever the case, it has become evident that other drivers complain to get their way - and they - get...their...way.  This isn't even second hand info, it came straight from my manager's mouth today.  

So I confronted her on it.  I've done the passive, nice, whatever is cool way about it and it's getting me nowhere.  We had a few comments going until I finally told her that the work is there.  There is one particular driver that gets the Brownsville run every single time. He literally does nothing else.  There are others that get good runs most of the time. And then, the rest of us.  

I'm just not going to sit back and have this served on the dish of "there are no other runs" when I know there are other runs, they just are giving them out to select people.  For unknown reasons, it's wearing thin on the rest of us, but to have this kind of stuff going on for this many days in a row? I'm going to start speaking out. After my last comment, she didn't reply.  I didn't expect her to. I expect my manager will be calling me tomorrow and telling me how it is. Or attempting to explain it away. Or whatever.  I'm tired of the excuses. The work needs to be handed out fairly to everyone, just as they all have said it would be - yet they aren't delivering on it.  I guess they don't understand that there are enough of us that talk to each other on a regular basis to see what's going on? 

If I were just going by my own observations, that could be totally off. When you are talking about people who live in the yard and see what's going on plus everyone else that are seeing these same people pulling certain trailers all the time?  There is an issue. It's come-what-may to me.  I've never had such a high paying job - but I'm back to square one with this dispatcher and making far less money than I should be.  I've given some thought to finding a local job anyway for attempting to get this business up and running - if I ever get the land, lol.

Meanwhile, today, the realtor contacted me wanting me to give her permission to speak to the lender.  I guess, she can't really say anything that hasn't been already said.  But checking my email I saw why. The lender had asked from both of us whether it was the property on the east or the west side of the tract split?  The realtor had made it obvious that it was the east side in a reply comment, but I definitely had to back that up.  

I do not want, under any terms, the property on the west, that land is more than half of it gobbled up by easements which you can't build anything on.  It's the property on the EAST that I want.  Please and thank you.  My realtor then texted me after sending that to everyone. Thanks for that, it seemed obvious to me that it was the east portion of the split.  There is and there will be nothing new about the property for a while from the lender and so, I must try to get my mind off of that subject somehow.  

There was no interest in finding another surveyor. The seller's realtor put in an order for a survey the day we made the agreement and that is that.  Just bite my tongue and wait.  I may go over to the property again since the dogs like it and it's free roaming without having to deal with anyone else.  other than that? I've seen this property, it's time to get this thing done and over with so I can start making actual steps towards my dream of becoming financially independent.  

Or I'll go to the hunting property to let the dogs roam and not get so tied up in my thinking of what to do with it.  I can do all of that if/when the thing closes and it's in my name.  My chickens don't hatch until the deal is done, the down payment is made, the other fees are paid and I have the paperwork with my name on it in my hands.  

I won't stop looking at information on RV parks tho.  It's interesting stuff for the quirks and the mindsets of the people involved with it.  I can't just shut this stuff off in my mind, I can only try to squelch the thoughts of this particular land until it's a done deal.  

Anyway, I have tomorrow off - i was fully expecting to be sent out tomorrow and I wasn't particularly happy to find out there is nothing but "2 loads". I haven't found out who got them or how long they have been sitting.  

Anyway, off to wonderland, watching reruns of some of my favorite shows. 

 My curiosity is now peaked.  The neighbor to the north has a pond on their property.  Note - there isn't any structures on any of the land surrounding me.  There is a house around the corner and down the street a bit and well back from the road.  My intended operation will not affect them. Also note - lots of land for future expansion if the need arises and if any of the property owners decided they wanted to sell - they are doing nothing with any of that property.  Maybe hunting - can't tell that from satellite photos.  

I was looking at the property again - more like admiring the property.  It's just beautiful - but I wanted to look at the neighbor to the south.  There are easements through their property and some of them are close to what I am trying to buy.  Just wanted to see what is going on there.  Namely, wanting to see if there is a gas operation going. Whatever is going on, it's not a gas operation and that's a sigh of relief.  I don't have to think about having noisy trucks running back and forth.  That's something I should have looked into before signing a contract - however -  there is a provision in the contract that either party can back out of it.  I think there's a time limit to it tho.  

Anyway, I am only guessing, but it appears the pond is fed by some water source coming off of "my" property.  The reason being is there are trees going straight from "my" property to that pond.  There are no other trees on the property - except trees leading off to the next property in a row. That suggests a stream and I am highly likely going to trek over there in a bit.  It is supposed to rain today but not until later.  I have only seen one stream going through "my" property and that is only active when it's raining. A few small pools of water here and there, but it isn't a constant running body of water.  Which could make for a nasty looking and smelling pond in between rainfalls during the summer. People build ponds out in this region all over, apparently the EPA doesn't care about that? Or - who knows what.  It's something I'd like to pursue in the future regardless of what property I get.  We have no shortage of water out here, it rains frequently.  Having a well drilled and supplying a pond with water wouldn't be a strain on the water system. Put it close to that stream and any rain runoff could simply drain down there. 

I also saw that someone is doing what appears to be a large dirt operation.  Mining it and hauling it off would be my guess.  It looks like they've removed small hills worth of soil to - I would guess have hauled off. However, the entrance to that operation is coming from a different direction and looking at the roads, it seems that any trucks are coming in from the south.  I have yet to see any signs of trucking operations going on, even tho that is definitely some sort of commercial operation replete with large trackhoes and earth moving equipment.

The wonders of Google Earth and just plain Google with satellite view.  It's pretty cool. You can inspect other people's property without ever stepping foot on it.  Someone else - well down the road - has  a mobile home set up well off the road. There are piles of garbage or - whatever - littered all over it.  There are very few houses along the road.  I may post a satellite view of it later today.  Just don't feel like doing that right now lol.  

The only explanation for all of the utilities running through this area is that large power plant.  Henry W. Pirky power plant.  It's a lignite-fueled power plant. Admittedly, I had to look up the word lignite to find out what that is.  I guess that stuff must be in abundance in the area - I had no idea.  I thought maybe a natural gas power plant.  Anyway, if you satellite image that plant, up north of it is Finklea road. You'll see a manufacturing plant at the entrance to the road off of I-20.  My intended property is down the street from it - well down the street tho.  That plant is vacated.  Well maintained and up for lease, but nothing going on there atm.  

Regardless, the water supply utility must apparently think there is some future for that area in installing all of that water pipe there.  I dunno, maybe.  Just looks like an area where people just like to - own land lol. Not many houses and no appearance that anyone is going to build anything there.  This is why I think this plot of land is perfect for my intended use. I won't be bothering anyone, I won't have a loud operation - this is going to be a "peace and quiet" setup, people that don't like that can go down the road to the other RV parks and join the sardine can setup they have at all of them around here - and I want to maintain the beauty and serenity of the area as much as possible.  

I dream at the moment. The land is not mine and there is a long wait.  The only thing I can do right now is go visit and soak it all in.  I would love to rent a bobcat for a few days and clear out brush between the trees. Obviously a waste of money and illegal actually since the land isn't mine yet.  They don't care if I traipse the property tho.  They shouldn't since I am under contract with it, have paid earnest money on it and the holdup is not of my doings.  

With that, I best be about the day.  Doing something.  Lol.  

g'day

 Call me if this entire project the process has been to paint the land, I’m in foreign mom.

The sentence above is why I don’t use the microphone to make entries while I’m driving. The sentence below is what I actually spoke into the microphone:

If this project goes anything like what it’s taken to get land, I’m in for a long haul. 

Lol, it isn't even close.

Anyway. 

The latest obstacle was hurled at me today. It came from both the realtor and the lender. I paid off 2 credit cards and a loan that was near being paid off anyway - but was sucking out near $350 per month in payments.  They wanted my output to be less.  Well, I knew I would have to do that so no biggies, I agreed to it.  Eat up some cash  - but free up monthly cash.  It was close to $500 per month in payments.  

But what is the issue now?  Well, the seller hasn't had the property surveyed.  I'm no expert on any of this, but it's obvious you have to have a survey done when you are splitting up a property.  This guy split this thing into 3 properties but didn't have any of it surveyed.  

Well, a lender isn't going to do squat until that survey is done. I mean it's obvious why you would want that done. Your property lines are marked and established.  There is a need to know what your property boundaries are, lol.  I could tell you the front of the property line is the road. That's easy. And there's a barbed wire fence running along the north side.  The back side - well that's not really marked.

There is a gate on the road, but the property line is beyond that gate, so I'm not sure what the gate is for.  I just know from looking at the satellite view that that gate is probably 100 feet away from the property line and if/when I take possession of that property, that gate is coming down.   I'll use it somewhere else.  But, the rear of the property I'm going to have to install barbed wire fencing just to keep property lines established.  There is nothing going on on that property, it is totally undevloped and it doesn't appear that there is any legal access to it except through an easement.

Now, that road, I don't know if that's an easement.  I don't really care if it is, it's not big enough for trucks to run through there and there is nothing along there that a truck would need to access.  Now, if there is a possibility that it is an easement and there are trucks running through it, I wouldn't care too much about it, for that road is right on the southern edge of the property and I can live without it.  I have no thought of using that as the main entrance anyway.  The main entrance will be nearer the northern end of the property.

Well I got off subject, I tend to do that when i start thinking about what I will do with this land.  Anyway, there is a 30 to 45 day waiting list for surveyors.  Yup, I won't be able to close on this property for at least a month from now.  The lender told me today there is no problem with me getting the loan on the land - I asked him about that for he was telling me he couldn't proceed with the survey or anything without me paying off the loan and 2 credit cards.  I wanted to know if he had any issue with anything on that contract, the land, whatever.  He said no issues, just need to get all of this done.  

I mean, I can't do anything with this land until it closes and it's in my name.  That's just the facts of it. It is what it is.  It isn't very pleasing to me, but whatever.  I have decided I will get water run to the land right off the bat.  I don't need pads set up for that, they install the line to the property edge and put in a meter and that's all I need.  At least get that done and get a septic installer out there to take soil samples and give me a quote on a septic system.  

Power, I just really don't want to do until I figure out where the pads are going to be so I can get a pole run near where the pads are.  It will save money on running underground lines versus having a pole set "somewhere", just doesn't make sense to do that until I can pinpoint a central spot for the pole - or poles if I need to run it even longer in the air.  I don't really care where the pole needs to go, but I have to know where that pole needs to go first.  

This is more of a psychological setback than anything. I have no reason to believe the lender isn't going to approve this land.  I specifically asked today, they said we're good to go, just get the required stuff out of the way.  I've jumped through all of their hoops, my end of this deal is done.  

Now, my realtor? She found this out today as well, the fact the property hasn't been surveyed.  She wasn't particularly pleased about it either.  Well of course not, lol, she ain't getting her share until this thing is closed, done and over with.  She was like "No clue. I think the seller should have the survey ordered the moment they figured they were splitting the tracts, but I'm a girl - what do I know??" quoted and replete with a disbelief emoji, lol.  

Nothing I would have known tho, and good info. When the 6 months is up, I'm getting titles to the 3 tracts in town, have them surveyed if necessary - they may already have surveys for them at the city - and put them up for sale.  I may take my battle to the city tho, at least try to get approval for the one property to put a mobile on it.  A bunch of liberals on the city council.  I have to learn to talk their talk I guess.  Like - well look, there's a lot of poverty in this town, I could put a mobile on there, fix it up and do it as a owner finance, rent to own deal. Someone or a family could benefit from the security and nicety of owning their own land.  

And speaking of that, some other people would be interested in providing management and security on the land - full time.  This is another - put a mobile on it and they will live there. One of them works from home, all the time.  I'm afraid I can't have mobiles anywhere near RV pads.  It's a - society and a mindset these RV'ers have.  They don't want to see that stuff - and I could make that happen  There is plenty of land there. 13 acres doesn't sound like much, but after walking over it, it's definitely enough for what I want to do.  I just don't like the idea of chopping down too many trees.  

I'm going to try and tone down on all of this - tho I won't stop doing my research.  The more I look for info, well it's just amazing what you think you might know and then find out - throw all that out the window.  

Oh, driving home from the yard tonight?  I looked over at the road that goes to the property - it's awfully dark back there. Like pitch black.  So, some sort of night lights will have to be thrown into the offing.  

I think I'll go over again tomorrow.  Not because I need to see anything more, but because I like to walk through woods and Addler loves it too. I'll bring Aspyn this time since the ground isn't muddy. Her and mud are roommates.  More like bedmates.  I mean, I could try to envision where the pads go? But it's hard to see with all that underbrush everywhere. That all needs cleared out to get a solid view of where and what goes where.  There will be as minimal disruption to the tall trees as possible. 

And with that? It's time to go to bed.  Midnight-thirty.  I got back to the yard at 10:30, got out of there around 11 and got home an hour ago.  I'm not sleepy is the main problem here, lol.   

It's going to be a long month-plus wait, lol. 

 So Addler was having a blast today. You could see it on his face.  Just that look that dog gives when he's giving his approval for what we are currently doing,. 

The fun was wandering around the property.  Maybe a few moments he didn’t enjoy the vines with the pointed barbs on them, but he loves these adventures onto theses properties. 

_______________

That was yesterday. I got like 5 hours of sleep after going to bed at 3 am, woke up at 8, couldn’t get back to sleep and just decided to go tour the property. I only had a chance to tour it the first time in pouring rain. 

I covered as much of the property as I could. There’s lots of areas with thick underbrush that will need to be cleared out - if I get the property. 

With that in mind, the seller signed the contract, my realtor came over last night and picked up a check for “earnest money”. It’s money I guess to let everyone e know you’re serious about buying. I think lol. Kind of new territory for me. Today, the contract gets sent to the loan officer and then - I have no idea how long it will take. Days probably. 

I touted the area further down the road as well yesterday. The water line ends 200-225 feet from the property. I’ll have to pay a contractor to install additional line to get it to the property. I’ll also have to pay a contractor or the power company to install a pole and bring power over to the land. And I’ll have to have a contractor come out, take soil tests and determine what kind of septic system can be installed. 

Those, however, will not be the first order of business. The first thing I’m likely to do is start clearing the land and having a professional design the park. Both for starting out and future expansion. 

Once pad locations are identified I can bring utilities near the pad sites. 

That will be a much longer than you probably would think process. I’d actually love to quit my job and get at this full time, that isn’t in the cards unfortunately. 

I'm also going to have to try and determine what I will do for a bulldozer/land clearing. Rent, lease, purchase or pay someone to do it for me. I’m not there yet. 

I’m sitting at the plant with the endless wait for paperwork. I should have been on the toad an hour and a half ago, delays holding me up and wondering if I’ll have enough hours to make it to Brownsville...

 With that I think I’ll end this one. 

 I'm still waiting for an empty trailer in Brownsville, Texas.  I was informed that there would be one here at 2:00 pm - it's now 3:15 pm.  I assume one will show up today, but it's getting to the "I'm not driving straight back" point.  I mean, I may be asked to do so for there are no empty trailers in the yard in Longview for the Brownsville run. We have a bunch of trailers dedicated to this account, but the customer hasn't been sending them up and has cut back their orders to one truckload a day...

______________________

And as soon as I started writing this, an empty showed up.  Put the computer away, got with it.  And I mean, I got with it. It's almost 3 am - I can't just come home and go straight to bed, normally anyway. I'm too wired up to go to sleep. They had no trailers available for anything but one Oklahoma run tomorrow, they needed this one.  She didn't actually ask me to drive half the night but it was obvious what they wanted.  

I hate night driving, literally despise it. Just as the hours tick away and it goes from 10 to 11, to midnight, ,to 1am - it gets harder and harder to stay awake.  But about the time I hit Lufkin and stopped for fuel, I knew I would be able to get this done and get home.  I'll actually have more time later on today after I get some sleep for personal stuff than if I had stopped somewhere for the night and taken a 10 hour break.  

When I got back to the yard, there was only one trailer sitting there - at least for what we haul. 3 other trailers sitting there - 2 oxygen and one LNG trailer.  I don't get this plant in Mexico.  They had 2 trailers come down today - the only trailers available. But they have ALL of the rest of the trailers down there at their plant, saved the 2 loaded trailers sitting in the Brownsville yard.  They must have 15 plus trailers sitting down there.  Why? And why order more product when you have so much of it sitting there?  

I guess I haven't even revealed the news here yet.  That's what I was writing this one out for, now that I think of it.  The seller counter offered at $4,400 per acre. My realtor called with that news and I immediately agreed.  It's time to get this land portion of this deal behind me.  It's going to be somewhere around $57,000 total for 13 beautiful acres of property.  With $11,400 down, I'll only be financing $46,000. If the mortgage calculator I am using is correct, it's only $313 per month payment.  They want me to pay off 2 particular credit cards and an unsecured loan that has $2,500 left to go on it as  part of their stipulations to get the loan. So, I'm losing around $410 in monthly payments by doing that and therefore, I actually have more money at the end of the month.

Well I take that back. They'll probably add taxes to the mortgage, I dunno about insurance. It's just land, I want liability insurance on it but I need nothing more than that, at least until I get the business up and running.  And that, as I have stated a few times already - is going to be a while.  

But, I have at least decided that only the front of the property, initially, is going to be set up for the business. The back half of the property will be left untainted, nothing more cut down unless there is some need for it and all the natural beauty of tall pines will remain. In fact, I suspect 3/4'th of the property will remain intact.  I'm only starting out with 25 spots and I can make that work on less than 3 acres of land.  Maybe 4.  That leaves 9 acres that I don't have to cut down beautiful trees for.  

I'm just going to do the minimum that I can get away with at first, but of course going to have to be up to Texas code for various things.  I probably don't fully grasp what I'm getting myself into here, but that's fine. I see so many experts casting doubt on anyone that wants to build a new RV park.  They call themselves experts anyway.  I don't really care what they say or the vast amount of money they determine it will cost per lot (15 - 50 thousand).  It's just amazing how many people will tell you not to do it. Fortunately I found a group of people that are building their own parks and I get to see through their eyes the snags, the difficulties, the screwups they made and - yes - learn from all of that.  

Well that's enough. Fatigue is finally settling in.  I want to go traipse the property later on today  - all of it - without having to use an umbrella and probably take the dogs with me as well. Yes, I know I don't have it yet, but that didn't stop me with any of the other properties I wandered around looking at and - never got.  "At least in this case we have an agreement on the price. I have no idea how long it will take for the seller to get to signing all of that stuff - I did it online and they assigned me a signature instead of having to physically sign everything.  I doubt this seller is going to want to do that.  It might be many more days before there is a fully signed contract by all parties involved and get it to my lender.

Whatever the case, time to zonk out. 

G'nite.  

 You will see a lot of repetition in my thinking during the next - however long - while I try to grasp all of this situation and attempt to come up with a plan.  I have a plan, yes, but it's a loose plan at best.  It changes the more information I get. That's on a "what do you want in a park?', what the state regulations are and how much it costs basis.  I have changed the pad size. Some pads will be smaller and some will accommodate large rigs.  Some will have full hookups - some won/t  I want to only install one septic system to start with and accommodate however many rigs that will legally allow for plus a dump station.

I want electricity at every lot - but I don't want to have full electric hookups at every spot. Many campers don't need 50 amp outlets.  There will be a mix.  I'm trying to envision a starting point and right now? It's kind of hard.  It's slowly forming - regardless of what property I may end up with - but it's not near as easy as I  thought it would be.  It was  this, that and the other thing. Now its, this - plus regulations, that - plus expenses and the other thing - how much will that cost to install? How much space should I devote to 25 spaces?  Where in the property will I put it?  That's important because the water line will be coming from the street, the power line will come from a setup next door that runs through their property.  

You want to run the power line over head to as close as possible to the sites before putting in a pole for your main box.  Much less costs doing it that way.  

I've been doing my research, I can say that. And the more I do, the more "stuff" I come up with.  I'm not going to try and skirt state regulations, at all.  I don't need or want that kind of heat on me.  Do it right the first time and get it over with.  Get the permits, get whatever help I need, pay for whatever professional help is required or necessary to get it done right.  That's why I believe it will take longer than shorter to get this done.

Pads installed first.  That will take plenty of time - designing and then removing necessary trees and then installing each pad.  Water - easier than most of it, but still time consuming.  That's  do-it-yourself stuff.  Sewer- professional installed septic but I can easily run my own lines from the setup to each pad.  Saves on costs.  Electrical - Yes, get the power run overhead to nearby, but then it's going to be costly to get it run to each site, no matter what method you use to do it.  

But it's a make or break thing - people want power.  They'll pay for it, they don't care, they must have electricity.  

Pads - will include clearing the land, leveling it and dumping gravel on it.  Cement can be - some far distant date in the future, the costs are too high and not worth it.  People can like or hate gravel - some can't stand it - that's their choice.  

The idea that I have to have bathrooms if there isn't sewer to every site is problematic.  I'm going to need to consult with a septic system expert before I make any decisions on that.  An actual building for a bathroom would be far more money than I can deal with right now.  I'd have to "ask" if a restroom trailer would be acceptable and then - figure whether it's cheaper to run septic to every site - and possibly more than one septic system necessary - or deal with the bathroom scenario.  

Regardless of their hurdles, I remain focused on the end result - however long that may take.  I remain focused on a retirement that doesn't include living in poverty or completely dependent upon the government, that's my biggest concern.

Anyway, 2 empties came in early this afternoon.  2 drivers ahead of me, I contacted my dispatcher - are there any more coming today?  I doubted there would be - the trailer I brought in last night, loaded - they didn't touch.  They brought those two trailers in and left without taking the loaded one.  There is no math to their equation, it's all guess work, but I base it on their history.  Highly doubtful more would be coming today, but who knows.  

My dispatcher said no, there doesn't appear to be any more coming, go to the truckstop if you'd like.  I wasn't actually asking permission to leave the yard, I was more asking permission to stay another night.  If she gave me the red light to leave, that's the red light to get 2 days detention pay down here.  She said that and I said thank you.  That's when I headed to the hotel. I'm on the 4th floor of the Holiday Inn down here. It's a decent hotel within walking distance of several restaurants, hence I chose this one over the Marriott Residence Inn - it's only within walking distance of a small restaurant and I wanted a more familiar feeling.  

My earnings will be high on this run. But I will need another run to shore this one up.  I'm in this for the money, not to do the company a bunch of favors taking ridiculously low paying runs and a lot of them in a row.  I don't care anything about that.  Brownsville runs have been scaled back to one per day - per the manufacturer/customer - they can't keep up with the normal 2 to 3 per day they get.  That is why it was surprising to find 2 drivers down here and 2 nights worth of do-nothing pay.  

So what else is there now? Lol lots more research. Reading endless threads from people that are full time RV'ers, attempting to get a feel for what most people want - the basic things they can't do without.  Looking up state rules.  Looking at youtube videos - how to install this and that.  I feel like I"m getting closer to the starting point.  May or may not be so, but I'll stay in the "let's hope" lane until/if or when something changes that.  But even if this one doesn't happen, there are more.  Not like this one, no.  I don't know where the water is going on this property, but it's not pooling up and sitting around forever.  

The bathroom part I don't like. I not a builder, I'd have to pay a contractor to do that and that isn't very appealing, the cost would be very high.  I'll figure it out. But that's kind of an obstacle that I have not addressed yet because I'm not there yet.  

And, attempting to stop the temptation to contact the realtor.  She can't tell me anything until the other realtor says whatever he says.  If she had something to tell me, she'd send it immediately.  

With that, I think I'll watch some tv.  

 Day 2 in Brownsville.

I was mistaken last night when I thought that I was the only one down here.  I had looked in the truckstop and saw no tractors from our company sitting there waiting, usually a good sign that there is no one else here, waiting.

However.

I woke up this morning to the sound of a beeper coming from a truck backing in, I got up and looked, it was another driver.  I didn't see any other trailers besides the one I brought down here, so it dawned on me that perhaps a driver decided to take a night at a hotel.  Pretty common thing - the second night you go get yourself a hotel and get out of the truck.  

Sure enough, not only has he been down here over 2 days, another driver as well.  Although it happens, I don't expect them to bring up 3 trailers today.  Usually they bring 2 empties across. There are no empties sitting at their yard across the border, which makes me believe that there is only going to be 2 coming up from Alta Mira.  

Why go on about this? Because if I spend another night here, it's going to be at a hotel and this time, not that place up the street. After my last stay there, I decided I wasn't going to stay there anymore.  Besides the couple have loud sex, there is no carpet on the floor, not even throw rugs.  It's not really a nice place to stay and it only costs me another 20 -25 bucks to get a better place.  In fact, I was looking: Marriott Residence Inn is going $89 tonight.  That would be great.  

The Bible tells us to be anxious for nothing. So, I'm trying not to get jittery and exasperated waiting on a decision from the guy that owns the land.  I'd like an answer, but I also think maybe the realtor isn't going to get over to that guy's house this weekend.  Apparently this person doesn't do stuff over the hone - they said he's elderly, perhaps he's incapacitated and can't go anywhere and simply doesn't like doing transactions over the phone like that. Old school thinking, nothing wrong with it, but it will delay this from happening.

I therefore have decided I best keep on looking at other properties.  In case this falls through, I need to have more lined up behind it.  There are a couple of them.  One is more than what I am financed for - but they have had it up for sale for a long time.  They might come down, especially considering it's rather overpriced property - but - it's in a great location.  That will probably be my next attempt if this one doesn't go through.  Whatever the case, I am convinced that any property needs to be near a major highway.  It doesn't necessarily need to be down the street from a grocery store, but the highway needs to be within a few miles at most of intended location. 

There are 2 major highways going through my town and several lessor highways.  Those are my target areas.  A location near both would be excellent - but improbable. There are 2 properties right there near the intersection of both. The land owners wants 400k for the 4 acre and 600k for the 6 acres.  In my view, that is an outrageous amount of money and I wouldn't pay that much even if I were a rich person.  It's a small town, now some mega-city with the potential for huge income.  And 4 or 6 acres would mean a sardine can type of setup.  

I actually would like to try such a venture, where the lots are small and you cram a bunch into a small location - it seems that the ones in good location around my area are mostly full.  But they're just glorified parking lots.  

Oh, and Texas. Their regulations require a "recreational area" "easily accessible" by all campsites and at least 2,500 square feet. In every property I have looked at, I have looked for a place to install a dog park, a camp fire ring and an area for peace and quiet.  Book reading swing, picnic tables, etc.  That really isn't a great expense besides clearing the land to make it.  So that was something I had already thought of before I even found this official state site.  

The thought of not having sewer at every site didn't cross my mind until the last few days when I started reading about sites that have sewer at some sites and not at others.  In fact, your campground can have all kinds of different sites set up for different types of campers.  The idea is to offer everything anyone would want - while cutting some of the costs.  

No one recommends installing the electrical system yourself unless you are an actual electrician. I kind of came to that conclusion already anyway.  Most of them tell you that installing water yourself is recommended and easy. Yes, I know that as well.  Dig trenches, install water line, walaah.  Easy peasy, save thousands of dollars.  

So I'm kind of undecided on the sewer - excepting that if every site doesn't have an individual sewer line? You have to have a restroom built.  It doesn't actually say what kind of restroom, for I have seen many restrooms trailers that are set up very elegantly inside and saves on the cost of installing a building.  Regardless, I will have to at the very least have a dump site.  RV's pull in, dump their blackwater into it and move onto their pad - or on their way out - or probably both.  

I've got to keep costs trimmed down at the beginning.  I just don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to throw at this project.  Most "experts" tell you to simply buy an already existing RV park.  Yeah? The cheapest one I've seen was half a million and the price tag goes way up from there.  

And frankly, if this project gets too expensive, I'll switch back to a small mobile home park, acquire old homes, renovate them and go that route.  Remember, this isn't something that has to happen tomorrow.  I'm in no huge rush.  Land acquisition is the major thing, after that, I can and probably will take my time in construction whatever I end up with.  It will highly likely take at least a year before it can be operational.  I don't have unlimited time - I'm still going to have to work - and I don't have unlimited money.  I might have around 70k available.

That means for starting out? It will have to be a small RV park - no more than 25 spaces to begin with.  That way I don't have to install multiple septic systems and the electricity installation expense will be kept down.  BUT, I do expect to install some boondocking sites - these are sites that have no electricity - or anything really - just a place to park.  Charge at most $15 per night, probably less.  Good use of the land. No expenses besides install the pad.  Have 5 of those and see how that goes.  

I have lots of plans, but in reality it will take years to build up what I want.  Money being the biggest factor, time being the other.  I think I can enlist James tho to do a lot of stuff, he is quite handy and if I pay him a decent hourly wage, I suspect I can get a lot of this stuff down while I'm on the road.  I just can't quit my job.  Not at the beginning.  Just not in the cards.  I wish it were, but I am being realistic about this, especially about the way Im going to go about this.

Most people are getting full time into the RV park business - they quit their careers.  Me? I'm going to tighten up ship and bring my expenses down so that I can dump portions of my paychecks into the operation.  This will mean eliminating eating out with the family as often as we do - tho I don't always pay, it adds up.  I will just have to take my mother's role modeling in being a very wise spender, frugality has always been her mindset.  She doesn't have to be, trust me, she has plenty of money, it's just the way she lives her life.  

Ok, well I have a whole day to do - something - with.  This town is still "locked down" compared to other towns, you are still required to wear a face mask everywhere, limited seating, social distancing, etc etc etc.  So I'm just going to stay in the yard for the day and see if I can find a good movie to watch on my laptop versus attempting to find something to do.  It gets kind of boring, even if watching tv all day, just no one around to have a conversation with. 

Well actually I could make a trip to Walmart for some needed supplies, now that I think about it.  

Anyway, offa here.  

 Brownsville.

I was surprised to pull in here and find no empty trailers. Management was getting antzy about "all" of the drivers being down here several days ago. Well, it wasn't me, they had me on endless Oklahoma trips and they will not be sending me on another one of those next trip, either.  If they try, I'm going to tell them no thanks.  I actually wanted to get out of here early am and get back home.  Why? I dunno, just want to be close to home until I find out whether the gentleman is going to sell me that property - or not.  

But I can also handle getting paid to do nothing. I have my laptop and unlimited internet.  The other weird thing about today is that I didn't see any of our trucks coming back up from here. I always see them, every time I come down here. Usually two of them.  

Oh, the other reason I wanted to go back up early was to get home and then go look at that property - without the down pour that was going on when I looked yesterday.  I would have done a lot more exploring if I didn't have to fool with that umbrella - but I'm not complaining about that umbrella, it kept my dry and I was thankful for that.  

But I suppose I should stay away from it until I get word back either way.  I have no idea when that other realtor is going to go over there and discuss it with this person.  Today? Tomorrow? Monday? 

And I finally found Texas - stuff - on RV parks. The county apparently has very little of anything, but the state, however, has some permits and rules for building parks. Especially the septic systems.  And minimum required space between site.  And shower buildings required if you don't have sewer at every site.

Didn't know about that one. I was planning on having sewer at every site anyway so I'm not going to worry too much about that.  Sewer is actually the biggest cost worry I have about this proposed business.  I have no access to city sewer and - I don't want any.  

Well whatever the case, I'm really tired. Another half sleepless night.  I just am too much of a light sleeper and it isn't much fun.  

So I"m going to cut this one short, go to bed and get some sleep.   

 Emails and texts continue to flow at lightning speed now that I have finally decided on something - that is still available, versus all of this nonsense that became unavailable a day after I even saw it, went to look at it and made a decision to buy it - and find out it's "under contract" after sitting on the market for 200 days.

The realtor texted me 20 minutes ago about wanting direct info about the lender, the lender emailed me about that acceptance letter they had already sent - send that to them. So fine.  This is practically real time, this stuff just happened.  I sent the realtor the acceptance letter that had all the info on it and then some - more than she needed.  

I have to tell you the satellite view of the property turned me off. It looked like a piece of land that had the timber cut down and replanted.  It looked too perfect.  Upon walking the land, well - there are 75-100 foot tall pines - my favorite - but the lines are where they cut down trees to open up lanes for whatever purposes.  Apparently hunting, tho I can't imagine doing that much work to go deer hunting?

I can tell ya, that's a lot of man hours that don't need to happen on my part.  

What was interesting is the fact that this land is owned by an "elderly person", as described from the realtor this land was created by.  Umm,, I don't know what this person's situation is, but if he/she is in dire need of the money? I'll pay the full price.  I don't want to mess with the older generation and their needs.  I'm getting there, slowly, but I'm beyond the 40's and getting close to 60's.  

The realtor - not mine, she is dealing with his realtor - will have to go to this man's house to sit down and discuss my proposal for - lessor money - but I didn't know about this situation until after I made the offer.  I really don't want to feel like I'm hurting an older person and their welfare by "taking advantage" of them. I had no knowledge of this until after I made my offer per acre.  

I can tell you I would really feel bad if I found out this person direly needs this money for whatever. 

And the signing process on my part? Over 23 papers worth.

I'm getting a bit excited. This property is not on the MLS. That means it isn't showing for sale anywhere.  I only got the info because I was ready to offer on the other property - across the street - yesterday.  

I will wait - somewhat patiently.  It might be days before I get the answer. But since I agreed to whatever - the full price if they insist - it "should" be mine.  

_________________

We just hit the weekend.  I will find nothing out until Monday at the earliest.  Well I dunno,, realtors are highly motivated, I have been finding out. This lady I have been working with has repeatedly stated she doesn't mind all of the endless questions and queries about properties.  Is this still available, can you ask them about that situation with the property, please offer them this amount, etcetera.  

And, we also hit the grandparents coming down.  So it was of great interest that the 6 year old didn't spend the entire night wit grandma.  That is the normal thing, they come, the boys disappear.  They are immersed in grandma the entire time. 

Instead? He wanted to be with me.  That was highly unusual and I really encouraged him to go spend time with grandma, for they don't get to come down here that often.  It's about 3 hours to where they live.  He didn't refuse per se, he just didn't want to leave my room.  

I have no clue on that one, it was a first.  Whatever the case, it's my time for bed and they are all going over to Shreveport tomorrow to an aquarium over there and whatever else they are doing.  Just for the fact of an aquarium - which I didn't know existed over there - I would have loved to have gone as well.

Instead, I am heading to Brownsville early.  This is my life as it stands. And this is why I traipsed through the wet woods this morning.  I will continue to say it, for I am there and beyond: I am soooo tired of working for someone else.  I don't care who or what it is, they are benefiting from my labors. I am getting a wage, yes, but I am not getting the dividends of owning a business nor the freedom of doing so.  Ok, no one said there is a lot of freedom in owning your own business. 

Or did they?  You aren't beholden to a company. You aren't on their schedule.  You don't have to account for anything to a person "above" you.  You account to your customers.  You try to make them happy.  And if they can't be happy? They can go somewhere else.  

I'm nowhere near  the position of quitting my job. Years more to go.  Whatever becomes of this business enterprise - unless it flourishes to the point I don't need to work for someone else anymore - I will still have to work for ... someone else.  

Now, do I think this business could flourish? Yes!  100%.  I think it will flourish. But does that happen right away, or does it take time to build a reputation in the RV industry? I have no clue.  I am clueless about alot of things - I have tried to find out, but some things are going to be relegated to "live and learn" theorem.  I have never been a businessman, the learning curve here is high.  You don't know how much time I have spent studying and asking questions and trying to find out about things related to this particular business and operating a business in general.  

Well, perhaps long time readers understand how much time I will give to learning about things that I no knowledge about, but want to gain understanding. Business expertise undoubtedly comes with experience and all I can say about that is: you have to start somewhere, even if late in life.  

This thing will cost every penny of my savings and all of the old 401k and then some.  There is risk involved here in dumping a bunch of money into an endeavor that - could possibly fail.  I acdtually, seriously doubt it will utterly fail and if it does, I have a back up plan.  Plan A gone, Plan B comes in place.  Or, Plan A will work along side Plan B.  As long as I can get utilities on the land - which shouldn't be a problem - I can make money.  As long as I can clear even a part of the land - I can make money.  

Get rich quick? No.  Help pay for retirement? Yup.  That's the goal and leave something behind for Caleb if he so desires. Tho, my will at the moment includes him and another individual not related to me.  Caleb has voiced  his desire to come out here - I stated that here before. I try to read between the lines and at this point? I don't know if that means a visit or stay - as in - staaaay.  If he wanted to visit only, he would say so.  I could put him up on the - potential - property in a mobile if that doesn't bother him and he can find a new life out here if he so desires.  Help manage the park for tha tmatter.

It takes money to make money. That old adage is never truer for my reality than it is now.  I'm going to try to figure out how to get something go0ing with the money I will have after down payment and other fees for the land. The whole property doesn't need to developed at first. I just need - minimum 20 spaces anyway - to start with.  End up with 60-70. I don't want to overload the land and I'm not trying to be greedy.  There should be land left over for walking trails and book reading benches - quiet places for people to hang out and enjoy nature. This is definitely going to be a nature type thing. 

Some people like that, others want a shopping mall down the street. I will not be trying to cater to everyone. I'm more on the - enjoy nature - side.   

I have high confidence that I will get this property since it isn't listed on the MLS, there are no ads for it on any of the land sale sites, I have made an offer which includes instructions to the realtor to agree to the full price if they don't come down  and I don't see too much way for anyone to sneak in and take it from me.  I'm still concerned about this "elderly person" thing. Full price would still only be about $321 per month.  I look at the price per acre but I also look at the value of the property and it's location and the utilities available. And other things, such as level land versus hilly land.  

I'm going to end this and hope that I can clear my mind enough tonight to be able to get to sleep. Or stay asleep, I should say.  I just feel like I am finally on the brink of getting something started.  Even if only a foot in the door, land has been the most perplexing, complicated, irritating and ridiculous thing to get. Get the land? You just started.

There is so much potential with this property. 

With that, it is bedtime.  

 I'm done with losing out on a property because I waited - a whole freaking day or two - and then find out the property is already under contract.  They put this property up for sale yesterday - but it's not showing on any of the land sites yet.  

I went out there in this rain - it's raining heavy and it's definitely wet enough and has rained long enough that if there were any water issues on this property, it would show up.  And honestly, I didn't walk the whole thing. I walked a lot of it, yes, but not everything. I'm not concerned about that, I saw enough "dry" ground that I can do what I need to do with it without fear of not having enough dry land to do what I need to do.  A bit of water logged land wouldn't bother me at all, actually.  

But, as I said, it's raining and I was carrying a giant umbrella - it was a bit hard to get through the brush with that thing over top of me - but it kept me dry.  

I found lots of "roads" in there.  These are wide, elongated clearings where someone has cut out the trees already and created a path through.  At at least 15 feet wide, RV's could easily drive through that - the road surface would have to be dealt with, of course, plow it up and put down gravel - but I'm in love with this place already.

Power across the street, that would just be paying a contractor to put in a pole and run the line across the street.  ATT has cable running through there - an unexpected plus that I didn't see the other day when I was going through the other property across the street. There are ATT signs - please contact us before digging - and there is a pedestal at the corner.  I don't need to dig, I just need to clear land, as long as the cable is at least a few feet underground I won't have to worry about that.  This presents the opportunity to have wifi on the property, something I was hoping for on any given place but not a deal breaker.  

Verizon has 3 bars out of 4 on many areas of the property and only 1 bar on others.  I would have to get someone with ATT phone out there to check on that, but probably the same since a lot of them piggyback on the same cell towers. 

The property has a slight grade to it.  A bit of a drawback but also not a deal breaker. I want level lots for RV'ers - that's what they demand. So, lots may have to be dug down just a bit near the backs of them and put in small block walls.  No biggies, a bit more work than I want but it's a problem I am willing to deal with. It's a very slight grade so I'm not concerned about it. There are steeper grades elswhere on the property, I don't have to use any of that.  

I could easily hide a couple of mobile homes in the rear of the land. The property is literally covered with trees.  BIG trees, not just small ones. it's a mix, actually, the smaller stuff would probably have to come down along with the underbrush.  Why would I want mobile homes on there? For onsite management.  I have a couple of people in mind, one of which would very likely jump on the opportunity to have a free place to live - they pay for the utilities but everything else is free.  

I could easily put on 60 lots and have plenty of space left over.  The property next door is unused, perhaps some day that could be in the offing. It's not for sale but it isn't being used for anything.  

There doesn't appear to have been anything ever built on this property.  Just a deer stand in the middle of those "roads".  I guess someone went through all of that trouble to create a hunting grounds?  

Besides the lack of a pond/body of water, this property appears to be perfect.  Without taxes and insurance, it's only $321 per month after putting 20% down.  That money is sitting in the bank, waiting for me to do something with it. I could actually build a pond at some point.  Just the water issue.  But, if I could dig a well to supply it with water, that would work.  I wouldn't want to use water out of the public utility because it would cost a fortune to keep a pond filled up like that.  That's nothing in the present tho.  

There is a body of water nearby.  I've been on it several times with the boat. The Brandy Branch Reservoir is a man made "lake" used to cool a very large power plant right next to it.  That is somewhat of an attraction since it's close by - not on the property but it's a selling point never-the-less.  The only real drawback of this property is the nearest towns.  My town is like 4 to 5 miles away, there is a small town probably another 5 miles the other direction.  But, the selling point is the peace and quiet the woods afford for those that like tall pines and being off the beaten path.  It's just far enough from the Interstate not to have constant traffic noise - I-20 is a heavily used highway and it's got traffic running up and down it day and night.

Of course, the inconvenience of not having a convenience store nearby opens up the possibility of having my own convenience store in the office, on-property.  RV'ers tend to carry their own supplies with them tho, they mostly ask for ice and treats for the kids and such.  The nearest Walmart is about 6 to 7 miles as well a Krogers, a Super 1 is maybe 5 miles away.  I was torn between being close to a city or not.  I wasn't torn on the idea of needing it near a major highway. That, in my view, is a necessity.  Advertising a mile off the Interstate will be a huge selling point to RV'ers wanting to stay somewhere overnight and not wanting to have to go too far off the highway.  

All of that to say that yes, I pulled the trigger on this property.  Location, available utilities, price.  Price a tad bit higher than I want per acre. I asked the realtor to offer them $4,000 grand per acre. They have it listed at $4,750 per acre. I then instructed her to take any counter offer. After that, I said to take it even if they don't come down at all in price.

I can't spend the rest of my life looking for the "perfect" place and I have been getting literally nowhere for a long time just looking for land. It's gotten frustrating and annoying. I want a land and then, baaaam, it's under contract right when I want to make an offer.  Again, this property just got listed yesterday. I contemplated not going today to look at it, but then I thought, what if it's a great piece of land, I don't go because of the rain and tomorrow I find out it's already under contract?  I did not take Addler. He's a big baby and doesn't like the rain.  He would have been drenched - for if I had taken him, I would have forced him to go walking with me.  

If this falls through, I will  be disappointed, I am not going to lie. But I at least can take solace in the fact that I did my due diligence to check the place out, make sure everything is available - there is no sewer but that's to be expected in any of these land properties. With the ground not being saturated with water even after it's raining, installing a septic system shouldn't be a problem. It will be expensive, but I have relative confidence that I can install one. There are parks that do not have sewer systems.  RV'ers are all self contained, but not having sewer doesn't work for a lot of people that pull in and want to dump their black water holding tanks.  

If I get this property, then starts a series of actions that I will take to get this project started.  It will be a long time before it's finished, up and running. I can definitively state that right off the bat.  There is a lot more than meets the eye in getting one of these things going and there is definitely expense just putting in the utilities. I have counted the costs.  I can expect 20 to 25 grand for a big enough septic system. I can expect several grand to have them install a power pole to the property and run the lines over to it.  The water - I will have to pay a contractor to put in about 125 feet worth.  I don't know how much that will cost, but a couple of thousand sounds about right. It's just dig a trench, lay the line and install a meter.  ATT cable - no idea.  I can't imagine it costing much of anything to simply run it across the street - hopefully can piggy back on the power line.  If it had to be bored under the street, well that's a lot more.  

But cable/wifi is not the first priority.  The utilities are. Just get them TO the property and then figure out the rest after that.  I am also wanting to use a professional service to draw me up a layout.  I can video the entire property, they can see it through satellite, outline the existing roads and come up with a blueprint.                    

Is it time to celebrate? Not yet.  I don't have it under contract and until that happens I will remain cautiously hopeful.  Meanwhile, Taylor wants to go get a coffee at the new Starbucks.  

Talk more later, when I get an answer.  

 Friday morning.  

1st full day off in weeks, literally weeks.  

My plan was to get the pond going and go check out some properties.

My plans - were disrupted.  It's going to rain - allllll day long.  That makes putting the pond up impossible, I need a dry day for that.  The reason is I put thick duct tape over the overlaps on the trough - keep it from potentially puncturing the liner down the road.  

Going to look at properties? I dunno yet. Maybe. Just plan on getting wet I guess.  The "new" property yesterday I discarded as a non-starter.  Too much road noise and machinery noise from the auto salvage yard next door - which pervades the entire property with noise.  And the lack of access. The owner is claiming a gate at the side of the property - which you have to cross another property to get to and use a mini storage driveway - is the access to it.

? That's not access. That's the owner of the property not knowing you're using their nice, concrete driveway to get to your property.  They certainly aren't going to want a bunch of RV's driving up through there and then?  You get to the easement to get to the property - it's power lines running through the first property and then the one that's for sale - and it's not wide enough to build a decent road.  I don't get how all of these properties can be landlocked, but they are.  There's a 28 acre property that looks perfect as well for cheap - cheap because....there is no legal access to it.  

My thoughts return to the - overpriced property - that is in a great location in a great neighborhood. Perhaps price per acre is mitigated by the location. It's still iffy to me tho because of that road going through it that is used by an oil and gas company that has a natural gas well operation going on. A portion of that well site - small portion - is on the property, the rest is on the property next door.  Anyway, I just asked the realtor to ask if they decided to add any property onto that deal.  That would mitigate that road and would also add the needed two extra acres to qualify for the loan. 

Taylor quit her job yesterday, so she will be a stay at home mom now, they're dragging the 4 year old out of daycare permanently at the end of the month.  That's going to drive her insane I believe. That boy is  5 handfuls for the caretakers at the daycare and one of them even asked her how she was going to be able to handle that boy.  I dunno, but that is her current chosen path, so beit.

I think I will go look at at least two properties.  I'm going to drag Addler with me.  He probably won't like the rain, too bad so sad, get over it dog.  He can come home after that and lounge in my bedroom the rest of the day.  He likes that, lol.  He could spend the rest of his life in my bedroom and think nothing of it.  

No other news? I dunno, my mind is somewhat consumed with this land search.  I gotta get this done and over with. Yes I have 90 days but I don't want to wait that long.  Although the thought occurred that the tax lien sale will occur before that 90 day window is up.  Could go to that auction.  It's still too far off, they don't have anything listed for it yet.  It's another month and a half before the next sale.  I have plenty of cash right now, I could definitely land some acreage if anything was available. At the same time, the monthly payment for the 12 acres I'm about to go look at would be $321 per month - without taxes or insurance.  

And it is raining again. It stopped for half an hour and now it's right back at it, with heavy rain coming, at least judging by the radar map.  I have an umbrella, lol.

Have a great day.

Yesterday.

Late loading time? late day.  I got up to the plant and then decided I would get through Tulsa and then stop - somewhere. Not many places to stop.. Not the direction I am going anyway. The Loves was filled up, so I thought, okay, I'll drive the 70 miles to the next place and spend the night there.  And? It was beyond full. Even the places that aren't actually designated for trucks, all filled up.

I dreaded the idea of driving another 75 miles, I was burnt out and it's dark driving out there on that turnpike.  But I had no choice.  By the time I got to the casino truck stop? I got off the clock, crawled into bed and instantly passed out.  

So this property with this pond? "Half of it is under contract".  This property has been on the market for 187 days and now that I am interested in it? It is sold.  The portion that was sold included the pond, of course, the other part is mostly easement that you can do nothing with. The property owner put another 12 acres up across the street from it - looks interesting I may check it out tomorrow. 

11.5 acres came available yesterday just outside of town.  It looked nice.  It is nice, actually, for I went and looked today. Except for one little detail. There is a junkyard next door. When I realized there was one there - it showed up on the satellite image - I envisioned a lot of noise, and especially the noises of back up beepers on converted front end loaders - turned into giant forklifts. 

I've been around junkyards in the past.  But I checked it out anyway.  Took Addler, he loves any opportunity to get out.  When I got there, I didn't hear the beeping - but that was because I was hearing more road noise at that side of the property and was focused on the fact that the entrance "road" is nothing more than a power line easement. The only access to this property is through an easement and it's not wide enough for what I would need.  But halfway in, I heard it: beep, beep, beep, beep - unending. Like they put it in reverse and then just leave it - in reverse. 

I was 500 feet away and yes, it was noisy.  I wrote that one off. Between the highway noise and the noise from that yard? No thanks. 

So now I feel like I'm back to square one. But I will go take a look at the property across the street from the other one tomorrow and I'm going to go look at a property i was looking at before. Over priced and some issues, but if they'd come down in the price it might be worth it.  Great location.  

Other than that, there are no other properties that fit the criteria and I will wait. It's a 90 day limit on that loan. New properties come up - not all the time but here and there. If I get to the end of that loan period, then I will have to make a decision. Buy something iffy, or let the loan go and stick to trying to get something from the tax lien sale.  

There's a lot of rain coming down right now, tomorrow will be great to check out that one property that shows a portion of it in a flood zone.  What does the rest of it look like?  

 So I made it round trip to Oklahoma today.

The method of doing this legally isn't difficult, but if you get pulled over, troopers are probably going to give you a hard time about it.  They can try to write you up - or threaten to - but in reality, they can't really do anything about it.

This is what I did.  Drive straight up to the plant, stopping only once for 3 minutes to relieve myself, lol.  Get up there, go into on-duty mode and while I"m weighing the truck, dropping the trailer, weighing the tractor afterwards and then hooking up to an empty, I'm also on my 30 minute break.  

No, I didn't get a break today.  After I got the empty hooked up, I pull outside the property, do a pre trip - cause' I want to not because I have to (but yes, it's federaly required) and then take off.  I drive down to the love's maybe 70 miles away, fuel up, get a lettuce wrapped Carl's Jr avocado bacon burger and take off. 

Now, I just pass right on by the casino truck stop.  I look at the drive clock, almost 2 hours left on there.  So I just drive the clock all the way down to two minutes, pull into a parking lot, and then hit on-duty on the elog.  Then I post post-trip, wait 8 minutes, go off duty and then?  I put it into personal conveyance mode. That's glorified off-duty mode for all intents and purposes.  

I enter into the comments seek safe haven and I know that between where I am at and the yard, there is no place to park. Well there's one place, but at that time of night? It's full, there's only a few parking spots in there.  So I drove back to the yard, took it out of that mode and then - got into my personal vehicle and drove home lol.

My company could make an issue out of it - my manager won't but higher ups could - tell me we can't do that. But technically, it's perfectly legal and especially for hazmat.  Hazmat is allowed to, per federal regulations, "seek safe haven".  

I could do this every time, actually.  I won't tho. Not because I don't want to or think it's wrong, but because those late loads in the afternoon?  Yea, no.  I would end up getting home at around 3 to 4 am and no thanks. I'd rather stop somewhere, spend the night in the truck, get some sleep and finish it out the next day.  But for the morning loads, going to Oklahoma?  Yup, I will probably start doing that every time.  
Why not?  I get the next day off, at homeOr if they see what I'm doing, they can just dispatch me again the next morning.

And that's what's happening here. I'm going right back up to that plant tomorrow - but afternoon load.  So no, I am not going to try and do it a day trip.  Not only because it would get me home too late, but also because I am due for a reset.  And no, I didn't want to stay in some crap truck stop for 13 hours, I want to go home since it's possible. 

So that's that.  

It's midnight-thirty and I'm going to bed soon. But I wanted to recheck some properties that I had looked at before but discounted.  I had forgotten about the 33 acres that is in "residential zoning" - like a lot of them they try to tell you in county land.  The county has no such zoning. The county laughs at the idea that realtors call a street "residential zoned" in an area outside of city limits.  The allure of that property is that it's more acreage than the one I am looking at 

Okay, here we go again....the birds start chirping at midnight - midnight-thirty.  Why? Oh why oh why.  This is a recent development, never happened before, it's become a nightly thing.  I have to wear my ear plugs again.  

Did I say I'm tired? This is a long trip to do in a day. Almost 700 miles, it just wears you out. I think I'm ready for sleep.

Land

 At long last.

I got an approval notice for the land loan this morning. 

I don’t have the land yet, I just have the loan to pay for it. 

But the more that I think about this particular plot of land, the more I think it would work better than that 8 acre plot. It’s 22 acres, 14 acres bigger. It’s got a pond. Plenty of wooded area. Probably about 4-5 acres is power line easement, but all of that could be used for walking trails and area for fog walking/running. 

The burned out portion is ample room for office/laundry and pull through sites for big rigs. 

It’s just a bit over a mile off the Interstate. 

I dunno bur the door has been opened. I’m going to walk the property next chance I get. Which won’t be today or tomorrow, possibly Thursday for I was dumped with an impossible schedule and asked to get it done.  

I left for Oklahoma today. Dropped the trailer and heading back. But they want me to load another Oklahoma tomorrow afternoon. 

So I have to drive out every last minute today and get as close to the plant as possible and then leave for the plant tomorrow at however much time it will take to get there before my appointment time. So I’m looking at sitting in a dirt truck stop for 13 hours to make that happen.

This kind of stuff is what drives me to find a way out of trucking. I’m tired of ir and I want to work for myself. 

Now comes the rather agonizing decision of which property to take. I have 90 days. The realtor sent a list of over 30 properties today that fit my parameters. I’ve probably looked at most of them. My phone wouldn’t open the attachment so I probably won’t see it until tomorrow when I can get on a computer. Yes I like the property I used for getting the loan but there are other properties I like as well. 

So there it is. Get the land and embark on a new adventure. Land has been the eternal obstacle. There will be other obstacles to come, but I doubt nothing that comes to the level of this land business. 

I’ll post a pic of the land I’m thinking about getting on my Facebook page. 

So many things floating through my kind right now. But I’m not using a keyboard and I’m going to cut this one short. 

 Beautiful Monday. 

The weekend was a wash for me since I worked all of it.  No biggies.  I should start getting caught up herein the next few weeks if the work load remains the same and I keep getting at least some decent runs. I need another run this week - even if just an Oklahoma run - to shore up the next pay period paycheck.  

I'm sitting at the casino truck stop.  No, I didn't gamble in here last night - I didn't feel like it and anyway, it was past midnight.  In fact, I had considered driving another 100 miles which would have had me something like 30 miles from the yard, but I decided i was too tired to try it and finding a place to park between here and there can be difficult.  Especially for 10 hours.

That's the other thing.  I got over 8 hours of sleep, now I have to sit here - 2 hours when I got up. The one-size-fits all nonsense is dumb. Everyone has to take a 10 hour break.  Regardless that you just got 8 hours of sleep, will only be driving some 124 miles and then be off the rest of the day.  These types of regulations from the Federal government come from people who know nothing about the trucking industry, have never stepped foot into a truck much less lived in one and want to exert their authority millions of people in the names of "safety".  

Whatever. Things I cannot change and an industry that is becoming more and more regulated.  It's no wonder 80% of new drivers - new to the trucking industry - quit before their first year is up.  They best get with those automated trucks because the grey-haired generation such as me are retiring in droves and they aren't able to attract new people to the industry.  70% of  truckers are over the age of 55....

So, anyway, I had breakfast at the casino. There's a small deli in there - the restaurants are closed at this time of day.  The lady remembers now, I tell her what I want and she doesn't ask any questions, she just gets it done. Free coffee at the casino to boot.  No, I didn't gamble, lol.  The black jack tables aren't opened at this time of day and I don't do one armed bandits.  And I wouldn't have played blackjack this morning anyway.  I haven't done it in quite a while, I don't even remember the last time I sat down at a table.  I believe it was at this casino.

Is today the day? The day I find out whether I'm approved or not.  How long does it take? For a land only loan? I have no idea.  The loan very well could possibly be rejected for the amount of money they want per acre for the particular property I chose.  Well, maybe not. It's 5 grand an acre, that's a far cry better than a lot of these properties listed.  

Meanwhile, attempting to verify the account mother set up to transfer money.  I've already spent - a lot - of time on the phone attempting to get Capital One to fix this situation.  So, this morning, the two small deposits they put into my bank account showed up.  So, I entered those numbers into their system to verify the account and the notice said: "it looks like that is not what we were looking for, please try again". I kept trying, of course, until it locked me out of the account.  Yup, I have to call them back yet again and try to get this situation resolved.

However.  It is highly likely at this point that I am going to find the nearest Capital One bank - I think there's one in the town where I work - and get a cashier's check and simply deposit it into my bank account.  I don't have til' the second of never to get this done.  And mother doesn't want that money sitting in there - which at the moment I can do nothing about.  

Yes indeed. There are 2 of them in that town. We don't have one in our town, there was one but it shut down for whatever reasons - probably not enough business. I'll be back in time today to be able to get to the bank, get a cashier's check and hoof it straight to Chase bank and get it deposited.  At least that's the theory.  They told me I could do that on the phone, I would only have to show my ID.  Something tells me it won't be quite that easy, but I'll find out later on.  

Ok, well they don't understand why I was sent codes - then sent two more codes without anyone asking.  So we're actually probably on our 3rd set of numbers and I'll have to wait  - who knows how long - to get this account verified.  Upon asking about about getting a cashier's check directly from the bank, I was given: "they should be able to". Lol, ok.

Oh, mom decided to let me know that my middle brother - who wrote us off over two years ago now - hasn't spoken with her in that entire time.  He blamed her for something that didn't happen.  He lost his ever-loving mind and now won't speak to anyone, even my oldest brother.  My oldest brother thought they were best pals and thought mom and I had some sort of "conspiracy" against both of them. It took an outrageous event such as the one that happened 2 years ago.  

Anyway, my time is running out. 

Time to get on the clock and get back to town.  

 BTW, the offense Facebook said I committed to get suspended for 3 days?  A dude got into a group I'm in, started saying anti-black stuff - completely and totally racist, I came back at him. Facebook obviously just read my comment and didn't take the post itself into context.  Facebook sucks, that's what I can say.  It's nothing like it used to be, it's just a political tool now.  

Anyway.  Last night I got to Brownsville and no empty trailers.  And, there was a driver still there from the previous day.  So I was confident I was getting detention pay and get to sleep in after a miserable night's sleep the previous night - that story is in the last post.  

Well I slept okay, but the phone rang at 8:00 am.  I wasn't even thinking about getting up.  But it was the driver that left last night - they had come in late with a trailer and he decided to leave with it.  His air compressor quit working.  You know, the thing that supplies compressed air to the entire air system to do everything from fill the air bags on the cab, lift up your driver's seat, fill the air bags on the suspensions and - of course - braking.  

Bro, can you come take this trailer back? After explaining the whole situation.  I said yes instantly, thinking about getting home to day. But after getting off the phone, regretting that decision.  Tired, but I got up and got out of there.  He was only 30 miles up the road at a truck stop.  I grabbed that trailer and hoofed it back up to Longview. GPS alerted me to a traffic jam just north of Houston and gave me a route around it - glad I took it because the traffic in that miles long area would have held me up an hour, I'm guessing, if not more.  

Well, back at the yard and the only trailer to go back down to Brownsville tomorrow? The one I brought in.  They'll likely be asking someone else to drive all night long to get another one there, that run is up and cranking again.  2 or 3 loads a day going down there.  I'ts not our fault they can't get trailers back to us in time to get them back up to the yard to get loaded again the next day. they must have half a dozen of our trailers sitting at their plant.  They wanted us to commit even more trailers to that run, the company said no. 

Get your s*** together. It doesn't bother me, we get detention pay.  I made an extra $340 going to bed last night because of that.  They're our best customer - but - these trailers are $400,000 a piece.  New ones anyway.  They can convert old LNG trailers and cost a lot less, but this particular customer wants all new trailers so the product can sit there as long as they need it to and not start heating up - creating vapor - creating pressure. 

Whatever. I'm off to Oklahoma tomorrow.  Not an early load so I can deal with it.  Realtor started texting me - I haven't talked to her in days, there is nothing to report.  She sent some small properties that I could pay for with cash.  I think too small, tho.  4 acres - just don't know if I could accomplish what I need to with that.  I thanked her for sending them and then informed her of the situation - waiting on a decision from the banker.  

Cranky. Everyone is cranky here. No one is sleeping well for various reasons. 2 nights ago here, birds were the issue for me.  I dunno, I'm going to bed soon and hope for a decent sleep. I don't have to leave until after 10:00 am.  

Mother finally got her birth certificate.  She was ecstatic - she has never had a birth certificate - her entire life.  She had a "notification of birth" which is not, I found out, a birth certificate.  

My son said he wants to come out here to visit.  I kind of think he wants to come out here to stay - if temporarily.  I don't have a place for him, but we could work something out.  They've had friends living over here before for weeks at a time.  I dunno what his plans are and I dunno how's he's really doing, the divorce and end of marriage is taking a toll on him from what I am gathering.  Seemed like they were doing so well.  It is what it is and he'll learn from it and move on.  But, he's certainly welcome out here whenever.  He knows I"m not home half the time.  

I'm sure there's more but I'm weary.  Long drive, tired and ready to go to sleep.