So yesterday.

Drove up to the plant north of Tulsa, dropped and hooked trailers, started heading back.  About 4 miles going back into the trip, I hear a lot of air passing through one of the air valves.  It got worse, worse and worse.

About 8 miles I found a place to pull over and checked it out.  The air was hissing from a brake chamber and it was bad.  But this is the middle of nowhere and I didn't want to be stuck out there, so I tried to get the air back up. It worked - long enough to get down the hill in front of me and that's where I came to the revelation I best pull over, put out the triangles and call for help.

3 hours later, a mechanic comes - clear from Oklahoma City, like 140 miles away.  All the repair outlets in the Tulsa area were all booked up and wouldn't be able to get to me for a long time.  It took this guy 2 hours to fix the problem.  I left.

A mile down the road, the hissing started again. I'm like, man, this dude just replaced that with a brand new brake chamber! There was no where to stop and unlike previously, the brakes weren't dragging so I just drove to the Casino. I didn't know there was a casino up there, just found it on the Trucker's Path app and that was the closest place.  I got there, no trucks at all.  Started wondering if they even allow trucks, tho there were plenty of parking spaces for them.

I got out and determined that I now have an air leak on one of the air bags on the trailer.  Gag.

I flagged down a Security vehicle - do you allow trucks to stay the night here?  Yes, but you have to do some business here - in other words, spend some money. Yes sir, I plan on eating dinner.  Okay, no problem.  So I called the breakdown line, reported the problem, gave the info and they told me a half hour at most they would call back with info for who they were getting to come out and fix it.

Good luck with that,, I thought, at this time of night?  I went into the casino only to find the restaurants were already closed at 10:30 pm, even tho their website says one of them says they're opened until 2 am.  Be nice if they updated their website whenever they make changes like that.  So, I decided to have a beer at the bar.  I sat down in front of a electronic style machine that is mounted onto the bar top.

I hadn't gambled in a while, I decided to play blackjack on the thing.  I lost $65 before I won $120 and then back down to $100.  It was a bit of a reprive from the day, I went next door and got a sandwich from the convenience store and then went back to the truck. It was fully 2 hours before they called back to tell me it would be another 2 hours before a mechanic would show up.  Ok.  I was up til around 3:15 am last night. The mechanic got the air bag off and said he would be back asap after going to a parts place that is opened 24 hours.  

I dunno, I went to bed. 3 hours later, he's banging on my door.  I couldn't find a replacement so I fixed this one.  Okay.....It's holding air fine, no problems. He seemed to be a competent mechanic, so I figured to just take his word for it;.  He said you're good to roll! I thought, no I'm not, I'm exhuasted. I went back to bed for about an hour and a half and then - realized I was almost out of fuel.  Time to get up! Felt like crap, not enough sleep will do that.  But I drove the 60 miles to the Love's, fueled up and then drove the rest of the way back in.  

16-1/2 hours of breakdown pay, that's going to make this particular Oklahoma trip worth a lot more than the normal ones.  My dispatcher contacted me a little while ago - do you want to go to Houston tomorrow to pick up an empty trailer?  Sure, why not? I was otherwise facing 3 full days off because the loading plant is shutting down - today actually - for scheduled maintenance.  It's about 440 mile round trip, take about 10 hours which includes each end.  Not worth a lot but better than nothing. Then I'll have 2 days of sitting around and then back to work on Saturday - allegedly anyway.  You can never really take their word for it, stuff happens all the time in this industry and schedules change.

Yes, I couldn't resist, even tho I now know the surveyors won't be there until next week? I drove by there on the way home anyway, lol.  

Okay, with that I'm going to take a short nap, I'm just out of it today. 

 I have absolutely no idea what happened over there this weekend, but my dogs are worn out.  I mean, like they have just been walking all day long and didn't get a rest. Or like they've been awake for days.  Addler is grumpy as all get out, the dog is just out of it. Aspyn the same, tho she isn't grumpy. Neither of them want to eat.  The dog food I feed them they usually inhale, I've never seen either of them not hungry at all.  

Addler is so out of it, he just fell off the end of the bed, upside down.  He took his sweet ole' time correcting his body and getting back up. I tried to stop the fall but I didn't get over there til too late.  He wasn't hurt that I can tell, no wincing.  

Then again, the dog really doesn't complain about pain, as evidenced by his actions the other day. We went for a walk, the 3 boys and both dogs.  On our way back out, I was helping the boys climb over a big, felled tree, Addler had run off into some shrubbery.  I was walking off and saw Addler just standing there.  I called him - ADDLER! come on, let's go!  

He just stood there, didn't wince, cry groan, nothing. Addler?  ADDLLLLEEERRRRR!!!!  He still just stood there, I knew something must be wrong.  I hadn't noticed how entangled in this thorn vines he had gotten.  When I got to him, he couldn't move because he was completely bound up in those vine.  One of the vines was wrapped around his head/throat twice.  The pain that must have been inflicted on the dog trying to get that off of his head, as gently as I tried, there was no choice but to have to pull on it to get it off of there.

Then, his entire hips were wrapped up and one rear leg.  I was pretty taken aback this dog wouldn't even wince.  He was imprisoned in thorn vines and it must have been agony.  

Neither of those dogs were used to that place at all. The dogs over there - dozer and pepper - he knows them but hadn't seen them in a long time. There is yappy Chihuahua over there as well. Maria said they all got along well this weekend so it's a bit of a wonder why the dog appears like he hasn't slept the entire time we were gone. Aspyn as well.  

I had to wonder if Addler wasn't have a flashback to when his original family had to get rid of him. Like, being abandoned to a new place and people once again. Aspyn the same.  I dunno, but they're home.  I will be gone tomorrow but they'll be home, so hopefully they can rest up.  

Okay, well it's not late but it's time to go to bed. Try to rest for a long day tomorrow.  

 Okay.  So we got to Hot springs late, dumped our gear in the hotel room and left.  Taylor wanted to have drinks, so we just picked a place and went in.  Lol, I can say that I was not even in the slightest prepared for what would greet up.  It was a college bar hangout with all kinds of funky and old stuff hanging up on the walls and on shelves out of reach.  It was noisy and there were - oddly dressed - people walking in and out.  But, it was Taylor's music they were playing and we were having fun so I just went along with it.  

It wasn't until I was in there for a bit when I realized that these ladies I was seeing? Weren't ladies at all.  I've come to the point in my life to just accept these different lifestyles.  I don't have to agree with them, God loves everyone, tho Christ died for our sins, yet He didn't reject anyone.  He did tell the woman at the well to go and sin no more.  So there is that.  But the Bible even specifically states we are not to judge the unsaved.....leave that up to God.  I have enough problems in my life to be pointing out the things in other people's lives, at least in this particular realm.

But I did get to the point where I was trying to figure out which were actual ladies and which - were not.  I think they're called "passable", where they actually look good enough to fool even a straight man into thinking they are biological females.  Anyway, we closed that bar at 2:00 am - went back to the hotel and only then found out about the lack of a sofa bed.

A cot was brought up and by that time of night I was ready to go to sleep regardless of accommodations.  Taylor, however, was having none of it and we were moved to another room. It also did not have a sofa bed so I ended up sleeping on the cot anyway. At least we were out of the room with the giant cockroaches.  

Next day - yesterday - we were off to an entire day's worth of activities.  The Hot Springs Mountain Tower was fascinating.  You either walk up however many stories - lots of them - or take an elevator up - we opted for the elevator. You arrive at near the top in a room that goes around the entire observatory.  You can see for a long, long way on a clear day.  Beautiful.  Then up the stairs to the very top where you can look through telescopes.  

We then went and checked out the lake - with suggestions that we should bring my boat up there.  Yes, well let me get the thing into the shop and see if they can iron out the final problems with it.  The shop is 40 miles away and admittedly I have had my mind on property to the point it pretty much pushes out everything out.  I didn't really think about it this weekend tho.  We went into one of the infamous bath houses and enjoyed sipping on a board filled with small glasses of the different kinds of beers that are locally made.  Yes, it is a bath house but it's also a brewery lol.  

After that, we went swimming at the resort pool. It has 2 pools and a hot tub.  You can only access it on the 7th floor of the hotel, which was pretty unusual. Built on the side of a mountain, these pool butt up to the hotel but are actually in the ground, not on the hotel.  One of the pools is 6 feet deep the entire pool, which is the one we went in.  After that, it was just go get some grub at a local restaurant - Fat Jacks - good food - and then we were all burned out. It was almost midnight, so yea that's a long enough day, certainly for me.  

This morning, we got up rather late, got our stuff together and left, around noonish I think.  We ended up at Cracker Barrel for a nice breakfast and then off to one of their favorite stores they always check out before they leave.  James wanted to go to the Harley store but they have shut the place down and turned it into a Goodwill.  

I'd go again  - I just wouldn't stay at that hotel, or if I did, in a much cheaper room and get 2 rooms instead of one, so I can have an actual bed.  But stll, the rundown condition of that hotel - and the pics you see of the rooms are totally misleading.  They'd have to spend millions of dollars probably to fully upgrade it into a real resort hotel.  I did like the pool.  Taylor was able to talk to the hotel manager and get a few hundred taken off the final bill, so that was nice as well.  

Home, 4 days off are over.  Back to work in the morning, an Oklahoma run.  And then, the loading plant is allegedly shut down until Friday.  I intend - or at least hope - to get a good night's sleep tonight and hopefully get the run done in one day tomorrow.  I suspect a bit of fatigue after an exhausting weekend tho, I may not make it that late tomorrow.  The kids are gone and won't be back for a while.  Apparently they miss mommy already tho, lol.  I predicted that would happen I just didn't think it would happen so fast. It isn't helping that it's boiling hot outside and where they're at just as hot, outdoor activities curbed because of the heat.

Oh, and yes, I did stop by the property on the way home from getting the dogs from Maria's. Nope.  

Basically, I'm just going to check when I'm in town, but I'm not going to say anything more about it to my realtor.  It either gets done or it doesn't.  If it doesn't, I don't know what to say except gee, isn't that wonderful! lmao There is no use fretting over something I literally cannot change short of pulling out of the deal. No I'm not pulling out of the deal. It's just a ridiculously long wait to get anything done.  They'll probably have to check my credit score yet once again before this is all over.... 

And fatigue has just set in.  It is likely going to be an early night for me.  Just a weeee bit too early to be going to bed at 5:30 pm.  

 A quick update.

The surveyors never showed, tho that's not really been on my mind the last couple of days

We've been in Hot Springs, Arkansas enjoying a mini vacation.  Preparing to leave in a few to get home in time to get settled down and ready for - work tomorrow.  The dogs are at Maria's so there's going to be that as well.

We've done all kinds of things on this trip, the extent of which I will get into in a later post.

But I have to say that this Arlington Resort and Spa? Is one of the worst hotels I've stayed in in a long, long time. It's storied history is just that: history.  Smelly, nasty carpet.  Paint peeling literally all over the place, in the rooms, in the hallways, outside, dirty and filthy.  Giant cockroaches, daddy long legs and biting bugs of which I never identified.  Highly price facility, one would expect a much better looking and cared for place than what we ended up in.

And that was 3 room's worth.  We made the best of it, at least they have a nice pool and hot tub facility.  But the pics of the rooms are completely deceiving and verge on the precipice of false advertising.  James and Taylor have stayed here before and said the place has fallen into disarray since the last time they stayed here.  

Anyways, we still had fun regardless, just the sleeping part wasn't so nice.  

I will probably be going to bed early tonight, in my own bed, comfortable and hopefully sleeping well.  I think it's like a 3 hour trip back to the house.  So we should be arriving no later than 4pm, including a stop for breakfast/lunch.  

I will probably write a detailed accounting later on today when I'm home in my bedroom or perhaps in a couple of days.  I have to go to Oklahoma tomorrow, it's an early load so I hope to get it over with tomorrow.  The plant is shutting down for several days for scheduled maintenance, allegedly reopening on Friday.  Much more time off than I had expected, shrugs my shoulders and go with it.  Stay home, do some projects and mostly stay indoors, it's been sweltering hot!

Okay, time running short, we're fixing to leave here and head home.

G'day. 

 Friday - morning

No, I haven't gone to the property yet, I will do that after the grandparents leave with the boys. Just want to be here to wave goodbye, cya - apparently not in two weeks.  There is an extended family member that has some sort of critical illness that may - be on their death bed, it sounded like. So who knows how long that trip will actually be for them.

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Long interlude. Been to the property 3 times and gave up on it for today.  It's 2:00 pm and there is no sign of the surveyors.  I saw a pickup parked back in there with the gate open a few minutes ago, though yayyyy, they're here!  Only to find it was just another employee checking the chemical level in one of the barrels for the natural gas.  

I texted my realtor: Unless they work on weekends, I don't think they're coming this week.  She replied she'd check. I have no idea who they are using for the surveyor company, otherwise I would have checked it myself.  Regardless, it's undoubtedly going to be next week - if they show up at all - to get this done.  

Meanwhile, we took the dogs to Maria's.  There was a bit of adjustment for her dogs and mine to get acquainted again plus a Chihuahua thrown into the mix - another tenant living there.  It was basically the only choice for a dog sitter as others would not be available.  I did go take a look at one of the properties that I bought at tax lien sale - someone has been cutting down trees and I wanted to see if they were continuing on with that - operation that has no permission from the owner.

However, the trees are rotted and would have had to come down anyway.  In fact, one of them looks like they fell on a house and the house has a new roof on it.  The tree is still laying there lol.  There's another very tall and rotted out tree on the property that must come down.  Yes I have a chain saw but I'm a bit out of practice. That tree falls the wrong direction and it's going to take out a roof.  Possible hurt people.  I'd rather get my name on the title and go cut down a few trees at the "new" place and get practiced again.  

I was musing about putting up a small house on the property. There is a property up the street where a guy had a new - but small - house built.  I can't imagine it's more than 800 square feet.  I can still imagining it costing a bit of money tho.  

Whatever the case, my fresh hair cut over with, I'm packed and ready to leave for vacation.  Oh, wait.  I got the camera going for the back yard, need to set it back up.  The dogs aren't here, there is nothing to stop anyone from stealing stuff. Well, there is a heavily armed next door neighbor cop lol.  

With that, I bid you a g'day. 

 The surveyors did not show up today, either.  It's Thursday, if they are going to do it this week as they promised? They are going to have to get over there tomorrow.  I don't think they work on weekends.  But who knows what their schedule is.  

I took both dogs and 3 kids over there today and yes, we went on a hike to the back of the property.  I took them the "easier" route, tho admittedly there aren't any really easy routes, you still have to climb over logs, through bushes, over thorn vines, etc.  Jaxon - the 4 year old - wasn't doing too well. He insisted on coming, but the outcome was the same as the last hike. 

Except this time? I didn't help him. I told him before we left that I wasn't helping him do anything, if he really wants to come he's going to have to find his way through there.  So yes, we had some screaming moments of DON'T LEAVE ME!!!! even tho we were just standing there watching him attempt to get over or through stuff.  

The only thing that I saw that was of intrigue that I hadn't noticed before is at the rear end of the driveway, to the left/east.  There is plenty of room along there for smaller/shorter RV's to back into with a very nice view, actually.  

Depending on where the surveyors - if they ever get there - put the stakes in, I think I could get 5 to 10 small units in there.  

But that's all a foreign language right now as the endless wait for these people to show up and do there job continues on.  I will definitely be over there tomorrow morning. If they don't come tomorrow, I don't see them getting it done this week.  Maybe they can get this stuff done in on day? I suppose they can.  

The grandparents just arrived.  They will spend the night here and then they will take all 3 boys off to Arkansas for 2 weeks.  Yes, 2 full weeks.  The 3rd boy has been down here a total of a month this summer.  We are leaving tomorrow evening for Arkansas as well, tho not to see the kids lol.  I imagine the 2 that stay here are going to get homesick after a bit, we'll see. The older boy from Ark has had a few moments of homesickness but nothing serious so maybe these boys will adjust as well? I dunno. They've been up there before but not for that long.

I don't really have much to do to get ready to leave tomorrow and we have all day long to do it.  The dogs are going over to Maria's instead of her coming over here.  She actually was able to get permission from the judge - who owns the house they live in and lives next door - to have them over for a couple of days.  Perhaps the judge will warm up to Addler.  He didn't want Addler staying over there all the time, hence Addler stays home.

Which has, actually, been quite convenient.  Instead of having to load them up every morning when I'm going on a trip as I used to have to, they either stay in my room if it's too early or they get put outside.  Either way, it saves a lot of time and driving.  

I sort of stopped the diet today for a 4 day off deal.  Ate a hamburger and fries. Took the kids to Applebee's after we got done with the hiking - we lasted all of an hour out there before the heat overtook all of us and it was definitely time for all of us to cool off including the dogs. Took them home, left them in my room to cool off and we all had a good time, actually, eating.  Kind of a sending off meal, c'ya in 2 weeks! lol

I don't actually care what we do on vacation. I just want away from home and from work.  A mindless atmosphere where I don't have to think about anything and will shut off the property thoughts - try to anyway.  Not necessarily going to be all that happy if these people don't come get this survey done - this week.  

Well I guess I should go out and be sociable with the grandparents. 

G'day.  

 When I started contemplating the size of a pond, I wanted to think it to have a good amount of acreage to make it big enough to be appealing to the masses that will visit there. I thought maybe 5 or 6 acres.  But looking at a visual of an acre, I saw a site that shows 90 yards of a football field plus the width of it as the size of just 1 acre.  I think a 3 acre pond would be pretty big, don't you think?  4?  Seems like that's going into lake territory.  I am not looking for a boating venue, I'm looking for a fishing venue. Tho, many places rent out paddle boats (at outrageous prices per hour I might add), most people looking for a pond or a lake on or next to an RV park are looking for a fishing opportunity. 

This is just one of the things that crosses my mind - frequently actually - in trying to create a destination park. A place where people want to go just for the park itself, surrounding area attractions notwithstanding.  You give a family plenty of stuff to do, they are going to stick around a few days maybe.  Rent out fishing poles, have a small tackle stand replete with worms for sale.  The store could sell minimal stuff such as munchies, firewood and ice.  The rest? People can drive 4 miles to the nearest grocery store, hence the need for a well stocked convenience store would seem to be minimal at best.  

Yes, I am sitting here still waiting for this truck to get loaded, they started on it about 30 minutes ago, the pouring rain stopped and so hopefully I'll be off of this loading rack by 7:00 pm and get out of this plant no later than 7:30 pam.  It's a 24 hour plant - but - whoever is sitting at the scale house? They cannot go home until I show up there to get my paperwork. I can not leave this plant without the bill of lading and accompany hazmat paperwork. For what I would think are obvious reasons.  

But I can see an opportunity for ice cream cones in the hot summer in a small stand with it's own employee running it and hopefully making a bit of money off of it to supplement park income.  I can tell you I am no "natural businessman" but I am acclimating myself to it slowly, over time, by reading a lot of material.  Charge too little and you make zero or small profits. Charge too much and people won't come. There is a middle ground and I think I have figured that out.  It will be trail and error at first tho, trying to decide how much to charge versus all of the expenses that will chip away at that income.  

_______________________

Yesterday was a disaster.  I showed up at the plant at 2:09 pm, got to the scale only to find a an isotainer sitting on the scale waiting to be weighed. Why was that an issue? Because it's contents are the same thing I haul.  This dude is either showing up FAR too late or WAY too early to load.  And then I remembered, these guys always show up in pairs. Where's the other one?  That question would soon be answered, as he left the scale, I got weighed in and arrived at the loading rack. 

They had just hooked that truck up and the other one sitting in front of me, waiting as well.  An hour and 15 minutes later, they finish that one and then pull the other one up. Which is when I got out of the truck to ask why, when I showed up on time, these guys are getting loaded ahead of me? Well, I'm told, we have had issues with having enough quantity of product all day long. 

Well that's all fine and dandy, both of these trucks didn't show up on time, they are way late, this guy was on the scale in front of me.  Why should I have to wait for them showing up late? I didn't believe their quantity story, I knew that was a lie for I have communications with our other drivers, a few of which had been in there earlier.  I can't call the operators liars, getting thrown out of there would mean the end of my job.  Well it doesn't matter, the dude says and I knew there was nothing else I could say. If the main operator was there? He would have made that guy drive around and let me pull in.  

I guess I went through all of this yesterday, but the idea that they can just ignore appointment times is outrageous. And then telling me after they are done loading these characters that they didn't have any product left, I would have to wait!  

I got to the receiving plant last night at - almost 2:00 am.  I texted the dispatcher after getting out of the plant - dunno if I'm going to make it, it's going to be the wee hours of the morning if I do arrive there.  Around midnight I was getting a bit fatigued.  I listened to some music which woke me up enough to keep driving and then after a while, my thought life, such as it is, got me going.  After getting on the scale and the plant operator coming up for the paperwork, I asked permission to park in the parking lot with just the tractor and I would come back for a trailer after my 10 hour break. Sure, he said. He didn't care, which is exactly what I thought would happen but I wanted permission anyway.  These plants with all of this hazmat/flammable/volatile materials, this one all kinds of different stuff, I want them to know I'm out there and please don't go banging on my door. 

BTW, I am sitting here watching Great Dane.  He is sleeping on the floor. Not the bed on the floor that I have for him, on the floor.  The dog absolutely loves this new carpeting in here.  But it's funny, no I didn't make him do that, I took a pic and posted it on my Facebook lol.

So, do I need a designer to map out this park and pay a thousand plus dollars for that privilege?  Maybe not.  I've gone up to 76 pads with my current design of 40 pull throughs and 36 back in lots.  That is using 1,000 feet of linear space of the area leaving around 300 feet for - whatever else.  This bathhouse ordeal for one.  

Whatever the case, tomorrow is Thursday and I will have the next 4 days off.  Allegedly it won't rain so I'm going to take the dogs and go hiking over there. Surveyors or not, I am going to get some exercise and the dogs will too. If the boys want to go I'll drag them along and just take the easy routes through there. Yes, they will be asking to go, they have been asking to go, the opportunity to take them again just hasn't been there.  I do know how to get them in the back of the woods, tho, without encountering too much of those thorn shits everywhere.  Yes, they are shits, little demons, curses on the earth. They exist to cut human flesh. Put holes in it and draw blood. Same with tics, they are rampant, I found my bottle of deep woods spray and will be using that in ample supply.  My dogs? Have that rather expensive pills that you give them. Tics and fleas will not bother them.  

Enough for this one. Time for sleep.  

 So, here I sit at the loading plant at the loading rack. Have been sitting here for 2 hours and likely here another 2 hours - before going to the scale house to sit for another hour? It's already a quarter after 4 and I am about 45 minutes away from them even starting to load my truck.  I know, I know, I should be happy to get detention pay, but the later I sit here? The later in the night it's going to be before I arrive at the receiving plant and right now, it's looking minimum 1 am, probably 1:30 or 2.  THEN I have to find a place to park.  It wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't the prospect of having to be out until the wee hours of the morning. ....

Oh, the part that really is unpalatable is the fact that the two trucks ahead of me showed up WAY late, in fact, they were showing up to the plant the same time as I was .....  I should have left 5 minutes earlier and I would have beaten them both. I got here 20 minutes early as it stands.  The plant? IF there is a problem, should be letting people know - dispatchers and managers at the trucking companies - if there are delays. They do not, they don't care and they don't care if anyone says anything to them about it.  Company management can complain about it and they just shrug their shoulders, oh well, sorry about that.  

I could have just sat at home for over 3 hours, closer to 4 and enjoyed home life versus sitting in this truck.  Oh well, eat it and move on I guess. It's going to be a late night.  Of course, I could just make it far enough to be able to make it the rest of the way up there tomorrow and all the way back.  Or just get me up to Tulsa tonight and finish the rest of it tomorrow?  What is anyone going to say? That I am a wimp for not wanting to have to drive until 1:30, 2:00 or ever later in the morning?  Oh yes, they want their product, but this can all be blamed on the loading plant disregarding appointment times and letting drivers show up whenever they want - very late - and still putting them ahead of the drivers that - show up on time.

Excuse my ranting, just venting a bit here so I can move on with my day.  

New info: I get info that's diluted, fractional or missing pieces about this property situation all the time.  I find out today that they surveyors are "going to show up sometime this week and submit their report next week".  I'm trying to keep a good attitude about it, getting sour about it will accomplish nothing but - being a sour person.  It also "is what it is".  It's alright, I have been spending even more time doing all kinds of research and now looking at pictures of other RV sites and how they have their lots set up.  I must say that I may be going too far with my intended actions for building parks in comparison to other parks and how they have theirs set up - and still getting excelling reviews.  

Tho, many of the reviews really are about the people running the place.  Customer service is golden, it always is in any industry.  Some of these places have "on site management 24 hours a day". They live there, apparently. I have no current plans to do that.  Other places have office hours and then an emergency number to call if there are any problems - that is more in line with what I was thinking.  Maybe someday I would live there - after the place starts making money and give me the credit to build a nice house in the rear of the property, away from the RV's.  No, I have no intentions of living in an RV if I don't have to.  

I guess I just wish that I could have this purchasing stuff over with, have the land in my name and have the ability to move on with the next steps.  I'm not writing about those next steps again here, have already done that a few times in this blog.  I will write about them once I start calling the places to come out and give estimates on the various  things I need done right at the start.  

Lol, they finally got the trucks ahead of me loaded, now they are telling me another 30 minutes before they can load me, they are out of product! Let's see, it's almost 5pm, an hour and 15 minutes to load, at least half an hour at the scalehouse - they'll be in a  hurry to get me out of there tho since they will be waiting on me so they can go home.  Still, that's 6:30 pm.  Yup, I'm not real happy about this and I am seriously considering just making it 200 miles today, enough to be able to finish going up to the plant tomorrow and make it back tomorrow as well.  If my company doesn't like it, I literally don't care.  I'm not the one that caused this situation and until the loading plant changes it's policy about appointment times - which it has already stated they won't - I'm not going to give an icy cold petunia whether I make a schedule or not and I will blame it directly on them, legitimately so. 

Yup. I'm going to order ahead some wings from the Godfather's at the Love's in Paris (Texas, lol), I call ahead about 20 minutes and they are ready when I get there.  Have dinner on the road and just stop when I please.  Even driving straight through, getting out of here at the estimated time which is far later than I thought even just 30 minutes ago - we're talking arriving at the plant now at around 1:30 am, get out of there in 20 minutes time and then drive an hour or so looking for aplace to park this truck.......

These things that continually occur, all the time, are just some of the reasons I want out of trucking permanently.  It makes me a very unhappy person sometimes and I hate to come across like that to everyone.  It makes attempting to get a 200k loan and just build the whole park all at once more and more palatable.  Swim or sink, do it, hope for the best, pray for the best outcome and ride with it.  I intend on it being profitable.  That's the goal.  Failing is not even in my mind, never has been. Questioning whether it is more advisable for a small amount of debt versus a large amount? Yes I"ve struggled with that for quite a while, but I do believe I can make it work either way, it will just take longer going about it the "lessor in debt" scenario.  And I'd have to figure something out for a bathhouse.  They have portable units you can rent, that are very nice.  

I've seen them here at this plant when the bathrooms are shut down for whatever reason, they bring in these luxury restrooms with showers, they are quite nice, putting it mildly.  It's the only temporary solution I can come up with for having a bathhouse right off the bat without going into extreme debt.  They have propane tanks to fuel the water heater and they have AC units on them.  I have no idea how much they cost to rent, I doubt cheap.  But if my options are limited, I am going to do what I need to do.  If people demand bath houses, then some version of it, they are going to get.  It may not be ideal or perfect, but it will be a start.  Same with the office. If I'm choosing the "less debt" route, it will be a portable office building that you give a down payment on and make monthly payments.  

Whatever happens, I'm bound and determined to have this thing work out.  

But none of that even begins to happen until the property is in my name. I went by there on my way to work - I just can't help myself, I have this need to see this thing get moving - no they weren't there, the truck was still in the driveway. No reason to suspect it would be gone right away, I didn't say anything to anyone and won't for now.  

At some point soon? I am going to wish I had a lot more vacation hours available.  Rent that bulldozer, get those driveways cleared out, clear out the lots and lets get this thing moving.  Just marking the driveways will be a wonder - there is so much junk in the way it may be just good enough to clear out 10 feet wide along the western fence line without any markings to be able to get back in there without having to literally climb through weeds, thorn bushes, trees, and thorn vines.  I am definitely going at least 20 feet wide on the driveways so going 10 or even 15 to start with would be good enough to get a start on it, be able to mark out the lots.  The first 15 to 20 lots on either side will be full drive throughs, this is what they want, this is what they are going to get. Possibly more.  Maybe ALL the lots.  They fetch a higher price but they also alienate people that have shorter rigs and don't feel like they should have to pay as much.  

There is a registration setup I was looking at this morning that has you input the length of your entire rig, the type of outlet you want (50, 30 or 20 am) and then comes back with a price. With something like that, I wouldn't have to put prices for the same lot at different rates - for the amount of electricity being used is my qualm. 3 AC units with all kinds of appliances and electronic gadgets in the RV doesn't use the same amount as an older RV with one AC unit and no appliances.  $30 per night versus $55 or $60.  

Or, you just install smaller length lots beyond the pull through lots that are back in and those people can enjoy a nice camp ground without paying as much and not being alienated.  You can't make everyone happy, but you should try, IMO, to make as many of them happy as possible! 

Lol, it's well after 5 now and still not loading my truck.  The projected arrival time at the receiving plant gets later and later - if I even decide to make it that far.

With that, I am going to do some more research since I have plenty of time on my hands and be productive with my knowledge seeking exercises in internet use. 

G'day

 Umm, a lightning strike and a bolt of lightning - about got me flying out of bed this morning.  The power flickered and then - the lights dimmed, the appliances quit working including my window ac unit and that was my introduction to today : )

I got the generator going, I wanted coffee and that was the only way I was going to get it, run an extension cord to my Keurig machine and be done with it. After that, I got the refrigerator plugged in, the power was still out and the refrigerator was being opened and closed. 

My intent today? To go to the property, take the dogs with me and go for a hike.  See if the surveyors were going to show up, yes but hiking as well. Well that didn't happen, the rain went on almost the entire day and now I'm done.  

My going away run for my weekend off?  A trip - again - to Oklahoma.  Dispatcher apologized - and the run doesn't load until 2:30.  Meaning other people got a better run and she didn't want me to see that.  Yeah, sorry, I know what's going on. 

_________________________________

Tuesday, late morning.  I never went back over there yesterday, seemed like it would be a waste of time even tho it's not that far away.

I did go over earlier this morning.  What I saw was a bit disconcerting.  A tractor-trailer rig, the entire thing this time replete with 53' long van trailer parked in the driveway - that clearly does not belong to them.  Further, the driver went up on the grass, tearing it up and leaving nothing but muddy ruts in it's wake.  That type of thing will end if I ever get my name on that land title. They have plenty of room on the other side of their house to build a driveway for that truck.  I do mean ample room, the truck could turn around in the rear.  They'd have to build a driveway of course, but that isn't my problem. I"m not going to do anything about that truck until this deal is over and done with. 

What I have also subsequently found out is that the ATT line in the ground does not supply internet, but it does supply cable tv.  Weird.  Fortunately, I saw the communications lines on the telephone poles - there are 2 power lines and 1 thick communication line and there is a local internet provider that basically has the market on internet.  That doesn't bother me, we already have it here in the house, I just wanted to be sure I had the accessibility.  If you have ever checked out satellite internet, you know it doesn't get good reviews.

I think Mr Tesla is allegedly building a network of satellites that will eventually cover the world and offer internet access anywhere.  That's when you say okay, I can offer wifi, but if it's so important to these people, why not just buy it themselves?  As it stands I can hook my computer up to the mobile hotspot anywhere.  

Whatever the case, these surveyors may yet still show up today, who knows, there is no rain, the weather is muggy but tolerable.  Which in their line of work, shouldn't really matter how hot it is out there, to make any money they have to undoubtedly brave all kinds of weather.

Walking out into the kitchen this morning - after being extremely rudely awakened by noisy kids, it was rather warm.  Did you turn the AC off? Nope, it hasn't worked since the brownout yesterday.  The power company came and fixed that yesterday afternoon, something with one of the transformers.  I had checked the circuit breakers tho, it was all good.  

So, I figured it was the capacitor. Those are very far more often the culprits over anything else.  So Taylor found a place locally that sells them. But, I had a wild hair, went outside, checked the unit, then checked the AC circuit breaker. It was flipped off.  Ouch. Back on again, the AC compressor came on and it hasn't gone off since?

Hopefully that was all it was, situation due to the power outage and now fixed ...... there isn't a lot of money around this house to be fixing AC systems if you have to call out a pro to fix it...my room, however, is nice and cool regardless for the window unit keeps it nice in here.  

Okay, well, late load today, definitely not getting home "tonight", it would be around 6 am tomorrow morning to make it a one day trip, no thanks.

The problem? They have permanently shut down and closed off access to the parking lot I used to use, noticed that 2 days ago.  That was disconcerting, for there is nothing else around to park at.  2 truck stops down the main highway are always filled up at night, not even worth trying.  Truckstops in Tulsa, I'll have to try for I have no desire to have to drive til 3 am to find a guaranteed truck parking space, that would be at the casino near the state line. I would literally have to drive until around 3 am tonight to get there. 

Anyways, this property deal is still dragging along, it is what it is.

G'day. 

Long day.  These Oklahoma runs are always very long days on any of them where I am trying to do the whole thing in one day versus spilling over into 2 days worth.  But, it was a 7:30 load and I was determined to get this done today, get it over with and have all day tomorrow for personal stuff.

The highest thing on that personal stuff list would be to go over to the property and see if the surveyors show up.  This is the week of the 19th and they are showing up sometime this coming week.  There was no guarantee of which day, but rest assured I'll be going there  - a lot - until I see some stakes and ribbons on those stakes depicting property lines.  

Potentially this whole scenario is changing with these surveyors coming and getting the job done.  That will usher in the end of this deal where I can close on the property and start doing other things.  

I have finally determined that meters are not necessary but perhaps at a few sites.  Most people want their stay all inclusive, one fee and no separated electric bill. The only caveat is if people are living there on a monthly basis  That would facilitate the need for the renter to pay lot rent and a separate electricity bill.  I was glad to be able to make that determination, meters add hundreds of dollars extra per site. 

But the list of things I came up with for ongoing expenditures was not a small one.

Employees, power bill, water bill, septic upkeep, insurance, cable, wifi, repairs/maintenance, accounting, credit card fees, etc etc etc.  No overhead tho, that's a good thing. I don't own the RV's or pay for their repairs, it's just a place to park it.  

I'm thinking around 60 pads. Full hookups at each one.  Nightly rates will start at $30 and go as high as $65.  C store won't really be necessary with the city close enough by that people can drive a short distance to a grocery store.  But I will offer firewood and ice at least.  

And I have definitely determined that the park will have to have a bath house.  Whether I can afford such a thing or not is irrelevant, too many people demand it and it's a deal breaker - you either have one or lose business.  I'm thinking a 4 room bath house with hot water, AC and heating will cost minimum 25k, probably more.  Which is why I didn't want to build one, but it's become glaringly obvious that without it, I have lost the game before the game ever started.  

That revelation pretty much changed the scope of the beginning of this project and amount of debt I'll have to incur to get this thing rolling.  

I literally have no idea how I am going to overcome that obstacle, I just know that I will somehow find a way,.  A  home equity loan would be great.  An SBA loan would have to just do it all at once - 200k will cover the initial start up costs including that bath house.  

Well it's getting late. Not going to lose sleep over bath houses and money issues.  Just pray, ask the Lord, do whatever I can and hope for the best outcome.

G'nite.   

I was sitting there racking my brains attempting to figure out how to simply put 2 pads in one very long space.  Instead of say, one 65 or 70 foot long pull through, simply go say 110 feet and have two of them.  But I couldn't think how you could get 2 pull throughs on the same site. What if the one in the rear wants to leave before the one in the front?

See, I saw someone post something about this but I couldn't think how you could possibly  make that work.  Well, what just hit me is that you don't have 2 pull throughs.  You have one pull through that goes all the way up and then you have a back in site set up behind it.  

The problem with that scenario, at least in my mind?  What if the pull through leaves and the back in wants to stay for several days or even longer?  Some of these people stay in parks for weeks at a time before moving on.  I guess that pull through site could be temporarily turned into 2 back in sites once the pull through leaves.  Instead of pulling through, the space where the pull through left, the new occupant backs into it.  

I'm not really sure that's such a great idea, but maybe it helps utilize the land more efficiently.  

I dunno about that setup.  Not there yet, but definitely thinking about such things.  It would be impossible to have 2 pull throughs in the same lane unless you knew for sure the front one is leaving before the one behind it. That's just a bad idea in my mind.  If the rear pull through decided to leave earlier than they said, then what? Well aren't exactly stuck, but they are going to have to try to back that rig usually with a trailer out of there. Many of these people are not skilled enough to do any of that, hence the reason they want pull throughs. Or, they have the skill but they don't want to have to unhitch their trailer, hence the other reason to want a pull through spot.  

____________

2 days later, lol.  Down to Brownsville, plenty of empty trailers - they are trying once again to do away with detention pay - and back up today.  Met James, Taylor and the boys at a restaurant in Longview, had some din din, came home and about to go to bed.  I was going to just sleep in the truck, but I was encouraged to come home lol.  See the doggies.

However, I"m off to Oklahoma and I'm going to try and make it a one day trip tomorrow. It's going to be Sunday, usually in and out of the loading plant quicker than normal and the roads and traffic are always much lighter.  

It's "usually" the best day to drive anywhere, not just Oklahoma. But I"m going on mini vacation coming up Friday so they can't send me too far off right now.  

As for the property?  I drove by there again today - in the hopes that maybe they could have gotten an early start - no sign of that.  I suppose that is a hope in vain, but I had to try. It was only a couple miles out of the way going home.  

I'd get into other things, but it's bedtime and try to get some good sleep for along day tomorrow.  

 So I am assigned a run for today - not loading until 2:30 pm :(

That means I won't be out of the plant until 4:30 at the earliest,  which gets me up to the plant at around 11/11:30 tonight.  Yeah, this won't be a one day trip this time.  It'd be 6 or 7 am before I got back, no thanks.  Just seems like a day is wasted sitting around waiting to load and get it over with.

No news about property on my front. But a lot of insight about how to build a park from people that already own them and giving me some correction on what I was proposing to do with it.  A lot of things I hadn't thought of - I haven't lived or stayed in an RV in quite a long time, some of it had escaped me.

I'm definitely going to want some expert input into the layout/design of the thing, even if it costs a bit more than I'd like to pay out. 

I do qualify for a 45k personal loan, that may be all I need on top of the 401k to get this enterprise going.  I'm also going to again try and look into home equity line of credit off of my house in Arizona.  Why not? The best thing would be to sell the place and dump all of that into my business venture, but alas, I can't just throw my friends out into the streets.  They've helped me too much and I just couldn't do that with a clear conscience.  

Other than that there is the SBA loan to look into. After that? I don't know of anything.  The lack of money won't deter me, I will find a way to make this work even if it's only a few lots to start out with with few amenities besides the serenity and the beauty of nature.  

Well, enough of this. Get a large glass of ice water and get out of here.

Have a pleasant day. 

 Blood pressure way high today, by my standards anyway.  The last time I checked it about 2 months ago, it was much lower than what it was today. It was so high I freaked out to be honest. Even after hydrating and aspiring....I'm going to start monitoring it, if it remains that high I'm heading to a doc and get the medicine if necessary to bring it down.  

The doc? thought nothing of it. Oh, it's nothing out of the ordinary, you're good to go for another 2 years! Gag. He was listening to my heart for a while.  I mean, what's with that? How does my heart souud? Good, he said.  Man, I want the truth dammit. If there's something wrong please tell me, don't just get me through this medical without the truth.  But he insisted it sounded healthy and lungs good.  I'm pretty sure my lungs are good, I can still go hiking. I get winded easier than I used to, but that's easily explained away with being way out of shape compared to what I used to be and climbing hills does me in far faster than it used to.  

I intend on more hiking more frequently. Would have today, in fact, if it weren't the trip to get the med card dealt with and then rain. Rain, it's always raininig around here.  

Oh, well I don't know how accurate those blood pressure machines are at the pharmacies, but I'm going to start using them frequently to see.  Admittedly, I get nervous in doctors offices and my blood pressure and pulse always goes up.  

Oh, can I say also that I hate getting my blood pressure taken? It makes me feel funny when the thing starts releasing the pressure on the arm.  Like, really weird feeling.  I'm not a fan of it.  

And the speeding ticket - in my personal vehicle not in the truck? Well, that's a done deal.  Go to the court house in a few days, plead not-guilty - which I can do with a clear conscience actually - and the rest will be taken care of.  Maybe a slight fee I am told.  I was facing thousands of dollars for a lawyer. 

I've slowed way down on the Interstate, that's what I can say about that.  I won't have to report this to my employer at all and I will be watching my speed all the time now, I don't need to repeat that.  

Anyway, I have a fresh 2 year lease on driving a truck after getting the med card today.  I can only  hope that in 2 years, I will have a business fully functioning and the only reason I would want to stay in the trucking industry is for the health insurance.  

So, I was sitting in the exam room, waiting for the doctor to come in. Yes, they use assistants for all the data, but a real doctor actually has to examine you. I wanted that, actually, what do you think doc?  

My manager calls.  Hey benjamin, what are you doing?  In a very relaxed, nonchalant voice. Lol, I know that approach well.  Not just from him, but from anyone in a company that wants you to do something out of the ordinary,.  I'm just chilling in the exam room waiting for the doc.  Oh, well is there any chance you can go to Oklahoma today? It loads in an hour. 

I'm thinking, c'mon dude.  An hour? I'm not even out of here yet  I want the day off, that's what that is.  But I'm not going to get pissy with him.  I kind of thought it - shitty - that they want me to go on an Oklahoma run after almost 2 days off, but it's whatever.  Uhh, yea, I don't have anything with me, I replied. My clothes, my toiletries and my food, none of that, I just came over here to get this done. Do you have someone else that can do this?  

He was pushing it and then said, well, you can load it today and take it tonight or tomorrow morning, doesn't matter. He wasn't letting it go so I just agreed to go load the trailer and - yes I would have left tomorrow morning.  He calls me back 5 minutes later, forget it, I didn't know the dispatcher had already found someone.  So, let off the hook, the dispatcher contacts me a little later sending me a run for tomorrow: Oklahoma. 2:30 pm load time : (

Leave the plant at 4:30 or later?  I'll get up to the receiving plant, drop and hook and drive the 25 miles to the nearest place to park.  It will be a 2 day run.  It'll be Wednesday late afternoon before I get back, meaning I"ll need something else to round out the week's pay period.  

I contacted the gas company today.  The surveyors will be going out there and they aren't going to be able to access the property unless we have the gate code. Or I cut the lock.  Yes, if they weren't going to supply it, I would gladly cut the lock and cut the next lock and so on and so forth.  But, this time after asking?  The man sent me the gate code.  He obviously wasn't interested in dealing with me, he just replied with the 4 numbers an nothing else.  I sent him a thank you note anyway.  

But now I can also get my 4 wheeler over there and to the back of the property.  No, it's not running, I tried yesterday, the battery is dead. I'm going to try and recharge it but it likely is going to need a new battery in it.  They don't last long, 2 years at max.  

11 days til mini vacation. Totally looking forward to it.  I should have asked for 4 days off.  3 days is nice but it's always nice to have an extra day off after you get back home.  

Some people in the RV business gave me some sage advice today.  Just business people who are looking out for a business person's best interests. I mean, I'm open to any advice. Whether I take it or not depends on whether it's sound advice.  Anything anyone says I can cross examine against what others might have to say about the same subject.  But this dude really broke it down into segments that made a lot of sense. 

I think I can't get by without a bath house. The reasoning went well beyond anything I was thinking. People use their showers in their RV's as store rooms and don't want to have to move everything out to take a shower.  Some people want to take a long shower - I can relate to that - the water heaterss in RV's are usually 5 gallon things.  People want room to do their bathing or they want to bath with their partners, something they can't do in a tiny shower stall.  

After he said that stuff, I started remembering living in an RV. Short showers sucked.  You want a nice 20-30 minute shower?  You ain't getting one in one of those things, the hot water will run out long before you get to that amount of time.  And yes, they are small. I never thought about them being used as storage spaces, but a lot of people said the same thing over and over. The finality was - if you want people to come, you are going to alienate a bunch of them without a bath house.

But how can I afford such a thing?  I can't see less than a 4 unit bath house being worth the money to build.  It's something I'm going to need and an expense I'm going to have to figure out, somehow. 

This isn't going to make me rethink whether I want to get into this business, it's going to drive me to figure out how to pay for all of this.  I just can't see any other way around getting a large loan.  I don't know how to build a bath house?  

Complications were expected.  This isn't the biggest hindrance on earth but we're talking 20 grand at least to build something decent.  It doesn't have to be huge but it needs to be nice.  People don't want to go into shower in a trashy bathroom. It also would necessitate either me getting full time in the business - which I would love to do if the income is there - or have part time help to go in and clean the thing on a daily, maybe several times daily basis.  

I am not deterred. Maybe a bit hindered, but I'm moving on with this land deal. It's become glaringly obvious my 401k isn't going to cover the costs. I"ll need 3 time that amount at least now that I have determined this bath house is a mandatory necessity.  So, I'll just have to try to get the SBA loan and get it all done at once.  Unless something comes along to give me another avenue to get to the same destination.  

I dunno, but I'll take one step at a time.  The land is the first step. After that? Who knows.  But I remain optimistic.  

If there's nothing to report, there's nothing to write about.

Okay, there's plenty I just haven't felt like delving into other subjects.  Mostly this blog is reserved for the daily events in my life.  

It's Sunday, I'm home and will not be going back out on the road until after I get my medical card renewed.  That will happen, likely tomorrow morning.  Plenty of things I can do over in that town, including taking my AR to the store and getting a scope mounted on it and hopefully finding some ammo and maybe firing off some rounds.  

However, I'd rather do the target practice on the - 2 acres turned into a fraction of an acre.  No one goes on that property, the nearest house is - half a mile? and there is already a place set up where I can shoot off rounds without possibility of a stray bullet hitting someone, somewhere.  

The new property will be even better.  Simply hike down into the basin and there is no possibility of bullets going anywhere near humans, since it's down below the surrounding properties.  I'll be going over there as much as possible the week of the 19th and seeing if the surveyors show up and watching their progress.  

I've been doing more reading about RV park construction.  I've spent a lot of time doing that, lol.  But people keep referring to TCEQ regulations - Texas Commission on Environmental Quality - and how "hard it is" to deal with it, but I've read the portions that refer to RV parks and I don't see what they're talking about.  I won't have my own water supply, I won't have to deal with them on that.  I won't charge separately for water, that will be included in the cost of  the stay, I won't have to deal with that either.  

Wastewater I already knew about.  I won't be dealing with that, a licensed, bonded, insured company will do that for me.  In fact the storm water permit is the only thing I can see that may be an issue, and that is only during construction.  

I've discussed this here before, but unless there is something I am missing, I don't foresee that big of a deal.  

___________________

The recurring them in all of these RV forums is "if you build it, they will come".  I post about my intentions on various forums to see what people have to say about the particular type of setup I am proposing.  I haven't had a single person tell me that the layout of the park is somehow - wrong or bad.  Most of them say you really need a bath house with good water pressure and hot water.  

I dunno about that, it would cost a small fortune to have a contractor come in and build even a 2 room structure like that.  That's "I need to get a large loan" territory.  But so many people want that in a park.....I've got the room for one, that's about all I can say about that.  Maybe something for further down the road?  Or get that big loan right off the bat and get these operation rolling.  

Whatever the case, it's Monday morning and I am fixing to head over to the bigger town to the west and get my medical certificate renewed.  Do I expect any problems? No, but then again, getting older, you never know. Usually it's blood pressure that jinxes people, but I have been doing stuff the last several days to make sure I pass that at least.  

Just need to drink a few more large glasses of water and I'm out of here.

Have a great day!

 Friday, late.

Brownsville, just pulled in here maybe 25 minutes ago.  It's been raining so much the street is flooded coming in here.  I'm talking over a foot and a half deep of flooding, probably closer to 2 feet.  The first step on my tractor was submerged in water.  It was kind of a let down to find an empty trailer in here, more so knowing the driver coming in behind me? No empty, he'll get the detention pay, I'll be driving back starting mid morning.  

I was a bit surprised coming down here - cause' it's Friday - that there wasn't a ton of traffic coming down to the beach.  I guess the rain scared them all away.  Fine by me, and tomorrow driving back at least it will be Saturday, I won't be dealing with any rush hour traffic junk in Houston.

So yesterday, I started asking about this survey for the property.  We can't wait until the second of never for these people to produce it, if they can't, they need to pay for a new one. My realtor had been giving them time to produce it, but it's been what, over two weeks now?   The contract says if they don't produce a survey, a new one will be ordered at  their expense.

Further exacerbating the situation, the lender informed me today that the appraisal is being held up because there is no complete survey.  I did not know that the appraisal would be contingent upon the survey, I thought the two things were separate.  No one told me about the survey needing to be done to complete the appraisal, that was news to me.

Again, I'm new to this.  I don't have intrinsic knowledge of how these land deals work.  I do have a pretty good understanding now tho. Anyway, my realtor ordered a new survey today.  It will be completed the week of the 19th of this month.  The cost? $1,800.  I had no idea it was going to cost so much and I'm going to need a fresh survey to show the property lines with vlarity, especially to the neighbors out front.  

What they do with their property is of no concern to me.  There is a bit of junk piled up - on my property - and there is a large propane tank - on my property - and there is a garage, which appears to also be partially - on my property. When the surveyors come and start driving stakes into the ground out there with the pink ribbons and they see them doing it well into what they apparently consider their land, there may be some fussing going on.  I dunno, I don't intend on making them tear down the garage, I guess, as long as they aren't going to start any trouble.

That's all I really want, peace with the neighbors, but bearing in mind that any portion of that land over there that is mine? Highly likely to be used for some RV Park purpose.  Or more than one purpose, more likely.  The situation may require the need to put in some sort of fencing to block the views of their setup and have something like a dog park or the setpic system installed there.  

Regardless, I am very happy that there is, indeed, going to be a new survey, the entire property lines will be freshly evaluated and I will be looking at all the corners and along fence lines and such to see if what presently exists is accurate.  The entire west side is pretty clearly marked, I'm just curious to see if what the surveyors come up with is right there, right along that line. 

After an extreme amount of bouncing the SBA loan idea around in my head, I have decided it would be in my best interests to at least check into it and see if I could, indeed, get a large loan, what they repayment terms are and for how long.  It's a question I'll have to have answered for me to have any peace about whether I should or should not have gone that route, I'd never know unless I checked into it.  Checking into it does not necessarily equate into going that route, tho if it's possible, the temptation will surely be there.

Have the entire park built in one, fell swoop, get it over with - but also be stuck with probably a pretty pricey monthly payment.  A loan calculator for SBA loans gave me back $1,750 per month payments at 20 years, 5.5 percent interest.  10% down minimum amount they require for down payment, some require 20% or even more.  $250,000 would cover the entire project plus give some operation capital to start out with.  

Piece mealing it - going to still probably cost more than what I will be able to get out of my 401k.  I'd probably need another 25k or so to get things rolling.  I do qualify for a personal loan of that amount, but the interest rate is high and the payments are similar to the SBA loan, excepting for 5 years instead of 20.  It is going to be a tough decision, I do believe, of how to go about this. My friends say just do it as you can afford it.  Yes, I'd like to go that route but I still need to be able to get at least some lots up and running to do it that way.  10 minimum, 20 preferably.  

Well it's getting late. Just wanted to publish that fact that a new survey - what I wanted all along anyway - has been ordered and in about 2 weeks it will be completed.

G'nite.

 My mother texted me today telling me that my cousin who lives in Australia died yesterday of a massive heart attack.  She was only in her 40's.  It is a sad and tragic loss, for not only wasn't she that old, she also has a son that is less than 10 years old.  Married, I have never spoken to the husband.  My mother said that several people from that side of the family have had heart problems.  It makes me consider going to see a cardiologist to have my heart checked out.  I'm seriously considering seeing if I can make an appointment to see one.  

We were not close, no.  But we did speak occasionally on Facebook.  I was sent an email address for the man so I sent a letter of condolence and prayer for him and his son in this time of grief and anguish.  It was short, I didn't know what else to say.  I feel like so many of our namesake have been dying off in the last several years, there aren't a lot of us left.  

I decided not to post anything about it - yet anyway - on my Facebook for as I said, I wasn't close to her and I don't want to come off acting like we were best friends or something or just the allusion of putting on some kind of charade. 

 I hope she was saved and I hope she is reunited with her dad in heaven.

I just got home from Oklahoma. I left this morning intent on doing a day trip and getting this over with.  I'll have tomorrow off for sure and I don't know about Friday, but I was almost out of hours so they had to give me a 34 hour reset. This was a one day run.  The only odd thing that happened was the scalemaster in Oklahoma informing me that I was to go back without a trailer.  He explained that they only had one empty up there and they needed that and the one I brought up for shuttling back and forth between a railyard about 40 miles away.  They go through a lot of ethylene.  2 of our truckloads a day plus rail cars that are unloaded into one of our trailers and a guy that lives up there that does the shuttling back and forth.  

News came today from the realtor that the title company had gotten back to her - there are a couple of minor, easily fixable issues the seller has to rectify, otherwise it's all good.  That was really great news.  I asked her if the survey issue had been worked out, she said she had been giving them time to find the field notes but that it's getting to the point in time where they are going to have to order a fresh survey and they will have to pay for it, per the contract.  I'm attempting to patiently wait this thing out.  

Once the property is in my name, I will have a difficult decision to make.  Do I finance the entire park in one fell swoop, or do I piece-meal it together over time as finances afford it?  To make an informed decision, I'll have to get quotes on the power company running the 7,000 volt lines to a transformer and then down to a panel with at least a 400 amp circuit breaker.  That's all they have to do, the rest I can either do myself or pay someone to do it, depending on finances.  The water main tap another company will have to give an estimate and yet another company for the septic installation.  

Once I get those figures, I'll still have to figure out how much the water pipe will cost to plumb the park, sewer line for the septic coming from the individual lots and the electric line running to each pedestal.  On top of that, will be the cost of having the driveways made and the pads, plus the cost of the gravel - I'm currently investigating slag as an option.  

You see, today, I was making the eternal wait in the scale house for my paperwork, an older gentleman - older than me anyways- was discussing something with another driver sitting next to him. I overheard him talking about hauling loads of slag for $400 per load.  I had never heard of slag being used for driveways so I was asking him a lot of questions, he seemed to know what he was talking about.  After that, he started discussing how to build a pond, I was all ears. I won't go into that tonight, I am a bit tired and it's almost midnight.  

The only other thing of interest, at least for me, is that I found a comprehensive website hosted by a man that knows how to wire up an RV park and has diagrams along with pictures posted.  It was what I have been looking for for a while now.  I can figure out how much I will need for all of the electrical stuff and get a ball park estimate. 

The pond thing was interesting. He stated that the water table is unique in our region and that if you dig down to the clay in building a pond, you don't even have to have a water source, the water will seep in from the ground and eventually fill it up.  That explains the numerous ponds I have seen that have no streams running in and out of them.  He also said that if you build a pond, it will eventually fill up with fish without putting any in there.  He stated that birds get fish eggs on their bodies and that some of it will drop into the pond and viola! You have fish.  Yea, I'd stock it to begin with but it was an interesting conversation.  

I can't go on any longer with this post, I am exhausted, and almost 16 hour day is done and I'm going to bed.

G'nite.  

 Not much new going on here.  Was in Brownsville this morning, no detention pay, they're trying - again - to stop all of that. It never lasts forever.  But, I've made 2 trips down there in the last 4 days plus I have an Oklahoma going out tomorrow.  Still a good paycheck without detention.  Detention just  means you get to sit around getting paid for doing nothing but waiting. It's easy  money, I can make the same money driving - and y'all know what I think about driving at this point in my life.

The decision is made. If this property becomes mine, I'm contacting the owner of the land/house next door and informing him I need my property. All of my property.  I've looked at that portion of the land several times.  It's perfect for a doggy park, a playground or a septic system.  Or a combination of 2 of them.  Save me room in the back for more pads.

I did contact my agent today.  Any word on the title company?  What about the survey?  

She seemed annoyed. I haven't been texting her at all, for about a week now.  But she was not happy that the survey hadn't been sent yet. The full survey.  Apparently she gave them time to come up with the full version of it, they haven't done that yet.  So she said she would ask them to order a survey - at their expense as provided in the contract they signed.  You know these sellers can opt out of this sale the same as I can?  Let's not get too pushy. At the same time, a completed survey will be required by any lender.  I just don't want to lose yet another property.  

Addler is grumpy. I haven't been home much lately and out again tomorrow. But it's an early load, I'm going to try and get home tomorrow night.  Just depends on how the day goes.  Or how I feel - I don't always want to do that.  Sleeping in the truck isn't the end of my world.  

Oh, 4th.  We had fireworks.  A pretty good show for just us lol.  It was fun. I got home from Brownsville, they had some fireworks out on display for the night.  I offered some money to go get more - we gonna do it, let's do it right. The guys took me up on that offer and went to the next town to get some. Me? I sat on the chair. I had no desire to drive or be a passenger in any vehicle after driving literally all day long. 

I have this growing dilemma of not want to drive anything at all. Offroad vehicles or boats excepted lol.  

It really needs to go back into the shop.  I need them to find out why it will run great, turn it off and then it doesn't want to start back up again. I'm going to bring it over here first and put a new battery in it and probably install a trolling motor.  Everyone wants to go boating, I'll say that lol. I just got fed up with it and parked it.

Well enough of this. It's getting late and 5:00 am - comes early.

G'nite.

 Home. No work for tomorrow.  

Of course, likely meaning work another entire weekend.

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

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

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

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

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

HOW? 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The option to bow out of it, of course.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

G'day

 Getting up early - 76 miles out, I decided to get this over with early, get home and just relax or do whatever and have a whole day to do it in - I got home around 7:45 am.  I decided to take Addler over to the property and take a look at the rear where the turn around will be.  There is much more open space - relatively tree-less- in there than I had previously anticipated.  But that's okay.

The playground and the dog park can go back there.  They will be small affairs, fenced and gated and won't take up a lot of space.  The middle driveway can go in between them and still have ample room for both.  I don't really think I need to build a huge doggy park since I intend on making a rather large amount of walking trails in the rear of the property for taking dogs for a walk.

However, there are people that don't want to go for walks, they just want to take their dog/s to a fenced in area, let them run around for a while and then go back to their RV.  I will happily accommodate both since the doggy park is nothing more than 4 foot chain link fence and 2 gates.  The playground will be nothing more than one of those house things with slides and perhaps some other - safe - stuff.  I don't want a lot of liability/people potentially getting hurt type of thing, but RV'ers with families demand some sort of area for their kids to play in.  Playground area could also include horseshoes and other family-friendly games that have limited amount of potential for accidents.  

I've also located picnic tables for around $100 a piece.  Not bad considering the price of wood right now.  This is another thing many of them want: a picnic table, a BBQ grill and a fire ring.  Many of them say they like to cook outdoors to keep the heat out of the RV during the summer time. Makes sense and will help to keep electric bills down. There will be a market for Lighter fluid and charcoal and I will gladly sell it to them at a small markup.  

None of that is in the initial phase. The initial phase is getting the whole thing mapped out and marked for construction.  That will take some time, I do believe I may just build the west side driveway right off the bat - I have to have it and it's pretty simply stuff.  20 feet wide all the way to the back, clear a turn around back there, clear out the already existing clearing - getting rid of underbrush and perhaps building the middle driveway.  With the driveways in place, I can then go to the task of marking out the individual pads.

But recall, I am not doing all the pads at the get go.  The existing driveway pads can wait til a future date, the pads behind those will also wait, I will only focus on pull through pads on the west side at first.  I am only looking to put up 20-25 pads to begin with.  It will be costly enough as it stands with renting a dozer and then having trucks dump gravel all the way up and down the newly fashioned driveways, I can easily see a few hundred tons of that if not much more.  No, I don't know how much the material costs per ton, I haven't even decided what kind of gravel to put down - there is a lot to choose from. I need to lo

Yes, I am currently planning on doing all of that myself - with some paid labor of course to help me, but no contractors besides the water, electric and septic installation only and that only on the installation that is required to have professional installation - from the street to the property, in other words, the rest is going t be my installation, including electrical, I only want to have a licensed electrician inspect it after the fact and ensure it's correct and not going to electrocute people and burn down RV's.  

Why am I going on about something that I don't currently own? Because it's in my mind and I can't stop it.  It just flows in there and trying to distract myself, at least so far, hasn't worked.  

Anyway,, it was good to take a closer look at the trees.  I had before but not really noted anything specific in my mind for certain, now I'm sure that plowing the ones down that need to be plowed down will be a piece of cake for a bulldozer or even a smaller rental until could take much of that stuff down.  Addler wasn't too particularly pleased with having to climb through barbed wire fence - but I wasn't trying to get him to do that.  I was trying to get him to go around it, which he refused. Okay doggy, have it your way, cuts in your flesh will feel good?

But he enjoyed the walk.

As for now? I'm going to go out and get a few things, including stuff to replace all of the food I had to throw out yesterday at the truck stop.  I have a portable, plug in refrigerator I will have to use in the interim.  It's not so much fun because it's pretty big and going to take up some space on the floor of the already small sleeper. But it's that? Or nothing at all.

G'day. 

 So here I sit, 689 miles after leaving my starting point this morning, at a Love's in Domino, Texas. It's 76 miles from the yard.  I will have to sit here for 10 hours.  Why? Because the Federal Government finds it necessary to impose the same one-size-fits-all hours of service regulations on millions of truck drivers nationwide.  

I could easily drive this route out, not fatigued, not going to crash into people and kill them, and be done with this trip  

Would you like some wine with that whine? Why yes! Yes, I most definitely would! 

There isn't going to be much to write about the property, at least in it's acquisition, for some time now.  This is the lull period and it's going to go on for quite a while, until the appraisal comes in and I can close on this property.  

Now, there are plenty of things that I still need to get dialed in on, such as credit card payments, a website, an official name for the park, an online registration system - lots still to research.  

And I'm still trying to wrap my mind around how I want to set everything up. IE: how many pull throughs to install, how many driveways - tho I'm definitely sold on 3 at this point, I would actually need 4 driveways to set up another row of drive throughs.  

Anyway, there is plenty of research left to be done and so, that will attract my attention for the next - 5 weeks.  I will likely still go back to the property between now and then, I did with the Finklea property and took the dogs.  It's pretty hot out now but a shortened version of a walk/run will work. Oh, I can get the dogs in without cutting the lock on the gate.  I've asked 3 or 4 times for that code now, the senior manager avoids answering that question every time.  

The house....the grandmother left this morning with the oldest boy and now things are sort of returning to normal.  It takes those kids a while to "readjust" to the normal way of things where they don't get their way with grandma. 

The dispastcher attempted to send me out on a run for tomorrow morning.  I had to remind her that this run is going into 4 days because of the 9 hour hold up at the receiving plant and ensuing erosion of my 14 hour on duty hours.  I didn't want to turn the run down, it's a Brownsville run, but to be honest, I want to go home for at least a little while after being out this long.  And, my refrigerator quit working - I just threw out everything.  Meats, cheeses, dips, condiments, chicken wings, whatever else, it all went into the trash behind my truck. Loves is good about that, they literally put trash cans everywhere.  

I'm going to Decatur, Alabama on Sunday.  It's a little more miles than the Brownsville run - and the Brownsville run isn't getting any detention pay right now. It's go down there and come back up. This run? You get about 3 hours of detention pay.  

Anyway, I have a portable refrigerator I'll bring for Sunday's run, I'm not a fan of just heading out on the road without food to eat.  Sure, you might be able to find food everywhere, but what kind and what quality? Junk/garbage/filth mostly.  Might taste good, not good for your system.  

Okay I don't really have much else here.  Posts may not be flowing in on a daily basis for a while, here and there if something is going on or something to report on the land.  

Verizon reception here is terrible and the Love's free customer wifi is equally as bad. No vidoes/movies for me tonight, I'm going to call it an early bed and get up - really early and get home.  

G'day