Soooo...

The trip starts with the trailer in the yard.  Turns out the driver that loaded it and was going to take it had his truck broke down on him.  

Another Sunday start to a drive, I wasn't into it for quite a while.  Meaning I just plain didn't feel like driving and couldn't wait until I got 300 miles behind me so I could stop and nap a while.  There is no regulation saying you have to drive 300 miles before you stop, nor is there a company policy.

That's my self inflicted policy.  If I go well beyond 300 miles - which I often do - that's fine. But stopping before 300 miles is done? No, just doesn't work for me.

Anyway, the trip up was mostly uneventful. Didn't even see any horrific crashes anywhere - which is a plus.  Lots of congestion on the Interstates, lots of very rough roads, lots of - dumb- drivers, pretty normal stuff.

I ended up after the 2cd day of driving well beyond what I would normally do at about 78 miles from the plant.  Getting to the plant, all was fine, I figured 6 hours max, that's just what it takes them.  But after being parked and this dude attempting to unload for and hour and a half, I saw him walking around shrugging his shoulders. That was my queue to get out of the truck and find out what was going on. 

He claimed the fluid wasn't flowing and the truck wasn't unloading.  Partially true, when he turned the pump on, it was cavitating, meaning not enough fluid going through.  What was untrue is that it was obvious fluid is going through. This stuff is 150 below zero, when it flows through the pipe to go into the plant side, the pipe becomes completely frosted on the outside, you can't even see the pipe anymore. You can literally make snowballs out of the stuff.  Which I have  done lol.

We discussed this for a while, decided to let the air out my suspension on the tractor and see if that would change anything.  It did, immediately.  And yes, I was there over 6 hours actually.  Left there and started cruising. A little less than 6 hours left on the 14 hour clock, I was going to drive that out.  

And drive it out and then some I did.  For at the end of the day, I could not find a parking space. Into one place and out and into another.  I haven't had this much trouble finding a parking spot in quite a long time.  Looking at the Trucker Path app, I saw a place that said "lots of spots" 28 miles down the road. I was already beyond my 14 hour limit.  Had to his the 16 hour exception to keep driving legally. 

You can do that once every 70 hour reset.  Not something you want to abuse - use too often - which I don't, but tonight was definitely a night I needed one.  I got - here - and saw a spot right near the pumps.  The rest of the place looked full and I wasn't going to potentially give up a spot to find out the hard way that there wasn't any, so I backed in here and shut'er down.  This is not an optimal parking spot, but at some point, you get tired of looking. I was blessed that another truck parked next to me after I got in here, his truck will act as a sound block against other trucks coming in here. 

I was not happy to find out that my pressure in the vessel - the tank that holds the product - was up to 60 pounds.  Yikes!  I left the plant with it high as it was. 46 pounds.  This trailer is old and the safety valve goes off at 85 pounds. That's really low, it should be up at least as at 105 pounds.  So now I have to worry about pressure.  I can't let it get up to 85, once those safeties go off, you have serious problems.  They basically don't shut themselves off.  There's nothing in there but residual amount of product.  

And now, there are trucks parking in non-parking spaces and blocking other trucks from getting out, including me.  I'm here for 10 hours, if that junk is still out there when I get up in the morning? I'll be knocking on their door.  Dude, you are blocking me in and I need to go. Bridge I'll cross in the morning if I have to.  This is along Interstate 81 in Virginia and 81 is a  very busy highway. It's constant traffic, up and down the thing.  It must be one of the busiest Interstates in America, at least from everything I have seen.  That means drivers are looking for spots to park, just like me.  I do not, however, ever, park in a place where I would be blocking someone else from getting out. That's rude and will cause problems.

Last night. I was at a Flying J. Somewhere in Pennsylvania, it's been a long day, thinking isn't exactly on my list of priorities, I don't remember, I think it was in Harrisburg.  Almost 16 hours today, btw.  Anyway, I got lucky, there were plenty of spaces when I pulled in there but it didn't take long and almost all of it filled up.  Except for 2 spots, one next to me and one across from me.  

This truck comes around the corner and begins to attempt to back into the space across from me.  I have never in my entire driving career seen anyone have such a difficult time backing into a space.  I was eating dinner and watching this facade. How did this guy get a CDL?  This went on for almost 20 minutes.  I finally got out of the truck and literally had to tell him which way to turn the wheels.  It took another 10 minutes after that even with me directing him before he finally got the thing in there!  If you can't back a truck, you can't drive one.  

I can see doing a few pull ups, but half an hour to get a truck into a spot?  Guy didn't speak English very well and I was just trying to help him out. Oh, I forget, there was another spot 2 down from this dude's - 2 trucks tried to back into it and couldn't, they ended up leaving before another truck got in there and backed it right in. 

How do these people survive?  If I were having that much trouble backing into a hole, I would be doing some serious practicing on my free time to get the hang of it.  Not wait until I am out of hours and be forced into a position of attempting to do something - I can't do.  I can honestly say that there are nights when I'm blitzed tired and have more trouble than normal to back into a space, like having to get out of the truck a few times and go back and make sure I'm not about to ram another truck, but half an hour?  Or leave the spot altogether because I can't get in there? That's part of the job!

Next came the spot next to me.  I wasn't paying much attention to this truck, I was ready to go to bed.  But I happened to look and see him backing into the truck on the other side of the spot next to me.  STOP!!!! I was out the door quick, dude, pull up!  A lady got out of the truck that was hit.  She was not panicking or even angry, but she was definitely taken by surprise. The driver got out, I'm sooooo sorrry.  It actually only took off some paint, he got lucky that he stopped when he did, any more and he would have taken out the hood.  

In that respect, this has been a strange trip.  

Anyways, I have about 980 miles left to go to get back to the yard in Texas.  Try to knock out at least 650 miles tomorrow and then finish up on Thursday.  

OH! It was SNOWING today!  At the plant, it started snowing.  I was like, what on earth.  Fortunately, it was melting as fast as it hit the ground.  I couldn't imagine going through another trip like that one from West Virginia driving over ice.  That was a wicked run and not one I ever want to repeat.   

I don't remember if I posted on another property I found or not, but it is 25 acres next to a lake. Not fare from where I live.  So I forwarded it to the realtor - she came back and said: FLOOD PLAIN. There is one place on the property where someone built a huge pad for whatever reason, the rest of it is covered with water.  One could wish for a property next to a lake that wasn't flooded.  That would draw people far and wide.  Put a boat dock on there, heck, build a marina.  But noooo, it has to be flooded with water.

If that sounded cynical, it's probably because it was.  One property after another after another. It's already under contract, or it doesn't have water available, or it's covered with water. LOTS of properties I have looked at are covered with water. Just the nature of the region I live in, lots of rain, lots of water.  No place for it go.  I just keep looking.  There are properties that would work - but way too far away.  I'm not going to deal with a business that's 30 miles away. My support system may not mind driving 50 or 10 miles to deal with stuff, but 30 plus miles? 

I saw an RV "park" being built on the way back from Brownsville the other day.  It was a very small patch of land right off of Highway 59, a bunch of spaces being crammed together.  I guess the allure is the location? Other than that, you have constant, all day/night long highway noise, ugly views and nothing but just a place to park your Rv.  Is this what I should do, look for 2 acres of land and build a dive place?  Is it even worth the money spent?  Do they make any money off of those places?  

My desire for acreage goes beyond an RV park. It's the rest of the property to do other things with.  

Ugh. I don't want to think about all of that right now, it's time to go to bed. 650 miles may not sound like much (intended for tomorrow) but in a truck that goes 67 miles per hour and running into all the traffic and bad roads and construction sites that I do? It's pretty darn good to get that much done in a day.  I don't even have to do that much tomorrow if I don't want to - it won't change the fact that I will have to drive the next day to finish the trip. But, the final day? I won't have to drive near as far and will get home in the afternoon instead of nighttime.  

With that, I'm offa here.

G'nite. 

 Birds woke me up at 5:45 am.  

Realized I had no clean pants so I put a load in the washer and went back to bed. Dogs were content to sleep as well.

A litle while later?  A 4 and 6 year old decide to come into my room, unannounced, and get all up in my business, can we see your phone, will you play videos for us on your computer? Can you write me a note - the oldest got a small mailbox for a gift from grandma and ever since that little addition to the family, he has been asking me to write him "mail".

Parents soon realized what was going on and demanded they come out of my room, thankfully, as I was in no mood yet to get up but didn't feel like being mean to the kids.  They got into trouble 6 ways from Sunday including the fact that they can't be anywhere near me today.

After that, I sneaked back to the pantry, put my clothes in the dryer and then came back to my room to try to sleep some more. Don't ask me, when it hits, it hits hard and I have to sleep.  After a little more sleep I eventually decided it was time to get up.  After doing the morning rituals of bathroom/shower stuff, I was out in the kitchen cleaning up.  And there it was.  A text from my manager.

He knows I get busy with stuff on my days off, so he just said hey Ben! We have a load for you to take out tomorrow! Please give us a shout when you can!  Well I wanted to find out where I'm going, it's still early, if I have to prepare meals I have the day to do it. 

Sure enough, it's one of the longest drives I can get.  Palm Pennsylvania. The run I love to hate. But, this is different.  The trailer is preloaded.  How am I getting this run when there were fully 9 trucks in the yard yesterday when I got back from Brownsville?  I dunno, but I have to say that even tho this isn't my favorite run, I have some catching up to do in the finance area. It's about a $1,700 trip for 6 days.  But, since I'm getting there late - this load usually delivers Monday morning and I'm not going to be there until Tuesday morning - I won't have to wait around an entire day to get the thing offloaded.  I can drive in on Tuesday morning, get unloaded and at least get started back towards Texas.  

It is still strange they are giving me this run when there are undoubtedly drivers ahead of me.  Supposedly we can turn down a trip, I never have.  This particular run is loved by many of the other drivers, especailly the ones that are OTR and don't live near the yard.  I would start complaining about how going to Brownsville would get me  more money, but they are only sending one load a day down there ATM.  I probably would have been off 2 to 3 days without this trip.

I can only guess that, since the truck is preloaded - wait, I have no guess. It doesn't make any sense, I'll just take the run and be happy I have something to do to try and get my checking account back up to the place it was before Snovid21 and 7 days off being sick.  It takes a while and a lot of work to get the 3 thousand dollars I'd need to have it back to levels before that all happened.  

Meanwhile, we are going to the Ice thing tonight.  But, it's at 5:30 pm, so not too late, I think it's an hour and a half.  My plans today have been dashed.  I cleaned the entire kitchen, got my laundry done but now instead of going to that property I wanted to traipse around on, I have to go to stores and buy stuff to eat for the road, prepare some food in advance as well.  

Good, some of the cooking I don't have to do, the lady that made my last meals is goiong to make me 3 more.  I had her make 5 last time but that was far too much food.  I was eating on it for 7 days and there was still some left.  3 of her meals is like 5 or 6 of anyone's normal eating.  So, get some fresh Keto bread, lunchmeat and make some egg breakfasts, perhaps cook a whole chicken for something different and call it good.  

___________________

Many hours later.  Cooked stuff for the road, they finally delivered my 3 meals 10 minutes ago - I'm going to bed soon.  Trip is ready to go.  We went to the Circus on Ice, it was pretty entertaining, especially the clown character who was really the main attraction of the show but the dancers were pretty cool as well.  

Anyway, the day is done, not necessarily looking forward to 6 more days on the road, but it's the career I chose and have to live with it, lol. 

Since traipsing about the countryside doing that empty trailer run, I ran out of hours at the end of this Brownsville run.  That was nothing more than run down, drop full trailer, hook up to empty, leave early this morning, home today.

No more new properties to look at, just the one I want to go take a look at tomorrow again with waterproof boots on.

We all went out to dinner at Chili's.  I let the boys know that there is a surprise for them tomorrow.

They have no clue and even if I tried to tell them about it they still wouldn't understand.  

It's the "Circus On Ice".  Nothing like it has ever come to this town before. When I found it online, I was like, Taylor, let's go!  It's jugglers, hooplas, ice skating professionals - the whole nine yards.  In a rather small building.  But we're hoping it will be fun.

I was just glad it worked out that I am out of hours and can't drive tomorrow. Wouldn't matter tho, there were 9 trucks sitting in the yard when I got back today.  

That's it, lol.

G;nite.  

 The yard was void of trucks.  Good sign? Sure, just need a bit to recover from this trip, I ran that one long and hard. Did almost 700 miles yesterday, those are near record breaking numbers in the company.  Admittedly much easier to drive along with no trailer on the back or an empty one versus a loaded one. 

Got to Witchita Falls and decided to stop at the Flying J.  Both the Flying J and the Loves there have equally unimpressive reviews, but I've been to the Loves and it's always busy and it's always dirty.  I was surprised to find the Flying J had this itty, bitty little parking area.  Not at all what one would expect from that brand.  I was just short of shocked when the lady at the register told me $15 for a shower.

What?  No, just no.  I'm not paying $15 to get into a shower stall.  I get showers free at Love's, but that partciular Loves is nasty.  I figured $8 or so for a shower at Flying J.

Anyway, got up early - 4 am - got dressed and got out of there.  Drove clean through Dallas/metro area without a hiccup.  Couldn't say that for people coming into town once I got on the other side - I saw the lines of cars and thought, this is exactly why I got up so early, to avoid this nonsense. 

Back to the yard, another surprise. There were only 2 tractors in the entire yard.  So, the loading plant must have got it going again or people are being sent out all over the place.  I'll guess the former - a lot of those drivers will refuse to do trips like the one I just did.  Whining babies, they like their comfort zone.  Well, I just make a good chunk of change doing that drive and it was pretty easy stuff.  Even the trailer didn't offer any issues, which was amazing considering that it was obvious the thing had been sitting around for quite a while.

I knew this because of the thick coat of dead pine needles all over it that I had to scrape off.

My manager isn't doing dispatch - for now - but he informed me  I"d either be going back out tomorrow or the next day.  As much as I'd like to sit around town and do my own thing, I've lost too much time to snow and sickness. It's time to get back to work. I've got 35 hours left on my 70 hour clock, that's enough for a Brownsville run : ) We'll see.  Brownsville would be a good finishing touch to next week's pay.

On the way home, I stopped at a 44 acre parcel of land about 4 miles south of town.  It would really be a great property excepting for 2 things.  First, the large amount of water that was to be seen all along the roadway for hundreds of feet.  Second, the price tag.  At $114,000, it's out of my range - yet - the price is great for that much property. I figured there must be a reason why it's been sitting on the market so long.  Who wants a waterlogged piece of land?  What are you going to do with it?  Besides the pools of water everywhere, there are 2 large streams running through it. That is actually a bonus, but the pools of water - are not.  I don't want to have to add water drainage to the list of things that need to be done on any given property.  

I haven't nixed it yet, it  could be that it's just that portion of property.  I'll need to go back with my waterproof boots and take a walk into the woods and see what the rest of it looks like.  

I did find another piece of property at a great price, but it's pretty far away.  Somewhere around 25 miles.  I also didn't see if it has water and electricity available.  Now that I'm home, I'm going to look on my computer and see what I can find.  

That's it for now, I want to take a look at a couple of properties I found online - on my phone - and see much larger pictures of them on my computer.

Later gator.  

 Day 1.

Get up later than I wanted to - just didn't want to get up that early on a Sunday, especially when the thought of walking out the front door and work awaiting me in the form of a semi-tractor sitting in the street was right there.

Said my goodbyes to everyone including the grandma/pa that were there visiting for a few days.  They didn't leave long after me.  It took quite a while to get my brain into drive mode.  But I eventually did and made it clear to the yard in Atlanta.  

The trailer I was supposed to pick up was blocked by a tractor and there was a bunch of stuff on the fenders.  I asked a driver that happened to be in there what time they start up in the morning?  7 am.

I got out of there, went to the local Quik Trip truckstop and parked for the night.  Decided I wouldn't get back to the yard until well after 7 am.  It would be Monday morning, people would be lagging trying to get into work mode.

This morning, I couldn't believe this Quik Trip. I have never seen anything like it.  The parking lot had probably 70 cars parked in it and yes, there were a lot of people in that store.  So many and apparently expected that 2 sheriff deputies were standing around. There were 3 lines to the cashier, each line had at least 10 people in it.  I was just amazed at the sight of all of it.

Back to the yard, I was correct. They didn't even know I was coming.  Of course not, it happens every single time I get sent out on one of these types of trips.  But, they were accommodating and get me out of there pretty quick.  

OH, what threw me off yesterday? I ended the day with 666.6 miles for the day.  The terminal number? 66.  Weird, really strange stuff in my mind.  I proved my manager wrong - tho I wasn't trying to - that you can drive all the way to Atlanta in one day. I actually already knew that when he said it to me but I thought it better to keep my mouth shut about it.  Probably some other drivers had driven there and stopped somewhere before they got into town.  

Anyway, I got out onto the road and got 663.1 miles done with 45 minutes left on the clock. I could have gone further, but where would I park?  There wasn't much available after where I stopped and I thought, this is a lot of miles by our company's standards for one day, I can rest easy stopping here.  Here, is a truck stop in Ozark, Arkansas. 

I have 467 miles left to Amarillo and then it's 500 miles back to the yard.  So Wednesday afternoon I should be done with this trip if nothing happens.  I'm pulling a Carbon Dioxide trailer - apparently pressure isn't an issue with this product in these trailers. It's all sitting at zero on the gauges.  Trailer was covered with dried out pine needles from the trees above it - obviously had been sitting a while.  

I'm glad I took this trip.  Other drivers are sitting at least 3 days waiting on a load.  I dunno why my manager gives me these runs and not other drivers, but I'm not going to complain.  Especially when we're this slow.  I don't want to sit 3 days when I get back, I hope the plant gets fully operational pretty soon so we can get back to normal. I've lost a lot of income to 7 days worth of sickness and then 10 days worth of being off due to Snovid21.  

I started to look at properties listed in my town area today - and then thought, no.  I"m not going to find anything different and it's a waste of time and mental energy going through all of those listings and seeing the same properties over and over.  Exasperating.  I'll wait til' I get home and take a fresh look to see if anything has been added.  Nothing available in my price range is anything I want or need.  The only properties that are appealing are far over-priced.  They aren't worth anything remotely near what hte sellers are asking for and I"m not going to waste the realtors time trying to get her to lowball them.  Those people obviously made their money off of those properties with the gas drilling rights, funny they would try to jack up the price per acre after they had already made their fortunes.

Some of them don't have gas rigs on them, why they think it's worth so much is unknown.

I'm actually thinking I should just put this RV park stuff out of my mind for a while and let the realtor just send me whatever she might find when it comes up on the listings.  I'm getting burnt out looking for properties.  The only change I could make is to widen the search, but that means a longer drive to get to the property.  Just not sure that's a great idea, but I might try a widened search parameter just to see what might be available out there.  I might be missing some gem that even if it's 20 miles away, would be worth it to get it.

Not much else going on, at least not worth mentioning here that I haven't already gone over so many times before anyway.  

With that, I think Ill brush my teeth and go to bed early.  It's only 8:40 pm but driving all day long and dealing with traffic takes it's toll.

G'nite. 

 I decided to drive to the yard and get the truck over here. Just felt like I didn't want to drive 35 miles the wrong direction tomorrow and then that much back this way.  Since tomorrow is Sunday, that 35 minutes I'm saving today may very well get me clear to Atlanta tomorrow.  Not having to deal with rush hour traffic will also be helpful.

And I'm waiting for this person to show up with my keto dinners. A locally owned business that serves up all kinds of dishes, Keto is a specialty that they are diving into because the demand is starting to uptick.  

At the yard, today and however, I saw one of the owner operators who had had a run to Brownsville after me - hooked up to another Brownsville trailer.  My  manager is obviously trying to keep everyone busy, I won't complain about not getting a brownsville run instead.  It turns out there is only one of those loads going out per day and there is no detention time since it's easy for the plant down there to keep up with just one empty having to come up.  

I dunno if I have any good reason to be hopeful, but I will hope that by the time I get back from this run, the loading plant will be back to normal. 

Whatever the case, it's starting to get - late. Sort of. Time to text this person and see what's up.  I didn't spend all day today cooking because this company is making me all of these meals. 

Oh, I saw a large property I hadn't noticed before just outside of town with a Century 21 sign out in front of it. Couldn't find that property on any of the listings tho. It would be a perfect location and heavily wooded.  Right off a semi-major highway, nice road and easy access.  Pretty much the god properties I find are either too pricey or already sold. Lol

25 minutes, I'm informed on the meals.  I want to see how big the containers are and if I can fit all of them in  the refrigerator plus have room for lunch stuff.  

We celebrated the 4 year old's birthday today.  Well we did yesterday, but today they had people over to have a small party.  Video on my Facebook page, lol.  I broke my diet - after not breaking it for a while - to have some birthday cake. I must say, eating delicious sugar filled cake was wonderful.  I'll pay for that, of course, but nice lol.  

And the truck.  One of the mud flaps came off - the entire bracket with it - last trip. The mechanic said he was going to fix it on Friday - yesterday - which he didn't do.  I can't be driving that many miles without a mud flap, James and I dealt with that this afternoon.  Fortunate that this town has a NAPA auto parts and most of them carry truck parts.  

With that, I"m going to finish my preparations for this trip and go to bed - early .

 And all of a sudden the house is full of people.

Mind you, the house is not back to normal from the flooring installation.

Grandma and Paw-Paw showed up yesterday as well as a family friend. 

3 extra people in the house, lol.  I hung out with grandpa for quite a while last night talking stuff - he's a police officer and has lots of stories.  I'm me, I have lots of stories too lmao.

They showed up for the now 4-year old's birthday....who is being spoiled like there's no tomorrow. 

On today's list of things to do: I don't know yet lmao.

I have a 4 day run coming up Sunday morning, I was thinking maybe go to the yard and get the truck and bring it home.  My house is in the right direction to go to Atlanta, get 35 miles of the trip over with and perhaps even make it to the destination tomorrow.  I was informed it takes 2 days, but looking at the map it's likely a person could drive it in a single day.   

The back yard calls all of us to go out there and clean it up.  Every time I start tho, I can only get part way finished. It's  big project.  Just cleaning the concrete area up takes up half a day. 

All I know is, those kids went to bed at 10:30 last night, many hours beyond their normal bedtime, I kinow they are going to be cranky today.  And that's probably my queue to leave here and go find something else to do.  Perhaps I'll just take the dogs to the hunting property and go for a long walk.

Now that sounds like a great idea!

Happy Saturday.  

 Work is still famine mode.  I was informed by my manager that sitting around for 3 days is the new normal until the plant gets back up to normal.  Sucks that it happened - Snovid21 - nothing anyone can do about it.  Fix everything and get back to normal.

So, he offered me a run to Atlanta to pick up an empty trailer and take it to Amarillo, TX. That's some serious mileage that will take at least 4 if not 5 days to accomplish.  2,200 miles I'm estimating which is exactly what I need right now, something serious to get me back on track.  

Meanwhile, there is a local company that has pre-made dinners to go.  Keto stuff.  I'm going to try that this upcoming trip - I'm leaving Sunday morning.  I could have left tomorrow but the 3 year old turns 4 today and they are having cake and ice cream to celebrate - tomorrow, not today. I dunno if they're having other kids over to celebrate or what's going on, but I don't mind another day off.

That's because I have been busy all day long starting at 7 am and it's now noon-thirty.  I have much more I want to get done today and spilling into tomorrow.  I do give credit to my manager that he finds stuff to do when we are slow. I don't know who else he offers this stuff to, but I'm more than happy to take it.

Anyways, I have checked out several properties today - none of which will work. Two of them are larger at 37 and 44 acres - but they have been all but stripped of trees.  It looked that way on satellite, just had to check anyway lol.  The price was good is why. The road getting to them wasn't so hot either, I could foresee large RV's having issues.  Not because the RV couldn't make it, but from my readings, a lot of these people driving the rigs are not keen on anything that offers a challenge.  Those two properties are well off the beaten path, far out of the way, I just don't see the viability of either of them.

There's always an issue. The property is sloped too much.  It doesn't have water access.  You can't access it without going over steep railroad tracks or on crappy roads.  I'm not going to take something that I know won't work and I made that clear to the realtor today.  In nice terms of course, but just telling her that there is competition around here and I have a vision for this park if I ever get it going that will have it growing for years to come.  She agreed that she doesn't want me taking any property that I am not 100% comfortable with.

I just wanted her to know I appreciated all the work she had done so far and that I was sorry if I was being too picky but I have to be picky if I want something to have a chance at being successful.  

It would really be nice to quit work in 5 years, collect the minimum SS at age 62 but have this thing up fully functioning and reaping a solid income.  That is a current goal.  Not set in stone simply because the right property has been so elusive, but it is a good goal to incorporate into this mix.  

There are a number of great properties, actually, that would work - but they want far too much money for them. Like unbelievable amounts of money per acre. They sit on the market for a year or longer - who wants to pay 25 thousand dollars per acre for land?  Obviously not that many people considering the good properties are snatched up quickly and these properties just sit there.  

As for the rest of the day? I was going go to two other properties but then found out there is no water supply available.  I mean, it may come down to having to dig a well to get what I need?  Thousands of dollars just to dig the well, that doesn't include the piping, the well house, the pump and the electrical.  Almost none of the properties I have viewed have sewer available, so that cost on top of water cost would just be too much money to start out with.  

Anyway, back to the drawing board.

 I got started this morning in Brownsville around 4:00 am - that's get up, get dressed, turn on the coffee maker, get out, check the truck, etc, got on the road around 4:30, got back to town around 3:00 pm. I'm actually glad that there was an empty there, my mind is rather consumed - still - with this idea of finding a property.  

I found another great property a while ago - only to see it's under contract.  Is this some sort of sign? Am I not supposed to be pursuing this project? Or is it that those properties aren't the right ones?  Or what?  

Whatever the case, I directed my frustration into motivation and went full fledge once again looking at dozens of websites with properties and have half a dozen I want to go look at tomorrow.  

Brownsville is only getting one load per day.  That's not their choice, the loading plant is still having issues after all of this time. And now I understand why I haven't been to Oklahoma in a long time - not that I care - but it has been shut down since the first storm - that's the storm that hit that region before the Texas fiasco. 

So, that plant has been down a long time and no word on when it's coming back up.  Not my favorite run, but it's a good fill in.  And keeps us busy.  I'm not working tomorrow - of course.  We're normally 2 to 3 loads to brownsville per day and 1 to 2 loads a day to Oklahoma.  So, now I understand why we are slow, I thought the loading plant had come back on line - it did but it's been having quality issues.

Remember, that entire plant shut down during Snovid21.  They produce some 88 different chemicals, it's a huge, sprawling plant and employs a large number of people and beyond that, the services they employ from local businesses.  All of the cooling plants had burst pipes, those go down, the entire plant goes down with them.  

Whatever.  Hope they get all of that up and running soon as well as other plants that are also down.  

But while all of that is going on, I'm still going to focus on the evolving arena of RV'ers - couples and families that sell their homes, buy an RV and live in it, traveling around the country.  And... the people that live in the area that cannot afford regular housing and live in RV's locally.  

Do people really believe truck drivers are "rich"? I've heard this a lot.  I think owner-operators can make a small fortune if they get hooked up with the right company or broker.  But company drivers aren't really rich people.  I could call myself middle to upper middle class I suppose, depending on what scale you use.  And there's plenty of different scales out there, that's hard to say.  I dunno, just a curiosity.

I do know that my new CDL expires when I turn 62. I mean, if I live that long.  Who knows when you are going to die? God.  This is why I'm trying so hard to get this business going. I'd love to be able to quit at that age, collect SS and live off of the business.  And it's going to take a lot more than just buying the property and getting pads installed with utilities to get the type of RV resort going I want it to be.  It will take years of upgrades as cash is made available to do them. A party/wedding barn.  A large playground. Etc etc etc.  

There are far more things, I have been finding, that a person can do with an RV park beyond just having RV's.  They can have a restaurant, they can host parties, reunions, all kinds of activities.  It's amazing what people have been able to do with these places.  It doesn't happen overnight, that's the point.  

Anyway, before I drive myself crazy with all of these thoughts? I think I'll watch a re-run of Star Trek and then, go to bed.  Tomorrow is a new day!

G'nite.  

 3:15 am rolled around, the alarm went off and I was wishing I could go right back to sleep.  I'm just not good getting up that early in the morning.  It's not a routine for me, therefore it - sucks to be honest.  But I forced myself out of bed and got moving quickly, for I only allowed myself 30 minutes after getting up before I had to leave.

At the loading rack at the plant, I crawled into the sleeper and went to sleep for another 45 minutes.

380 miles into the drive, I got yet another nap and after that I was feeling ok.  I mean, so good that I could have driven several more hours after getting down here, especially considering the fact that there are empty trailers.  I'm hooked up to one, ready to go first thing in the morning - tho I haven't determined what time I will get up lol, I could leave here around 4:15 am.  

What am I doing on here after a very long day?  Paying bills lol.  I forgot to pay my credit card bills yesterday, today was a "pay them or get a late fee on at least one card" type of thing.  

And of course looking at some more properties the realtor sent me.  But, they don't do anything for me.  The price is good per acre, but this land has been almost completely cleared of trees. That just doesn't work for me.  I'm looking for a property with tall pines, a kind of hideaway.  I did find one yesterday, but it's zoned residential and I doubt the county is going to change that, it's a really nice area, I'm thinking residents there wouldn't want a commercial operation in the middle of their oasis.  

But, yes, I'm going to find out lol. And I'm going to drive down to those two properties the realtor sent - it might have more appeal looking at it in person, who knows.  And to make the realtor happy that I am at least checking out the properties she keeps sending me.  She has sent me a lot of them and I have checked almost all of them out in person, not just viewing from the satellite.  I still wish I could get that one property with the pond.....that place would have been as close to perfect as it gets for this area.

There's also a property I looked at once already - it was rainy and I wanted to take a second look.  I haven't completely ruled it out. It's nothing near what that other place would have been, but it might work.  Just have to take a fresh look.  

Other than that, there is nothing else available that will work.  She did send a property with 44 acres, but there is no water.  Digging wells is expensive.  Keeping them maintained is expensive.  The electricity to run them isn't cheap either.  I had already said to her, the realtor that is, that I needed electricity and water at least.  So, she hopefully won't send me any of those again.  

Well I am going to bed, albeit early.  It's 8:12 pm lol.  I don't feel like surfing the web and I don't want to watch tv.  

G'nite.  

 This morning was a joke.  They had revised the list a few days ago with a large number of properties that had been pulled.  In other words, people paid their back taxes and got their properties off the tax lien sale list.  Good for them, tho, I'm not exactly happy to see people losing their homes because they for whatever reason couldn't pay their taxes.  

I am not  a proponent of property taxes excepting when you first buy the property.  Sales tax, yes, everlasting tax where the government can take it away from you even if you have the entire land paid off

NO. That's tyranny, IMO. 

Anyway, when they finally got started - half an hour late - they announced a lot more properties had been nixed off the list, including the short list I had of properties I wanted.  I looked through the entire list of what would be sold and saw nothing that fits the bill besides properties that were going for more on the starting bid than I had to spend.  

So I left.  No sense wasting more time there.  

I was sent the worksheet for a run tomorrow: Brownsville. Yes, thank you.  I have yet another new dispatcher. This one is new to the company.  She's being overseen by Sheila, tho, so that's a good thing.  

The bad part about the trip tomorrow? I have to be at the plant at 6:00 am.  That means I have to get up - at 3:45 am at the latest.  That's just too early, those make for very long days.  It always ends up with me waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to go back to sleep.  Almost without fail.  

Anyway, left that place, went to Kroger's got a ham, etc etc etc, went home and - found another property I hadn't seen. It's only 8.7 acres, but it is covered with trees and it is only a few miles away from my house, yet, it's outside city limits.  It is also owner financing.  So, even tho I was busy getting ready for tomorrow's trip, I took a run over there. 

Beautiful property. At least at the entrance.  A road on the edge of the property, that's all gas easement.  Drove down it and found a mud pit, decided to gun it and plow through that, only to come up to another, much larger, mud pit that I knew I would get stuck in if I attempted it.  No matter, it was going down hill and into the gas company's excessive apparatus used for gas wells.  This whole region is filled with this stuff.  All over the place.  

If I were to do that property, it wouldn't be using that road.  I'd plow a road right through the center of the property and have RV pads on either side of the road.  This property is narrow but long.  But I don't even think the county is going to allow an RV park in there. It's a very nice area with ranches and houses, beautifully kempt properties, more of a residential area.  The other problem is the almost 8 grand per acre price tag.  Tho, for a nicer area, may be worth it, depending on the owner's terms - this is an owner finance property.  

Then the realtor sent two properties - 37 and 44 acres respectively.  Well over-priced but they've been on the market for half a year.  I might go take a look when I get back, but they'd have to bring the price down 25-30k for me to consider it.  Oh, wait, one of the properties doesn't have water, so that's a nix.  Wells are expensive to drill and I am not interested in going that route.  

So, today was a bit of a disappointment in not even getting to bid on anything. Keep on looking, yes. Enthusiasm beginning to wane, yes.  

Texas is doing away with the mask mandate in this state. Like masks? Great, keep wearing them. I despise the things.  More importantly, tho, is that business will be "allowed" to reopen to 100% . I find it amazing how quickly citizens in this country were conditioned to the amount of government control over their personal lives as what happened during this pandemic and people thinking any of us that don't want to wear masks are somehow evil.

I rarely wear them anyway, only where they are forcing people to do so and I really have to be there for whatever reason;. 

I'm getting sleepy. Been trying to get into go-to-bed mode.  Its only 8:40 pm, but yes, it's time to hit the hay.  If I could only sleep through the night, I"d get 7 hours of sleep and would be fine in the morning.....

 Well my hope for rain tomorrow morning has been cancelled.  It's going to rain all day today, instead and just be cloudy tomorrow where the forecast previously stated it was going to rain in the morning. I just wanted whatever advantage I could get in seeing fewer people at the auction tomorrow morning and possibly scoring an RV property.  I have around 8 grand I can bid up to for any given property before I have to bow out of the bidding.  Mom opened up an account for savings that she said she was going to put some money into, but she never did it and I'm not going to ask. That was her idea and I'l just have to go it on my own with what I have. 

A few properties shouldn't - realistically anyway - go any higher than 8 grand, it would set the price per acre at 2 grand and that's about as much as I want to go for any given property unless it's in a prime location or has some redeeming feature that would be appealing to the RV crowd.  Then I can see going up as high as 3 grand per acre maybe more - if I had the money to do so.

If tomorrow produces no results, it is what it is.  Just keep saving and saving until I have enough either for a substantial down payment on a mortgaged land or buy it outright at the auction.  Or even buy private owner seller land outright for cash. No payments would be nice, obviously.  

__________________

A rather frustrating morning.  First to the city planning and development building, where the gentleman that basically tells the city what will be done with what properties was helpful, even printing out a huge zoning map of the entire city - but also not very helpful in the idea that most of the city will not allow an RV park.  Ok, so I could take this before the city council and see about a change in zoning for any given property? 

Only if I ok it.  And, per Texas law as of sometime in 2019, spot zoning is no longer allowed anywhere in the state.  I'm learning stuff if nothing else. Spot zoning is where they would allow one portion of an otherwise zoned area to be changed without changing the rest of the zoning in that area. The only way around it is to change the entire zoning for that whole area.  And, he says, the city council hears what his opinion is of whatever it is a person is trying to do and if he disagrees, highly unlikely the city would allow it.  

It was the 11 acres I was looking at in the city limits.  It's zoned R3 - it's basically only allowing "residential" housing, whatever that means and trying to get him to define that was like pulling teeth.  "Well, I'd have to go and take a look at what's around that area to determine what would be allowable".

Subject moved on to the piece of property where I'd like to put a mobile home.  Nope, he says, But, I reply, there are 2 mobile home 100 feet away on the same street?  Well they were probably grandfathered in.  Well how do I find out what I can do with this property? You ask me. 

Lol, ok.  So I have him the county property ID number. Again, his statement was to see what's near it.  There are old trashed houses, newer - but far from new - regular housing, mobile homes, mansions, there's all kinds of different structures on that street, there is not confluent  at all. It's all different.  Well, I'll go take a look and get back to you.  That didn't sound promising, but my other idea was these portable buildings.  They look like a small house.  I could move one onto this property, permanently situate it on block, put skirting around the bottom, run electric, water and sewer into it.  Design the inside of it, install a kitchen, bathroom, living room and bedroom and call it done.  Put it up as a rent to own. I don't even need credit to get one of those buildings, though I'm sure you need a good down payment.

Leaving there, I went to the county courthouse.  Looking up cases, that didn't help at all. Several properties with no addresses, no GIS, no satellite view, no description beyond a survey of where they are at. Over to the Appraisal district, they took me into a room with computers and said you can sit down at that one and look the properties up.

Nothing. On any of them.  I called them in, eventually a man shows up.  He looks up one of the properties I'm quite interested in for the acreage is ok and the starting bid is quite low.  After he "found" it and left, I realized he's found a property with a different ending number.  I tried looking this property up on several different applications and found nothing.  I called him in again, who then told me he'd have to call someone else in.

This lady comes in, looks at what I am looking at, goes to an old survey map from the 60's, starts looking.  I asked her how they could be selling a property where they have no idea where it is?  Blank look on her face, she couldn't find it on the old map and gave up on it.  The same was true with all the unidentified locations for properties, so I just gave up on it.  You can't just buy a property blindly and hope somehow you can magically find where it is and then, if it's even suitable for what you want to do with it? Ridiculous.

After eliminating all the properties that had too high a starting bid or were too far away, I only ended up with one single property that I could bid on tomorrow. It's smaller than I want at 4 acres, but it's absolutely beautiful and outside city limits.  There is city water across the street, power lines running at the front of the property and underground cable across the street as well.  That would give access to high speed wifi, a thing many RV'ers demand have accessible.  Unfortunately it's starting at almost 6 grand, so I will only be able to bid up to maybe 8 grand and after that?  I'm SOL.  I mean, I could buy that 4 acre unidentified property, apparently you have to pay a company that does surveying to find it for you.  I dunno how much that costs, but it's probably not cheap. Yet, if the property turned out to be something going cheap - it's starting bid is 1.5 grand - I could easily see paying that extra price.

That's  a pretty risky gamble. The other thing in high supply are properties that are landlocked.  You cannot access them, there are no roads of any sort going to them. A couple of them  you'd have to walk down railroad tracks a mile or more to gain access.  I don't need that, thanks.  Just a waste of money and time, you can't use it unless you could convince a property owner next to it to allow it - and probably pay a steep fee to put in an access road and you couldn't sell it, who wants to buy unaccessible property? 

So I'll play that one out when they get to it.  The 4 acres that I am interested in has nice roads getting to the street that leads up to it. That street is a bit narrow but nothing an RV couldn't easily navigate and the entrance would be flat and level, make an extra wide entrance and they'll love the area.  A ranch across the street, my hunting property on undivided interest the other direction across the tracks, a small property north of it that is unused and about a 4 acre tract south of it that - who knows?  Maybe a person could convince the owner to sell it, they aren't doing anything with it.  

But that's neither here nor there.  I have to actually win it.  I have 8 grand, that's what I can spend, that would be 2 grand per acre.  

There are other properties I'd bid on tho.  Houses on them, they are starting low, but as I have seen, those will get bid up to 50, 60 or more grand.  A person with money could easily make a living - a good living - off of buying and selling these properties.  Especially the ones with acreage.  

Now just let me say, that 11 acres tract? Would be a wonderful place to build a house and have all that property to yourself.  I'm not going to try to do that, the thought entered and slipped back out of my mind quickly. That doesn't help me do what I want to do here.  

So there it is. Spent all morning on this.  Oh wait, there's another property that would fit the bill only a mile away from our house - but I forgot to see what the zoning is there.  It's in city limits as well.  

Whatever the case, I kind of feel like I should have just gone to work instead of taking tomorrow off for this, but now that it's a done deal, I'll be there first thing and see what happens.  The worst that can happen is the property bids too high and sends me back to the drawing board.  The drawing board, however, is complete.  Save more money - a lot more - or cash out the 401k to acquire the property.

Of course, if I do that, I won't have enough left over to develop the property.  That 401k is the money needed to develop the property into an RV park, if I spend it on buying property, I am left with nothing to develop it with.  But, maybe that wouldn't be so terribly bad?  I'm sick of trying to get property, it's really starting to gnaw at my wit's end.  I've spent a large amount of time looking for property, trying to find one that will fit the bill and then - find out it's under contract, three times now that's happened!

I've been doing this all day, I'm taking a break from it.  I've scrutinized that list several times over. There are a large amount of single house tracts that I'll have to sit and wait through before they even get to the single property I'm interested in.  So I'll be there an hour or more before they get to it. Gag.  

If that falls through, then I am definitely going to seriously considering cashing out the 401k sometime around a month before the next tax lien auction.  Get the money in hand, just about guarantee that, as long as there is suitable property, I will score.  Or, have it available for a substantial down payment on land for a mortgage/financing.  Like, 1/3rd down or something.  Give them 25 grand on a 80 grand property I don't think they're going to care if I already have a mortgage on a house in Arizona, I stand to lose a lot of money if I default on the loan. 

So that's it.  I'm going to go look at a mobile home on land that is a few miles away from here, then go meet Taylor for lunch at her work.  That will be a nice distraction.  The house I wouldn't bother to go see for I am almost sure that it will get bid up high - that would be a turn key rental property, but since it's so close, I'll take a look.

G'day. 

Having no idea what I would face driving the rest of the way back today, leaving the truck stop I was at in Cross Plains, I was at least encouraged it was Saturday and not a week day.  But, it was supposed to rain most of the way back and that usually ends up with accidents and people freaking out all over the place, driving 30 mph in a 70mph zone on open highway in the passing lane - well you get the picture.

I was 40 miles into it before I got entangled in the first ordeal.  An accident.  The entire freeway shut down to stop and go, it took about 20 minutes to get through that.  Then it took forever for everyone to get separated out on the highway so vehicles weren't  all driving together in a big group - the aftermath of that accident 50 miles or more down the road.  

Then it was a construction zone that had everyone going 5 to 30 mph.  Etc. Etc. - including spending 30 minutes trying to get fuel at a very busy Love's in Palestine, AR.  But, I did make it back with time to spare on the clock.  Not the end of the world if it took a partial, extra day, but why bother, get this stuff over with.  

So I'm home.  I'm a bit unhappy that I don't have enough money in savings to cover a larger purchase at the upcoming auction.  I have enough for opening bids on several properties that would fit the bill, but if these rich people show up, they'll just up bid well beyond anything I have in the bank. Since you have to have the money in the auctioneer's hands within an hour of the auction ending, I can't go beyond what I have on hand.  

I'm going to go anyway, you never know.  Plus it will be rainy and cool outside. These auctions are done outdoors, rain or shine, that ought to keep some of them home.  But, I'm only interested in attempting to win a bid on one property, if I don't, I'm not picking up anything else. I already have the 3 lots and the hunting property, I don't need any more of that.  Monday, however, I am going to go back to the city and attempt to get a copy of the zoning map for the town.  There are several mobile homes up for bid - these are homes that will have to be moved -  if I could find a decent mobile and if I could put one on one of these properties, well that would be nice.  Those mobiles go cheap at the auction, hardly anyone bids on them.  It would cost more to have the thing moved than it will to buy one. 

Oh dang. I just checked the law firm's list, they have stamped a large number of the properties "WITHDRAWN" - usually meaning the owner came along and paid up the taxes. In some of those properties, they are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars being sold for 15 -20 grand?  But, I have to go out to my vehicle, get out my list and see what I have checked on there that is of interest compared to what has been withdrawn.  If there's too many, I'm just going to contact dispatch tomorrow and tell them I'm available for the next load that I will be up for.  

Okay, I can't wait til tomorrow to check this out, lol, going to get that list.

None of the properties I was looking at affected. I wasn't seriously considering the properties with houses since the starting bids is well above my current finances and undoubtedly will go very high.  One property in particular stands out, it's in my town, on the outskirts tho. It's 11 acres and has access points from 3 different streets.  It's completely undeveloped and covered with trees. The property would be great because there is no need for a water well or to install sewage vault with leech fields.  Tying into an existing system is far cheaper.  

But, the opening bid is $5633, I could probably go up to 8 grand and then have to cut out of the bidding.  In reality, to be able to win a bid on such a property, probably need about 22 grand.  

I may just table this RV park thing for a while and get it out of my system.  It's just not happening.  Yet.  If I wait two years my old 401k presumably will be worth more and I won't have to pay out the 10% fine for cashing out early.  

Or, just an aggressive savings plan that has at least a grand a month.  Can I afford to take out $250 out of every paycheck? Hmm, maybe.  Cut out eating out, don't buy an big ticket items (next on the list was a computer desk with hutch), live frugal.  That depends on work as well, of course, but I wasn't planning on quitting anyway even if I ever do get property and get something going.  

But, the plan is to go to the auction regardless of odds of winning anything.  The rich dude has said twice now that sometimes a bunch of people show up and bid everything up - and sometimes not many show up and stuff goes cheap.  With that in mind, I will go, if I don't get what I need, I will leave empty handed and go back 3 months later to the next one.  

Okay, well it's Saturday night, everyone is in bed except me - but it's only 9:30 pm - I have no plans for tomorrow.  Actually, I may.  Now that I think of it.  The back yard is an utter disaster. I need the exercise.  I just walked outside with no jacket on, it's nice outside.  Good working weather, I may just get up and go out there and resume the cleaning project I had started before this wicked storm came through.  I'm thinking I could also potentially set up the new pond.  That is, if no more serious winter weather is coming our way?  

Well, it's a plan anyway.  Take my mind off of things.  

 I rechecked the property after getting news about it.  That property had been on the market over 200 days.  So what happens, now the third time, when I want to seriously consider buying it? It's on contract.  Meaning someone has committed to buy.  The deal isn't done yet, but it's likely it's a done deal. 

Getting frustrating.  I found 2 other properties, one of them is too far off the beaten trail the other looks like it's barren from satellite image.  I don't need something so far out of the way no -one will bother with it and I know I don't want a virtually treeless property.  I was sold on the one today.  It had it's quirks but I thought I could work around all of that.  

Back to square one.  

One has to wonder if this just isn't God's plan for me.  

Or is the enemy attempting to get in the way?

So it's probably too late to get a loan for the tuesday auction, meaning that isn't going to likely produce anything either.  I'm still going to go to the auction for one reason: There is no way of knowing if a lot of people will show up or possibly very few people.  I've heard the rich dude saying it goes both ways.  If there are few people, I might still have a chance at one of the cheaper properties with enough acreage.  

Regardless, I am heading out - 10 days after my last run - tomorrow.  My manager contacted me, asked me about my license.  I seem to remember you were doing something with your license?  Yes, I thought, I texted you the entire story.  But, he talks to too many people in any given day.  Well didn't you need to do something else after explaining it again? Yes, I had to go give my fingerprints for the hazmat endorsement, I got that done yesterday.  Ohhh, ok, well you are in the running for the lottery, I'll call you back later.

The lottery being an actual run.  There are only a couple of loads a day going out.  I really didn't care where the run took me, get me back on the road making some kind of money, even if it's a low paying run. I'll take it over nothing.

Instead of him calling back later, the dispatcher texted a couple of hours later: You won the lottery!  Yayyy! She said she would text me the details shortly, without telling me where it's going.  All of these plants are hurting for the product we deliver now.  Like shut down status.  Amazingly enough, the run is back to where I last went, West Virginia. They take a load per week that I know of, meaning we are going to be delivering it .... 5 days late.  

That's obviously not our fault, but I do hope this storm and all the tragic consequences it had doesn't also get these plants to thinking about some other way of getting their product.  There's actually only one way I can think of, and that's to have other plants that produce the product to get the licensing to load trucks with it.  Like, in other regions.  That would be devastating, of course, for that would mean loading out of another plant - somewhere - in the US.  

Whatever.  The kitchen being torn up, we went out to eat again.  But we determined that going out with the kids is more trouble than it's worth.  It's just a chore, instead of enjoying the meal, you're trying to get kids to behave, sit still, sit correctly and actually eat the food.  If we must eat out, it's either no kids or takeout and bring it home.  

I'm going to reign in expenses and eating out is one of the first things on the list.  We have done a of that in recent times and it takes a pretty good chunk of change to pay for all of that. I'm not saying I always pay for it, but I am saying it's more money than it's worth, doing it that frequently.  I don't mind cooking for the most part.  Oh, well there is one perk tho, Taylor will be getting 50% off eating at Chili's when she's been working there 90 days.  That's for up to 6 people in a party.  So that's doable I suppose, the bill today for 2 kids 2 adults was $20 with that discount given to her.

Well, I'm already ready for the road tomorrow.  And it's not an early load, a relief since I have only been getting up early the last two days. It's 9:00 am load, which is perfect for starting back up again.  But if it's 9:00 am, that means there's two loads before me.  I dunno, I'll have lots of questions at the plant tomorrow lol.

So anyway, I'm going to relax, go to sleep and tackle tomorrow - tomorrow.  

 Well the endless searching for suitable land for an RV park continues.

Today, I found what was described as a mobile home park for sale.  No pads, it says, you'll have to install your own.  

Well ok, let's go take a look!

There is a small mobile home park on one side and a junky thing on the other - completely obscured by trees on both sides of the property.  

Quiet, a bit of interstate noise but nothing that I think would cause RV'ers to think this is a bad place.  I walked most of the property, tho I didn't venture into the thickets because I didn't feel like it.  There was much more property beyond those thickets, but save that for another day.

There is water on the property yes, areas where RV pads are unsuitable. But, considering we just had the worst snow and sleet storm in decades here and that fact that this property would have been covered with snow, there were plenty of areas available, especially in the back, where plenty of spots could be placed.  

The front of the property as well.  Some trees would have to be cut down, yes, but to make a nicely treed in pad? Many people would love this.  

There are a few things that are definite probably nots that I will have to look into.  For I was talking to a person that was out on the street - but next to his mobile home. He had some information. He claims the pond is where all the septic systems drain into.  If that were true, those lines would be tied off and they would have to figure something else out.  My property, I'd have to sink some money into my own septic system, they'll have to deal with it.  They are mobile home parks, albeit very small, the owners would have to come up with their own system.  

There is a septic system at the back of the property.  Whether it's still usable I have no idea, but if they had one there, then that answers the question of whether or not the land is suitable to install one.  There is overhead power lines running all the way to the back of the property - the place I'd want to have the RV pads.  It's really nice back there, I think so any way.  There are ample places that weren't wet an RV could park and ample room for a turnaround for them to get out of there. 

There is city water coming from a nearby small town. Not my town. Apparently the property is between towns, which is also nice. Only have to deal with the county.  The meter was right there in front of the mobile home park, the line, according to this guy, runs over to the property.

There is a drive going through the mobile home park that goes all the way back and into this property. But, it's a private drive, it's privately owned property.  The man said they'd probably let me use it if I were to rent a space.  Maybe. The spaces are cheap - $250 per month.  

My plans would be to clear out the entire property. Get the underbrush completely out of there. A large undertaking on 28 acres, yes, but there really isn't that much of it.  A dozer would clear it out quickly.  Yes I'd have to learn how to use a dozer, but I've operate lots of earth moving equipment in the past and learned quickly.  I don't think that would be an issue and much cheaper than paying far more money for a contractor to come out and do it.  

My plans for an rv park is to do as much of the grunt work as possible myself or get locals that need work to do it for an hourly wage.  Create a huge fire pit in the middle of the open space and burn everything, no hauling necessary.  Grade a road in there from the street.  I don't think I'd want to have RV's attempting to drive through a mobile home park, that would likely be a huge turn off to anyone wanting peace and quiet and thinking it must be a dump if you have to drive through there to get to it.

I found an ATV trail or perhaps what used to be a driveway into the property from the street.  I don't foresee a huge problem just plowing a fresh road in there.  Some drainage pipe would have to be installed, but again, that is all stuff I could do and I have connections over in Louisiana for that pipe, get it at a much cheaper rate.  I walked that entire trail, it's a no brainer to me that a 15 foot wide drive could be easily plowed up through there, dump rock on it and call it good.  

The property has been for sale over 200 days.  The neighbor said it's worthless because it's a flood plain.  Perhaps part of it, yes, but definitely not all of it.  There is more research needs to be done before I would sign on the dotted line and hand over the down money.  I can also lay my own water line from the street.  I have operated backhoes, digging a trench is easy work.  2 inch PVC pipe would suffice to start with.  

See the large portion in the back is not all wet. A bit of water in some places but nothing that would stop me from putting in sufficient pads to made it a revenue churning affair.  Since the property has been up for sale for so long, I'd like to hope they might come down on the price since some of the land is unusuable for pads.  Not unusable for walking/hiking.  I love the front of the property because of all the tall pine trees. Just cool spots where some trees could be cleared and install pads.  I am sure a certain sect of RV'ers would agree.  

No, I'm not jumping into this but this is the first property so far that really had appeal to it with the trees and the layout.  The one I saw yesterday I wasn't impressed because there were mostly very small trees, much of which would have to be taken down and burned.  It would leave just a huge open space. I have read enough posts in various RV groups where people really want trees and hiking trails. I understand 28 acres isn't a huge property but there are definitely areas of it where hiking trails could be installed. That just a matter of clearing brush and having a dirt walking trail, nothing fancy. 

Since I now have the opportunity to have more down money, I expanded my search greatly.  A larger property is much more appealing.  Just so much more you can do with it.  I could see a installing a large concrete pad, covering it like a gondola style thing, putting in picnic tables and having a large BBQ to the side of it. A gathering place for people to socialize.  That wouldn't take place at first, but it would definitely be a part of the long term plan.  These are all things people say they want. The surrounding area is mobile home on private land beyond the small parks on either side.  

It is not the perfect property, I can say that to be honest.  It does have great potential.  There may be other properties. I will go to the county courthouse tomorrow and look up any info on this property that is available.  Whether there is a flood plain on it will be acknowledged by the county either way.  But the back of the property is up on a hill.  That should eliminate flood plain issues up there and that is where I thought pads could be set up.  With electricity right there, literally, installing the power line would be a minimal expense.  Simply have them run it to a pole and into an outlet and the rest is up to me to run.  Power and water are a must, septic is something I have resolved would have to be paid for by me.  

This particular venture would require me having a note on the property and the rest done with my own money, meaning requiring me to cash out the 401k.  It's a risk.  Yes.  But with so many people living out there, I think I could lure in long-termers/semi-permanent residents.  Set them off in a different area than the overnighters and the week long stays.  

I'm still going to look around, but this one is definitely near the top of the list of anything I've seen yet.  The neighbor said he'd thought about buying the property.  Yup, he's living in a small mobile home in a park.  I doubt he has the financing for that and why bother?  He can go on that property any time he wants.  He was astounded to hear me tell him there is deer on the property.  He must not be the hunter he claims he is, for it was glaringly obvious the trails they have made and the droppings.  I don't need another deer hunting property, but it's interesting that they run through there.  Perhaps people staying there could get sight of them as some sort of a further attraction.  I wouldn't want hunting on the property, too much risk, but some people like nature and seeing such things.

He stated he was afraid of snakes and that's why he wouldn't go over there. Well, I walked a large portion of it and didn't see any snakes.  I'm not saying there aren't any - this entire regions has Copperheads, water bellies and other snakes, both venemous and non-venemous.  

I'll need to go back when it's raining and ascertain for sure what is getting flooded. 

Meanwhile, the contractors are back, fixing portions of the new vinyl flooring that were not done right.  They had to go allthe way down to the 2X4's at the bottom and start back up. Why they didn't do this in the first place is unknown, but it isn't adding anything to the cost of the project. 

But, it's in the kitchen.  So, we are going out to eat yet again.  Where I have no idea. Taylor asking me where we are going to eat, I'm like, I dunno, lol.  

I do not have a load going out tomorrow. That will make day ten of not having work. Another driver said there were 2 loads going out tomorrow.  The plant is only able to produce a small amount of product - who knows why.  Probably storm related, just guessing.  If I didn't have money saved up I would be sweating it right now. Even so, I don't want to be spending savings on living expenses.  I'm not talking about finding another job, but this week's check is going to be small and I will likely not get a paycheck next week.  

Well that's it. Tomorrow I'm going to also check out properties at the court house.  For the tax lien sale. I'm afraid I won't have enough money to buy any of the good properties, but I will go anyway.  I won't, however, buy any more in town properties and I was trying to get info from the city about what I can place on the ones I bought.  They were, of course, closed for lunch when I went.  Try again tomorrow.  The same was true of the court house. I did go there today to look, same thing. It's lunch time, we close for an hour! lol that's when I found this property and went looking at that instead. I could go now, it's not too late at 3:30 pm, but since I have tomorrow off, I'll just keep it for tomorrow to have something to do.  

 Day 8 of no work.

No statements yet when the plant will be back in full swing.  Or even half the output they normally put out? I was at Applebee's yesterday and discussing this same issue with several other folks who also had been off of work for quite a while now. Not because they wanted to, but because what of the Snowpocalypse - so some people are calling it - of Texas 2021.  Some name will stick to this dreadful storm that came barreling through here and messing up a lot of people's lives.  

I put up a post in the local facebook group that was started at the beginning of the COVID crap. It was to help support local businesses that were shut down but then allowed to reopen for curbside pickup or delivery only.  It evolved into all things - our town - and so it was, that the pic was of a crew of city workers and a crew of gas workers working in a ditch in the middle of our street.

A water line burst, so I was simply noting that they were doing due diligence to get all of these leaks fixed so the water pressure could come back up and the lines could be flushed out.  We are still on a water boil notice.  I accidentally drank a glass of tap water last night. It was horrible.  It was really awful.  I had already chugged it down my throat before I realized what I was doing.  I don't feel sick today, thankfully, but I won't be forgetting about that again.  The town is buying up bottled water as fast as it is put out on the shelves.  

Anyway, people started pissing all over my post.  Blaming the city for the horrible job they have done in maintaining the underground water supply and alleging that they should be somehow held responsible.  Apparently the water system is 50 years old here that hasn't been upgraded.  

Okaaaay, that IS old. I was IN the waterworks business for a dozen years, I know how this stuff works.  At the same time, other than this unending hard freeze we had with these storms that came through, I haven't seen a lot of leaks anywhere.  So I started cranking right back on those people.  The city won't let them shut the water off to the houses while they fix the lines, they're afraid of backlash. I know all of this stuff and more because I had a lengthy conversation with an older gentleman that was overseeing the repair of the line.  So the workers were working in freezing cold water. They had opened the nearby fire hydrants to help reduce the amount of water out of the pipe and had a water pump in the hole, but they were still working under pretty miserable conditions.

I just couldn't believe these snarky, cold hearted people continuing on.  I threatened one of them if he continued to piss on my post I would block him.  He shut up.  Others came on and pissed all over the place noting that the workers appeared to all be standing around doing nothing.  At some point, the cavalry arrived, including a city official, on the post and also started pushing back against these people.  This is probably nothing unique in having people in small town that have lived here all of their lives acting out like this.  But it was appalling.  

This morning I posted on the post that water pressure appeared to be back to normal - a good thing, they can get all of these leaks fixed and then we can start using tap water again.

Anyway, I'm up "early".  6:45 was wake up call with kids running around the house. I decided I best start getting back into work mode, getting up earlier and not shocking my system if I happen to get an early load appointment time whenever I finally do get a load.  Maybe tomorrow?  My checking account is going to start taking a backward slide and that annoys me.  I like to see it going up and up and up.  When I'm working full tilt, every month it goes up a thousand to 2 thousand bucks after everything is paid out, said and done.  

But I have the purpose of going and getting fingerprinted this morning and then, hopefully finding this property and seeing what it is.  It has city water and rural electric.  Those two are a must, septic can be installed but I am very hesitant about having to install a water well. They're expensive to install, expensive to run and high maintenance.  And I still find it humorous that people poo-poo a person's desire to start an RV park.  It's going to cost you 30 to 50 grand per space! they declare.  No, sir, it won't.  It won't be cheap or free, but it's not going to cost anything near that much.  And now, I have leads on actual business loans that I am at least going to take a look at. This info coming from people that have already acquired these types of loans for the purpose of building their own park.  It would be interesting to see if I could get a loan big enough to cover the land, lot installations with everything that entails, a small building for laundry and perhaps a couple of showers, a small office - one of those portable buildings to start with, get the septic installed and get it going.  

Yes, risky depending on the monthly payments.  But I think there is a time lapse between the time you get the loan and the first payment. It's a construction type loan and obviously you have to have the place built first before you are taking in any revenues to make those payments with.  Any business has inherent risk, I was just trying to take the path that offered the least risk.  But perhaps that isn't they way I'll ever get this thing going? I dunno, I would have to think and pray about that for a while.  

Anyway, it's time to get going.  Perhaps I'll report later what the property looked like and if it looks like it would work. 

G'day.  

 I spent nearly 3 hours this morning taking endless hazmat tests, as I reported in the last post.  I was confident that whatever trick questions they might throw at me, I could pass the test.  But when?  How could I show up at the local driver's license department when the office that canceled my appointment was 65 miles away? Take a chance driving clear over there and get - nothing out of it?

I just decided to show up there. At the local one, screw driving 2 plus hours round trip.  They will accommodate me.  Why? Because it's just what was going to happen.  No good reason to believe that, but I showed up with documents in hand, the lady at the door opened it and asked me if I had an appointment? 

But before going in there I noticed only one vehicle in the parking lot.  I knew I at least had a chance at this.  No, I don't have an appointment.  Well tell me what you need then? I proceeded to tell her how my appointment had been canceled, that this driver's license is my livelihood and that I was under the impression that I could show up on standby?  

She ushered me in.  There was only one man sitting there and he had already filled out all of his paperwork, he was waiting them to start his CDL test - a thing I wouldn't have to take, thankfully.  She handed me a literal pile of paperwork and said this is going to take you some time to go through. She then showed me the ticket she had given me - it had a caveat: this ticket number will not necessarily mean you will be seen today - because I was standby.  

I got through 3 of the papers and the lady called my number!  Now mind you, this is a small office to begin with and they were only having ONE window open.  She yelled at me through her screens asking if I was still working on paperwork? Yes, I had to unfortunately reply as other people with appointments started coming in.  "It will be several minutes before I fill all of this out" - I replied to her and thought, at least that long if not longer.  It  was really a pile of paperwork with a lot of redundancy.  

After filling out that, going up to the window - she wasn't going to take anyone else until she was done with me oddly enough but thankfully - paying the price, getting my temporary license she said, "take computer 1".  Gag. I thought I had skated the Hazmat test. I had even paid for it, she had printed it out, gave me my temporary license!  Okaaaaaayyyy.  Good luck! she said.  She knew, many people go in there and fail that test.  They don't properly prepare themselves.  You don't study that manual, that is useless. You just take sample tests over and over and over and over until you get enough right that you are pretty certain you are going to pass.

But it intimidated me, I am not going to lie.  Passing that test means job or no job. They'll let you retake it, yes, but not the same day.  By the time I had gotten to the computer, many more people had come in, many had been turned away that also wanted to be on standby and several people were waiting outside.  Stroke of luck getting there when I did? I doubt it.  I felt that feel you get when the Lord is telling you to do something.  Now, that is, don't waste time.  I was going to wait until 1 pm, when they allegedly take their second round of standbys, but something in me said differently. Now, go now! 

The test has many trick questions.  And worded differently than the tests - multiple dozens of them, if not 100 plus - that I had taken online.  I sat there on several questions and reasoned in my mind what the answer should be.  Questions that I hadn't been asked in any of the sample tests I had taken, but thing I had encountered and figured, well, that should be the answer.  I guessed I had minimum 6 answers wrong and wondered if I would get enough questions right.  I'm serious that out of all of those sample tests, there were questions on the real test that were either not asked in the samples or worded completely differently and with multiple choice answers that were very close together in their wording.  

They really don't have to make this that difficult, do they?  I got to the last question, answered it and stopped to take a breather. I went through the test quickly, it usually takes me little time to finish tests, I either know the answer or I take an educated guess or I take a wild guess, but I won't waste a lot of time on any given question. I'll give it enough time to read it through a couple of time if necessary, reason with it in my mind, but it doesn't take long.  I can tell you that I was quite surprised when I looked at the results screen: 29 out of 30 correct!  

I really felt the Lord was in this today.  That's what I can say about that.  I did prepare myself, but I know how these tests are loaded with trick questions and very tough questions that you are staring at the 4 answers that you can pick and trying to decide which one is correct.  

Hazmat. The love and hate of it.  Love the pay, hate the endless stipulations, regulations and demands of it.  It's not quite over  yet.  I have to go get finger-printed tomorrow morning.  Hazmat is serious stuff to the feds.  You will have a federal background check done - every time.  And they will freshly fingerprint you - every single time.  It doesn't matter about work, there isn't any tomorrow, I had contacted the dispatcher - Sheila - and told her that I was going in tomorrow to get my fingerprints done. I've been off this long, I might as well take the extra day off and get this s*** over with. The plant is up and running, but they are having trouble making product.  I dunno why, but I'll guess it's weather related.  

The street was torn up up the street from my house - like 100 feet at most - fixing the watermain break there. That was very fast for them.  But it was pouring out a lot of water and these main breaks are undoubtedly a large part of why the water pressure is so low in the city.  

The city's grocery stores are barren.  Super 1? Nothing.  Vegetables gone, meat - gone.  Milk - gone. Eggs - gone.  It's all - gone.  Manager said come back in the morning.  No thanks, I was just looking for a bag of potatoes and green onions.  They didn't have either.  Every town's markets in this region are like this, it's going to take time for the supply chain to catch back up.  It's quite amazing, tho, how fast 200 jugs of milk go right out the door. That's due to social media. Someone says a store has it, everyone swarms the place and it's allllll goooooooone.  

I don't need milk.  I can live without eggs - tho I scored those yesterday.  I don't eat regular bread.  This was just mostly for the house hold here and yes, I have been reporting on the local sites who has what and if you want any, you better get your @$$ in your car and get down here immediately.  

I found out at the driver's license office why the county court building wasn't answering it's phones this morning (tax sale): they have no water.  How does that work? Cause the county jail is in that building as well.  It's up on the 5th floor I think.  Somewhere up there.  

The company that does the fingerprinting has finally opened up an office here in town. Last time I had to drive 30 miles to the nearest location. So, they made me an appointment for tomorrow morning, which is fine, let's get this done and over with!  

And the realtor just sent me a listing for 33 acres.  It's 88k asking price. That's actually quite good for land around here - but it's kind of high. The payments would probably be higher than what I would like to get into.  I'm going to go look at it tomorrow.  I just finally got home after running around half the day, I don't need to go out there right now. It's been on the market since last August, it's not likely going anywhere.  

STILL no work for me. They are sending out limited loads right now, the plant isn't able to produce enough product for unknown reasons.  Today I figure the driver's license department is probably open after everything being shut down - but - I still needed to do more study/practice tests.  I can safely say that I feel like I'm ready to take the test for Hazmat endorsment.

I'm consistently getting 90 to 100% on the large number of practice tests that I have taken.  I kept going through one particular site the last couple of days because it would ask the same questions over and over and throw in new ones that I didn't know the answers to.  I've done that test at least 20 times today and finally getting to the point where my score is enough to pass. I think the real test is 30 questions long and you need 80% correct to pass. I needed to be able to get everything at 90% minimum to feel like it's worth spending the time going to a DL office and standing there waiting for an opening without an appointment - and not even being guaranteed that I will be able to in that day.

And now, they are even further behind since they've been closed an entire week. I do not want to continue driving on an expired license regardless of the state mandate.  I have no idea if other states will honor that.  If not, they will write me a ticket and put me out of the truck.  

The kids are gone, thankfully.  Schools are still closed here - not because of weather but because of lack of water pressure.  Taylor's work has been shut down - a local restaurant - because of no water pressure as well.  So, some parts of town have water pressure and other parts of town do not. The city needs to get its act together and get this town up and running.  Anyway, I've had the best study time this morning that I've had yet what with the kids not being all up in my business and running around the house yelling and screaming and stomping on the floors and making all kinds of noise.

They've been pent up for over a week as well.  The daycare is open regardless of the schools being closed and there they will stay all day long until around 5ish.

Went out with Taylor yesterday - get her out of the house and have some conversation about what's going on.  For my part attempting to solidify my future in this house and whether my presence is still welcome here - but we affirmed our friendship and that was enough for me.  It's an odd situation.  She is done with him, but not forcing him to move out.  He'd be screwed completely financially.  I think he's sleeping in the boy's room.  I dunno, but I suggested at the least get a travel trailer for him and have him live out back.  She thought they were too expensive, but actually you can buy older ones in still decent shape. Doesn't have to be huge, but a place where he goes at night and separates himself from her, for I can tell ya, she wants literally nothing to do with him right now.

I don't blame her, I fully understand which is why it was strange that he's still here.  But that's not my venue, I'm not going there, was just basically trying to assess the situation.  As I stated before, I hold no ill will against James, I still consider him a friend and whatever they work out is okay by me.  However, I did offer that if this situation required getting out of the house, I would be willing to buy a house on land outside of town.  3 bedrooms at least with 2 baths, that way we have a place to live and I have the property to build the park on.  Oh I'm still all about that park, but it seems so elusive.  

The city has yet to upload a new auction sale list, so I'm calling them today. It's almost 3 months now and it should be getting close to the time for another sale.  It's one hope I have for getting that property I need.  I actually wouldn't mind starting a park in various other states with much cheaper land or with views or with some sort of uniqure "thing" that separates the property. These full time RV'ers travel all over the place.  But - I do want a southern home for it so that they can come year round.  

There's a lot of RV parks around here, mine would have to have a unique setting. So far I've determined that far and wide, full time RV'ers want much larger spaces.  They complain about it in forums all the time.  I don't understand why RV parks cram them in so close to each other that when one RV deploys it's awning, it's almost touching the RV next to it.  Picnic tables and a fire pit are also high demand.  Laundry facility and propane for sale also high on the list.  A closed in dog run park also very high on that list as well.  

Some of them complain about full time RV'ers in parks - they don't want them there - but they don't give the reasons why.  In the setting around here? I'd have to have some full time people living in there, just no way around it.  Full hook ups are a must and many of them demand wifi.  And after reading a lot of posts about wifi, that sounds like it can cost a small fortune to have - it's a thing where you'd have to charge more for anyone using it.  I'm not sure why these people don't just have Verizon or ATT, perhaps some of the places they go to don't have reception, but I"m reading that many RV parks do not off wifi - either free or paid for - that one would be up in the air depending on the costs.  The bottom line is to make money, not throw it out in amenities.  A laundry room would be a one time set up cost, a dog park the same thing.  Picnic tables and firepits also the same. Get it set up, forget about it for the most part excepting a laundry room the machines may need perioidic repairs, but it's a must have.  

Full hookups are a given.  That's water, sewer and electric at every site. Pull thru's are preferred for many people that are hesitant about backing up those giant things. A lot of these people sell their homes and buy fancy, giant RV;s with the proceeds and go about living in them full time.  Many of the people I have been reading haven't been doing it long or haven't even bought their RV yet and asking for advice.  I don't give any advice, I do ask questions about things people say they want.  For example, people wanting huge, fenced in dog runs.  I asked whether they would like it better if the property had a forest and walking trails and you could just let your dog run off leash?  I haven't been back to that yet today to find out, I got busy with hazmat tests, that takes priority over pretty much everything right now. 

But, I am glad that I haven't actually acquired a property yet, the more reading I do, the more I get a feel for what people want/need in an RV park.  It's a mix, but there are certain things that most of them want.  I can tell  ya that all of the parks I have seen around here have them all crammed in there.  That might attract people wanting to live in them, that won't attract travelers - who pay a higher price for a nightly or weekly stay.  I have lots of things in mind. Even if I ever get this venture going, I won't have all of that at first.  Too much up front money. Things would need to be built as I have the money to install them.  Like a huge kiddy playground - those seem to be immensely popular with parents full time RV'ing.  Yup, they take their entire families and do home schooling and work out of the RV as well.

Hence the demands for high speed internet.  

Well enough of that - tho that is a lot of what is floating around in my head right now besides having had crammed a bunch of useless Hazmat info in there that will disappear after I take the test.  That endorsement will be good for 5 years and I'm not sure I will be working after 5, at least not for a company.  I guess I need to do an evaluation of my finances and see if I could afford a higher priced property.  It only makes sense, really, to get at least 25 acres for multiple uses.  An RV park, some mobile home pads elsewhere on the property.  A house to live in, that type of thing.  25 acres would afford for that and still have plenty of room for hiking trails and nature walks type of things. That would appeal to families for sure wanting to get their kids out of the unit and exploring the wild blue yonder.  Oh and a swimming pool.  That would not be something I'd put in at first, 30 grand or more for an amenity that may or may not pay off would not be a wise business decision from the start.  

So, I'm going to go back to hazmat tests - I'm do it a couple more hours at least today while the house is quiet.  It's just really nice to have a quiet house for once.  If by chance I don't get a run tomorrow, I'll be at the driver's license office before 8 am and be waiting at the door. This was their instructions to get in on stand by.  I may even ask to be passed by for a load so I can get this s*** over with. Sorry for the language, but this stuff is really annoying, having to take a test for something that is your livelihood, that you already know everything you need to know. I don't need to know anything about explosives - dynamite and the like - I never plan on hauling that stuff. Or chlorine, or a host of other things. 

G'day.