We wound down the campground and closed mid October with a fall harvest party / trick or treat. We were so worn out from all the work that we did the past 5 months or so maintaining the campground and running it, that we just wanted to relax.
That final night, after all the campers were gone, Max and I were sitting outside around the campfire, when I see Earl walking over towards us. “Mind of I join you two?” He said as he sat down on one of the stumps.
“Sure, want something to drink?” I said as I opened the cooler
“Naw, I got my coffee” He replied. “You guys did a good job this year, heck I don’t think I ever had a season as busy as you all did this year. These last few years my energy has been going down, I haven’t had the strength to devote to this place like I wanted to. I had planned on clearing out the woods on the other side of the fishing pond and putting electric to there, but I just never could get caught up enough to do it.”
“Yeah it was great” Max chimed in
“Boys, I don’t have that much time left. I have stage 3 liver cancer, and it looks like it is going to go to stage 4 despite all the chemo. I’m done. Docs say I have maybe 12 months, but most likely 6.” Earl said
“Oh my, I am so sorry, I did not know” I said
“I never wanted it to be known as it would influence the sale. I spent 30 years building this place up with my wife, it was our love, we started out with nothing but the cabin and the lower pond and started having friends camp out, and slowly we bought more land and worked on building it up to what it is. My wife died alone in a nursing home, I am not leaving here until the funeral home comes to get me.”
“I hope you get your wish. Have you got anybody looking in on you, helping you out?”
“My son is on the west coast, he is busy with his family, the calls got fewer and fewer. I called him last week and he wants me to move out there, but I want to stay right here.” Earl said
“I can totally understand that, we will be pulling our RV’s out tomorrow, and getting our stuff out of the office and cleaned up and winterized. We will get everything closed up for you, as our lease ends November 1.” Max said
“You boys are more than welcome to come by whenever.” He said
Earl bid us farewell, and went back to his cabin. I knew that if we would buy this place, the cabin would be Earl’s home as long as he was alive and wanted to stay there.
Max and I talked into the night about purchasing the campground.
“I think this was a good investment for the season. What do you think about purchasing the place? We grossed about $75,000, and I think upgrading the non-rv sites, and clearing out the woods to add another area for camping, adding a few more could bring that higher. We could open earlier and possibly stay open a bit later in the season” I said
“We all will have to sit down and decide, you just can’t decide to do this and not have a plan. You should discuss this with your folks first to see if they want to do this again. You also need to hire some people, we were quite busy this year. The 4 of us cannot run this place on our own…we’re gonna get burnt out” Max said
The next afternoon we packed up both RV’s, and readied them for the road. We were back out later that afternoon with dad helping us close up the campground. We shut the water off and drained out as much of the underground pipes as we could. Blew them with air and pumped them. The bath house was closed up as well, winter coverings were fastened up, same as with the lodge. Earl said the only thing that should be left on in the lodge is some heat, as the office line he transfers to his cell in the winter.
We told Earl we would be checking on him, as he was getting more worn out with his illness and treatments. He had all our numbers and we told him to call if he needed anything and we would be talking it over about purchasing the place in the next month or so.
Max hopped into the first RV and I guided the new RV out of the spot and down the lane. I stopped and closed the gate at the end of the lane.
That Tuesday like we had been doing for the past several months, it was dinner with my parents, Wednesday night dinner with Max’s parents.
“So dad, what are your thoughts on the campground?“ I asked my dad
“Well it was fun running it this year, but do you really want to spend all summer there, and not be able to travel?” He said. “Your mom and I liked being out there but we could not run it all by ourselves, we’d need help and also would not want to be stuck there all summer either. If we were to buy it, we’d need more than just us 4 doing it. You would need to hire some people.” He said
“How many more people do you think we would need?” I asked
“Probably 2 full time and/or 4-5 part timers, maybe another maintenance skilled person like me.” Dad said “that is just to run it as well as we did this year and allow us to step back”
“So about 8 people?” I asked
“Yeah I think. They could help open the place for the year, cover the office and the maintenance work”
We crunched the numbers and talked on and off the next couple weeks. We were all still on the fence about it. On one hand it was great to have a place to stay and have fun, and it was a fun project, but on the other hand it was a lot for us to do and more than my dad and mom wanted to handle.
Finally Max told me that the campground talk had to end for the next 2 weeks. I was being too grown-up and he wanted his little toddler back.
Max and I were off to the ABDL convention again this year, then we did a long trip towards home. The whole time, there was no talk about business ventures, just Daddy and I enjoying each other.