So my Christmas of 2017 and New Years 2018 was spent being an invalid. I spent 2 months in casts on both arms, and when they were finally healed it was so great.
The weekend after I got the casts off we took a trip to Fort Wayne to celebrate Riley and David’s 13th birthday. Max and I got Riley an X-box gift card, David had wanted the same. We also got both a case of diapers, Riley plain ones, and David some printed ones, along with about another 10 cloth diapers for both with their names sewn into the back. They got the diapers when we got back from dinner that night.
I must say it is unique to see two 13 year olds not totally horrified by getting diapers, actually they were more than happy to get them.
Once I was free of my casts and able to use my hands again, I wanted to see about getting a new place to camp for the summer.
We looked at some other campgrounds, found some nice places, but their rules were either too lax or too strict. The final place we drove by, which was about 10 miles from my house, was closed with a for sale sign. We called the number on the sign and it was the current owner’s number. He said that he just could not open this season with his health and decided to sell. He said that it was pretty much ready to open for the year, but he just could not devote the time it needed.
We set an appointment with him for Tuesday to see the property, just to get a feeling about if this would be a good investment.
“Hey! you know I will follow you to heck and back and support you, but you don’t know anything about running a campground, and do you want to be tied to a business this entire summer?” Max said, trying to stop those wheels from spinning.
“Yeah you’re right, but can we at least just meet him and see what he is asking and what work needs. My dad has worked construction for years, and is pretty handy.” I said
“OK, we will look at it and talk about it, but we won’t be jumping into something without fully talking it over with all involved” Max said
I had texted my dad to see if he could spare some time to help me look about it.
On that Tuesday, Max, Myself and my dad met at the small campground I was looking at. It had maybe 30 spots and 20 of them were RV spots, with the a few others just having 15 amp electric and water, and the others just primitive. It had a nice office/camp store. Swimming lake and fishing pond, shelter house, shower house and bathrooms. My dad did the looking about stuff, tested outlets and water, inspected the structures.
“Jase it looks pretty solid, just some minor repairs and cleaning, nothing that can’t be done quickly. The pedestals are all pretty new, GFCI’s not sharing with the water outlets. I’d have to crunch the numbers and see what you think is fair, but it’s your money.” Dad said
“So would you be interested in a 1 season lease option, just to see if this would work. We would manage it, you retain ownership of the property. Then we can see if a purchase would work?” I asked
“Well. I hadn’t thought of that, I was hoping to take the money for the sale and then have to find a new place to live.” The owner said
“So you live on the property?” Max said
“Yes I have the cabin right across from the office, that would be the owner’s cabin” He said
“Well let us talk this over this week and get back to you” Max said
I agreed and so did dad. We talked it over that night and came up with a proposal to give to the owner.
We would take over the running of the campground and open within 30 days. We would pay a minimum amount each month or 35% of the gross space income. In exchange we would make the needed repairs, he can still stay in the owners cabin and would not need to do anything at the campground. He would basically be a permanent camper.
My dad was ready to retire and wanted something for him and mom to do, I was getting tired of not working and traveling every other day or so. Dad and Max would handle the maintenance stuff and mom and I run the office.
We wrote it all out and presented it to him the next day and he said yes. Our lease ran from May 1 to November 1
The next two weeks we spent time at the campground learning as much as we could from Earl, the owner, who was not my former landlord Earl. He said that he would still be around if we needed him, but he was not able to do much in terms of work other than maybe cover the office for a bit.
We moved both RV’s to the campground and parked the older one up next to the lodge. Then we parked our new RV on the best looking spot too.
We painted, cleaned, scrubbed and mowed. We added WiFi to the lodge, and put several repeaters where we could. The first thing I had done was get ahold of a pond company, we got the swimming pond as clean as we could do, I wanted blue water and no algae. It took about 3 weeks of almost daily treatments, but we got it clean. Then 2 truck loads of sand and we have a sandy beach. Just in time for memorial day.
We had been open since that first weekend, at a discounted rate while we got things fixed up. Our constant social media posts and advertising had the phone ringing off the hook the week before memorial day with last minute campers.
We advertised as a family campground, for families and those who want a quiet peaceful experience. It was amazing how many people wanted just that. Quiet hours at 10 PM through the week and 11 PM on Friday and Saturday nights.
Memorial day we were fully booked, I don’t think I was tucked in until way after midnight that Friday night, and I lost track of the time Saturday and Sunday night. Monday as the campground cleared out it was time to relax. After an afternoon nap, Max got me dressed in my shortalls, printed onsie and a ball cap and let me go over to the playground and play, and then I came back and played outside with my cars in the playpen.
Earl was out on his golf cart and stopped by. “So you really are a toddler aren’t you. I knew you were young at heart, but did not know how young you were. Hey you do you” He said with a chuckle, wave and he was off.
I had a nice time playing and then Max said I had to be a grownup for a bit and come into the office. We did the accounting from the weekend. We factored in the 35% cut to Earl as an expense, add in the other expenses to get started and we were still a ways to go before we broke even.
June and into July was still just as busy as that first weekend. By the end of June we were turning a profit. Mom and Dad were doing pretty good holding down the fort, so after July 4th Max and I decided to take a week on the road and went up to Put-in-Bay. We were lucky to find a spot at a campground. We took the Fiat over to the island via ferry one day, then after that we just rented bikes or a golf cart once we got there. It was a nice week, but we had to get back to the campground by Friday afternoon.
We had Max’s parents up for a weekend, and David stayed with us for a little over a week, of course he stayed diapered almost the entire time too, even when we had many campers with kids his age. He’d be running around with his plastic pants showing above his waistband of his shorts and cloth diapers are hard to hide too. Since we were running the campground, there were no complaints from others. David never said a thing if anybody said anything to him about his diapers or not.
Maria and Carl said that pretty much the entire summer he was diapered. A few times even when he had friends over, without a care. Hopefully he will be ready to get out of them when school starts again.
By Labor Day weekend we were all ready for the campground to start dying down. We had been at capacity since memorial day. The expenses for the improvements well paid for themselves. Earl was happy and Mom and Dad liked their cut of the profits.