Lessons Learned and Weather

To continue a little bit on yesterday's entry, we have learned another lesson about our Workamping adventure. The lesson is never accept a position at a brand new park. At first, we thought it would be a neat situation, coming into a new park and helping to put it on a path to prosperity. That may be a great concept and thought, but the reality is that the frustration is not worth it. In our situation here, the owner has had no experience in campground operation - and admits it. The problem and frustration for us is that he doesn't take advantage of the knowledge and experience of his staff. Not that we all know everything, but there are obvious blunders we feel he is making. This park, or any park for that matter, isn't going to attract customers if the "package" isn't a good value. We are not able to convince him that one of the main reasons the park isn't filling up is because he is charging too much for the sites and the value isn't there right now. We have 185 sites and for the Thanksgiving weekend we have 27 sites reserved and the owner thinks that is a super crowd. The off roading crowd is certainly aware of this place by now - the owner is advertising in every magazine and off road newsletter. This is the only RV park within 40 miles and he certainly should be attracting more interest than he has so far. The problem for us is that we don't get paid for hours worked in the office until the park turns a profit. His plan, and the reason we are here, was to show a profit by Halloween. It now appears that wages are not in the near future - at least until after the 1st of January. What a shame. He could be filling this place almost every weekend with the right kind of package.

Now to the weather. It has been spectacular, with the exception of the one wind storm we had last week. We have daily highs of 80-81 and lows every night between 48-52. There hasn't been a cloud in the sky except for, maybe, 2 days since we arrived. Winter weather couldn't be better - so far. I'm sure that there are some rough days ahead, but for now it's perfect.

My scheduled work time last night was a joke. I was scheduled between 8 and 10 PM. When I got to the office, it was closed up tight and I had to chase down Mike to find out what I was supposed to do. It ended up that I just rode around the park locking gates and closing down areas. I was done by 8:10 and went home. Sheesh!

We have an off day today and as of now, we have no plans. We'll see...