Weekends Are Made For Insanity!!

The weekend starts out innocently enough with only a few reservations......... The ever ringing phone soon takes care of that and folks start to arrive in the early afternoon.In my world there are two kinds of campers. Those that are here for the weekend and most likely live nearby, and those that are traveling and just want a place to stay overnight. The weekenders will usually make the reservations far in advance, unless it is a last minute idea. The travelers will either call before they even begin the trip, or call early on the day they need to stay, or simply show up and either hope for the best or expect the RV park to have somehow anticipated their arrival.



They all seem to arrive at the same time, then have to wait their turn to check in. I am either very busy or very unbusy at any given time. The best way I know to attract business is to leave the office. For any reason. Go to the bathroom, go to clean up a bathroom, try to eat a meal, let the dogs out .................... any thing that takes you away from the check-in desk will yield a customer.



I checked in a nice gentleman who asked for two sites as close together as I could get them. His son was caught in traffic some where behind him. I inquired about the electrical needs and he called his son to ask. I had told the man that I could accommodate them either way, but he called anyway. The man was nice, if a little frazzled. I just attributed it to being tired from driving. I assigned the sites and he went on and parked. Two more customers show up to check in and a woman comes in with them carrying a yellow plastic bag and pushes her way to the counter and announces that she has finally cleaned up all the garbage on the site I put her on and presents the bag to me saying, "This is for you!". I try to put the bag of trash outside, but she insists that I take it behind the counter. I do and she leaves. I am baffled and don't know which site she is on and wonder where she found trash, since we had just mowed and picked up the entire park. I check in my other guests and make a mental note to send he who needs to check this out around to look.



Another RV pulls in before I can call him and a woman and two men come in. She asks for a 50 amp site and I instinctively know that she must be the daughter-in-law of the frazzled gentleman I checked in earlier. I ask and am right. She tells me in a low tone that she really doesn't have to be right next to her in-laws. It was her mother-in-law who brought me the trash. She has dementia it seems and they have been on an extended trip together. I try to put a site between them, but the mother-in-law makes her husband move their camper next to them. She brings me more trash when she informs me of the move. I just graciously accept it at this point, although I am still wondering where she is getting it from. I should have inspected the bag and I would have known. She made a third trip with some trash and simply held it in her hand (I suppose they took her bags away). She told me that I had a lovely park, but that if she were in my position, she would be outside cleaning up. I smiled and told her that I would be out as soon as I closed the store. Bless her heart, she was apparently digging in the fire pits and finding half-burned trash.




That is how the weekend started. It was insanely hot and humid and tempers were short. I refunded a wildly jumping man who screamed that none of my sites were suitable for his travel trailer. He was hot and angry. I am not sure if he was angry before he came in or not, his wife checked in. I just knew that I didn't want to deal with him and that I would not be able to make him happy, no matter what I did. That didn't even make him happy. Maybe he thought I would let him stay for free if he had a small fit. Didn't work out, if that is what he was thinking.




The additional signs are up and the speed bump in place. They are still not stopping. They won't let me have a gun. I would only shoot out the tires, I wouldn't shoot a person, geez, I'm not crazy ............. At least the speed bump is getting their attention and making them slow down. Anyway, that is not the only traffic violation that can occur. I am not good with makes and models of cars, etc. I can tell you what color they are and if they are gas or diesel if I hear the motor. Beyond that I am pretty useless. I can't tell a Ford from a Dodge ....... and really don't care so much. There was a family here this weekend with a car that has the spare tire attached to the back of the car ....... it was a white car, by the way. The father came into the store with his kids and bought some ice and candy and I happened to be looking out the window when they left. He drove all the way around the park with his daughter riding atop the spare!!!!!!! I am not kidding. He wasn't going slow, either. She was probably about 10 and a smart mouthed little thing, but, I was so afraid he was going to bounce into one of the speed bumps, making her fall and injure herself. I was frozen in disbelief for a moment before I made he who should enforce the rules get up and look. He who promised he would go talk to the man, but I doubt he did. He doesn't enjoy a good confrontation as much as I do.

Friday The 13th..........

You may be wondering about the photo of hair color and Cheetos ............. and what they have in common. Maybe you are wondering about my current state of mind and why I would put this picture here. I am about to tell you.

I awoke this morning at 8 am. Late for me, but I am getting ready for the sleep deprivation that comes with the weekend. I dosed myself with the necessary amount of coffee and showered to ready myself for my weekly jaunt into town. I did my hair and applied make-up; so as not to scare the locals with my unpainted self. I stopped at the library and got more audio books to entertain me as I cook and sew, then went to the local market for the necessities of the sticky bun variety. All done in record time, I made it back to kamp before any swimmers arrived and relieved he who hates the office and phone. Then I did an about face and made him stay in the office so I could clean my restrooms. He was happy to agree since the other option would be for him to do them. I usually do them first thing while I am still in my happy haze of sleepiness.

I suppose you can now see where this story is going can't you? Cheetos, hair color ............ public restrooms. Logical? No, you say? I did not not have any tent campers last night. Didn't have anyone staying on that side of the park at all. Leads me to wonder who colored their hair in the rest room, while eating Cheetos and smashing them in the floor. Was it someone in a big rig, not wanting the mess in their bathroom? Was it a swimmer? Was it one person, or two? Was one coloring and one eating? Or was it a whole group with a look-out? I will never know, I just clean up the mess. Can't put surveillance in the bathrooms, don't you know?

Oh well, on to the next adventure. I am still hawking my wares here at the kampstore. Sock Monkeys are showing up everywhere.............

This one is pushing sunglasses ..............

I made some little dresses for my grand girls and a swimmer said I should display them and sell them .......

Summertime and easy is the key here. Bright colors and happy dots.

Sister dresses?

Hot pink and purple for a little princess.

Groovy dresses for a big and little sister. I can't take credit for this combination though. I seem to have acquired my very own personal shopper! Yvonne is living here and shops....... a lot. She is not shy about keeping me in the loop on big discounts and bargains. She found the fabric and the shirts for me. I told her to use her own judgement in choosing. Can I just say that she passed the test!

These are two of my personal favorites, just plain girlie. I might have to export these to Minnesota.

I refuse to let the rest room nastiness get me down today. Now I am off to the kitchen to create a brownie to die for while I listen to the voice of John Grisham tell a story and transport me to Mississippi and simpler times...............

Signs, Signs, Everywhere You Look.........

or should I say if you look.........

As you approach the park, this is what you see.......... I know it is customary to enter the first drive when approaching. I am the one who changed it. I changed it for a very good reason ...... not just because I own the place and I can do what I want. I changed it because the park has a one-way drive around it to facilitate the parking of the big rigs. When they entered the first drive, they were already headed in the wrong direction and had to turn around. I have a really big parking area in the front, but if I had several coming in around the same time, it created a bit of a traffic jam. So, I changed it. It is also a lot easier to exit when you are driving a big rig and towing ......... no sharp turns.

So, you would think that putting up signage would eliminate any confusion, right? The first sign was made by he who augers the hole to put the post in. It said, "Enter Next Drive". That wasn't working, so I added a sign that said "EXIT ONLY" underneath. Not working either and to my great annoyance folks kept flying in and not stopping at the end of the drive..........maybe because there is no stop sign if you are going the wrong way?

My soul sister knows an artist, Kino, also skate border extraordinaire, I am told. He painted the frog sign you see and brought to my attention that the very first word on my old sign was ENTER, and that my customers weren't reading beyond that. Made sense, so I changed the sign. I thought that the bright color with black letters saying "DO NOT ENTER" was an eye catcher and would do the trick. I am so naive.

Two 'STOP' signs. I was told that the stop sign was on the wrong side and that is why people were not stopping. So I added a sign. They still don't stop. The speed limit sign is on the left sign and today a much, much larger sign will grace the stop sign on the right and when the load of rock arrives, a really impressive speed bump will also be added. You know, the kind that will get your attention if you fail to stop.

Last, but not least, is my private drive sign. I suppose I will need to add a "DO NOT ENTER" to this, since the sign apparently means nothing otherwise.

Very first customer of the day was a woman with three children coming to swim. Did you know that you entered the exit drive? She giggled and said, "Oh, I wasn't paying attention, I was turned around talking to my kids."

Sad, but true. You can't make this stuff up.

Just Dive On In

My Mexican daisy finally bloomed ........... well, the one plant that survived did anyway. Between the monsoon rains and the blistering heat nothing has grown with any predictability. I harvested two ears of corn while Gavin was here. It was my thought to break the ears in half and the four of us would share them with the rest of our dinner. Gavin ate them both. I can honestly say that brought me more pleasure than eating my share would have. Those were the only ones ready while he was here. The rest was ready and provided a pitiful little pot of creamed corn for the two of us. Some of the ears had only 5 or 6 kernels on them. It was really good and we savored each bite last night. My summer squash will only get to be about the size of my thumb, then will simply rot. Cucumbers are fine, though. Tomatoes, not so much.

It was a fine weekend, with perfect weather for camping. Cool in the evening and nice and sunny during the day. Today the humidity and the temperature began to rise and it is uncomfortably hot again. With the heat comes the really bizarre behaviour. The really bizarre phone calls and strange and stupid questions. Do ya'll got a pool? Yes. Do ya'll let people swim in it? Yes, we do. How deep is your pool? Not quite 6 feet at the deepest point..... Do ya'll got a diving board? No. (no, you idiot, it is not deep enough!!!!!!). That was the first call this morning. Just awhile ago someone called wondering how deep the pond is and if they can swim in it. Maybe it was the same person or someone closely related. There are snakes in the pond. Slimy weeds and mud and fish and why would anyone want to swim in a pond with a pool close at hand?

Summer's Goodbye

I lie awake in the wee hours of the morning. I don't use an alarm clock. I have that uncanny ability to wake when I have told myself I have to. That doesn't mean that I don't sometimes over sleep and miss my predetermined internal wake-up call. It is the weekend and that means a 5 o'clock alarm is in my head. Time to make the donuts ........... or sticky buns of gooey goodness in my case.



My four-legged creatures seem to know the weekend schedule. They will sleep through the night like good babies all week long; but, come Friday, they know. I am in the store longer on Friday evening. I don't go to bed any earlier than I do any other night of the week, so they go out and take care of business at the normal time. Then around 2 am they will nudge me awake to go out again. I sleep pretty good until that time. After I take them out and lift them back into bed I am awake enough to begin to calculate the amount of sleep I will get if I fall back to sleep immediately or if it takes 10 minutes, or 30 minutes, etc. Well, you see the problem.



I noticed that it was dark when I locked up last night at 9 o'clock and I felt a mixture of sadness and relief. Summer has begun to fade into autumn. Soon there will be a nip in the air and the leaves will turn and another year will be ending. I can usually determine the hour in the morning by extending my foot to the window and pushing the curtain to one side to get a peek of the sky. This morning it was dark. No predawn light to beckon me out of my non-slumber. I really wanted to tuck my cover over my shoulder and fall into a deep sleep, but was afraid I would not wake up in time to let the dough rise properly so I stumbled around in the dark and made my way to the kitchen at 4:30. An hour later and it is just beginning to show a little light. Just last weekend this amount of light was my wake-up call. The air is crisp and cool, showing no sign of the sweltering days we have had lately................




Now that I can see, I will go clean the bathrooms and then see what is ripe in the garden before I am confined to the store for my 12 hour day. Summer is not over after all. Not yet.

I Can't Help Myself .....

Sometimes I just can't help myself. I like to wonder about the day to day lives of folks I meet along the way. I sit here behind the counter and quote prices, make reservations and answer endless questions. I give directions, I redirect, and I try to enforce safety rules. Some days are good and some are not so good. So, can you really blame me if I entertain myself sometimes?



Opportunity just seems to present itself so enticingly at times and I just can't help but take advantage ................ I don't do it with a mean spirit. Can I help it if I find humor in everyday life?



With all this in mind, I ask you what the future holds for this young man? Plumber?

The Votes Are In.........

I carefully opened all the slips of paper in my cookie jar and it was unanimous! Site 36 is this month's winner! John and Sue have worked hard on their site. They even bought a new camper this season and just added a golf cart! Talk about going all-out.........

Three little frogs welcome you to their pad. Maybe they like frogs ....... maybe they don't, but they know I do ..........

A mama turtle and her baby live in the garden.

Love the dragon fly!

And the butterfly, and let's not forget the roses. I have never been able to grow roses. I manage to kill them after only one season. I am jealous of John's green thumb!

The grass is looking a little shaggy and I will go mow it when the sun goes down tonight. The little garden was put there last season because I hated mowing that corner. It was rocky and water would stand there. So I had he who loves his tractor dump a load of dirt for me and I went from there......... John and Sue took it from the little mound to what it is now.

These folks make up for all the aggravation of those campers who don't appreciate our park!