Ruth and the sunset at the island of Dhiffushi, Maldives.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Kuwait City, Kuwait on March 31st.

Friday, May 16, 2014

Open for business!

Well, our campground officially opens for business this afternoon. It's not totally ready, but most of the items not ready are beyond our control.

That's okay though, because it's not going to be busy. In fact, we don't have any reservations. Although there will be some of the seasonal campers here for the long weekend.

One of the reasons we're not ready is simply a time factor. There is usually almost three weeks between May 1st and opening day. This year, the long weekend is the earliest it can be, and it meant only two full weeks to get things ready.

Second reason is mostly related to water.

We have five washroom buildings here, each containing a men's shower, toilet, and sink and a women's shower, toilet and sink.

Each one of them needs to get "winterized" at the end of the season. But if it's not done properly (and sometimes even when it is done properly) you end up with cracked and leaking pipes, fittings, or faucets. Or sometimes all three!

We only had the water turned on Wednesday morning. And there's a problem that I haven't figured out yet that's causing the pump to randomly turn itself off, so I've wasted a lot of time just with that. In the meantime when the water was working, we went around and checked each washroom building individually for leaks.

Two of them weren't too bad, and in fact we've got them operational now. Ruth used the leaf blower in them to get rid of leaves and crap and then our hired hand used our new pressure washer in them. Just a finishing touches cleanup this morning and they'll be ready to use.

But three of them needed work. One of them, a lot of work!

In fact, I think this one washroom was totally overlooked. I've fixed six different easily identifiable problems, and now I'm working on the ones I couldn't see.

Yes, there were broken pipes inside the walls!

This job entails being a jack of all trades.

So I had to remove the toilet and rip out one of the wall panels. There was six inches of water trapped on the floor between the walls! And two cracked pipes. It's amazing how frozen water can crack a copper pipe, isn't it?!

So, we'll just continue to poke away at it.

And I notice again that our water pump has shut off again overnight. Not helping the situation is that they've let water out of the lake and the level has dropped a couple of inches overnight. 

This system supplies lake water to the entire campground. Our house and the office and snack bar operate off a separate cistern.

The pump setup is kind of an eyesore in my mind. I'd like to get a shack built to house all of this stuff and tidy things up.

Not supposed to be a great weekend, weatherwise. Highs of around 17C (63F) and a 40% chance of showers all weekend.

Storm clouds yesterday.


8 comments:

  1. Um ya, that pump sitting out there in the open is certainly an eyesore. I'd want it in a little house of some sort. Much tidier. Is the pump losing its prime? (Yes, dumb question) Or is it perhaps overheating somehow and then getting shut off due to some sort of "safety mechanism"? How old is that sucker? Maybe it's just time for a new pump.

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    1. Yep, it sure is and hopefully sometime this year or by the beginning of next year there will be some sort of pump house there to make things look nicer.

      No, it doesn't seem to be losing it's prime. Somehow or other it seems to be getting air in the system. Kevin has put a brick on the intake hose to hold it down better and that seems to be doing the trick. Not sure how old it is but it has been rebuilt a couple of times.

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  2. I have every confidence you and Ruth will get all these issues sorted out. The campground owners sure got a great couple to run their business. I hope the appreciate the extra miles you'll go to for them!

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    1. Thanks for the confidence in us Paul and Marti. Things are getting sorted out slowly and we are making progress.

      The campground doesn't actually have owners, it is a regional park and each regional park has it's own board of directors so we are running the park for them.

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  3. Good luck with those repairs. Campground here really filling up, We, muddy and high of maybe 15c, lots little kids to having too much fun.
    Good luck with getting the repairs done.

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    1. Thanks George! Our campground is starting to fill up too but certainly not busy like the park we were at last year for the May long weekend.

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  4. Whewie looks like quite a job! Steve's park had horrible plumbing breaks over the winter too... They just finished this week replacing everything and fixing it all. The shower/bathrooms just opened today at 4pm at the end of shift... just in time for the weekend campers!

    ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
    Karen and Steve
    (Blog) RVing: The USA Is Our Big Backyard
    http://kareninthewoods-kareninthewoods.blogspot.com
    ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

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    1. Glad that Steve and his crew were able to get all the plumbing fixed up, unfortunately it is only Kevin and our student worker, Kevin to get the work done so it will take a little more time. We at least had 2 of the 5 bathrooms cleaned up and in good working order for the weekend. Yesterday we just finished getting the third one fixed but only the women's side got cleaned up. Today's chore will be to clean the men's side.

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