A day in the life of campground managers

Ruth was up around 7:00am yesterday. I was closer to 7:30am. Slept like a rock. I had called the RCMP and asked if they could do a drive through late Saturday evening, and apparently they had done so. They even called back and left a message that everything was okay.

After the fireworks, most people had called it a night, so we were a little surprised that it was a fairly quiet Saturday night considering it was a long weekend and we're full up.

But yesterday during the day was busy for us.

It started with a water problem.

There's a trail behind our house and someone had pointed out to me that it looked like there was a lot of water pooled around the back of the house.

Hmm. That doesn't sound right. So I went and had a look.

Sure enough, there was a lot of water and it was even running like a stream. Yikes. So, off to find where it was coming from!

I walked around that side of the house, but didn't see an obvious source. There's a row of RV sites on the other side of the bushes though, so I headed over that way.

I didn't have to go far and I saw the problem. Water...gurgling up through the ground, just like an underground stream. My first thought was of Jed Clampett. Too funny. "Up through the ground came a bubblin' crude". The water was coming up just like the oil in the opening scene of The Beverly Hillbillies!

I should have taken a pic of it.

Anyhow, I obviously had an underground water leak to deal with. Great.

And, I couldn't turn off the water to that particular section of the campground. Of course it's been added on to over the years, but this was in the original section and so there was no valve that shuts it off here...just from the main pump.

So I went and got a shovel and dug it up. It was pretty easy to dig because the force of the water had broken up all the earth. The break was about a foot down, and it wasn't actually a break. This section had been repaired before and one of the connectors had broken loose. Of course my one foot deep hole was totally full of water so I could only feel around with my hands. I put the one end back together, but the pressure was too high and it wouldn't stay which is why it broke in the first place.

So I went and turned down the pressure to the whole campground. We normally keep it at between 70-80 psi, and I put it down to 50 psi. I went back and put the connection back together and it held!

So then I went and got the wet dry shop vac, and sucked out all the water out of the hole. Now, at least I could see what I was doing. The connector they had used is cheap plastic, and I had bought some stainless steel ones just a few weeks ago. But on a Sunday morning at 9:00am, half the park is using showers and it's certainly not a good time to shut the water off to the whole park!

Anyhow, the leak is now down to a drip instead of pouring out.

By this point, I was covered in mud. Went in and changed real quick and cleaned the mud off that was up to my elbows.

Fun stuff.

I checked some messages on the office telephone. One anonymous complaint about someone's dog in another section of the park. The message is so garbled that I can't make it all out. Then it was off to do a garbage run.

Driving up to the shop to empty the first load, I see someone with their dog off leash. Why don't people get it?? It's so simple...dogs have to be restrained, you have to pick up after them and they can't annoy anyone with constant barking. Anyhow, stopped and explained the rules and settled that.

Meanwhile, Ruth goes around and cleans up the bathrooms. But she found that too many were still in use so it didn't make the job easy. But she could still make sure the hand towel dispensers were full and that there weren't any problems. By the time she got totally done, she went and sat at the entrance gate to check for vehicle passes and sell them to those who needed them.

A lot of people out on the lake during the afternoon, so the park seems a little quieter and I actually went in and grabbed a half hour nap. Tough to get any more than that because someone eventually rings the office buzzer.

Did another garbage run, and took orders for after supper wood delivery. Picking up the odd scrap of trash or empty drink containers along the way. It's funny, but I left an obvious empty coke can in an strategic spot just to see if anybody else would pick it up.

Nope. An hour later it was still there. I expect at least 50 people would have walked right by it and nobody picked it up. I know...most of you would have picked it up. :-)

The gate was fairly quiet by 6:00pm so Ruth shut things down there and came and we actually had supper at a decent hour for a change.

After dinner, I was approached by someone complaining about dogs barking. He said that between the dogs barking and the woman owner yelling at the dogs to shut up, he wasn't sure which was worse!

This is the third complaint that I've fielded this year regarding dogs at this person's site, and it was only this morning that Ruth caught one of the dogs (I think they have three) off leash. It's at one of our seasonal sites, so I had to go have a chat with the owner of the site and explain that one more complaint and the dogs are no longer welcome. You can only give someone so many chances to follow the rules, and this is their last chance.

I went and delivered a few bundles of wood between 8:00 and 9:00pm and finally shut off the lights to the office around 9:30pm.

Just walked in the door and Ruth was on her way out to do a final check on one of the bathrooms.

Ten minutes later, a group of early teen girls knocked on the door to say that the washroom nearest us was "kind of a mess, and there's water on the floor". Hmm. That doesn't sound good.

I radioed Ruth and she went and checked it out. Keeping in mind that this is the women's bathroom, someone had ripped the shower curtain down and all of the rings were broken and bent and lying on the shower floor. Water was everywhere. Who knows what happened in there, or why.

Enough to make you shake your head.

Did a walk around the park at 11:15, and then off to bed, with the alarm set for 2:15am. Went for another walk then, and spoke to three or four different campfire gatherings reminding them what time it was and to keep their voices down. Nobody out of control though, so that was good.

So that was our day. How was yours??!!

That should be the worst of it though. The campground will wind down from here to mid September although we'll still have the odd busy time for sure.

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