Friday, September 11 - Life in Maintenance

First off we hope for a speedy recovery for one of our work camper friends and Ginger’s coworker Joann. She was working her last shift Sunday evening when she tripped in the office, fell and broke her hip. She is doing well but their trip to San Antonio will be put on hold for 4-6 weeks.

We also hope for a successful surgery and speedy recovery for our son Adam. He is having an anterior cervical fusion today to fuse some vertebrae in his neck. He too is looking towards a 4-6 week recovery.

Our time here is almost over. The summer has really gone by quick. It is kind of bitter sweet. We are anxious to get on the road but we will miss the friends we have made here. Hard to believe we have been here 4 months now and only 2 weeks and 2 days left.

It has really been quiet around here since Tuesday. We had way over 400 check outs Monday and Tuesday and a mass exodus of work campers. It took maintenance until Thursday afternoon to get all the sites cleaned, that was just Jesse and another guy.

Today there is 145 check ins, but with the few check ins that came in the past couple of days we will have about 200 sites for the week end. Moderate but with such a limited crew left, everyone will be busy.

Because of all the work campers leaving our days off were changed from Sunday and Monday to Monday and Tuesday..... No biggie, we prefer week days off anyway.

Here’s Jesse’s office.

Many of the guys Jesse works with thought they did a lot of work that normally would not fall into the job description they expected. They all thought there would be a lot of landscaping and mowing and in fact there was none! A couple of independent contractors do that.

Maintenance did level and hook up the utilities for some 23 park models. It always seemed to be raining on the days they leveled a trailer.

They also installed RV awnings on all the trailers and replaced the carpeting and tile floors. A contractor installed the new carpet and tile but the maintenance guys removed the old stuff. The carpets were original and when the trailers were built the carpet was installed before the walls were built so every linear inch of carpet had to be cut with a utility knife. It was hard work but no one did it every day. They were alternated. Jesse figured what difference did it make since he could not just ride around in the golf cart looking important. They also built a storage shed for some of the equipment. Gotta keep those golf carts out of the snow you know.

The sewage system at LGE is somewhat like an RV’s in that there are holding tanks in different locations through camp ground. Most but not all of the tanks are pumped out twice daily.

Sometimes it takes 5 or more trips for the tanker to do 1 pump out. All this is to the tune of over $300,000 per season. The drinking water comes from 3 wells. One well pump went south and 2 weeks later a well went dry. These were both very costly repairs.

We also do our own pump out with the honey wagon, that's Rudy one of Jesse's co-worker.

The camp ground will store your RV, tow it to your site and restore it when you leave, of course for a fee, but it saves the customer the cost of registration and a tow vehicle. Also means they come back.

Most of the days maintenance department just took care of site clean up, keeping camp wood (that is what they call fire wood in the Adirondacks) stocked in the store, repair calls for all the buildings, showers, bath houses, rental units, and rental sites. Run of the mill stuff was lighting hot water heaters, leaking faucets and drains, running and clogged toilets, no a/c, no heat, no hot water, no cable, broken cabinet doors, tow ons and tow offs, and blah blah blah yaddy yaddy yaddy.

All in all, Jesse thought it was a hoot. Maybe it was just knowing he only had 4 1/2 months to work and not years and years or just being around people and RVs on vacation but this was the closest he ever came to having a job he liked. He says it was almost fun.

Go figure, fun and work, just doesn’t seem normal.