Camping as the Last Resort
A gentleman came to the Maintenance Shop and said that there were ants on his campsite, and they couldn’t even sit outside. Another came to say that the picnic table was too rough to put a cloth on.
The big indoor riding arena next door, which used to be part of the ranch, offering riding and etc, has been sold to a private Christian school that will make it into all school buildings,playing fields etc. Right now the rodeo program of a local university is there and there are lots of horses. The horses have lost their lease and will have to go elsewhere. When this was announced at the general membership meeting last week, the crowd heaved a sigh of pleasure and relief. Now we don’t have to smell the horses or have flies.
Since the name of this place is Hart Ranch Camping Resort, it seems to me that they are demanding a sanitized and citified version of both camping and of a ranch. Actually the Ranch part is because this was once a huge cattle ranch, it must have been well over 20,000 acres in its prime. It was bought out by a wealthy developer who put in this campground, condos, a golf course, the riding arena and so on. So, I suppose that the ranch part is historical and with the horses gone, we only have the neighbor’s cattle to look at on the rolling hills.
I think it is the word resort that feeds this behavior. Apparently from the French resortir, to go out again, its meanings include resorting to violence, asking for help only as a last resort, and here, as a place to come for recreation and relaxation. It implies a sort of full service get-away local that caters to your every need on site, and drinks and snacks brought right to you pool side,(by a person of dark complexion in a white coat) and formal dinners and every kind of sport or hobby provided. A stationary cruise ship. The difference between a ski hill and a ski resort would be that the hill just provides skiing and maybe lunch, whereas the resort has rooms, chalets, restaurants, bars, shopping , hot tubs, skating, sleigh rides. And so on. Lots of liveried servants, fluffy towels and 5 star hotel rooms.
Clearly calling yourself a resort sounds better than a campground, and since there are no rules about this, anyone running a campground can call themselves a resort, and hope people will be sucked in. Hart Ranch does qualify as a resort, you pretty much can get it all here, although no booze is served at the pool or anywhere else. We have an enormous pool and three hot tubs, tennis courts, shuffleboard, miniature golf etc etc. But we are not that upscale. The cabins are just that, small and rustic. The camping sites are all level, all paved, all have plenty of room and water, electric, sewer, and cable, and there is WIFI. The big fat book that you can look up campgrounds in, Woodalls, gives us 5 stars, the top rating and only maybe 50 campgrounds in the US are as good.
So what’s not to like ? I am secretly beginning to think that the absence of the liveried servants is what leads some people to make demands that don’t seem to quite fit what we’re doing here. If it is a resort, goes the thought, then I get to order people around and find fault with anything I can come up with.
We went to a cabin to replace the AC filters, something we have to do a lot because of the dust and because the units are not quite up to the heat or the size of the cabin. The guest said someone was taking a nap, so we decided to come back later. Then he went on to tell us that he had pulled up all the weeds around the cabin, and asked why they had not been tended to. Apparently, there are a lot of people who think that if we just tried harder, there would only be lush grass everywhere. We have a crew of 10 guys who do nothing but mow and spray and weed whack, and another guy who does nothing but irrigate.
Recently, the drought and the unrelenting 100+ temperatures have brought the management to their senses about water. There will be no more irrigating, no more washing of campers or cars. I am much relieved, the senseless waste of water to clean already clean rigs, and to maintain green grass while the hills all around are the color of old straw was beginning to make me angry. One person told me that the water supply for the resort was getting low, don’t know about that for sure.
I haven’t heard that people are ignoring the ban, or that they are complaining. Maybe people do realize the cost of all that water. As the guests leave, they drop off a comment card, the results of which get compiled so we can see how we are doing. It will be interesting to see what the comments will be.
Lush lawns have always seemed to me to be a total waste of time, money and natural resources. A lush lawn is the ultimate conspicuous consumption garden, probably from days when devoting acreage to anything but crops, or pasture was a big, visible luxury. Not only was the space non productive but it required gardeners to care for it. And don’t even get me started about Chem-lawn and what all ends up in the ground water.
We are both working pretty hard, a 40 hour week of fixing, painting and the usual campground jobs. We had an exciting day when a major water leak occurred. The radio was full of reports of low water pressure, and soon the leak was found, underground. The elderly backhoe was brought out, and in the excitement of trying to dig up the water main break, the backhoe snagged two of the three legs of the power supply to the resort. The radio came alive again as parts of the park blinked and went dark. 6 hours later, after hiring a better backhoe, a better driver, and calling in the electric company, all is back to normal. We used my generator and Don’s big halogen work light to finish up in the dark. Our water bill was way high for this month, nearly double, probably due to the water break, or maybe just too many people washing campers.
As the temperature rises the electrical use does too. We had two more power outages in the heat. Since we have a new restroom/ laundry building and 5 new cabins we need more power, and apparently the load was not balanced across the three legs. Finally the power company did the 440v equivalent of putting pennies in the fuses. They assure us that our sub stations will protect us.
The big indoor riding arena next door, which used to be part of the ranch, offering riding and etc, has been sold to a private Christian school that will make it into all school buildings,playing fields etc. Right now the rodeo program of a local university is there and there are lots of horses. The horses have lost their lease and will have to go elsewhere. When this was announced at the general membership meeting last week, the crowd heaved a sigh of pleasure and relief. Now we don’t have to smell the horses or have flies.
Since the name of this place is Hart Ranch Camping Resort, it seems to me that they are demanding a sanitized and citified version of both camping and of a ranch. Actually the Ranch part is because this was once a huge cattle ranch, it must have been well over 20,000 acres in its prime. It was bought out by a wealthy developer who put in this campground, condos, a golf course, the riding arena and so on. So, I suppose that the ranch part is historical and with the horses gone, we only have the neighbor’s cattle to look at on the rolling hills.
I think it is the word resort that feeds this behavior. Apparently from the French resortir, to go out again, its meanings include resorting to violence, asking for help only as a last resort, and here, as a place to come for recreation and relaxation. It implies a sort of full service get-away local that caters to your every need on site, and drinks and snacks brought right to you pool side,(by a person of dark complexion in a white coat) and formal dinners and every kind of sport or hobby provided. A stationary cruise ship. The difference between a ski hill and a ski resort would be that the hill just provides skiing and maybe lunch, whereas the resort has rooms, chalets, restaurants, bars, shopping , hot tubs, skating, sleigh rides. And so on. Lots of liveried servants, fluffy towels and 5 star hotel rooms.
Clearly calling yourself a resort sounds better than a campground, and since there are no rules about this, anyone running a campground can call themselves a resort, and hope people will be sucked in. Hart Ranch does qualify as a resort, you pretty much can get it all here, although no booze is served at the pool or anywhere else. We have an enormous pool and three hot tubs, tennis courts, shuffleboard, miniature golf etc etc. But we are not that upscale. The cabins are just that, small and rustic. The camping sites are all level, all paved, all have plenty of room and water, electric, sewer, and cable, and there is WIFI. The big fat book that you can look up campgrounds in, Woodalls, gives us 5 stars, the top rating and only maybe 50 campgrounds in the US are as good.
So what’s not to like ? I am secretly beginning to think that the absence of the liveried servants is what leads some people to make demands that don’t seem to quite fit what we’re doing here. If it is a resort, goes the thought, then I get to order people around and find fault with anything I can come up with.
We went to a cabin to replace the AC filters, something we have to do a lot because of the dust and because the units are not quite up to the heat or the size of the cabin. The guest said someone was taking a nap, so we decided to come back later. Then he went on to tell us that he had pulled up all the weeds around the cabin, and asked why they had not been tended to. Apparently, there are a lot of people who think that if we just tried harder, there would only be lush grass everywhere. We have a crew of 10 guys who do nothing but mow and spray and weed whack, and another guy who does nothing but irrigate.
Recently, the drought and the unrelenting 100+ temperatures have brought the management to their senses about water. There will be no more irrigating, no more washing of campers or cars. I am much relieved, the senseless waste of water to clean already clean rigs, and to maintain green grass while the hills all around are the color of old straw was beginning to make me angry. One person told me that the water supply for the resort was getting low, don’t know about that for sure.
I haven’t heard that people are ignoring the ban, or that they are complaining. Maybe people do realize the cost of all that water. As the guests leave, they drop off a comment card, the results of which get compiled so we can see how we are doing. It will be interesting to see what the comments will be.
Lush lawns have always seemed to me to be a total waste of time, money and natural resources. A lush lawn is the ultimate conspicuous consumption garden, probably from days when devoting acreage to anything but crops, or pasture was a big, visible luxury. Not only was the space non productive but it required gardeners to care for it. And don’t even get me started about Chem-lawn and what all ends up in the ground water.
We are both working pretty hard, a 40 hour week of fixing, painting and the usual campground jobs. We had an exciting day when a major water leak occurred. The radio was full of reports of low water pressure, and soon the leak was found, underground. The elderly backhoe was brought out, and in the excitement of trying to dig up the water main break, the backhoe snagged two of the three legs of the power supply to the resort. The radio came alive again as parts of the park blinked and went dark. 6 hours later, after hiring a better backhoe, a better driver, and calling in the electric company, all is back to normal. We used my generator and Don’s big halogen work light to finish up in the dark. Our water bill was way high for this month, nearly double, probably due to the water break, or maybe just too many people washing campers.
As the temperature rises the electrical use does too. We had two more power outages in the heat. Since we have a new restroom/ laundry building and 5 new cabins we need more power, and apparently the load was not balanced across the three legs. Finally the power company did the 440v equivalent of putting pennies in the fuses. They assure us that our sub stations will protect us.
posted by Thistledown24 at 6:46 AM
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