Campground Hunting

What a week!

Shawn and I decided to take a trip up to the campground and see what it looks like. We didn’t want to invest too much time in a business plan until we knew what kind of potential the campground had. We left on Sunday morning (September 20^th, 2009) and returned home Thursday afternoon (September 24^h, 2009).

Since I don’t have a passport, we had to take the long way around the Great Lakes. Instead of a 14 hour drive, we had an 18 hour drive. Getting a passport is now a little higher on my agenda!

We left my house at 4am in Shawn’s truck, with a tent trailer hooked on the back. We didn’t pack a whole lot, just a cooler of food, fishing rods, some blankets and lots of electronics. We had a couple digital cameras, a couple GPS’s, and video camera, CD player, and an mp3 player.

We made good time, as we arrived at the campground at around 10pm. We checked in with the owners, who were expecting us late. They set us up with a great campsite by the river and we quickly setup our trailer and got a good fire going.

We spent a couple nights at the campground exploring it and the surrounding area, and then started to make our way back home on September 22^nd. We ended up splitting the drive home into a 3 day drive. After driving for about 6 hours on the 22^nd, we spent a night at Lake Superior Provincial Park. The park seemed very small with a few campsites squeezed between the highway and the Lake as you could see both from our site.

The next day we started out early and set out for Killbear Provincial Park. This was a very nice park. It was large with lots of great campsites. We setup in a campsite next to the Lake, but far, far away from the highway.

The last day of our journey was disappointing, as the trailer broke, causing a bit of a commotion on the 401 highway. After securing the trailer, we were able to make it back home by roughly 3pm.

Noteworthy:
-We should have been more prepared for bear country. It wasn’t until we were almost out of bear country that we actually read up on the dos and don’ts. For the most part, we didn’t do anything stupid, but reading the stats on bear break-ins was a little alarming.

-The countryside up north is very inspiring. We were constantly pulling out the camera to take a picture, although the pictures never looked as good as the view.

-over $400 in gas was spent on the round trip. That caught me a little off guard. The tent trailer was quite heavy, and there were a lot of hills to climb with the truck.

Blood Ties

After discussing a possible career change with my wife, I’m pretty happy. I can tell she is very reluctant, but not outright against the idea. I think the hardest part for her is the distance we would have to travel. The campground we are looking at is a 14 hour drive, with a shortcut through the U.S.A. Moving away from our family and friends would definitely be difficult, as we have really leaned on them in the past. They have always been our safety net, but the way I look at it, if we can make a campground into a success, then we won’t need a safety net.
My wife and I have agreed that anything drastic should be done in the next year, before our oldest girl starts school. My unemployment runs out in a few months, but I doubt we will have a campground by then, so I’m still desperately looking for a job.

A Beginning

Today my brother Shawn and I came up with an idea of owning a campground. Actually my brother has been looking at buying a campground for a few years, but he has just finished College and is now in a position to tackle the feat. He was shocked that I said I would be interested, mostly because I had a wife, 2 kids, and a mortgage, and party because I have never wanted to move away, nor have I ever mentioned wanting to own a campground.

The truth is, until that conversation, I had never thought about owning a campground. I’ve always liked the jobs I’ve had, working in an office, creating databases, graphs and other reports, but to be honest, I’m pretty easy to please. Maybe a change is just what I need.

My brother and I have experience doing pretty much everything from fixing farm equipment and renovating houses, to Victorian landscaping and pouring cement. Throw in experience with sewing, renewable energy installations, designing websites, surveying, operating heavy equipment, and you have a pretty impressive list of accomplishments.