The Resort Years - 9

WEATHER

You would think that with a name like WEATHERS, we would have a clue or maybe some extra pull in the weather department.  Not likely!  We are both pilots and know which websites have the actual satellite photos of the western/incoming weather, but more than that – JUST PRAY!  We are now into the third drought cycle in the twenty years at The Rivers Resort.  Droughts traditionally last three years, and we are on year THREE!  Not a good omen for this winter’s ski business.  Whenever this happens the rumors start about Dodge Ridge “not even opening!”  There must be an actual line or two in their contract regarding “no snow” winters…don’t know, have no access to their contract!  Like the owners of Dodge Ridge we are just in the “wait and see” mode! 

In the past we have had very dry Januarys and then monstrous storms once they start!   Our last monstrous winter was the year that we celebrated our 50th Wedding Anniversary – 2011 – when Tom had to be in Kansas City MO for two weeks of seminary and we decided to drive it, despite both being SICK with head colds as we left California.  Then since we were more than halfway across the country, after the two weeks at seminary we drove to Virginia to see where Kathleen, our daughter, was working at Joy Ranch Children’s Home. Dodie was the office assistant in charge of incoming guests and the Post Office, while Mark was the maintenance person in charge of the snowblower and shoveling!!

Dodie was a jewel of an assistant.  She lived here in Strawberry so was able to be “feet on the ground” when necessary.  She had a daughter, and was able to bring her to work.  She had worked the winter at Dodge Ridge and was happy to have a part time job following that full time endeavor.  Her husband also worked at the ski area and at the campgrounds that Dodge Ridge managed in the summer.  She worked for us for a couple of years and then HER husband took a job back in Louisiana where they had a family home that they could live in cheaply.  We sure hated to lose her, but wished her well and keep track of her growing daughter on Facebook.

It snowed the entire month of January in 2011.  When we returned the cabins couldn’t even “dump” the snow from their roofs as the berms were so high from the previous snow falls.  They all looked like snow banks with snow from the decks up to the deck railings six to eight feet from the ground level!!  A lot of snow!  While I doubt that we get THAT much this Winter into Spring, I certainly pray that we get a winter or the water situation will be horrid this summer.

I told Tom the other day - winter of 2013/2014 - that we should put away the shovels and the snow blower and maybe by NOT being prepared the weather will change!!  He DID IT!  Hey, anything is worth a try.  We are going down for a doctor’s appointment tomorrow – maybe we should wash the car!! 

UPDATE - Dodge Ridge was able to open in 2014, but forced to close after just five weeks due to the lack of snow!!

“We have been your customers for YEARS!”

We never did decide at the INN if it was better to encourage return business or to turn them over like the proverbial “hotcakes!”  Return guests feel entitled to ignore the rules, argue any cleaning charges, and tell all of their friends how awful their stay was.  Now with the “social media” people can tell all their MILLIONS of “followers” instead of the 200 close acquaintances that most people can boast.   The 200 was, at one time, the standard number of wedding / death notices that the printer supplied; now with Yelps.com you can tell the whole world about “the manager who was so rude, she needs to find another job!”   The new hip helped the attitude a LOT, and that particular guest has even returned to see the “new me!”  He is easier to spot than I am – he has dread locks and tattoos from neck to fingertips!!  I just have 15 fewer pounds and an invisible NEW HIP with smile to show for it!!

It continues to amaze me that there are people who CARE what you think about anything?  Seems so if you even glance at the “comments” on news stories, we have become a nation of voyeurers, peeping Toms, and self-absorbed folks who never think of the good of the whole, only their personal “good!”    Mom used to say: “Don’t believe anything you hear, only half of what you see, and nothing you read in the newspaper.”  I would insert the internet!  So why did I start a blog?  MountainMartha.blogspot.com - That would have been the encouragement of the Tech Guy in the Real Estate Office five years ago!  It didn’t seem to help my Real Estate business, but that was 2008 when “the bubble” burst, the banks that were “too big to fail” or supported the correct political party, got bailed out with the taxpayers IOUs to China.

The title of REALTOR arrived with Tom’s calling to be a pastor ten or eleven years ago.  He had experienced a spiritual growth spurt when we had a “Share Jesus” Mission in our little church in Tuolumne.  He took a ClayM class and decided if GOD opened any doors he would give up on computers (after beating his medicated head against that “brick wall” for nearly five years) and progress to congregations as a pastor. 

Still having the responsibilities at THE RESORT, I wondered how we would handle that if he was sent to “do desert time” in greater Ely, NV or Battle Mountain, NV, from whence our new pastor had just come.  We even detoured through Battle Mountain to find the church and checkout the parsonage on the way home from a trip to Colorado!!  But, “GOD would provide,” said I.

Thinking I could cover the cost of hiring help at THE RIVERS RESORT I took the Real Estate Licensing course, passed, and got a desk at one of the local offices.  That lasted three or four months until the broker’s daughter passed the test and took my desk.  So, just like the medical Transcription, I went door to door attempting to land another broker.  No one wanted the liability of my property management side-business even though it was under Tom’s Corporation – ComputerVan Inc…  You do not have to be a Realtor to manage vacation rentals; the owner of a cabin can ask their next-door neighbor to be their agent, no training required!  I checked with the legal department of California Association of Realtors twice when brokers have questioned the advisability of my dual occupations.

I met a lot of interesting people – good and bad – in the three Real Estate offices I worked in.  Meanwhile, encouraging my owners to make improvements to their cabins to increase their occupancy!  My monthly newsletters included improvements made to various cabins, dropping the names of owners who had used their cabins that month and information about changes we made to the common area – steps where there was once a drainage ditch, planting flowers, putting FREE chipped bark around to keep the dust down following a water meter project.

About the time we decided to move to the parsonage in Sonora, on the hill above the Court House, one of the mountain folk had a seizure while at work in Cold Springs and was told she couldn’t work for six months to see if any seizures would recur.  So, of course, she could move into Unit #1 and keep an eye on things, picking up parts of the office routine, and the Post Office routine as she felt able.  At some point we should have agreed as to how much work she could apply toward the use of the apartment – Unit #1…

Carolanne the Hostess!

We received a call late one evening that the guests for one of our “off-site” cabins could not get to the cabin on the slippery, icy road.  There were three to four feet of snow on the ground, but steps had been shoveled for their access and the driveway plowed.  Despite the note on the website that chains or 4x4 would be required in the winter, they “assumed” that since the highway had no chain requirement, they could come in their roomier vans.  Even with their chains they were unable to get to the cabin.  We drove up from Sonora in the Subaru Outback and ran at least six trips from the office parking lot to the cabin shuttling them and all their STUFF to the cabin.  Meanwhile, Carolanne entertained the remainder of the party in the Office in her robe and fuzzy slippers.  Not a night we will soon forget!!

She did a good job at “my job” and I was able to be a Pastor’s wife in Sonora, and a REALTOR in Twain Harte and then with Sugar Pine Realty in East Sonora, a grandmother, and still do the books for the owners of the cabins at the RESORT.   Carolanne has the perfect personality for dealing with “the public” – she is gregarious and anxious to please.  She lived in Unit #1 and did “my job” for 3 ½ years!   I would recommend her or Samantha to any “new owner” who comes along. 

After five years of working Real Estate the market had crashed, and I had to “take my management job back” from Carolanne and get some income from Unit #1.  It created quite a stir in the neighborhood since Carolanne was well-liked.  She had several adventures while living in Unit #1, but I will leave them for “her book!” Hey, life is what happens while you are making other plans.  Her daughter in Elk Grove and the three grand daughters needed her at that time, not to mention her sister in the Bay Area!  I joined her in prayer for BOTH situations.   The situations did resolve and she has moved back to the mountains that we both love; we are friends again.  THANK GOD!

BE organized, OR ELSE!!

Like Logan, I love organizing!  The first season that we managed the Resort I would receive TEN phone calls – at least – asking the same questions, “Is there a coffee maker?”  “Do I need to bring linen?” – like people do at the cabins that the local Realtor rents out.  So I invented a NOTICE to send out with each confirmation showing just what is in the cabin and the beds that are made and ready to be slept in so the only question I get now is, “Where do I pick up the key?”  

   Having a monthly deadline of the tenth of the month for the ten cabin bookkeeping project has helped; I can’t procrastinate too much.   After twenty years the task is down to “a science,” in fact I have it so that ANYONE who can read can do the monthly bookkeeping, and Logan is very good at keeping the records that I need in order to charge the various owners for the items used in their cabins.  At one time I had six “off-site” cabins that I put the overflow guests in; most of them have either sold or taken over their own arranging via the internet, avoiding my management fees.

Since “our competition” is Pinecrest Chalet, Pinecrest Lake Resort, and the Cabins at Strawberry and they all rent their units with beds made and ready to be slept in, I did insist that the off-site cabins also be ready to rent.  This created a few problems with “family use” and wanting to be the “cheapest” available cabin.  If I took on any “off-site” cabins in the future I might consider just renting linen to any “drop-in” guests and let them make their own beds, then the cabins could be spared the expense of the linen/ the housekeeper making up all those beds, and their guests with reservations in advance could be told to “bring everything needed” as the local REALTOR does with the cabins that they handle the rentals on.  So would people bother to MAKE UP the beds or just sleep between the mattress pad and the quile?  Hard to tell in this day and age.

Unfortunately, a week’s vacation is becoming an “endangered species”, with long weekends of three or four days the national average!  We are thankful for the few remaining families who still come for a week of family “together time”!!  The internet has led to a phenomena called, for want of a better term - the “click everything syndrome.”  It truly amazes how many people send out requests for a reservation to FOUR or more properties, click, click, click!!  Then after patiently answering them individually, they never call or respond to our information!  I can count on one hand the number who do say, “we found another place, thanks for the information, we will keep you in mind for another time!”  Good manners do still exist.

CREDIT CARDS

Having owned another business, I knew that the customer was ALWAYS right and the credit card company would happily refund their money, no matter what the poor business owner had to say about it.  I have better luck with EDD – Employment Development - than I do with credit card processors.  At one point last year I was paying $18 per item by the time my exceedingly low rate of 1.75% was factored for DEBIT cards, mileage plus cards, and the fact that most of my business was done with credit cards “punched in” on my machine rather than directly swiping the cards.  OH, and then there were the added fees.  The “biggy” that I questioned several times was a $35 charge for keeping track of the cards that I process so the company could issue a 1099 to me for all of those credit cards!!  For several months I “shared” that add-on with my ten owners, who actually got the money as payment for their rentals.

The credit card processor claimed that it was “required” by some legislation passed by Congress!!  The law of unintended consequences strikes again.

It reminded me of the search that I did on the internet of “other cabins” being rented by their owners in the neighboring communities.  They listed

Room Tax rates of 6% to 10% when the rate at the time was 8% in our county.  I sent emails to some telling them that if they advertised “collecting room tax” they should at least be using the correct rate or it looked like they were just adding an extra FEE!

When I had changed to this latest processor, recommended by my bank, I kept getting charged $8.50 by a bank in Folsom, which was no longer in business, phone had been disconnected and mail returned!!  I kept complaining to my bank each month.  Finally, the branch/store manager recognized the name of the bank as one of the previous entities purchased by the current bank brand and arranged for the charge to disappear.

So when the NFIB – National Federation of Independent Business – talked me into joining THEM I discovered that they offered a cheaper processing (and they get the pennies as a kick-back rather than my bank!) so signed up to join.  I should have checked with my bank-recommended processor first and I would have discovered that my contract did not expire until September 15th, three months hence.  I asked them to email me the paperwork required to cancel and they sent it in an “iron clad” envelope that I could not “for the life of me” open, but since my contract was due to expire in three months I continued packing boxes to move from the parsonage, and preparing to be gone for three weeks in July to TWO family reunions in Colorado!! What a busy time to change processors!!   I knew that it would cost me not $8.50 but $49.95 per month – the current minimum fee? - for three months to make this change.

Imagine my surprise when my account was charged the month AFTER the contract expired for the $47.95 plus a charge for taking the required credit card safety class for a company that I had not processed one transaction through for three months!!  I called and they said that I could cancel by phone now so no form was necessary and did refund the safety class fee!  That was the 10th of the month of November!   So the first of December, again a processing charge because by not “canceling” until the 10th I was still their customer for the month of November.   Yes, all of this information was in the computer, which was now owned by a different BANK. Do they give the kick-back pennies to MY bank?   Good question!

So between the $200 to join NFIB and the $300 in monthly fees to the old processor, that was a very expensive transition!!  That does not include the stress and frustration of discovering that a company can continue to charge even when they are doing NO TRANSACTIONS on your behalf.  I guess that I pay insurance premiums whether I collect on it or not – especially HEALTH INSURANCE!  I have managed to LAUGH OUT LOUD at the “accidental death and dismemberment” insurance offers that we seem to receive on a monthly basis!  I wonder if anyone would VOLUNTARILY suffer death and dismemberment?  (Someone explained to me just recently that voluntary death is in fact suicide, and that is not covered by any life insurance policy!)  The Insurance Companies and the BANKS will end up owning the world, but the bugs and germs will get us all in the end!

The fact that we moved twice, I am over 70 years old and still running this business only failed to resonate with ONE of the service people with whom I spoke during this difficult time.  It must take a very special personality to deal with disgruntled customers on the phone – most were helpful and caring, including two of the employees at my bank.  I did learn something though - count the cost before making changes.  Just as the BIBLE says to “consider the cost before starting to build that tower!” 

I called the new processor and asked 1) do I have a contract, 2) when does it expire (hopefully before I do!) and 3) how do I go about making a change at that time?  MY HUSBAND has to call the RETENTION DEPARTMENT prior to May 15th 2016 since I let him sign the contract.  I asked what if we sell or he dies?  If we sell the contract is still in effect until the expiration date, the account that the money goes to can change.  If my husband happens to die, I must provide written notice of that in order to make any changes!!  At least I know now!  “Too soon old, too late smart!”  - Old German-Pennsylvania Dutch proverb.

We had one customer make a ten day reservation for the second week of December by internet where she gave me her TWO credit card numbers, but would NOT provide any addresses.  She didn’t come; we had no snow; the ski area was not open.  Smart lady, no cancellation required since there was no way to charge her for the NO SHOW without those addresses!  And NO - I did not leave the light on for her and the heat turned up, I had a feeling!

The Resort Years - 7

DO IT YOURSELF!!

The first phase – chistling out cracks, pinning in rebar, and pouring 6 yards of concrete was completed in May.  The wooden deck is getting screws put in where nails were extracted, and rotten boards replaced before the building permit is pulled at the County. “The before” also entails getting engineered plans drawn to submit to the County.  (The engineered plans were over and above the $40,000 bid by the Valley pool specialists.)

I was told that the permit could be pulled once the plans were done, even if we had already poured the six yards of cement.  We will see if that happens…

We also need some assurance that there will be money to PAY for the second and third phases of this project.  We discovered several items that caused us to ENLARGE the project since there was no water this year to fill the pool anyway!!  VERY THIN concrete in several places, lines of algae at the base of the walls where the connection to the floor was not what it should have been when the pool was built in 1957/58.

The rebuilding of the Strawberry Pool necessitates making it ADA compliant (even if the cabins are not?!)  The County had said that they were NOT the ADA enforcers.  But pull a building permit, and they ARE ENFORCERS!

  

EMPLOYEES

While the RESORT doesn’t require quite as many employees as the Strawberry Inn and gas station and trailer park did, we still have them, as it is too much for one person to accomplish.  Interesting is the fact that bookkeeping and bed making were the two jobs at the Inn that I avoided if at all possible.  I keep books for the ten units and for a portion of the twenty years Tom’s computer business, the book publishing arm of our corporation – Strawberry Hill Publishing - and even Martha Weathers REALTOR! 

I could write a book about Employees Only, and Kathleen, our daughter, working on her degree in “Crisis Counseling” says I could write one on Psychology!  And I would have to include a chapter on “Judge NOT, that ye be NOT JUDGED!”  Being a hyper-active, possibly ADD, person made me perfect for the restaurant / bar business and the multiple “hats” I have worn for the past twenty years also suits my personality.  I always have a couple of knitting or crochet projects going, and a book or TWO!

My resident-of-Strawberry handyman – he came with the property twenty years ago – had a small son who lived with his mother in Tuolumne where our church was located, so we returned him to his mother each Sunday after worship.  One Sunday, we returned for a pot-luck in the evening and were asked if Wiley was home with the babysitter?  I was shocked to think that they hadn’t figured out that WE were the babysitter, and he was at home with his mother.  I do hope he learned in Sunday School that GOD loves him.  We were invited to his High School graduation and proudly attended.  I made sure to tell him that we expected an invitation to his college graduation as well.  I need to check on that!!

The handyman had several addictions that he battled over the years but did work hard to keep the Resort in running order.  I especially noticed that he kept the vacuums up and running by doing maintenance and bag changing on a regular basis.  He also was great at throwing a weighted rope over dead tree branches and getting them removed without enlisting the work of a tree removal company!  That saved the Resort Homeowners the cost of a tree climber with a chain saw!! 

He also was the “recycling sorter” twice each week in the summer, just before the garbage guys arrive.  This is a job that I have had to do the past several years so I now really appreciate the efforts of our “handyman” employees over the years!!  When the guests have to recycle EVERYTHING down home, it is hard to convince them that we ONLY recycle the things that we get paid for!  CRV ONLY!!  So we see yogurt containers and milk jugs in with the plastic bottles.  Oh, and we have to remove the lids from those plastic water and soda bottles before taking them to our local recycling business!  We see wine bottles in with the beer bottles.  We get whole bags of unsorted often with lots of trash in with the recycling items. Which is my explanation for not having a RECYCLE ONLY BIN, the amount of TRASH would mean that the Homeowner’s Association would be charged for a second bin of garbage by Waste Management – the garbage company in our County.

I discovered something else that Leni the handyman did – stain picnic tables and reseal decks at least every other year!!  The two picnic tables at the pool side plus the wooden bench just sucked up 1 ½ gallons of stain, and the wooden deck will probably use ALL of the 5 gallons of Thompson’s Water Seal!!

HOUSEKEEPERS

Our best housekeeper ever was the wife of that handyman.  They moved off the mountain to manage an apartment complex - the wife doing the office work and the handyman doing the yard and maintenance.  This was the same time that we moved to Sonora so Tom could be the pastor at the Sonora United Methodist Church. 

The mom and daughter team of the DUSTONS worked out quite well for several years.  The daughter even worked through a couple of pregnancies and then was able to “bring her wee ones” to work and still manage to get the job done.  Since they were paid by the cabin, and not by the hour, it didn’t matter if she took time to nurse the baby or rock the toddler to sleep.  The stroke suffered by the husband and father caused the mother-daughter team to have to give their notice.

Enter a recent college grad from the Bay Area living just up the hill and needing work.  She said she was the oldest in her family and had been doing “housework” for years!  She and a 14 year old neighbor did fairly well right up to the middle of August when her parents “needed her” at home and the 14 year old had to start high school!  The most amazing thing about this young person was her degree – Art History!  I am sure that it is an interesting subject and she was/is a creative person, but I asked her, “What do you hope to do with your education?”

Her answer was:  “Teach Art History!  But I may need a Masters degree to do that.”

The young adult that I hired to replace her did OK until she incorporated her “friend Smoky” into the equation.  The amount of work accomplished vs. the hours on the time card made me question exactly what they were doing!!

But my plate was full, and there was no way I could make beds and clean bathrooms with a “bad hip” due for replacement!

So in two years I went through FOUR different housekeeping teams!  Try to keep up with that!  The directions are written out, but it amazes me how many folks have the inability to learn from written instructions.  I have taught myself to knit and crochet, run an Inn in the mountains, do medical transcription, graphic design all from reading the directions.

Replacing the handyman who moved to Sonora took some inspiration, and just plain LUCK.  Some years it is a family member in need of the work, some years a friend of our son – who knows everyone!!  That was the solution to my housekeeping problem that materialized just four days before my “new hip” was scheduled back in February of 2013, Allan’s friend came through and is doing a great job. So is my hip, PRAISE GOD!

Logan, like the Dustons several years before her, is a contractor.  I give her the list and when they need to be ready and she does the work on her own schedule, fitting in “other jobs” as she sees fit.  Seems to work well so far!!

She even has the laundry duty.  I had spent countless hours for sixteen years at the Laundromat.  I even had the key to the one in MiWuk Village. It is one thing that I chose NOT to take back. While I miss that upper arm exercise, I do not miss the six hours a week at the Laundromat!  I consider the lack of laundry duty to be an overdue raise / semi-retirement!? Logan suggested rolling the linen needed for the various bed sizes rather than the grab-one-from-each-pile method that I had inherited from the days of the Linen Service.  “Whatever works for you!” was my response!

The Resort Years - 6

WATER

The installation of individual meters was “supposed to” have been part of the subdivision / condominium deal, but not knowing WHERE the existing water lines ran and how they intersected / ran parallel to the sewer and propane lines was a tremendous problem.  So THAT was a disclosure just waiting to be a problem!!

When the Del Oro Water Company, and the State of California, insisted that the individual meters must be installed and it was mentioned by our president that the individual bills might cause the owners of the various cabins to make the upgrades to their water-using appliances. Our President convinced us all that it had to happen.  His clincher was that we would have all NEW water lines – boy did THAT need to happen!!  Some of those old lines were nearly “Swiss Cheesed” after over fifty years.

It made for a dusty Spring following a late winter and we were apologizing all summer for the dust!  That Fall every carpet in the complex received a commercial cleaning after the housekeepers finished the Fall Cleaning!!

The Homeowner’s Association graciously insisted that a separate meter be installed with the pool side hose bib so they could cover the expense of “topping off” the pool in the summer, something that had been going through the one meter for the whole resort previously. I get to figure out how much of Unit #1s water goes into the pool through that meter during the summer and the Homeowner’s Association reimburses us for that expense.  It is not a difficult task, very similar to reading the electric meters when we owned the Trailer Park across the highway, behind the Strawberry Inn.  I also bill each cabin for the monthly fee for their guests to use “our” pool.  We discovered just recently that the pool was built in 1957, because in 1958 Kevin McDowell’s brothers were the first “life guards” and he remembered that his grandfather had paid $300 to help with the building of the pool and then yearly dues of $100 per year.  That was a LOT of money in the 50s; the yearly fee is $225 now.

Pool – amenity or atrocity?

Each year it is a worry as to whether the POOL can be filled, but so far, so good!   Because the pool is NOT plastered, it is drained each year, repainted if necessary and put back together.  The furniture is stored in the two restrooms by the pool and under Unit #1, the parts and pieces are removed to keep the vandals from helping themselves.  Some years chunks of tile fall off the walls due to water inflow from the dirt behind the sixty year old concrete walls or melting snow on the deck – partially wood, and partially 16 yards of concrete poured about 15 years ago.

After a particularly bad report from the environmental health inspector one year and some cold and dissatisfied guests, we HAD to replace the pool heater, sand filter, and chlorinator and tidy up the bathrooms! I had tiled a bathroom floor in our house in San Jose, and had tiled a bathtub enclosure at the Inn.  I thought I could tile the pool and started in the Fall to remove the weathered, lopsided old (at least 20 years!) tile and tried to get a “bed” made to received the new tile in the Spring!!  Enter son Allan who “had a friend” who was a professional tile setter!!  Praise GOD!  Not cheap, but well worth the money!   It is wisdom to know when you are NOT professional, but a “Jack of all trades” and when to say WHOA!

The new tile job held up really well for several years, then again two foot sections would delaminate from the side and if they did not fall off, they looked as if they would, held there by the tile grout.  The time for painting the pool once the prep was done had gotten down to 4 hours with a second person doing the wall under the tile so the paint roller person could work faster.

Occasionally, the extra person had to run a quick trip to the paint store in East Sonora for more paint, but that too was something that we got used to organizing, by noting the quantity of pool paint on the reservations sheet, along with the time taken to apply it!

A couple of years ago my handyman of several years – Mark - picked Spring to decide that his injured-in-a-car-accident back just couldn’t work for us any longer.  Great timing with a pool full of winter’s debris and needing a paint job! 

A couple with three small children, one just a baby, were spending a weekend in Cabin 7.  He had asked just the day before if I needed a handyman.  So as soon as I heard the “bad news” I went to the cabin to tell him he was hired, but I found his wife in tears and no husband!!  I thought I had bad news!  He had left the food and the kids’ car seats and told her to call her brother-in-law in the Bay Area to come and get her and the kids.  She didn’t want to do that, but did agree to move to our Unit #1 and rake pine needles for her lodging.  I took her to Walmart for a cheapo cell phone so she could call her sister and tell her the situation.  Took her to Interfaith for some food and shoes for the two kids who only had their sandals with them.  She was SOOO THANKFUL, several of the volunteers commented to me later that they rarely hear “Thank You.”  Her name was Ann and if that means “gracious” I would not be surprised!

A week later her husband came back after discovering that she hadn’t called for a ride to her sister’s, and he agreed to help with the pool cleanup and getting the lounges back out of storage for the summer season.  They were due to leave before Memorial Day.  He dropped dead from effects of his lymphoma - which he had fought for three YEARS - just three days before their scheduled departure.  She was in a safe place when he died, which I am sure was his intent!  They had taken a LONG hike to Relief Reservoir just a few days before, we were all thankful that he had not died miles into the forest with a wife and three small children, one just a baby!

The POOL Saga Continues

This last year – 2013 - the pool got all the cracks sealed, all the loose paint excised, and TWO coats of pool paint applied to the mended surfaces.  Water was added.  The next morning water in the shallow end was three inches deep rather than three FEET!!  We did diagnostic tests to see if the main drain was leaking as that had been a problem the previous year – six inches a day which was slowed down to two inches every two days with the pouring of “StopLeak” directly into the main drain and NOT USING that drain for the rest of the summer!!  We compared drawings of the main drain that Tom had discovered vs. the main drain that I remembered from previous years of washing out the paint chips and debris from the well below “the Virginia Graeme-Baker approved drain cover.”  (This was the first year that Tom was the pool startup person!) 

The well had a drain hole in the bottom, we agreed that it must have had a “stopper” of some kind in it that disappeared last year causing the massive leak problem.  Tom cemented a new stopper into THAT hole and we did some MORE diagnostic tests and decided that the drain line had to be the problem.  We even had a roto-rooter job done on the main drain to see if it was clogged with roots, indicating that it was crushed someplace!   Negative on the roots and the 2inch roto head went in and out just fine – no crack or crimp!  This SHOULD have caused us to realize that the main drain was NOT the problem, but it was decided to reline the drain line anyway, replaster the well with hydraulic cement and change all the right angles to 45 degree angles to get more flow through the 1 ½ hp pump – something that the County had been complaining about for several years!

Meanwhile, our neighbor was lamenting his humungeous water bill for this past May 2013.  Seems he was being charged for the equivalent of FIVE of our pools full of water.  He tried to claim it was a defective meter, the company checked it.  “Where are the gullies from that much water escaping?” he asked incredulously.  ‘Twas a puzzle!!

So once the reworking of the drain line was completed by my nearly 70 year old husband, me as go-fer and right-hand helper.  Son Tom even helped to excise the inflow metal fitting to disprove son Allan’s theory that it was a bathtub inside a box with space between that filled with water!  Great theory not supported by fact – the wall was solid but now has a new inflow line, which doesn’t leak either!  Water was added a second time!  The next morning only two inches was missing, but the morning after – FOUR FEET!!  If I had had access to a stick of dynamite the deep end would have been empty too!!  Of course that would have broken several windows in the vicinity…

The mystery was solved with the aid of a large bore drill and a boroscope from son Tom.  A VOID four inches deep under the shallow end and who knows how wide caused the weight of the water to suck the water into the gulley, down the hillside and into the overflow leach field behind Unit #3, where it was pumped into the Resort leach field, effectively flushing it back to the River from whence it came, prior to being put through the local water system, the fire hydrant, and possibly our neighbor’s meter?  It would be hard to prove, so trying to get his liability insurance to cover our pool instability problem would require a lawyer and create a lot of ill-will, especially since the pool had a leak problem LAST YEAR!

When we filled the pool again, we lost 4 feet of water overnight.  Thanks to a bottle of red dye Tom found a place, the size of my little fingernail, which accepted the dye.  He put his long handled screwdriver in the hole and it went in up to the handle!!   He chistled out 23 feet of cracks, patched them with pool cement (which doesn’t need painting so no 14 day wait to fill with water!)  We filled the pool with two garden hoses this time, hoping that the longer fill time would allow the weight of the water to dissipate slowly. The water stayed in this time!!  Halleluia!!

The quick fix of concrete pool cement in 23 feet of cracks that Tom ground out with his Mikita drill equipped with wire brush got us through the last week of “pool people” even with a two to three inch water loss per day.  The higher the water level, the greater the loss due I would imagine to the WEIGHT of the water combined with the weight of the water aerobics ladies bouncing in the shallow end?  The grandchildren enjoyed the weekly exercise of squirting red dye into potential cracks, if it went down Grandma supplied a “worm” of epoxy (good under water even!) and the grandkids eagerly dove down to push it into the hole or crack!!

When it took two hours to skim the debris off the surface one evening, I pulled the power and called the “pool season” over!!  The Rim Fire, the largest EVER in the State of California, caused ash to fall in our area, also smoke and cancelled reservations.  The Fire was followed by the Federal Government Shutdown. The media made it sound like the road to Yosemite and to Sonora was barricaded and no one was allowed to visit our county.  Yosemite WAS shut down; the highway over Sonora Pass was the alternate route for many so the businesses here at least got the “thru traffic” and money spent on lunches and postcards!

We are now in a similar “defective pool” situation since the pool cement and epoxy fixes barely held the water loss to three inches a day (more than twice what evaporation would have caused!)   We are now needing to repair the 125 feet of CRACKS and secure the weight of the water in the sixty-year-old pool without “breaking the bank.”  Tom and our son Tom cut several holes in the bottom to SEE what the situation is and avoid an engineering charge or at least make the information available to the engineer…

Winter decided to skip us this year and hit the East Coast with record cold and snow!  Dodge Ridge Ski Area was able to open just in time for the President’s Weekend but the phone has not been ringing as we had hoped with that news flash!!  “It’s the ECONOMY, stupid!”  The huge increase in required health insurance premiums has everyone panicked about spending any money until they see how things turn out / turn around with the elections this fall?  Meanwhile, back at the OK Corral – the chisel and the drill bits are biting into the thrice-mended concrete to discover just how extensive the damage is and how MUCH it will cost to repair the swimming pool used for three months in the summer.

With no SNOW this winter, the chances of having enough water to fill the pool, and keep it full through the three months are not good!  The other resort with a pool is in the same quandary – their pool is empty and will there be enough water to fill it?   I am sure that the guests will be aware of the DROUGHT from the radio and TV and the notices from their water companies, but the majority of our owners seem to think that our guests should be TOLD that there might not be a pool this summer to avoid hard feelings…and WE need to decide whether to repair or turn it into a putting green by filling it with dirt!! 

Serenity is hard to come by with the ramifications of our decision hanging over our heads…wisdom is needed, and some serious numbers for our consideration.  Our bids have been $10,000 to $20,000 from a contractor who had no idea what he was talking about and no references who would even return my calls to the well recommended pool company from the Valley who was going to rebuild the pool for $40,000.00 sight unseen also!!  Amazing how much the fine print could cost when the person doing this bid looked “over the fence” and didn’t even bother to call and make an appointment to check out the actual conditions!