What does a camphost do?

That's one of the questions I got this weekend from one of the campers. So I thought I'd let you readers know how a holiday weekend goes. Probably the two most important things that I do is meet and greet the campers, and keep the bathrooms supplied with enough toilet paper. ;)

There are five pit toilets scattered throughout the park, one semi-modern bathroom, and one bathroom with flush toilets and showers. I don't have to clean them, that's done by the staff, but I do need to make sure there are enough supplies available throughout the day and night. I generally tour all of them about three times a day on a busy weekend.

I also post the reservation signs at individual sites and answer all sorts of questions from the campers. This was a pretty quiet holiday weekend. On Saturday, I drove around the loops to remind campers of the astronomy program being offered.

Sunday night, about 7:00, a camper came to inform me that the lights had gone out in the main bathroom building. I appreciate it when they let me know about problems. After investigating the problem, I called the park manager, Joel, and between the two of us, we were unable to get the lights to work. He called an electrician, but being a holiday weekend, he was unable to come out. So, that meant I drove around to every site to tell them to bring a flashlight if they were going to use the bathroom last night. By visiting each site, I avoided having multiple campers knocking on my door all night, and I believe I prevented folks from becoming upset over the situation.

Today, the electrician showed up in the early morning, and the lights are now working. Then it was the mass exodus, and almost all campers had left by noon. Once everyone was gone, I hopped in the cart and visited each site to pick up garbage and toss any extra fire wood in the back of the vehicle. I must say that this only took me about an hour. What a difference from when I hosted in South Dakota. Minnesota folks are extremely neat. They not only put all of their trash in the dumpsters, but they also put all their plastic, glass, and aluminum in the recycle bins! When I hosted at Richmond Lake Recreation Area in South Dakota, it took me a half day to just pick up the trash left behind by campers, and the number of sites was half what it is here.

There were no real emergencies this weekend, and things went quite smoothly. Over the years, I've had some real hair raising situations, and some really comical happenings at this park, but thankfully, not this weekend. So....that's some of what I do as a campground host.

This evening, I took Emma to a boarding kennel for the night. I've got a couple of medical appointments tomorrow, at the Mayo Clinic, as well as other errands I have to run. She would have been stuck inside the rig for too many hours, so she's having a little holiday (and so am I).

Thanks for stopping by....talk to you later, Judy