I ask Jeep to give me a thumb drive of the pictures they took here on the property when they did their April unveiling of all the 2019 models. What I got was some photo shots of it looks like the Hell's Revenge trail but they're still cool pictures. Not as cool as the purple rocks here, but cool.
On Monday I sent guests out on a side by side and shortly after they had left a voice came on the walkie talkie and said "Hello, hello, help." The guests had run across a rental side by side broke down and they didn't have cell coverage as most don't so I drove out, got them in the truck and sent them down to the beach to wait for their ride from the rental company coming out to get them and tow the vehicle in. I think this is the 4th or 5th rescue in the last week.
I see a guy broke down at the sand hill in a big truck. He says he's out of oil. I give him eight quarts, he says he'll come by and pay me for them, he doesn't. Three days later I see him out driving around and he says he forgot but unfortunately he doesn't have his wallet on him but he will. He hasn't.
Then when you're starting to lost faith in the world I get this email from Eric.
Tom,
Thank you again for giving me directions to Chicken Corners, when I was on my rented ATV a couple days ago. I can only imagine how bothersome us tourists are to your little slice of heaven down there. But I wanted to take a moment and thank you again, it was greatly appreciated.
That said, I took a look around your website, and I’m going to try to figure out when to come back and stay at the lodge. It looks like an absolutely lovely place to stay, and I’m going to make an effort to plan a future visit and stay.
Take care, and again, my thanks.
Eric
But his point is right on the button. Four to eight times a day people pull up for directions, water, the bathroom, and curiosity. More on weekends. It's time consuming. Last week Linny and I went to town and went around to some of the larger side by side rentals companies to go over their maps that they give out and show them all the things that are wrong to hopefully cut down on the number of people that pull up. It can take a couple hours to clean a room with a constant procession of vehicles coming up the drive way for directions.
The day after going in and talking to side by side rentals agencies about what's wrong with the maps they give out and what are we going to do about people going off the roads and tearing everything up I see a vehicle at the bottom of the drive way just sitting there. After five minutes it drives over to the Last Hurrah gate and sit there for five minutes. I get in the Polaris and drive over to see what's going on. As I drive up I hear a guy say "I told you it was him. That's the guy we saw in the shop when we were checking out the side by side and he was saying he was tired of people driving up his drive way and asking for directions. I'm not asking him no matter what."
I say "Can I help you?" They both stare at me. "You want to know where you got lost and what went wrong?" He says "We don't want to bother you." I gave them directions to the Wind Caves and Chicken Corner and showed them what was wrong with their map. They were very appreciative.
I get back to the lodge and another side by side pulls up for directions. I ask who they rented it from and it's another one of the companies we went and visited and they haven't made any notations on their map and are still sending out bad ones. I give them directions and them them to tell the guy behind the counter it wasn't necessary for them to get lost if he would have given them the changes I made. He says he'll pass it on.
Three jeeps, three dirt bikes, then two more dirt bikes, all pull up and ask for directions. Then two side by sides pull up and stop at the pump house as at least one vehicle does every day. A lady jumps out and runs to the door. I yell "Please don't shit in my well. Use the bathroom in the lodge." They pull up and of course since I swore it turns out they are all part of a church group touring the back country. One after the other they file in and use the bathroom.
Tuesday morning it's check out time for the guests that tore up their vehicle and hiked six miles to get here. Linny and I, Jax, the couple, and their two large dogs all pile into the truck. In town Nations doesn't yet know what other damage there might have been besides the three flat tires. Lots of things are torn up but they don't see it perfecting performance, maybe just aerodynamics. We check with a rental agency, I drop them at a use car dealer, and then get a call from Nations saying they think if they had three more tires that they could make it home so we run over and buy three tires and head back to Nations. They fix them up and they're on their way.
Tuesday afternoon I get a text from the guests who's vehicles was mostly destroyed when they took a wrong turn getting here and had to walk six miles in the dark with two big dogs and no water.
"Thanks for all your help. We made it back in the car. We had a blast."
No comments:
Post a Comment