Decisions

Guests were checking out the following morning and just before they are ready to leave they say their nervous about the road and will I escort them? Coming down the other side of Hurrah we hit a bump towards the bottom and my canteen comes off the front seat and lodges somehow under the gas pedal and suddenly I'm flying down Hurrah full speed. I didn't understand what happen. I made the first corner barely running far up the side but I wasn't going to make the second one. I looked under the panel and could see the canteen under the pedal, how did that make me go fast? I kicked at it and it came out and I was able to get it slowed down before the next corner. When we got to the bottom of Hurrah I had the guests following me pull up next to me. They said "I know you said to keep up with you so we can put our tires where yours were but what happen there?" I told them my canteen somehow lodged in the gas pedal and I went 50 miles an hour for a couple hundred feet. Certainly wasn't on purpose.

In Moab it's not nearly as busy as it was this time the last two years and most people are saying that. I'm down about $7,000 as of the end of August which is still pretty close. There are decision I've made that I have to look back at and see how it turned out.

I put in a second disc golf course a few years ago. Relatively in-expenside. Maybe $7,000. It allowed us to take more players for the tournament each year and a surprise I didn't expect was a lot of people use to come out and play the course, then leave. I'm getting more people renting a room for two nights instead of just driving off and playing both courses instead. That worked out.

The bunk bed room that had two bunk beds in it I converted into a room for folks that work here so lost that revenue but that's usually where all the kids stayed and now it's much quieter as those with kids generally stay on the north side of the property in the houses or female hogan.

I took the room that had two single beds in it and changed it to a king. It went from being the least rented room to the second most rented room. More requests for a king versus a room with two singles.

Never had a profitable year with the side by sides and as they get older the repairs come to more. I never tried very hard to rent them as I always lost money. I went from $135 to $195 which is a big increase. The mindset being I can't keep losing money on them and since I lose every time I rent one if guests don't rent them because $195 is too much I just won't lose money on them. $700 per day in town.

VRBO had an option you could pay in two installments the 2nd one being the day you got here. Most people just assumed VRBO was going to take it out but you have to do it so a decent chunk of VRBO people would say they paid and I'd have to show them where they hadn't yet. It created a little bit of an embarrasing situation for both of us that wasn't necessary so I eliminated that option a few months ago.

In the beginning I would allow cancellation with no penalty right up to the day of arrival. Then it was too late to re-rent it and since a large portion of the year I'm always full I'd lose that revenue. A few people told me they didn't really want to stay out here but booked it just in case and now they found something closer to town so no penalty for them to cancel but big loss for me. One guy even bragged about cancelling saying it was my fault for allowing the option. It appeared to be more prevelent than I realized. It wasn't just the revenue there were a lot of people that wanted to stay here but I was full so when I would email them to say the room opened up they had already booked a room in town that did have penalties for late cancellation so they couldn't move. If somebody gives it an effort and has trouble with Hurrah or there's some sort of emergency I'll still cancel and refund it but not for the ones that were abusing my being nice.

I quit doing weddings with lots of people, Just too much work. I made an exception for next week for Leah who stayed here several times and told me each time it was her dream. I'm thinking about doing them again but for much more.Then if they want to pay extra so it's worth it work wise, maybe.