Police Step in, Squatters Kicked out & Other Campground Ownership Struggles

great news the rv odd squad owns thunder canyon we own it you guys but what is campground ownership really like we've got squatters the police are coming in to get rid of them we got repairs leaks etc are we in over our heads welcome back to the rv odd couple my name is john and i'm mercedes in a long story short we sold most of our possessions in pursuit of freedom independence and adventure his life is so short you guys in the past two months have been just an unbelievable whirlwind we just closed uh thunder canyon last week camp gratitude and we're super super excited but what's funny about this is the excitement right is kind of all the way back there and now we're digging into the reality of becoming campground owners and you know the things that we have to figure out we need to get the doors open we've got a lot of problems there's a lot of dilapidated stuff this place has been closed for 12 years we also had a few squatters come in on us this week and luckily the police have kind of been doing rounds here back and forth but in today's video we're just going to give you an overview of what we're doing kind of a behind the scenes sneak peek give you an update on where we are and where we're going the vision of thunder canyon now that we own it but first let's start with the good news right before we get into the squatter police drama so the most important news of all is that we now have officially 17 eggs from our chickens and never mind how many camp spaces we have right we are gonna be chicken tycoons so tyson chicken we're coming for you yeah the chickens have been i don't know i thought it was a good idea at the time but guys they went for about two weeks without giving us any eggs yeah but with the rv odd squads help and all the tips you gave us in the comments and the emails we've actually become pretty good at taking care of chickens and now we're getting two eggs a day from our chicken so they're pretty happy now yeah we're amazing no okay and then we also have some other good news before we get into the phases and the development that's upcoming we actually had a representative from the boy scouts of america drive here all the way from birmingham birmingham three hours away guys that meeting was awesome it was fantastic some really good institutions are kind of disintegrating before our eyes and the boy scouts was one of them not to say that we're excluding girl scouts or brownies let's just say scouts in general right but this campground actually had a house that was built or a structure i should say built by the boy scouts and so we're inviting them back to see what they want to do you know do they want to camp here want to earn some badges here whatever that ends up looking like the point is that we had the discussion going and they actually came here from so far away to visit us it meant a lot to us it did and one of the things you guys don't realize is when i talked about those boy scout principles way back four or five weeks ago in the first video but we were hoping to build before we even visited here i had no idea that the boy scouts had built something way back then so right now i am in the lower portion of the older portion of thunder canyon in this area there's 12 existing sites that have sewer water 30 amp um service we've added three sites for 50 amp we've already had rv squad members staying here with us but this portion of the campground is absolutely beautiful guys it's old-time camping right the sites are really spread out from each other it's not like these paid parking lots that you pulling at these corporations are building all over the united states now you can actually relax with your family have a little bit of privacy and some room around you i'm going to kind of take you for a tour and show you around this lower portion one of the things that we really struggled with in this portion of the campground is that their these sites they do work right they all work just fine but they only have 30 amp service and some of those 30 amp power supplies those lengths are a little long so it's not a very stable service right see definitely everybody who visits here has to have a surge protector we did add 50 amp circuits to three different sites down in this area you can see right up there there's two sites up there hey guys i'm gonna walk you around and show you our site this is pretty neat we've never stayed at a place like this check out my rock this is mama mommy and sadie welcome to my crib check this out check out how much space and privacy i got check out my baby chickens [Applause] my baby chickens and look at my chicken look at my chicken look at our chickens look at how private this is all the space the shade because it's really hot but the stars of the show i'm going to let him out babe okay check out the let's get get him get him skip get him no he loves the chicken skippy thinks he's a chicken i know he's good with the chickens but as you guys can see i mean this site is just absolutely gorgeous when we got here we couldn't even see the rock that is down below right there so we had to clear out all that brush just to clear that site there is another site right next to this site that has 30 amp service but still you don't see campsites today that have this much room they're all basically paid parking lots so just check out the size of this bike i mean we could easily get a really long fifth wheel in here a 40 footer and the truck and this site comes with its own private rocks too careful you guys can see those stairs need to be rebuilt but if you walk straight down over mercedes head right there that's where thunder canyon is it's all back out in there so all these paths speed right down to thunder canyon i don't know if you guys can hear that water in the background [Applause] check this out these are really really long sights yeah you can actually get a 50 footer in here we're pulling a 42 foot fifth wheel and not have to detach you can see there's another site right up above [Applause] super long yeah and what's really cool is they offset these two high sides yeah so one's there and their view is out here then you get site behind us which is offset from that higher site and they still have privacy the privacy is key you don't get privacy anymore in campgrounds the other thing i really like is the trees because it is hot in alabama even though we're in northern alabama it is so freaking hot check out this side over here this is more than enough room for your rv and hanging out picnicking you can set up a couple tents out there if you wanted to but just notice how the trees and the natural cover just separate this stuff out there's plenty of room so one of our biggest challenges is that there's a total of 12 sites down here in this area and they all had 30 amp service the problem is is those runs are so long guys that you can't rely on that power it's really not that stable so this was one of our biggest problems guys is that this is the only portion of the campground that's open right now we can it's open now we've got rv odd squad members coming in and visiting us right now which is nice because we have that certain amount of security right when there's more than one or two or three of us here problem is is that we actually we want to upgrade all of this to 50 amp so that all these sites down here total of 15 will have 50 amp the problem is if we do that we shut the campground down for a couple of months and we don't want to do that and so what we're doing is we've made a decision to actually put a brand new road in on the top of the hill which is up this way it's actually in the top of the hill up there we're going to put in a 1200 foot road and 24 new 50 amp sites up top while we're doing that we can still continue to camp camp here have our founders and our advisory members come and visit us right before it's open to the public right now the only people who welcome that are welcome to come here and visit us are our private members our founders and our advisory board members and they're already coming in we've got one coming in tomorrow we've got another one coming in in two days so you guys are welcome to stay but just know this campground is not ready to be open to the public so you have to you're gonna have to sign a waiver number one number two you you've got to have a surge protector um because the the power is a little bit unstable and right now we don't have any 50 amp sites available right now the three we already have three rv odd squad members who are staying with us helping us get this park open they've got the 50 amp sites however we have so much room for boondockers guys we have we have water we have two wells on site we've got city water we also have septic we have two septic systems so we have plenty of places to dump what we don't have is electricity for the sites and so if you boondock and you are self-sufficient with your own electricity even if it's a generator you guys are welcome to come out now we've got tons of places we can put you we're just not set up for full service on a large scale quite yet all right check this out this is another site i love how private it is you got plenty of time to just like plenty of space just camp yeah look at this whole site over here is part of this site see where they put the fire pit out there you know so this whole site all this area is for that site right there this is one of our favorite sites check out how long it is and how private it is [Applause] yeah they did a really good at cutting these sites in and again the paths down to thunder canyon and the boulders that are the size of houses are right down through there you can't really see it that great but you can see some of thunder canyon down through the woods there but there's a private path that runs right down the up they go skippy trying to go take a stroll in the pool yeah so as you guys can see right up there is the entrance to thunder canyon come down this road and this right here is where the split is the old campground is down in the woods way back there it sits on about oh eight nine acres down there and the hill portion which up top is on this side so what we're planning on doing is actually putting 24 sites up on the hill up in the field so originally we had wanted to completely remodel the existing sites upgrade it to 50 amp and then open up the park that's gonna take too long and any of you guys who are handy know very well that remodeling can sometimes be harder than building new because we're subject to whatever is already done there and we don't know what's been done there and so we're gonna find a lot more challenges as we go through so the best thing we can do is open up starting fresh new up here what that's gonna do is that's gonna give us a fresh clean slate meanwhile we can still use these sites and figure out what needs to be done and all the stuff behind the scenes yeah ultimately we're upgrading all the sites on the old portion to 50 amp eventually we'll have 15 15 50 amp sites full service sites down there right now they're all full service but it's only 30 amp and that 30 amp is old and it doesn't work very good yeah so what we're gonna do is keep that open rv odd squad members will still be uh welcome to come here those of you who are advisory board members or founders um some of you pre-purchased two weeks here we're opening this up to you before we open it to the public okay and then ultimately if you go back this way to where the entrance is right here we're going to be running a road right along this fence line about 1200 feet which goes way down into the campground back that way and we're going to be building uh 24 brand new full-service brand new full-service sites yeah um that are going to have 50 amp and that's going to do two things number one it's gonna help us keep the cost down on those sites we're not gonna be putting these piling them up right next to each other every 10 or 12 feet no monetized parking no even no monetized parking lots here but they will be about probably 30 foot by 60 foot site so about 1800 square feet each site um and we think it's going to be absolutely beautiful and we can actually keep the price down on those sites up on the hill as long as we can keep them full yeah we have so much land that we can have different sections for different purposes so we can have some sections more primitive than others some sections have 50 amperes some sections have 30 amps some sections give you larger spaces than others we have enough space here to do that yeah on the other back side of the creek there's 126 acres up there we actually plan on building side-by-side tracks about between eight and 12 miles of side-by-side tracks out in that area and then opening up completely primitive sites so that you know the the sliding campers the tenters they can go over there you know the only thing we're gonna need to add on that side is probably gonna be bathrooms and showers because we don't want people going out in the woods yeah so we're gonna split the roads you can see the fence line right well the entrance right there one road is going to be going to the right that's going to be the premium lower sights a brand new road is being built that's going to be coming out this side up here and then in the center of that right behind us will be the main office we'll also have two gates that keep people out and only people will be able to get in here with a security code or a card apparently part of campground ownership is repairs and lots of repairs and so we know that we're gonna have to make a few minor changes to the existing sites to really get them ready for our advisory board members and the rest of our founding members right some of the water mains and stuff are kind of in the way and we know rvs are big all that stuff needs to be relocated and so we had our first little accident i don't know if you guys are aware of this or not but not all rvers know exactly how to handle the size of their rig and we actually just had an rv odd squad member take out one of our water mains now this guy's been with us for six weeks here someone kind of ran over the water main and broke it and so we had to turn off water in the park and and john and bill had to jump on fixing it it was kind of cool though to see everyone working together so we are moving little things you know like we don't like it when the sewer is too close to the water main right and so it's gonna take not that much money but a little bit of time to move each one so that it's just in a better place one of the other things you guys don't know is we always have three to five people here with us just for security purposes so we're never alone at this park the other piece of good news that i forgot to give before we get into the whole squatter situation we are officially on the docket for next month's city council meeting yeah we went to our first city council meeting in eider and i'll tell you what we were really nervous going and we're sitting between in front of the board yeah he's a yankee so he's like afraid there's a train stop calling me a yankee okay but anyways we went in we sat down we were all a little bit nervous and they opened the town council meeting with a prayer followed by the pledge of allegiance and we all relax yeah it was good i mean we didn't even realize that happened in america anymore so it was really cool they were very receptive to us yeah and they gave us some great tips about what they'd like to see us do with the campground and they want to see this successful they want us here which was amazing but now on to the squatter on to people that we don't want here this is tricky but we have to have firm boundaries so the other day john is up on the hilltop exploring where we're gonna put the sights and he's just kind of thinking we're in the truck and we noticed this lady walking around the campground that we don't know and she just looks really out of place this is not an area where there's a lot of pedestrians we're in the middle of the country right and so she starts waving like trying to get john's attention and immediately you know that gut feeling when you're like okay this isn't good this is a problem i just had this bad gut feeling about this and so she calls you over you go over and the whole time they're talking i can't hear what's going on and i'm going crazy because i like know that this isn't right turns out she's talking to john and she's like well i need a place to stay for the night guys this is the deal i've got a good heart and i felt really bad for this woman she's crying she's telling me that her mom was really sick she was in the hospital and she needed a place to stay for one night i said absolutely not as much as i wanted to help i couldn't help her i explained to her why we couldn't help her the place is closed those cabins are probably going to be ripped down and rebuild she left the premises um and we went down we ran some errands so we came back and the chief of police was down here he says did you guys see that woman that was down here earlier today and we said yeah we asked her to leave and he told us he told us do not allow anybody to stay in our campground because as soon as we invite them into one of the cabins it's going to take us a minimum of 30 days to throw them out yeah this is something that is normal around here i had no idea why she knew my name in the chief of police said everybody knows your name john everybody's watching youtube and watching what you guys are doing down here but had we let her stay here it would have taken us at least 30 days at least 300 to get all the paperwork and here's what really stinks is that she knew that so she knew what she was doing strategically asking us for just one night because she knew that if we had invited her as soon as we invite her for one night she had a place for the next month before we get a court order to get her out and what it cost us 300 bucks just a heads up guys and we've said this in multiple videos now thunder canyon is closed to the public the only people that we're welcoming in right now are our paid rb odd squad members advisory board members who pre-purchased two weeks here right supporting us on the vision of thunder canyon and our founders those are the only people that have access and now those same people have access to us directly through texting and our phone number so those people know that they need to reach out to us and make an appointment or a schedule way ahead of time at this point the police chief is going to help us enforce this he's come by here multiple times a day right now and will not be allowing anyone else on the premises period so please we will eventually open this this is one of the most beautiful campgrounds we've ever seen guys we've been doing this for two and a half years we've seen campgrounds all over the country yeah thunder canyon camp gratitude is one of the most beautiful campgrounds we've ever stayed in it's roomy it's beautiful the canyon the creeks the waterfalls it's just right it's just right we really believe that god's hand was in this entire thing but we do have to draw the line at this point we're working so hard we are working around the clock we've never worked so hard in our entire lives to get this thing we're both excited but we're also exhausted so please just give us the room and have the patience to wait this is an rv odd squad park we're doing everything in our power to keep it that way we want to open a park that has deep rooted principles those are all the things that we're working on we want rv odd squad members to help other members right and we want to have one of the best campgrounds that there has ever been in the country but you've got to give us room and give us time to get it open we'll see you in the next video

Channel: RV Odd Couple

Views: 146,559

Rating: 4.9090281 out of 5

Keywords: rv life, rv living, rv lifestyle, rv life full time, rv life vlog, rv land for sale, rv homebase, do Rvers need a homebase, real estate, rv living on land, rv park, buying an rv park, rv park ownership, rv America, full time rv living, full time rving, rv membership, full time rv, rv tips, discount camping, RVing, squatters, squatters getting kicked out, rv lifestyle full time, rv living for beginners, rv living full time

Id: 5IyExEnpCY4

Length: 20min 46sec (1246 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 15 2021