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[0:44] And today we're welcoming slash preparing

[0:46] to learn from Rachel of Lake Road Campground.

[0:49] So Rachel, how's it going today? Hi.

[0:52] - It's going great. - I'm excited.

[0:53] 'cause today in WISCONSIN we have beautiful weather,

[0:56] perfect time of year

[0:57] to talk about campgrounds in WISCONSIN. Yes, a

[1:00] - Little stormy, but between the storms little,

[1:02] - It's a little stormy. It's the best

[1:03] - Time to go. Yes.

[1:04] - So tell us the story. Yeah. What is Lake Road Campground?

[1:08] - So Lake Road Campground is a 23 unit RV park

[1:13] and it's located Intello, WISCONSIN,

[1:14] which is about 20 minutes north

[1:15] of LA Cross on the Mississippi River.

[1:19] All right. So you can see the Mississippi from our

[1:20] campground and we have two cottages that we rent out as well

[1:25] and a little bathhouse.

[1:26] And then you can bring your RV or we have a tent site

[1:29] and come and enjoy beautiful tremolo,

[1:32] the beautiful Mississippi River, lots of lakes, lots

[1:34] of fishing, and nice fun. Yeah,

[1:35] - It's beautiful.

[1:36] And how long have you had it?

[1:37] - We are going into our third season. Nice.

[1:40] - Alright. And tell me,

[1:42] did you start this from scratch or you bought

[1:43] - It?

[1:44] No, we bought it. Okay. We bought it. Yep.

[1:45] So a family owned it before us

[1:47] and really poured a lot of their hearts into it

[1:50] and made it really beautiful.

[1:52] And so they fell in love with campgrounds,

[1:56] realized it's what they wanted to do.

[1:57] So they purchased a much, much bigger campground

[2:00] in a different part of, of the state.

[2:02] And so they were looking for a family who would take it over

[2:04] and love it as much as they did.

[2:06] So we were very lucky to find them.

[2:08] - So were you looking for a campground to buy?

[2:11] - So it all began in Minnesota. Okay.

[2:15] Okay. So follow me back

[2:17] - To, so on the other side of the river. Yeah.

[2:18] - The other side of the river, 20 minutes

[2:19] north of the river.

[2:20] My family planned a, my family's from the Twin Cities

[2:23] and we're from the Madison area.

[2:25] So we planned to meet Midway and do a camping trip.

[2:28] And so we decided on Winona and

[2:30] because we just love that area,

[2:31] it's just beautiful along the Mississippi River Bluffs.

[2:35] So we camped at a beautiful campground in

[2:37] Winona, right on the river.

[2:38] And I just like, that was it for me.

[2:40] I was like, this is what I wanna do for the rest of my life.

[2:43] I just wanna buy a campground right here on the river.

[2:47] So then a year

[2:48] or two later, I just randomly out

[2:52] of the blue was Googling, you know,

[2:53] our campground's for even for sale.

[2:55] Like, how do I even find out?

[2:56] And there was this little campground

[2:58] for sale on the Mississippi River, 20 minutes south of

[3:02] where I fell in love with the idea.

[3:04] And I was like, no, like this can't be,

[3:07] this can't be real, huh.

[3:08] And I told my husband about it

[3:09] and I was like, like, it's crazy.

[3:12] Right? Like, it's crazy.

[3:14] And so we reached out to them and we scheduled a meeting

[3:18] and I just told my husband like, we'll just go,

[3:23] - We're just gonna look at this

[3:24] puppy. We're just gonna look

[3:25] - At it on the way north.

[3:28] I think it was for Thanksgiving.

[3:29] So we were going home anyway,

[3:30] so it's just a little out of the way.

[3:32] And we go and we look

[3:33] and oh my God, I just, I just fell in love

[3:36] with it and it's just beautiful.

[3:38] And so long story short, that was how we stumbled upon it

[3:41] and we just kind of kept pursuing it.

[3:43] And it was, it just kept like in the back of my mind,

[3:46] wouldn't wouldn't leave me alone.

[3:48] And there we go. We ended up doing it.

[3:51] - I love the entrepreneurial mind where you're not like,

[3:53] Hey, we should visit here more.

[3:55] No. You're like, no, we should buy the campground.

[3:58] - Yes. I always tell people I wanted to camp more,

[4:00] but I couldn't afford like an RV and a truck to pull the rv.

[4:04] So instead I bought a campground.

[4:06] - That's funny how it's cheaper or maybe it's not. I

[4:08] - Mean, can I make money?

[4:09] You know, it pays for itself as long as it's cash flowing

[4:11] - Revenue, cash flow.

[4:13] I love that. Yeah. So tell me a story about the,

[4:16] the sites I'm picturing campgrounds that have like,

[4:19] the campers have wheels,

[4:21] but they also have decks

[4:22] and stuff like that. Yeah. So is it permanent?

[4:23] - Sure. So good question. So since we're right on the river,

[4:27] as a general rule, I only buy properties in floodplains.

[4:30] - Oh, they're cheaper that way. My

[4:33] - House is in a floodplain in black earth

[4:34] and my property in on Mississippi's.

[4:37] So since we're in a floodplain,

[4:38] we can't have any permanent structure.

[4:39] All right. So the cottages

[4:41] and the bathhouse are grandfathered in,

[4:43] but if we were to build, everything has to be removable.

[4:46] And in our first season owning the campground, sure enough,

[4:49] as you may remember, we had a lot

[4:50] of flooding up in Minnesota

[4:52] and that water comes down the Mississippi,

[4:54] down the lock and dam system.

[4:56] And so we did flood and we had to do a small evacuation

[4:59] - Or a small evacuation.

[5:01] - Just had to pull everybody out

[5:02] for a couple of weeks and then bring 'em back.

[5:03] So, all right. But yeah, so the, it's 23 sites

[5:07] and so they're all movable.

[5:09] We do have some that have little stairs that you can use,

[5:12] but nothing can be really permanent.

[5:13] Okay. Everything has to be kind of be able to move.

[5:16] But it's a small, you know, I, I knew,

[5:19] 'cause I have a career and I,

[5:20] we have a family here, we're two hours away.

[5:21] So it had to be something small

[5:23] and manageable that we could handle

[5:25] and not feel overwhelmed.

[5:27] And so it's very small.

[5:28] It's like a acre and a quarter or something like that.

[5:31] And, and everything is operated remotely.

[5:35] People come and they check themselves in, they book online,

[5:37] check themselves in through some photos that they send us

[5:40] and we give 'em the code

[5:41] for the bathhouse and things like that.

[5:43] Our cottages, we use Airbnb and VRBO

[5:46] and book on our website.

[5:47] And then we just travel up

[5:49] whenever we need to turn over those cottages.

[5:50] So we clean 'em out and get 'em ready.

[5:52] So it was low enough maintenance

[5:54] and small enough manageable that

[5:56] it has really turned into like, we go up every weekend

[5:59] with our family, we do a little bit of cleaning

[6:01] and maintenance and then we get to go kayaking

[6:03] and we get to go canoeing and we get to do fun things.

[6:06] - A fun business. Yeah. - Who knew? Yeah.

[6:09] - So the people I mentioned, you have regulars that were

[6:12] with the previous owners.

[6:13] Yep. Was there any transition? Yeah.

[6:16] Or people that just like, ah,

[6:18] I don't like Rachel or something like that. I don't know.

[6:20] - I haven't had that yet. But we, you know,

[6:22] whenever there's a transition there is always,

[6:25] they're feeling you out.

[6:26] They don't know what your style's gonna be. Sure.

[6:28] Or maybe, you know, maybe they weren't a fan of whoever was

[6:30] before you and so they're gonna give you a chance.

[6:32] You know, there's always that.

[6:34] But we do have a large part of our sites are seasonals

[6:39] and so they do purchase and stay the entire season.

[6:41] So that also helps with stability. Wow. Okay.

[6:43] And gave me a lot more confidence kind

[6:45] of going into it again, cash flow wise.

[6:48] And then we only have a handful of sites

[6:49] that are turned over kind of nightly.

[6:51] Okay. And so that gives me a lot of stability,

[6:53] but making sure we have those sites filled is important.

[6:57] And people love it though.

[6:59] 'cause we have folks who live there.

[7:01] We had a family stay with us who were building their home.

[7:03] And so they had, they sold their other house

[7:05] and they were still building their new home.

[7:06] So they stayed with us all summer with their kids.

[7:08] - So they had a camper and

[7:09] they just essentially lived there.

[7:10] Yep. Yep. Oh, how clever is that? Yep.

[7:12] - And then we have somebody else living there.

[7:14] We get a lot of workers. So we have people laying fiber

[7:17] and it's cheaper to have a camper

[7:19] and take it with you to your jobs

[7:20] instead of paying for hotels.

[7:22] So we usually, every season we get a few of those. Wow.

[7:25] So we've been able to accumulate kind

[7:27] of like our steady income study folks who kind

[7:31] of come down on the weekends and just camp and enjoy.

[7:33] Then we have some workers and a couple people living there.

[7:35] And then everybody else are the sort of overnighters

[7:38] that come on the weekends. All right.

[7:40] - Tell me a story about logistics. Yeah.

[7:42] With the, the power, the water in the not so nice water out.

[7:47] Yeah. So does each campsite have drainage

[7:51] or Yeah. However that is.

[7:52] - Yeah, it's a good question. So again,

[7:54] 'cause we're right on the river, we do

[7:55] not have a dump station.

[7:57] - Oh, you do not. Okay.

[7:58] - We do not. Nope. So I don't have to mess with any

[8:00] of the gray water or Blackwater stuff.

[8:02] We have a service that comes around as many times

[8:05] as we need, but they come weekly.

[8:07] We're on their weekly route.

[8:08] And if you need a pump out for your gray water tank

[8:11] or black water tank, they come prob usually while you're

[8:13] gone and they take care of it for you.

[8:15] And by the time you come the next weekend,

[8:16] your camper is nice and empty.

[8:18] - So they're going site to site. Okay.

[8:20] It's not some big tank or anything. Okay. Interesting.

[8:23] And how big of a deal is that?

[8:25] Are they a attaching a hose to a camper

[8:27] truck? I don't aer it's

[8:28] - A truck.

[8:29] It's a truck. Yep. And so your camper, on the exterior

[8:30] of your camper, there are your blackwater outlet

[8:33] and your graywater outlet and then your freshwater outlet.

[8:36] And so they come in

[8:38] and they just hook up to your blackwater, your gray water.

[8:40] Some people have the delightfully named honey wagon,

[8:42] which is like an overflow for your, one of those two.

[8:46] And so they'll clean that out for you.

[8:47] So it's lovely. Lovely. Alright.

[8:50] - So when you are living there, is there no such thing

[8:53] as a 20 minute shower or anything?

[8:55] Anything like that? Because

[8:57] - Sure.

[8:58] So we have a bathhouse

[8:59] and the bathhouse has a water heater.

[9:02] We have well water, so unlimited amount of water,

[9:06] whatever much water you wanna use.

[9:07] And we have a big water heater.

[9:09] So generally we don't run out of hot water in the bathhouse.

[9:11] We also have laundry. So we offer free laundry door seasons.

[9:14] - Oh, I didn't even think about laundry. Yep,

[9:16] - Yep.

[9:17] So if you're living there, that was a really great addition

[9:18] that we added because yeah, you, you

[9:21] otherwise you're running to the

[9:22] laundromat all the time and you need quarters.

[9:23] So if you're living there, if you have a

[9:25] seasonal site, it's included.

[9:26] And so they just have to bring their own soap basically.

[9:28] And so, so all of that is like at home, it's bathrooms

[9:32] that look like a home bathroom.

[9:34] But yes, if you're using your shower

[9:36] or your toilet in your camper, you just monitor.

[9:39] And if you know, you'll have to coordinate a pump out.

[9:42] Maybe I'm gonna use the bathrooms, you know,

[9:44] down the way a little bit instead

[9:45] of using my camper one. Gotcha.

[9:47] - Yeah. So you just, - Interesting.

[9:48] You just make those choices yourself.

[9:49] - All right. Yeah. And do they have water,

[9:51] a spigot or so like that at each site?

[9:53] - Every site has a, has a fresh, fresh water spigot. Yep.

[9:55] Gotcha. Yep. And electric.

[9:57] - Okay. - Yeah.

[9:58] - Tell me, this is one of those things

[9:59] that I've always been curious about since we're in the day

[10:02] and age when people are mining

[10:03] bitcoin, doing stuff like that.

[10:04] And Yes. At a campsite, yes. There's power. Yeah. Right?

[10:08] Yes. So do you ever have anybody come in

[10:11] and just like, Hey, I got this camper full of servers.

[10:14] - I like that business idea. No.

[10:16] So they pay for their own electric?

[10:18] - They do. They do. It's site by

[10:19] - Site.

[10:20] Each site is metered electricity. Wow. Yeah.

[10:21] So if you pay for an overnight site, you're paying more

[10:25] in a nightly sense than you would if you pay

[10:27] for the entire season.

[10:28] Then that brings the price down nightly. Okay.

[10:30] So those folks pay metered electricity.

[10:33] So they have unlimited water since it's just well water.

[10:35] But the electricity is metered

[10:37] and they pay for that based on the wat,

[10:38] just the service price.

[10:40] All right. And then, but the overnighters

[10:41] of course don't, we don't meter them.

[10:42] They just come in and enjoy.

[10:44] - Gotcha. Tell me a story about the

[10:46] fun, the stuff that they do.

[10:48] Do you have park

[10:49] or, yeah, I don't, is there some kind

[10:51] of boat launch or something like that to the

[10:52] - River?

[10:53] Yeah, good question. So we are located

[10:55] right along the river, but our property does not

[10:57] have water access.

[10:58] Okay. So I don't have to deal with any, you know,

[11:01] boat intake or decks or, or anything like that.

[11:06] So when you're there, we have a little dog run area,

[11:10] so it's a fenced in an area.

[11:12] The idea is where you can like let your dog out

[11:14] and let them run around while you're like getting

[11:15] set up at your campsite.

[11:17] And then right next to that is a swing set and a slide.

[11:19] So there's a little bit for the kids to do,

[11:22] but we don't have, other than that,

[11:24] we don't really have a ton to do onsite.

[11:26] We really are sort of a nice, quiet, peaceful,

[11:29] just like base camp for you to then go out

[11:32] and go biking along the great river trail

[11:34] or you know, go to the wineries that are nearby

[11:37] or go do some fishing and things like that.

[11:38] The public boat launch is just around the corner.

[11:42] You can basically see it from the campground.

[11:45] So very easy access to the river

[11:47] and to the lakes that are just down the road as well.

[11:50] - Nice. So when you went to look at this place to buy it,

[11:54] what were you looking for?

[11:56] Mm. Like I think of something, I wanna buy a motorcycle.

[11:58] Look at the motorcycle. Is it leaking? Is it run nice?

[12:00] What does it sound like? Yeah, yeah.

[12:02] What kind of maintenance does it have with a campground?

[12:04] Yeah. What are you looking at?

[12:05] I, I don't know what you're looking for. Yeah,

[12:07] - So it is a kind of a two part purchase

[12:10] 'cause you're purchasing real estate and

[12:12] so it's a real estate purchase

[12:13] and you're purchasing the business fair.

[12:15] So there's both pieces.

[12:17] So we definitely went through a lot of due diligence,

[12:21] reviewed financials, looked at the business side of things,

[12:24] and then did a full on appraisal for the property.

[12:27] They looked for if there had ever been hazardous issues.

[12:30] Right. Anything, when you're doing a real estate

[12:32] transaction, you have a lawyer go

[12:35] through your purchase agreement

[12:35] and make sure everything looks good.

[12:37] So definitely lots of, lots of that from a strictly sort

[12:41] of like nuts and bolts perspective.

[12:42] My husband and I, we, you know, said living two hours away,

[12:47] it has to be low maintenance.

[12:49] It has to be, you know,

[12:52] it's not hard to turn over.

[12:54] So a campsite can have two or three people go through it

[12:58] before we need to go and dump the ashes out of the fire.

[13:00] Right. Like, that's kind of the extent of cleanup.

[13:03] Maybe if there's trash around, of course we would go pick

[13:05] that up or sticks that have fallen in the wind or something.

[13:08] But generally speaking, camp sites

[13:10] are pretty easy to turn over.

[13:12] So we knew if we were busy at work,

[13:14] we have our kid, we've got two kids.

[13:15] Right. We couldn't get up there. That would be okay. Okay.

[13:18] And then the cottages, those do need to, you need to go in

[13:22] and kind of manually turn them over,

[13:24] but there's only two of them.

[13:26] So that was important for us.

[13:28] If we had more than that, that would be too much.

[13:30] We, it's more than we wanted to do.

[13:32] So we knew that it would be manageable.

[13:35] And the previous owners were the ones

[13:37] who really established the

[13:38] self-check and self-checkout process.

[13:41] All of the online reservations and everything.

[13:45] And when we talked to her, she said, you know, you can,

[13:47] you can operate this whole thing remotely.

[13:49] Nobody has to be here. Huh.

[13:50] So we have cameras, you know, we're, we're monitoring

[13:52] and we have the cameras on our phones and things

[13:54] and we can always see what's happening.

[13:56] And everything's very secure.

[13:57] But it's, and it's in a residential area,

[13:59] which is also really nice.

[14:01] It's quiet, it's peaceful.

[14:03] You know, families live up the road.

[14:04] There's a restaurant right there, it's very close

[14:07] to the boat launch and the lock and dam.

[14:09] And it's very, it's, you just walk right into town

[14:11] and you can go eat at the

[14:12] restaurants and there's supper clubs.

[14:14] So it's just sort of the perfect, it's not

[14:16] so remote that you feel at risk.

[14:18] It's still very much part of the community.

[14:20] It's in the village of Tremolo, it's

[14:22] - Oh, nice.

[14:23] Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So if someone's like, Hey,

[14:25] we need some marshmallows, it's not like, oh,

[14:27] that's three hours away.

[14:28] - No, not at all. You'd walk right up the road.

[14:30] We've got a Dollar General just up the road.

[14:33] - Of course. Right. - I mean, lacrosse is 20 minutes away.

[14:35] So we, we run to Menards all the time and get Sure.

[14:38] Get stuff, you know, so it's, it's lovely having

[14:42] you feel remote and it feels you're in the woods.

[14:45] 'cause there's lots of mature

[14:46] trees and the rivers right there.

[14:47] And you can hear the barges

[14:48] and the trains go by like, it's very beautiful and serene.

[14:52] But anything you need is within

[14:53] walking distance or a short drive.

[14:55] - Gotcha. Tell me a story about the appraisal,

[14:58] because appraiser is typically gonna look at

[15:01] for real estate anyways, they're gonna look at comparables.

[15:04] Don't know how many campsite change hands

[15:06] that often in the lacrosse area. Sure,

[15:08] - Sure.

[15:09] So it is an interesting industry,

[15:11] but there is, once you get into the camping industry in

[15:14] WISCONSIN, and probably across the nation,

[15:16] but especially in WISCONSIN, it is its own in like it's

[15:19] self-contained industry.

[15:20] So there are your bank people, your real estate people.

[15:23] Right. Your legal people.

[15:25] There are the people who know the industry.

[15:28] - Oh, okay. - Yes. Yeah.

[15:29] So once you get hooked up with them, you,

[15:31] you join what's called Waco,

[15:32] which is the WISCONSIN Association of Campground Owners.

[15:35] It's our statewide what? It's our

[15:36] statewide trade association.

[15:37] And they're phenomenal. There's

[15:39] - A trade association for everything. Yeah. My goodness.

[15:41] - Yeah. And they, it's a very well run Okay. Organization.

[15:45] Well that's great. They do wonderful work.

[15:47] And so if you go to their convention every year

[15:51] you meet all of these people, you meet the bank people

[15:53] and you meet the real estate people.

[15:55] And all of those people were the ones

[15:56] who helped us along in our transactions. All

[15:58] - Right.

[15:59] Yeah. Did you know of Waco previous to buying? No, no, no.

[16:03] - The broker who was helping them sell Yeah.

[16:06] Is the broker who does most a lot of these transactions.

[16:09] Oh funny. And so he connected us

[16:11] to the organization and introduced us.

[16:13] - Alright. Yeah. I'm gonna ask you this.

[16:14] I don't know if you know the answer or not. Okay. Okay.

[16:16] How often is there turnover of ownership of a campground?

[16:21] - I don't know this, but my sense is lots

[16:24] of campgrounds are family run, kinda like ours.

[16:27] And so when I went to the Waco Convention last year, I went

[16:32] to a young professionals group that they have

[16:34] and I think I was the only person in the room

[16:36] who didn't inherit it from their family

[16:38] or like grew up on the campground.

[16:39] Wow. 'cause their parents owned it. Okay.

[16:41] And then this is their next generation,

[16:42] they're learning how to kind of take over.

[16:44] So a lot of the conversation was like,

[16:46] how do I get dad outta the office so I can like do the work?

[16:49] So it was really interesting. But yeah, just, I mean

[16:51] that's a very small sample size,

[16:52] but my sense was a lot

[16:54] of campgrounds in WISCONSIN are family owned run.

[16:57] - Yeah. That's, I wonder, I guess in my head,

[16:59] the campgrounds that I've been to, it always seemed like

[17:01] it's a family thing or there's some 90-year-old woman

[17:03] behind the counter that you assume was born there.

[17:06] - Been there. That's right. Probably. Yeah.

[17:08] - And so I'm just trying to think, like, if I'm a broker

[17:10] for this industry, I gotta make

[17:11] that one sale every three decades.

[17:12] Right. And if I don't make that sale,

[17:14] - Well the other thing I will say is there's a lot, though,

[17:16] a lot more than you realize,

[17:17] again, until you're kind of in the

[17:19] - Industry. Alright.

[17:20] - So my family for this summer,

[17:22] we're planning a big trip out to MONTANA

[17:24] and I'm now, I know to like look

[17:26] for the private campgrounds.

[17:28] Oh. 'cause that had never crossed my mind.

[17:30] 'cause you can't get into the national PARK CIR. Right.

[17:32] Like they're, they're full. Right. It's already too late.

[17:34] I've waited too long. Yeah.

[17:35] - You didn't reserve it five years

[17:36] ahead or something. Yeah, exactly.

[17:37] - Yeah. So I'm like, well, I'll just look

[17:39] for the private campgrounds.

[17:41] And there are so many, I mean,

[17:43] there's just so many private campgrounds.

[17:44] All right. Everywhere. Yeah.

[17:46] - How do you determine if it's a good private

[17:49] campground or not?

[17:50] - Well, it's very similar to hospitality.

[17:52] So when you're booking a hotel, you probably check reviews.

[17:54] You're probably seeing how many stars they have, right.

[17:58] On TripAdvisor or any of those booking sites.

[18:02] And just like you use probably Airbnb

[18:04] and vrbo, there are campground

[18:06] specific apps that you can use.

[18:08] And so they all have a rating system. You can leave reviews.

[18:11] So it's, it's very similar to booking your hotel.

[18:13] You're looking for something that people say is like, clean,

[18:15] well kept safe.

[18:17] Are you looking for something

[18:18] that has a lot of kid activities?

[18:20] Right. You can go find that.

[18:21] If you're looking for something like ours that's quieter

[18:23] and doesn't attract lots of children, there's those,

[18:25] you know, so you can really kind of start to navigate

[18:28] and think about like, what's the type of campground I like?

[18:31] And then that's how you can kind of whittle it down

[18:33] and then kind of go by reviews and see

[18:35] - Review.

[18:36] I wanna talk about pricing. Yeah.

[18:37] Because people are essentially renting a very small spot

[18:41] of land for a relatively shorter amount of time.

[18:43] Yeah. How do you figure out what to charge?

[18:46] - Well that was, you know, purchasing the business.

[18:49] We had sort of the established rates.

[18:51] So that was kind of, we didn't start from scratch,

[18:54] but you do kind of a market analysis.

[18:57] We have some of the lowest rates in the area strictly

[19:00] because we don't have a lot of bells and whistles.

[19:02] You come and you're getting access to a beautiful area,

[19:06] but you're not getting the bouncy houses

[19:08] and the, the, the pools with the big things.

[19:10] Sure. Okay. And all that kind of stuff. So yeah.

[19:13] So we, we keep ours moderately priced and affordable

[19:17] and we just try to kind of increase it with inflation

[19:19] to kind of adjust for increases in expenses

[19:22] for us. But Right

[19:24] - On.

[19:25] Yeah. Tell me a story about taxes

[19:27] because there's, is it riverfront? It must be if you flood,

[19:30] - I, I, our property does not touch the river.

[19:33] Okay. So I don't have any riverfront.

[19:35] - So you don't have to pay the tax

[19:36] for being along the water.

[19:37] Okay. You, you just have to pay the,

[19:39] we're flooding. Right. I

[19:40] - Do have flood insurance. Okay.

[19:42] - Yep. Got it. And what, what kind

[19:44] of damage are we talking if everybody

[19:45] moves all their campers out? Yep,

[19:47] - Yep.

[19:48] Yeah. So my husband and I got to go

[19:49] through this two years ago.

[19:51] - You say you got to, this is enjoy.

[19:53] So fun. Look at this opportunity.

[19:54] - So it's a fun story. I also live in black Earth,

[19:56] which also floods sometimes.

[19:58] And the year we bought our house was the

[20:00] hundred year flood back in

[20:01] - 20 19, 28. Oh, awesome. Is that,

[20:03] - Yeah.

[20:04] So that year we also got to go real, what

[20:05] - Do we gotta - Do?

[20:06] Lucky. It was so fun.

[20:07] So I definitely prefer the Mississippi River

[20:09] because we get two weeks notice.

[20:11] So it's because of the Locke and Dam system. Wow.

[20:13] It's never gonna be a flash flood. Okay.

[20:16] Any rain that we get goes down river.

[20:19] So that's their problem. Sorry, down river.

[20:21] But if the water is coming in, snow melts too much snow

[20:25] and it all melts at once up in Minnesota, that collects.

[20:29] And then the lock and dam system, they alert us

[20:31] and they let us know and they say,

[20:32] you've basically got two weeks, we're going to be opening up

[20:36] and releasing some of the water.

[20:37] 'cause it's getting too much up here. Otherwise

[20:38] the flooding will be too bad up river.

[20:40] So we get two weeks, we let folks know that they need to

[20:44] coordinate, they need to just pull their thing,

[20:46] pull their RV up,

[20:47] and we have a parking lot that's up by the lock

[20:49] and dam where they can go easily park

[20:51] and we just, you know, shut her all down.

[20:54] So then my husband and I went around

[20:56] after we got everybody out

[20:58] and you know, you just do a little bit of mitigation.

[21:00] We hauled all of our picnic tables

[21:03] to the highest point in the campground

[21:06] and that is happens to be our site.

[21:08] And you can tell that the water didn't even get up that far.

[21:11] So it really is the highest point.

[21:12] So we haul everything kind of up there.

[21:14] We have to do a couple of things in the cottages.

[21:18] In the bathhouse you have to like plug the, plug the toilets

[21:21] and you have to plug so that the water doesn't kind of

[21:23] une like equalize and then have backflow.

[21:27] And so we had to do that process.

[21:30] We lifted everything in our cottages as much

[21:33] as we could up onto sawhorses.

[21:36] Okay. Just in case water got in.

[21:38] Luckily it didn't get high enough to get into the cottages.

[21:43] We did get a tiny bit of water in our bathhouse

[21:45] and so we had some mucking out to do from there,

[21:48] but we thought maybe next time we would do more

[21:51] sandbagging and things like that.

[21:52] So you, but the nice thing is you have the time. Okay.

[21:54] So it's the river we know it's coming,

[21:57] it's just the countdown, you know,

[21:58] and you go and you do the mitigation work.

[22:00] And then we have cameras and we just watch.

[22:03] So that, that year, that's it creeping. Yeah.

[22:05] That year we just kept watching it

[22:06] and we would take pictures

[22:07] and like right on it when it was at this level

[22:10] for next, you know, so that we know.

[22:12] And the water slowly comes over the, over the road

[22:14] and then it slowly makes its way in and it slowly rises.

[22:17] So we probably had a foot

[22:19] or two of water just across the whole campground.

[22:23] Wow. And we had carp would would swim in the campground.

[22:28] We found snakes, tons of snakes after the water receded

[22:31] and we kind of went in to clean up.

[22:33] So lots of wildlife Wow. That followed the river in.

[22:36] And then sometimes they would die

[22:38] 'cause the water would go back out.

[22:39] Sure. It would get Stankey. But Yeah.

[22:41] - Does it, so two weeks notice, that seems like a lot. Yeah.

[22:44] Yeah. And was that expected? Yeah.

[22:47] Or did you know that ahead of time?

[22:48] - Yes, we did. We were aware. Okay. Yeah. All right.

[22:50] I know my husband's like, why do we keep buying

[22:52] properties and flood plains?

[22:54] 'cause I love water. Like, I don't know.

[22:55] - Well, I mean two weeks notice that seems like a lot

[22:58] for it is like, hey, you gotta move a camper.

[23:00] It's, that means that somebody could be like,

[23:01] ah, I'll get there next weekend.

[23:02] Yeah, it is. It'll flood later. You

[23:04] - Just, you let 'em know and you say what the deadline is,

[23:06] how long you need, you have to, to remove.

[23:07] And if you need help, let us know. And yeah,

[23:09] - It's interesting.

[23:10] How do the people that figure that out know

[23:12] that it's gonna be that timeframe?

[23:14] - It's the Army Corps of Engineers and Noah. Okay.

[23:17] So the north, north, north American

[23:20] atmospheric something or other.

[23:21] Okay. That's the website we go on and we watch

[23:23] and they track all waterways.

[23:24] So even the black Earth Creek where we live,

[23:26] we can see if it's going up and down.

[23:29] That is flash flood though. So Yeah.

[23:30] You know, I get five minutes notice as opposed to

[23:33] - All - Notice on that one.

[23:34] But yeah, we spend a lot of time on that website.

[23:36] - How cool is that? Yeah. All right.

[23:38] Do you have to flag, like this is where the spigot is,

[23:41] just in case I'm picturing a bunch of sediments

[23:43] or something like that, covering

[23:44] - Up?

[23:45] No, it wasn't too bad. Actually.

[23:46] Some of our rocks we think got moved, you know, from a site.

[23:50] Why are there so many rocks over here?

[23:51] And I, it just the other day,

[23:52] and I said, I think maybe that was the flood,

[23:54] like picked some up and carried them over there.

[23:55] Oh wow. You know, so a little bit of that.

[23:57] So we're working on, you know,

[23:59] two years later now we're looking at our driveway

[24:01] to see if maybe we need to get a fresh

[24:02] layer of rock, kind of put

[24:04] - Oh, - Gotcha.

[24:05] Re flatten it out a little, but Okay. How,

[24:06] - How that but pretty minimal damage.

[24:07] Is that alright? Yeah.

[24:09] And when you call people up

[24:10] and you're like, Hey, in two weeks this place is gonna

[24:12] flood, you gotta move your camper.

[24:13] Yeah. Are they all upset

[24:15] or they're like, oh yeah, this happens the thing. Yeah.

[24:17] - It's, it's in their contract. Okay. Yeah.

[24:18] And so we let them know when they book

[24:20] that this is always a possibility.

[24:23] I mean, you can see the river, it's beautiful,

[24:24] you know, that's part of the appeal.

[24:25] But you know, with that comes just your willingness

[24:28] to put up with a little bit of risk.

[24:29] - Sure. So that's an accepted, you're next

[24:32] to the Mississippi River, things

[24:34] - Happen.

[24:35] Yeah. I mean we're definitely not the only

[24:35] campground next to the Mississippi River.

[24:37] Okay. We're, we're in, unfortunately,

[24:38] we're in good company when it comes to like,

[24:40] we're all facing this us and,

[24:42] and up river in down river Sure.

[24:43] Depending on when the flooding or where the flooding is.

[24:45] Exactly. And so we get calls,

[24:48] are you flooding, are campgrounds, flooding?

[24:50] You know, so we, we try to help each other out, you

[24:52] - Know, so I was just in San Diego a couple months ago

[24:55] and in the ocean doing this little kayak trip

[24:57] and the tour guide is explaining

[24:59] how there's all this water erosion.

[25:01] Yeah. And you can see houses that are Oh yeah.

[25:04] Right on the edge. And it feels like a bad storm.

[25:06] That house is just gonna sink in. It could be.

[25:09] And they're pretty fancy houses.

[25:10] And this tour guide is explaining how Yeah. Yeah.

[25:14] That's gonna happen. Yep.

[25:15] So in the case of this, you keep losing property.

[25:19] - Well again, we, it, I suppose that could happen.

[25:22] But the nice thing where we are is, so the, the lock and dam

[25:27] and, and then the beautiful big river,

[25:29] and then we have a little inlet.

[25:31] Okay. So the water you see from our property,

[25:33] you can see the river,

[25:34] but the most of the water you see is actually an inlet.

[25:37] So it's protected. So there's no,

[25:40] - So it's not washing away. There's

[25:41] - No washing away.

[25:42] And we do, you know, where the lock

[25:45] and dam is, especially with the tugs going up

[25:47] and down, pushing the barges through the lock.

[25:49] There is a lot of kind

[25:50] of stirring up of the sediment and things.

[25:52] So they dredge every year. Oh

[25:54] - They do. And they

[25:55] - Pull sand out.

[25:56] Yep. Yep. So that's a fun thing to watch all the big,

[26:00] big figures and the big barges. And

[26:02] - I'm imagining the scale that that has to happen at

[26:06] - All the way down the river too.

[26:07] You know, like we're just one locking down.

[26:09] There's, it's a whole system that

[26:10] - Is insane. Yeah. Yeah.

[26:11] - It's, I think from the Twin Cities down to St.

[26:13] Louis or something. It's, it's a long stretch.

[26:15] - Okay. It's gotta be what, 1520 lock and dam?

[26:18] - Yeah, yeah. Something like that. We're number four I

[26:21] - Think.

[26:22] Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

[26:22] That it's a lot because we, when I was a kid, we used

[26:25] to take the Great river road.

[26:27] Yes. We're on the Great river at Okay.

[26:28] And stop at a few and you stop at little cafes in the towns.

[26:31] It was always fun. Yes.

[26:32] - I love that drive. So we, you hop on the great river road

[26:35] and you go north on the WISCONSIN side,

[26:38] or you can go north on the Minnesota side

[26:39] and you get a slightly different experience, you know,

[26:42] depending on what side you, you go.

[26:43] And they're both beautiful. I love the WISCONSIN side

[26:45] 'cause of all those small towns and you can stop

[26:47] and, and enjoy them. It's just beautiful.

[26:49] - Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah.

[26:51] It was always neat to see when a ship would approach

[26:54] the lock and be like, oh, we get to watch this. But

[26:56] - Yeah, you can get up there and there's like an overlook

[26:59] and we talk to the folks and we ask 'em where they're from

[27:02] and you know, where,

[27:04] where are you coming from or where are you going?

[27:05] All right. And you know, we ask their stories. Yeah.

[27:07] It's so fun. We bring the kids up there. The kids love it.

[27:09] And whenever, you know, you can hear the honk of the barge

[27:12] or the tug or whoever it is, making that honking noise

[27:15] whenever they're like ready to go or something.

[27:16] I don't know what it is. My family's thing as we go barge,

[27:19] like we stop what we're doing, we yell,

[27:20] barge, and then we keep going. Oh,

[27:22] - That's funny.

[27:23] I always think of the little boats and you see a boat.

[27:26] Just little tiny boats. I mean, I guess any boats. Yes.

[27:29] Yeah. Compared to a barge is small going

[27:30] - Through the lock. Yes.

[27:31] - And you're down. Yes. That far.

[27:33] We're just waiting for the water to come up.

[27:35] That seems so creepy to me.

[27:36] - Yeah. It's so cool though. It

[27:38] - Is super cool.

[27:39] It's cool. Yeah. Just like,

[27:40] please raise the water. Yeah. I hope this works.

[27:42] - This is gonna work, right? Yeah.

[27:44] - It'll, it's surreal. Yeah. So surreal. Yeah.

[27:47] Tell me a story about the campers that you see as far

[27:50] as the physical, the RVs

[27:52] that come through there. Yeah. Oh yeah,

[27:53] - Sure.

[27:54] So most of them are pretty standard.

[27:56] I mean there's, once you get into Arby's you realize again,

[27:59] just like him cross, there's so many different kinds

[28:00] of Arby's and is it a fifth wheel

[28:02] or is it just a tra travel trailer?

[28:04] And so we get all kinds, just like the pull

[28:07] behind the really, really big ones.

[28:08] We get big motor homes occasionally.

[28:10] My favorite though are the ice houses.

[28:13] - I, that's where you can lift the wheels and all. Yeah.

[28:16] - So it's like the, they look like they belong like an ice

[28:18] house, like out on a lake and Yeah.

[28:21] But they have wheels. And then when you get to a place,

[28:23] they're these big boxy things

[28:25] and then they just flatten straight

[28:26] and they sit flat on the ground.

[28:28] All right. And you're just like,

[28:29] how did you even get this in here?

[28:30] But it's because there's like a hydraulic

[28:32] and it lifts them back up.

[28:33] They're just wild

[28:35] - Looking.

[28:36] That's cool. Yeah. Yeah.

[28:37] And they're using those year round? Yeah.

[28:39] - Yeah. They must. Okay. And they might take 'em out

[28:41] and use 'em fries fishing

[28:42] and then they use them in the summer.

[28:43] Huh? Isn't that smart?

[28:44] - Tell, I can remember being at a campsite forever ago.

[28:48] Yeah. And I'm more of a tent camper. Yeah.

[28:51] So I remember my buddies and I are sitting around at this,

[28:54] I call 'em golf course campsite.

[28:55] Yeah. It's just all grass. And

[28:56] I'm like, is this really nature?

[28:59] Anyways, we're watching this guy back up his camper. Yeah.

[29:02] And he's having a rough time. Yes.

[29:03] - It is - Challenging. And for us,

[29:06] we're kind of being jerks.

[29:08] Not meaning to, but like,

[29:09] we're just drinking beer watching this guy.

[29:10] Yeah. Yeah. And that's probably not helping

[29:13] him. I mean it Right.

[29:14] - It's part of the experience. So

[29:16] - I'm like, you showed up here.

[29:17] That's right. And you got this 80 foot trailer, whatever.

[29:20] And we just threw up a tent. That's, so we a few tents.

[29:23] So our job is way easier.

[29:26] How often are people running into things at your campsite?

[29:30] - So generally people are pretty good.

[29:31] I mean, they are mean for the most part.

[29:33] They know what they're doing. You know,

[29:36] it's only been a couple of times in the last two, two years

[29:39] that somebody's like, I need help.

[29:43] Like, will somebody be, oh,

[29:44] will somebody be on site when I get there?

[29:46] 'cause I'm, I'm traveling by myself

[29:48] and I have nobody to spot me in the back.

[29:49] Okay. Fair things like that.

[29:51] And not having staff all the time

[29:52] makes it a little challenging.

[29:54] But we're very lucky.

[29:55] So my dad is retired

[29:57] and he's a handyman who can fix anything.

[30:00] Nice. I promise you. Anything

[30:02] - He could good person to have in your corner.

[30:03] - Yes. And I always, I have told him many times I would not

[30:06] have even thought about buying a campground if you,

[30:08] if I knew you didn't, you weren't like in my corner.

[30:10] Wow. And like could fix things.

[30:11] 'cause I would have no idea how to fix many things.

[30:14] So he gets to live his best retired life in an RV site

[30:18] that we give him because he's our maintenance man.

[30:20] And so in exchange for a lovely place to live and,

[30:24] and park his boat

[30:25] and go fishing as much as he wants, he,

[30:29] he gets to be our maintenance man.

[30:30] But he also was a truck driver with a CDL. Ah.

[30:33] So he can back up anything. Gotcha. So he's off and on site.

[30:36] So he has been there a couple of times to help people. Okay.

[30:38] Get positioned or just spot, I mean, I've spotted people

[30:41] and you know, tell 'em keep going until they hit something.

[30:44] And so, but generally everybody's been very good.

[30:46] We've had very, you know, no, no issues really. All

[30:49] - Right.

[30:50] I can remember. So I used to deliver beer forever ago

[30:53] and it was one of those companies, it was a big company.

[30:56] So I went there, I got my CDL through them

[30:59] and it was kind of a pushman, shove 'em out.

[31:02] I shouldn't have been driving that truck.

[31:03] I could drive very well in a straight line. Yeah.

[31:06] Backing up. I took for granted air brakes. Oh yeah.

[31:09] And so I was backing up into this small town gas station,

[31:11] which was very tight.

[31:13] Ended up using the brakes too much.

[31:14] So I used up all the air, which meant

[31:16] that I was blocking the intersection.

[31:18] Oh gosh. Yeah. I didn't mean to Yeah.

[31:21] But like the air brakes go

[31:23] and so you have to wait for the air to recharge.

[31:26] Oh my gosh. And see all these people just

[31:27] honking, like get out of the road.

[31:29] I'm like, I would love to. Right.

[31:31] And I'm doing everything that I can

[31:33] to get outta the road, but we gotta wave.

[31:36] Like they don't know a few. No.

[31:37] - Right. And I would not know, I mean,

[31:39] my dad just has had, he grew up on a farm.

[31:42] Yeah. He was in the Navy, was a machinist. Oh wow.

[31:45] And yeah, I mean he, and then he drove truck.

[31:46] He was a bus driver. He's just the kind of guy

[31:48] who can fix and build anything. Yeah.

[31:51] - Yeah. It is a great respect for people that can back up.

[31:53] Well yes, it is very rare. Yes. So rare.

[31:56] So kudos to you guys.

[31:58] I'm just worried about somebody hitting a water

[32:00] Maine or something like that.

[32:01] Yeah. I mean it could happen. All right. Yeah.

[32:03] So someday we trust people we're flooded

[32:05] for something else without two weeks

[32:06] notice. Right? That's right.

[32:08] - That's fine. - So after your few years, in three years

[32:12] - Headed into our third season.

[32:13] - Headed into the third season. Okay.

[32:14] Tell me about marketing. How do you let people know

[32:17] for the spots that you have available?

[32:18] Yeah. How do you get on the rooftop

[32:20] and yell like, hey we've got, got spots available.

[32:22] - Yeah, so generally speaking, so I come from hospitality.

[32:24] I used to run a hotel and so I learned a lot about how,

[32:29] and it makes sense intuitively when you're traveling,

[32:31] sometimes you are at home planning your,

[32:34] your trip and your vacation.

[32:35] Sometimes you're literally on the road

[32:37] and you aren't gonna make

[32:39] it as far as you thought you would.

[32:40] And so I, I want find a place to stay.

[32:42] So generally speaking, online marketing is the way to go.

[32:46] Especially you wanna think about your website, you want it

[32:48] to be SEO optimized.

[32:50] Nowadays we're talking about AI optimization as well.

[32:52] So you wanna make sure when you're building your website,

[32:55] you are including keywords, phrases, things like that,

[32:59] that you want the, you know, the Googles of the world

[33:02] to find when people are searching for campground near me.

[33:05] So RV sites, campground, right?

[33:07] You're thinking of all the different words

[33:08] that people might be searching for.

[33:11] I also, at the Waco convent, this is an advertisement

[33:14] for any campground owners

[33:15] who aren't members of Waco, you need to join.

[33:17] So when, when I went to the con, the convention,

[33:20] they had a wonderful guest speaker

[33:22] who talked about your website needs these five things.

[33:25] Oh and that's it. Right.

[33:26] And so it really helped me simplify my website.

[33:29] Ah, and it was very good. Great advice.

[33:31] And so I really overhauled my website

[33:33] and we used a booking engine.

[33:35] And so that's just sort

[33:36] of a separate service that you pay for.

[33:38] And so people can book directly on our website.

[33:41] And we also use Airbnb, vrbo, hip camp,

[33:45] all of those kind of third party.

[33:47] There's quite a few third parties

[33:48] that either do our cottages or our campsites or both.

[33:52] And so you're just trying to get as much kind

[33:55] of digital access to people as possible.

[33:58] And then in addition to that, we make sure

[34:01] that our literature is at, so we're very close

[34:04] to Perot State Park, which is a lovely state

[34:06] - Park. Oh, beautiful park. Yeah.

[34:07] - Oh yeah. So that's just down the road from us. Nice.

[34:09] So we're good friends with them.

[34:10] We bring them our brochures

[34:11] 'cause they fill up before we do.

[34:12] 'cause they're State PARK CIR in WISCONSIN

[34:14] are very also very hard to book.

[34:15] - Oh my gosh. January 2nd you gotta be there. Yeah.

[34:18] - Yeah. So, but people show up anyway so they show up

[34:20] and they don't have any sites so they send

[34:21] them to us. So it's a wonderful,

[34:22] - They show up just cold.

[34:23] Yeah. They love you got room for me. Yeah.

[34:25] They'll try, I got a 50 foot trailer.

[34:27] - Yeah. So they'll, they'll

[34:28] refer people to us, which is wonderful.

[34:30] So we try to go around and,

[34:31] and you know, make ourselves known

[34:33] and to the community so that they can help us out.

[34:35] - Gotcha. So do you remember those five things for

[34:38] - The website?

[34:39] Yeah, yeah. It was really good homepage

[34:41] with just kinda your basic

[34:42] information and a map and your rules.

[34:44] And then it was like amenities.

[34:45] You needed a page about amenities,

[34:47] you need a page about your rates.

[34:48] And then I don't remember what the other ones were,

[34:51] but like it was just very simple

[34:53] and just that like, don't waste your time with all

[34:55] of this mumbo jumbo.

[34:56] These are the things they're looking for.

[34:57] Alright. And just use those things.

[34:59] - So tell me a story about drinking

[35:01] and people being loud after hours.

[35:03] 'cause Yeah, I've certainly been to campsites

[35:06] where I've guess I've been to campsites where me

[35:08] and my crew were the loud ones

[35:10] and I've been at campsites where you're with your family,

[35:12] where you're like other people are the loud ones.

[35:14] Yeah. And you've also been at campsites

[35:16] where it's not drunk people, it's just kids.

[35:18] Yeah. Or young kids that are being the loud ones. Yeah.

[35:21] Yeah. Or dogs. Yeah. Just insert annoying thing here.

[35:24] Sometimes you're the annoying person. Right.

[35:26] How do you deal with that? Yeah,

[35:28] - Well coming from hospitality made it a little easier.

[35:30] 'cause I've dealt with many, you know,

[35:32] different challenges in my time.

[35:34] And so I think the way I approach it is you sort

[35:38] of are aware of your surroundings.

[35:40] So is there a group of people here

[35:43] who are taking up basically the entire campground?

[35:46] Are they probably disturbing anybody?

[35:47] Do I need to say anything or can I just let it ride?

[35:50] We do have quiet hours.

[35:52] So if people, you know, I had a, last season I had a group

[35:55] that were having a good time

[35:57] and it got to be like 11 o'clock

[35:59] and I think my quiet hour starts at 10.

[36:01] But I was being lenient and finally I was just went over

[36:04] and I said, you guys, I just need you to just,

[36:06] can you just at least turn off the music?

[36:07] You know? Sure. Things like that.

[36:08] And you're just friendly, keep it light

[36:11] and people are, people are lovely.

[36:13] I haven't had anybody disgruntled or anything.

[36:16] Definitely if we start getting complaints then

[36:18] of course we address it immediately.

[36:21] But yeah, we just kind of stay aware

[36:23] and kind of see if it seems like the kind of thing

[36:26] that other people would be impacted by.

[36:27] And then it's just address it

[36:29] - Nicely.

[36:30] Camp sits are so interesting

[36:30] 'cause sound seems to carry 50 times farther.

[36:34] And if you're in a tent, I mean, yeah.

[36:36] There's no, the canvas wall isn't exactly soundproof

[36:39] and a camper is not that much better.

[36:41] That's a quarter inch of plastic or whatever. Pretty much.

[36:45] So yeah, like anybody making noise

[36:47] of any kind, it's hurt everywhere. It

[36:50] - Is.

[36:51] Yeah. And we just, we really pay attention

[36:52] to those quiet hours when people are trying to sleep.

[36:53] Gotcha. And we've got kids,

[36:55] so I mean we're, we're there too.

[36:56] Also trying to sleep. Right.

[36:58] - Fair, fair. Keep it down. Who's in charge over here?

[37:01] Yeah, exactly. Tell me about the, the website.

[37:05] Did you essentially, I wanna say inherit,

[37:08] but you bought a website from

[37:10] - So I did.

[37:11] I did. We, we purchased, we got the logo and the website.

[37:16] And I, coming from, with my background in hospitality

[37:20] and I have built websites

[37:22] and have done a bit in marketing, I knew

[37:24] that was the first thing that I really wanted

[37:26] to just create fresh for myself.

[37:27] Ah, okay. 'cause I had a vision for, you know, clean lines

[37:30] and just a little bit easier user experience.

[37:33] And so I took the information that was on that website

[37:36] and I kind of built it into my new website, got a new

[37:39] property management system, which is

[37:41] the booking engine side of things.

[37:43] So that for me was sort of the fun of doing a,

[37:47] a business startup is getting to build those assets.

[37:50] - Gotcha. Tell me a story about

[37:52] with your husband when you're

[37:54] like, Hey, we're just gonna check up.

[37:55] Yeah. Check out this camp or campground I should say. Yeah.

[37:58] How tough was it for him to be convinced? Yeah,

[38:03] - So my husband is wonderful.

[38:06] - Okay. I have to say,

[38:07] - He follows me to the ends of the earth

[38:09] and lets me do all these crazy things.

[38:11] But he has always, we've always wanted to own a business.

[38:14] Okay. So it's always been one of those things,

[38:16] especially once I got into management

[38:18] and I was really good at it.

[38:20] And I treat every business that I've

[38:21] run as if it was my own.

[38:23] And so we've always said someday,

[38:24] someday we'll own a business.

[38:25] Who knows what it will be. But when we, when we see it,

[38:28] we'll know, you know, we'll know it or whatever.

[38:30] So he was, it wasn't too hard of a sell.

[38:33] I think the thing to be honest about

[38:35] and transparent about, when people are thinking about a big

[38:38] transaction, a big transaction like this is

[38:40] that it is very scary, right?

[38:42] I mean, you know, you take on debt, you, you have a,

[38:45] a business loan, you know, it's a real estate purchase.

[38:48] And so it's scary. All right?

[38:50] And you have to really do your due diligence,

[38:55] make sure it makes sense, and then check again.

[38:58] Because if you make a poor investment, you know,

[39:01] it can be cha you know, that becomes a challenge

[39:04] for your family 'cause it's a family.

[39:06] - Oh no doubt. Right? No doubt.

[39:07] - And so I think it's very important to be thinking about,

[39:11] you know, what you're getting into.

[39:13] You have a, a really good plan for once you get in,

[39:15] you've got really good systems already

[39:17] that you're thinking about, you know how

[39:20] to do really good bookkeeping already.

[39:22] Right? Or you work, you find people

[39:24] who can teach you those skills

[39:25] or who can work with, you know,

[39:28] 'cause I think a lot of small business owners have a passion

[39:31] and then they say, I'm gonna start a business

[39:33] because I have this passion in woodworking or whatever.

[39:37] But they forget.

[39:38] And you know, maybe a couple years go by

[39:40] where they haven't been keeping their books

[39:42] as cleanly as they could have.

[39:43] And without good books you can't read your data

[39:46] and understand it and interpret it

[39:48] to make good growth decisions

[39:50] or to know when it's time to get out.

[39:52] And then you need an exit strategy.

[39:54] So it's very important when you're thinking about purchasing

[39:56] a business or starting a business

[39:57] that you know the beginning, middle, and end.

[39:59] Like you know all the pieces, you know

[40:00] how you're gonna get in, how you're gonna manage it

[40:02] and how you're gonna get out if things don't go well

[40:04] or if things go well and you wanna

[40:05] and you're ready to sell and move on.

[40:07] So that was, you know, I think

[40:10] because we came at it very pragmatically,

[40:13] we asked for help, right?

[40:14] I mean we got legal advice, I have other,

[40:17] other business owners that I know who I was able

[40:19] to ask questions of.

[40:21] And I have people who sell, buy and sell real estate.

[40:24] And I had them look over it

[40:26] and see if they thought it was a good investment,

[40:27] you know, and all this kind of stuff.

[40:28] So it's definitely about leveraging your relationships

[40:32] and making sure that you sort

[40:34] of fully understand the full picture.

[40:36] And I think once we had that, we felt confident in that.

[40:40] You know, my husband is like, I trust you.

[40:42] I mean this is what you do. So

[40:45] - Nice. Could

[40:45] - Be great.

[40:46] That's awesome. We'll give it a go.

[40:49] - You raised a good point about people being passionate

[40:51] about their business and then kind

[40:52] of forgetting about the paperwork and stuff like that.

[40:54] - Very important - Way back when I was,

[40:57] I had a copy repair company

[40:59] and I remember getting a phone call from a client saying,

[41:01] Hey, you're gonna send us that invoice.

[41:04] And I remember being on the phone thinking this is probably

[41:07] the worst phone call I could get 'cause I'm doing the work.

[41:10] Yeah. But I wasn't actually saying,

[41:11] Hey, you can pay me. You need to pay me.

[41:13] - Right. Minor details. Yeah.

[41:14] - I was just like, are you a

[41:17] moron, James, what is wrong with you? Well

[41:19] - I think it's easy to forget those details, especially when

[41:23] my journey's just like almost reverse

[41:25] where I started running businesses for other people

[41:28] and could learn on the job while earning a salary

[41:30] and having none of that risk.

[41:32] And then I was able to feel confident enough to say,

[41:35] I think we could do this risk

[41:37] and do it ourselves, you know, for ourselves.

[41:39] So I think that's, I think that is sometimes unique.

[41:42] I think often it's the other way. It's fair.

[41:43] But you know, I think there are good resources out there

[41:47] for people who are starting businesses.

[41:50] The small business development center in Madison

[41:52] is phenomenal, huge.

[41:54] WIC is really wonderful.

[41:55] There's resources like that that offer coaching, training

[41:59] classes, a lot of it for free.

[42:02] So definitely worth checking out those

[42:04] - Resources.

[42:05] Yeah. I teach sometimes at wic. That's great.

[42:06] And it's, it's interesting

[42:08] 'cause I'll tell people I just taught a intro

[42:11] to business planning class last week.

[42:12] Great. And I told the students, I'm like, just figure out

[42:16] where you're at from a financial point of view personally.

[42:18] Yeah. And then wherever you are, good or bad Yeah.

[42:21] Add a zero because

[42:23] that's the way you're gonna look at numbers in business.

[42:25] Yeah. Interesting. I was talking

[42:26] about something, I forget what it was.

[42:28] Maybe it was just creating an LLC in Wisconsin's, 150 bucks,

[42:31] hundred 60 bucks and they're like $160 whatever.

[42:35] And I understand that's a lot of money. Yeah.

[42:39] If you're not bringing an income. Yes. Yes.

[42:42] But I'm like, you gotta look at this from the point of view

[42:43] that you're gonna make money with a thing.

[42:45] Right. And I understand there's a point when you're first

[42:48] starting your business where you're like,

[42:49] I don't know if I'm gonna make money.

[42:51] - Right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's very fluid

[42:54] and it can be very fluid and one

[42:55] of the mistakes I think a lot

[42:56] of people make is not clearly delineating your

[42:59] personal finances from your business.

[43:00] - So true. Yeah. So true. Yeah. And

[43:02] - A lot of the untangling later that you have

[43:05] to do later is very painful.

[43:07] So it's much better. First thing we

[43:09] did was we got a work credit card.

[43:10] First thing we did was get a work bank account.

[43:11] Like everything is separate.

[43:13] We have never had anything mixed.

[43:15] And my every, at the end of every year,

[43:17] taxes are super simple.

[43:18] We work with our accountant, I send 'em all the paperwork.

[43:20] And when we're done, like it has been the easiest thing.

[43:23] But again, I learned that on the job

[43:25] from managing businesses

[43:27] and you don't, if you've never had that experience,

[43:30] you wouldn't know why it's important

[43:31] to keep all your receipts or

[43:33] - Oh, it's a huge deal.

[43:34] Yeah. You raised an interesting point.

[43:36] So with our call answering service,

[43:38] we'll have some potential clients come to us

[43:40] and their personal cell phone is also their business line.

[43:46] And I tell 'em, I'm like, look man, I would love you

[43:50] to be our client and if you wanna be our

[43:52] client, I'm very happy for that.

[43:53] Right. But regardless of if you come with us

[43:55] or not, right, separate your business and your personal,

[43:59] - I'm just gonna stop you there.

[44:00] - Just, let's - Just

[44:02] - Forget about us, right?

[44:03] Come back to that. Just take the, yes.

[44:06] I'm say five minutes for every two hours at whatever

[44:08] cell phone store you're at.

[44:10] Get another number. Get another number.

[44:11] That new number is your personal number, your old number

[44:13] that all the business people

[44:14] have. That's your business number.

[44:16] - So my husband and I use Google Voice. Okay.

[44:19] And so that number is a different number,

[44:21] but it goes to both of our phones.

[44:22] Smart. So then if I'm at work

[44:24] and not available, my husband's a stay at home dad,

[44:26] so he's got more time and so he answers the

[44:28] - Phone.

[44:29] Does he agree with that answer?

[44:30] - That's an excellent point. I don't, I doubt

[44:33] - It.

[44:34] Sure. Fair. But that's, that's great, right? Yes.

[44:35] Because it's independent. Yes.

[44:37] - And that was part of it too. So he

[44:38] hasn't always been a stay at home dad.

[44:40] He's had, but when we bought the campground, he had a job

[44:43] where it was very deadline driven

[44:45] and he didn't have the flexibility to like go up and clean

[44:47] or go help somebody if they needed help.

[44:48] So we were able to make the business decision that

[44:52] with the income from the campground we were able to replace

[44:53] - It.

[44:54] Nice. Yeah. So over these almost three seasons,

[44:57] what are some things now that you wish you learned

[45:00] or knew previous to purchasing the campground?

[45:03] - Hmm. Well, I think now being three years in

[45:07] and having gone through a flood,

[45:09] there are certain like capital things that I'm realizing

[45:14] that we really need to start sort of a capital fund

[45:16] because we're gonna need to replace, you know,

[45:17] and then there's gonna be a roof at some point.

[45:19] And you know, there, there's gonna be a lot

[45:20] of capital investments that

[45:21] will need to happen at some point.

[45:23] So that's something that, not

[45:26] that I didn't think it would ever happen,

[45:28] but it's just, you know, only this many years in

[45:30] and be already, I'm like, hmm, I should really, I need

[45:32] to start seriously putting money into an account for that.

[45:35] So things like that, that, you know, the property is going

[45:38] to age and we will need to, to make upgrades.

[45:40] But other than that, I mean I really feel, you know,

[45:45] I think business is like part skills that you build

[45:50] and you know, sort of your personality

[45:52] and being, having an entrepreneurial spirit,

[45:54] but also a lot of luck.

[45:55] - Oh, no doubt. No

[45:57] - Doubt.

[45:58] So we, I just feel very lucky looking back

[46:00] that we've had two strong seasons.

[46:01] Our first two seasons we're, we're very strong

[46:04] and we were able to pay all of our bills

[46:05] and have even money left over and whoop.

[46:07] Yeah, I know, right? A cash flow. Woo.

[46:09] So, you know, and that is, it's hard

[46:11] because when you're building a business from scratch,

[46:13] often you, you won't make money the first

[46:15] however many years.

[46:17] And so being able to figure that out is very challenging.

[46:21] So I think so far so good things.

[46:25] We've only had one flood and not minimal damage

[46:27] and it's been a good business

[46:29] and it's been really good for my family.

[46:31] I have a 14-year-old

[46:33] who loves working at the campground and earning money.

[46:35] Nice. And you know, he power washes buildings

[46:38] and trims trees and he does a, does a great job.

[46:42] And then my daughter is the camp hostess. Ah, she's seven.

[46:46] Okay. And she loves people.

[46:48] So she loves making friends and Oh,

[46:50] - How cool is - That?

[46:51] It's really fun. Alright.

[46:52] - Yeah. And I imagine you get to know,

[46:54] 'cause you guys are at the camp around pretty often,

[46:57] so you probably get to know people

[46:59] that are there for the season.

[47:00] - We do. We get to know people, we get to know the area.

[47:03] That was a really lovely surprise.

[47:06] I just didn't really think about it.

[47:06] But it became our second home.

[47:08] But it also is a whole new community to experience.

[47:12] So it's a new town, it's all new, you know,

[47:14] the local business owners all go and introduce myself.

[47:16] So I get to meet a whole nother group of business owners

[47:18] and managers that I didn't know before.

[47:21] You know, their local village administrator is lovely

[47:23] and I love talking to 'em.

[47:24] You know, like it's a whole nother group of people

[47:25] that we get to be part of like this.

[47:27] Oh, that's awesome. Another part of our family.

[47:29] Family and just that whole beautiful area that we get

[47:32] to explore that we wouldn't have necessarily other than a

[47:35] trip or two, maybe a year.

[47:37] Sure. You know? So

[47:38] - How cool is that?

[47:39] Yeah. So future, is it expand?

[47:43] Is it get a new campground or Good question.

[47:45] Just add on what's the plan?

[47:47] - Okay, so my new vision that we're, that I,

[47:49] I'm working toward Alright. Is when

[47:51] - Your husband's like, what? Yeah. Yeah. He's,

[47:54] - He's on board.

[47:55] He likes it. So our kids are, so,

[47:58] like I said, my youngest is seven.

[48:00] So my goal is when we're empty nesters,

[48:03] someday we'll move in.

[48:05] I'll have a job where I can just work

[48:06] remote and do anything.

[48:08] And we'll go live at the campground all summer. All right.

[48:10] In a camper and like rent

[48:11] out our house, you know, or whatever.

[48:12] And then in the winter when we shut down, we can just go

[48:16] and work wherever we want

[48:18] and we could like live in a camper in by the beach

[48:20] and you know, do all the things. So that

[48:22] - Sounds pretty cool. So

[48:23] - That's what I'm working toward now.

[48:24] I have another entrepreneurial glint in my eye

[48:27] for another business that I'm hoping to build

[48:29] that will be at a point

[48:31] where it will sustain us at that point.

[48:32] So I've got 20, 25 years to build a business.

[48:36] - 25 years. Yeah. Years.

[48:38] You got a 7-year-old kid, you got 11. Well,

[48:39] - I gotta get to college. Oh. Oh,

[48:41] - Okay.

[48:42] That's a, their runway.

[48:43] They come back, you know, runways

[48:45] getting longer there. Okay.

[48:47] - Okay. 15 to 20 years we'll say.

[48:49] - All right. Okay. Alright. Interesting.

[48:51] Yeah, that is I guess the blessing and the curse, right?

[48:53] Of being an entrepreneur where you like,

[48:55] I got another idea. I

[48:56] - Do, I do.

[48:57] But I, I'm really good with long runways.

[48:58] Like I need

[49:00] to know 20 years from now what we're aiming toward.

[49:02] 'cause then I can back think of all the things I need to do

[49:05] to lay the groundwork now.

[49:06] Right on. While, you know, supporting my family

[49:08] and the career that I love. Sure.

[49:09] - Things like that. So interesting. I'm excited for you.

[49:11] Yeah, thanks Rachel. How can people find you?

[49:14] - So we are online, lake road campground.com.

[49:18] - No dashes. Just all one word.

[49:19] - All one word. All. Yep.

[49:21] And we're on Instagram and Facebook.

[49:26] You can also find our cottages on like Airbnb

[49:28] or any of your favorite booking platforms.

[49:31] If you're a camper and you use Hip camp

[49:33] or any of those, we're on all of those. I believe so

[49:36] - What is hip camp? Yeah,

[49:37] - It's a booking platform like Airbnb, but for campsites.

[49:40] - Gotcha. All right. That's hip. Alright.

[49:43] I don't, I'm out of touch with stuff like that. Fine.

[49:46] Just, yeah, whatever. Who knew?

[49:48] This has been Authentic Business Adventures.

[49:50] The business program brings you the struggle of stories

[49:53] and triumphant successes of business owners across the land.

[49:57] We are locally underwritten by the Bank of Sun Prairie.

[49:59] If you're listing or watching this on the web,

[50:01] if you could do us a huge favor,

[50:02] give it the big old thumbs up, subscribe

[50:04] and of course share with your entrepreneurial friends

[50:07] and those friends that may need a campground

[50:09] to check out in.

[50:11] Is it Reo Treo? Treo on the Great River Road. It's great.

[50:15] Mississippi. Yeah. Is

[50:17] - That it?

[50:18] The Great River Road along the Mississippi River.

[50:19] - Yeah. Yeah. In WISCONSIN. Beautiful WISCONSIN.

[50:21] Oh, we'd like to thank you're wonderful listeners as well

[50:23] as our guest Rachel of Lake Road Campground.

[50:26] Rachel, can you tell us us

[50:27] that website one more time? Sure. Lake

[50:28] - Road campground.com

[50:29] - Doesn't get easier than that. Is it on Lake Road?

[50:32] - It is on Lake Road.

[50:33] - Alright, well it doesn't get easier than that. I love it.

[50:36] No it doesn't. Past episodes can be found morning,

[50:38] noon tonight at the podcast link.

[50:39] Find to draw in customers.com Stankey for joining us.

[50:42] We will see you next week. I want you to stay awesome.

[50:45] And if you do nothing else, enjoy your business.

Authentic Business Adventures

Transcript