Part Three

Our first summer in Oliver was our first experience with working in the heat. The BelAir was open for business and this meant cleaning rooms every day. As July rolled round I would wear a swimsuit under my clothes and, in between each room I would take a dip, put my clothes back on over the wet suit and clean another room. This was how I coped with the heat.

We had made rules for the pool and one of them was Senior’s Only, between 2.00 and 3.00. Because we were both 45, I made that the senior’s age requirement. Every afternoon we were to be found in the pool for our hour’s cool off.

When people arrived to check in, we took turns getting out of the pool to attend to them. Not very professional registering guests, while dripping water on the floor, but hey, we were the owners and made up our own rules.

Over the years we learned to just leave room doors unlocked and when guests arrived, we just hailed them, over the pool fence, told them to get comfortable and register later. As RV’s arrived we directed them to their sites, from our side of the pool fence, we took our rest time very seriously!

Most people seemed to enjoy this casual attitude and would join us for a swim. Actually, swimming was something we didn’t do much of as our senior’s hour was so popular that, quite often, it was just a group of people floating around on foam tubes and chatting.

As fall of 1990 rolled round, it was time to start activating our plans for an RV park. The first summer we could just take small units and tents as we had so many huge cherry trees. Our plans were to remove alternate rows of cherry trees to allow for 50 foot square sites.

Over the winter months, we had V-Line’s backhoes and trucks as regular visitors and the place looked like a war zone. The beautiful trees had to be sacrificed and there were trenches dug all over the place to install sewer, electric cables, telephone and cable tv. We were on a septic system so huge concrete tanks were installed and big drainage fields dug. On rainy days, it looked like movies of world war two and you could imagine troops of cold, wet soldiers living in the trenches.

Come spring and all was peaceful, the sites were flattened and the gravel pads done. Now it was my job to rake sand and top soil onto half of each site and spread grass seed. I felt a bit like a pioneer woman as I wielded my rake. It seemed to take ages for the grass to grow and I was like a mother hen, fussing and watering the seedlings.

Over the winter Dave had been working on the pool buildings. He had installed new shower and bathroom stalls and we had also installed a coin-op laundry. Everything was fresh and new and we loved out new campground.

In early May, we had the pool sandblasted and we repainted it. Everything looked great and we were ready to go.

Our first RV was a rental unit and the guy driving it was unused to driving an overheight vehicle. He turned into the site too soon and managed to put a branch of a tree through the window that was over the cab. Not a good start.

As other units came in we got lots of compliments on the size and placement of the sites. They were big and roomy and lots of outdoor living space. \aymany of the people who came that first year became regular clients and came every year. Many people chose the same time each year t come, so, they got to know one another and a big family atmosphere came about. Every couple of weeks a new batch of “regulars” would arrive and the camaraderie continued, it was s happy place to be.

On July first, of our second year, we decided to hold a Canada Day barbecue. This was a huge success and became one of the highlights of every year. Sometimes we would have a new guest register, just s we were all assembling and we would ask them to join us. They would look at us as though we were mad, but it didn’t take long for them to join in and have a good time.

Our campground became a popular place to be, trouble was, we had people who wanted to stay full time, and this is another story.