Another Fun Weekend!

We had a great time this weekend. I took Friday and Monday off so that my wife and I could have another 4- day weekend for camping. This time, we went to Ceasar's Creek State Park, near Wilmington, Ohio. Being my first time at this campground, I wasn't sure what to expect. However, I can report that it is an EXCELLENT campground with a beautiful lake, spectacular scenery, and very challenging mountain biking courses. It was a fantastic long weekend with good food, great friends and a lot of action packed fun.

Of particular note was our second day of mountain biking. Ceasar's creek has an elaborate system of mountain biking trails, stretching for many miles. Most of the course is intermediate and advanced in difficulty. On the second day of our mountain biking, we decided to do the entire course. It was a challenging course with a lot of steep climbs and descents. Everything was going fine for the first hour and a half. We had just completed the advanced portion of the course without any significant difficulty (other than my partner taking one fall) and thought that we were about half way back to the campground. As we arrived at the intersection of two trails, we realized that we had somehow gone around the advanced course again and were STILL ON THE ADVANCED COURSE! We were MANY miles from the campground. I was out of water. My partner was almost out of water. We were getting VERY TIRED and obviously lost. Certainly not time to declare an emergency, but still an uncomfortable situation.

Fortunately, while we were contemplating our situation, a lone biker arrived at our location. This was somewhat amazing, as he was the only other biker we saw on the entire course that day! He was a local guy who knew exactly where we were, and he volunteered to ride with us to the intersection of the next trailhead. By the time we finally arrived at the next trail head, we had already been riding for more than 2 hours and had ridden at least 20 miles on very challenging trails. We were both out of water and extremely tired. It was obvious that we couldn't ride the course back to the campground. We decided to exit the course and head back to the campground via some nearby rural roads.

As we made our way onto a country road, there was a man sitting on his porch. We stopped at his house to ask for water. The man was very kind and filled our water bottles with cold water from his refrigerator. I was certainly happy to have some fresh water and that water allowed us to continue back to the campground. By the time we finally arrived, we had been riding for nearly three hours and we were both literally exhausted. We were both close to being physically sick. After eating a light lunch and taking a two hour nap, I started to recover and was feeling better. By the next morning, I was feeling well enough for another 10 mile ride.

This incident teaches a valuable lesson that can be applied to just about every facet of life (including real estate). This lesson is one that I learned in the military; one that I know well; and one that I have applied in almost every other situation. In fact, I am a little embarassed that I didn't apply this lesson to my mountain biking when it was so obviously needed. Of course, the lesson is to be prepared! In the military, they expressed this to me (over and over again) as the Seven P's: Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. In the case of our mountain biking trip, our lack of planning certainly did result in piss poor performance.

So, I have vowed that I will apply the lesson learned by this experience into my future mountain biking trips (including this coming weekend). From now on, I will carry my camelback (additional water), a powerbar or something else to eat; a small first aid kit, and some sort of navigation device (either a compass or a small GPS. I also will re-evaluate the tools that I am carrying. I am already religiously wearing my helmet, but am considering wearing some sort of glasses or sport goggles for eye protection.

This has already been a long post, so I'm not going to opine how this applies to real estate - I think you get the point.

Speaking of real estate, I was back to work today. I spent the day collecting rent; fixing two showers; mowing the yards at two apartment buildings; and inspecting one property in advance of tomorrow's Section 8 inspection.