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WILL1E
Moderator
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# Posted: 28 Sep 2020 08:51am
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On 9/22/2020 we officially became land owners again! We purchased a 5.89 acre corner parcel in NE Wisconsin.
Lay of the land
The road bordering the north property line is a paved, county maintained road. The east road is a privately maintained gravel road. The western property line boarders another private owner, however we have a large "seasonal pond" that gives us some separation. To the south is another private owner with a relatively new looking cabin near the property line. However, other neighbors have told me they haven't seen anyone there in quite awhile and supposedly he passed away last fall. So TBD on what happens there.
The plan
For now our plan is to at least get situated on the land with our 32' 5th wheel camper. This includes bringing in power, building some sort of shed, building a outhouse and hopefully installing a sandpoint. Once we're comfortable with all that, i'll focus on designing and building a cabin. I'd like to keep it small but comfortable, and affordable.
The start
On Saturday 9/26 I went up to start cutting the driveway in, install the power pedestal i built at home and hopefully clear out the spot for the camper. To my dislike it was a hot day (70's...i know, that's not hot but i hate warm weather!) which slowed me down a bit. Started at 10am and I was able to clear the first 200' of driveway pretty well within the first hour or so as shown in the pictures below. Doesn't even look like the same place already!
The entire driveway will be about 300ish feet long. At about the 230' mark is where there will be a branch off to the right where the power pedestal will go and eventually the shed. At the end of the 300' which is basically where the "seasonal pond" is, there will be another branch to the right which is where the camper will go. So after the first section was done i did some more clearing the rest of the way to get it wide enough and high enough to pull a camper through. Really wish i had a small wood chipper vs. making brush piles all over the place.
I could see that the rain was coming so i shifted my focus to getting the power pedestal in. This part of WI the soil is pretty sandy so digging down 4' wasn't to difficult with the help of my power auger. Bored 2 holes and then post holed the middle out. Moving the 10' long 6x6" post with all the fixings on it myself was chore. I stood it upright, bear hugged it like a log thrower and then walked it over to the hole and dropped it in!
The rain started so i quick pitched a tarp awning and a tent on a spot close to the water. Seeing as the rain wasn't going to stop anytime soon, i packed up the cooler and headed down the road to a neighbor who i've talked to a few times now. Great guy, very friendly and helpful already.
Sunday morning i made breakfast on the tailgate of the truck and then installed some trail cameras. I didn't want to be "that guy" who fires up a chainsaw at 7am so i tried to stay as quiet as i could for a bit longer. Broke down camp and then did some manually brush trimming and such. The neighbor stopped by and we chit chatted for a bit. He's a concrete business owner so he has a bunch of equipment at this cabin down the road. He offered to help me put some finishing touches on the driveway and camper spots ahead of having gravel brought in. So next weekend he is going to knock down some high spots in the driveway, scrape a few areas flat and push over a couple trees that i had planned to fell myself, but he said would be better to get the root ball up with them.
So stay tuned for more! I'll put up some more pictures below.
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WILL1E
Moderator
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# Posted: 28 Sep 2020 09:39am - Edited by: WILL1E
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FishHog
Member
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# Posted: 28 Sep 2020 09:56am
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Excited for you. Congratulations and remember to enjoy it not just work all the time for the first few years
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WILL1E
Moderator
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# Posted: 28 Sep 2020 11:31am
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Thanks @FishHog
Yeah, that's hard to do cause i have a hard time sitting still and like to constantly be putzin' around. Hopefully i can keep myself to only doing work on the weekends i go up myself and then when the wife and son come up we do fun stuff.
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FishHog
Member
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# Posted: 28 Sep 2020 12:32pm
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Well I didn’t take my own advice well doing my place. But I like to putter as well. The odd nice day I just stopped talked mrs fishie into stopping what she was doing and we just went and enjoyed the lake. Hard to do but those are my best memory days of our major projects. 6 years in I’ve yet to run out of projects to putter on. But none of them are essential
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WILL1E
Moderator
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# Posted: 2 Oct 2020 10:40am
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Update:
This week I received word from the inspector that my power pedestal was approved for energization!! Went pretty easy, all she asked for was a picture of the open meter base and open breaker panel. Now i'm just waiting for the power company to schedule the day they are going to run the wire and get me hooked up!
Storage. Since i'm not 100% on where i want to have a shed i've been looking for either temporary or at least somewhat portable secure storage options. Been looking at trailers and shipping containers. Shipping container seemed like the way to go, but the delivery folks wanted a 70' straight runway to drop it off. So moving it after the fact was going to be something i'd have to figure out.
But then last night I got a little click happy and ended up buying a big 'ol trailer on auction...you can imagine the happiness of my wife when i told her  Ended up with a 18' x 8' enclosed trailer. My plan is to clean it up, install some outlets and connections for shore power hookup and use this till at least spring when hopefully i'll have a better idea of where i want things.
Plan for this weekend is to head up tomorrow and drop a few more trees and level out a few spots in the driveway and camper site.
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Brettny
Member
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# Posted: 2 Oct 2020 11:14am
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Be careful leaving an enclosed trailer out there durring the winter if you get alot of snow. Those can also leak alot just like normal camp trailers.
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WILL1E
Moderator
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# Posted: 5 Oct 2020 03:47pm - Edited by: WILL1E
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Went up to the land on 10/3/2020 to continue making progress on the driveway and the spot where the camper will go. Although we made good progress, it looks and feels like we made things worse!
Ended up dropping about 6 healthy trees  to make room to get the camper in. Just chopped them up to ~8 footers for now and ran all the small stuff through my chipper.
The neighbor down the road offered his time and equipment to use his bobcat and scrape/flatten several areas for me.
Next step is to bring in 1-2 loads of "pit run" to fill in some soft spots on the driveway and then 2-3 loads of gravel for everything else. Going to be $$$ but i guess it needs to be done to prevent my 1 ton truck and 32' 5th wheel from sinking.
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Brettny
Member
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# Posted: 6 Oct 2020 06:38am - Edited by: Brettny
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If you have any soft areas do your self a long term favor and put down some road fabric. Just dont use it on any steep hills. I built my driveway through a swamp and used this stuff.
Edit; wheres your road side ditches? Keeping water off a road makes it never wash out.
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tadmend
Member
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# Posted: 8 Oct 2020 02:32pm
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Well done... conratulations for the great work so far!!
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WILL1E
Moderator
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# Posted: 12 Oct 2020 09:46am
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Well it's Monday and it was a less than stellar weekend of news from The Land so I need to vent
Some backgorund on my neighbor down the road from my place. He has been more than gracious in the knowledge he has shared and the help he's already provided me. He own's a concrete company and is well versed in the trade. He also owns a bunch of equipment which he keeps at his "cabin" (which is nicer than most peoples main homes). He's got a bobcat and dozer that i've seen so far. He is the one that came and scrapped eveyrthing 2 weekends ago. Thus far he has refused to take money for his time but i feel so horrible every time he helps me. So last weekend i dropped off a couple cases of Busch Latte's for his help.
The neighbor suggested i bring in 2 loads of pit run (cheaper, coarser stone) to firm up the driveway, and then we bring in 2-4 loads of gravel to top off the driveway and then the area the camper is going to sit. It cost $250 per 15 cubic yard of pit run and $350 per 15 cubic yard of 3/4 gravel. That includes delivery by a tri-axle dump truck which is prolly pushing 80,000lbs fully loaded.
Plan was to have the trucks back in and drag/dump the loads as they pulled out. Neighbor would then use his bobcat to push and level spots out.
Now, onto this weekend. 
Friday the company delivered 2 loads of pit run. Well the neighbor texted Friday night and said he got bads news from the gravel guy. Apparently the second they backed the truck into the driveway she sank pretty good, almost to the point of rolling the truck over  Fortunately the gravel guys knows my neighbor really well and was able to use the dozer from his cabin to pull out the dump truck.
Unfortunately i didn't make it up there this weekend as i've been using every free moment to repair the new trailer and prep it for going up there. The neighbor went to my place on Saturday to assess the damage and spread out the loads they dropped. Based on what he saw, sounds like we won't be getting dump trucks into my land.
So now i'm trying to figure out how i get a couple more loads of gravel into my land without a dump truck being able to drive 300ft in...meaning they would have to dump it at the road.
The cost of renting a trailer, cost per ton of gravel plus fuel for my truck is almost exactly equal to 1 dump truck load. So there's no saving money there. The only benefit would be that i "should" be able to drive my truck and trailer all the way into the spots and dump it.
Only other option i can think of is to rent a bobcat myself and just move gravel myself and not get the neighbor involved. Daily rental of a bobcat is $250 plus fuel.
Thoughts?
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DaveBell
Moderator
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# Posted: 12 Oct 2020 10:31am
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Tail gate the gravel in backwards. See Andrew Camarata videos on youtube. You may need road fabric first else you may be graveling forever.
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DaveBell
Moderator
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# Posted: 12 Oct 2020 10:35am
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The second pic shows downhill but no grading right to left. You need to grade the road so the water runs off the left and not down the road.
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DaveBell
Moderator
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# Posted: 12 Oct 2020 10:40am
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The power company will like to run the power cable down the middle of the driveway so it won't get dug up. Start with better grading, then power, then road fabric, then gravel.
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WILL1E
Moderator
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# Posted: 12 Oct 2020 11:30am - Edited by: WILL1E
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When looking at this photo, the land on the left slopes to the driveway. To the right of the driveway in this photo is water. So the water should run into the "pond" on the right.
The power will be coming into my land from a totally different area, not the driveway.
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AKfisher
Member
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# Posted: 12 Oct 2020 01:05pm
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Quoting: WILL1E So now i'm trying to figure out how i get a couple more loads of gravel into my land without a dump truck being able to drive 300ft in...meaning they would have to dump it at the road.
As stated earlier, work your way in with gravel. Pitrun for sure as your base unless you have large donikers. I know it is expensive for geotec fabric but in the long run it is worth it. Roll out the fabric, back the truck in dump some gravel, doze out, repeat. Once you get the pit run in, a vibratory roller works wonders on firming up the gravel. Then you would be able to get a truck in and spread the 3/4 crush.
You could also wait until the soil is frozen, would need to be completely frozen, but then you would likely be working with frozen gravel as well. Trade offs.
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WILL1E
Moderator
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# Posted: 19 Oct 2020 11:32am
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10/18/2020 Update
Went up this weekend to check out the driveway and drop off the new (to me) cargo trailer that i'll be using as a shed. Fall is pretty much gone already as they had a light dusting of snow the day before.
Here is a photo of the driveway with the 2 loads of pit run on it. Felt pretty good when i drove on it with my 1 ton truck and 18' cargo trailer (~5k'ish)
Took about 2hrs, but finally got the trailer in the spot i wanted. The trailer spot runs perpendicular to the main driveway. Only having about 10' of driveway width made it extremely difficult to get the trailer into this spot. If taking the trailer in/out becomes a regular thing, something will have to change for sure as i'm not going to deal with that stress again.
The power contractors are supposed to be installing the cable today, so hopefully that goes well and i don't get any phone calls!
Now that the leaves are down i can see the property so much better. Found another spot i kind of like for a future cabin spot.
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Nate R
Member
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# Posted: 20 Oct 2020 01:10pm
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Looking good!
I'm still a bit amazed every year just how much the view of the landscape in this area changes throughout the seasons.
Glad your power's going in! I should have my meter pedestal in soon, and I'll be getting power as well, thanks to your documenting your power experience here. 
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WILL1E
Moderator
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# Posted: 21 Oct 2020 07:59am
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Thanks Nate!
Yeah, it is crazy. I'm anxious to see what winter is like at my place. My neighbor who is from SE Wisconsin says up there it's like a snowbelt and they usually get hammered.
Its also weird that up there the trees are pretty much done shedding, however, about 45min north of Green bay you hit a east/west line where it looks like fall is only half over.
Glad to hear your getting power brought in! You'll have to email me and let me know what that ended up costing. If you need help building the pedestal, don't hesitate to reach out.
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WILL1E
Moderator
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# Posted: 27 Oct 2020 08:47am - Edited by: WILL1E
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10/23/2020 Update
To avoid another dump truck fiasco and to minimize how much more help i got from the neighbor and his skid steer, I made the decision to rent a dump trailer and make 50mi round trips between my land a quarry so that i could get the gravel back into the camper spot.
Unfortunately, it dumped about 3-4in of rain the day before on top of the 2-3in of snow they got 2 days prior to that. If i was smart, i would've pulled the plug. But i was insistent on making use of my vacation day from work and the $100 daily rental for the trailer. Well, as you may have already guessed...i got my 1 ton truck (aka a tank) sunk along with the trailer about 200' into my driveway...this picture doesn't do it justice:
Basically i went to slow, backed up a hair to get a straight line up the slick hill and then buried myself trying to get up again. So we tried dumping as much as possible but that didn't help. Fortunately, my other neighbor who lives up there full time has a nice little New Holland tractor (i think that's the blue brand) came and yanked me out. Needless to say we dumped the rest of that load right there to fix that spot!
After pulling further into the property to turn around and get out, i go stuck again right in the area i planned to spend all day hauling gravel to. Needless to say the rain/snow made the freshly scrapped ground a slop fest.
So after getting pulled out again, i decided to just dump all the following loads at the end of the driveway. I got 5 runs total in that day for a total of 20tons..2 loads of 1-3" breaker, 2 loads of lime dust/gravel mix and 1 load of "road gravel". I suspect the breaker stone will be used in the spots i got stuck and hopefully the 2 other loads will go where the camper is supposed to go.
Unless we get a massive dry spell, i don't think the camper is going to make it in this year. I just can't risk getting a 1 ton truck and newer 32' fifth wheel stuck as extraction options are pretty much non-existent with the same and access i have. So i think the travel trailer is going to be my "cabin" for the winter and the schedule to build is going to get accelerated if at all possible.
On the plus side, i did manage to catch this fella trotting around my land!!
https://i.imgur.com/CuT2VFM.mp4
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WILL1E
Moderator
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# Posted: 27 Oct 2020 08:58am
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Forgot to mention...the utility contractor dropped the transformer and ran the cables....however, they dropped the transformer about 10' over from where it was marked to be, so it's sitting smack dab in the center of what could be my second driveway 
While I was there the actual utility company showed up to set the meter and they came and talked to me. Found out also the contractor used the wrong cable so they were unable to set the meter. Told him about the transformer situation and he said he would look into it. So, still no power
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Ol Slim
Member
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# Posted: 2 Nov 2020 12:25pm
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Dang Willie ! Keep fighting the good fight ! Beautiful place you have there. It's gonna be worth it.
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Irrigation Guy
Member
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# Posted: 2 Nov 2020 07:45pm
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Maybe wait for the ground to freeze to get your camper in?
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Bruces
Member
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# Posted: 2 Nov 2020 08:20pm
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Back your camper in ,if you need a tug it’s easy for any equipment your neighbours have or a tow truck .
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jsahara24
Member
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# Posted: 3 Nov 2020 10:52am
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Wait for the next cold front to move through and bring the camper after its been below freezing for a day or at least all night. Sounds like you have a couple bad spots so maybe you could lay some wood/trees down to help you get across those areas. Bring a come a long or winch in case things don't go as planned.
Or hire someone with a dozer/big tractor to bring it into your property.
Good luck and remember to have fun!
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NorthRick
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# Posted: 3 Nov 2020 12:23pm
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While I get the desire to get things done, right now you are fighting mother nature and she can put up quite a fight. Give it a rest and let things either dry out or freeze up.
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WILL1E
Moderator
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# Posted: 9 Nov 2020 12:55pm - Edited by: WILL1E
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10/29/2020 Update
Get text from fulltime neighbor saying someone installed post on either side of the incorrectly placed transformer. I just assumed it was those white PVS post marking underground utilities. Then the picture came through...nope, 2 telephone boxes, one on either side in my secondary undeveloped driveway 
Called power company and come to find out what the deal was. Sounds like the contractor they hired to place the transformer hit the wires for the phone thus requiring them to install a box at each splice point. He also said the contractor claimed the transformer spot wasn't marked and that's they installed it where they did....BS, you can see the flagged spot in the picture above to the right of the driveway!!
11/2/2020 Update
Power company called and said they were sending a crew (not contractors) to move the transformer, get the correct wire in, etc.
11/3/2020 Update
Text from regional manager of power company saying all the work was done, meter is set and i have power!!!
11/6/2020 Update
Big news this weekend.....
The camper is on the land!!!! 
Buddy and I drove up on Friday afternoon with plans to tiddy up the cargo trailer, install a window in it, put up deer stands and do some firewood cutting and such. We arrived to find the neighbor had already spread 2 of the 4 piles of stone for me. He came down and spread the other 2 piles on the camper spot shortly after we arrived.
This is when i realized how dry everything was up there. They hadn't seen rain in 2 weeks and it was in the 70's for the last couple days. So, after getting situated for the night (get's dark by 5pm) and a few beers, the decision was made that this was my window of opportunity to get the camper in.
We got up at 5am and drove 2hrs back home, loaded up the camper and turn around and drove 2hrs back to the land. My original idea was to drive in forward almost to the water and then jackknife the camper into it's spot. But even though everything was super dry, i didn't want to chance getting stuck with my truck pinched between a camper and the water with no good way of getting tugged out without damaging the camper. So i backed in all 300ft with the plan to jackknife it into the spot.
Well, same problem i had when bringing the cargo trailer is that when jackknifing it into the spot, there wasn't enough room for my truck to swing out without hitting something. Tried for half an hour and just couldn't make it work. So, sat and stared for a good hour and had a beer or two (this is when all good ideas start right?!).
Determined that if i continued to back the camper in up to the water, i could pull forward into the camper spot, drop it and drive out the partially cleared second driveway where they ran the power in. Seemed like a low risk plan with a contingency that if i got stuck, someone could still easily pull me out or B that if i didn't like the spot i could back up and drive out the main driveway and just take the camper back home.
Well, as you see above the plan worked! One issue, it's sitting 180 degrees from the direction we (mainly my wife) wanted. She wanted the front door facing the water so you could walk out the door and sit under the awning facing the water. Second issue is that my power connecting point on the camper is now 40' further away from my power pole. So i need to purchase another 25ft 30amp cord for the camper to reach the post.
So my luck finally changed the last week or two and things are headed the right direction. Needless to say i didn't accomplish much else and my buddy cooking us a cast iron fried steak for dinner was a good ending for the weekend.
I might try to haul a load or two of gravel in the back of my truck to smooth out the crusher stone in the driveway but other than that, i don't think much else is gonna happen this year but try to enjoy the place and just do stress free putzy projects. Gun deer season opens in 2 weeks so that'll be the next trip up!
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mj1angier
Member
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# Posted: 9 Nov 2020 03:00pm
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When we had out camper out at our cabin site, I found it was much easier to move it around in the tight area with my tractor bucket. Also did not have to stay on drive with tractor like I did with truck. Maybe ask the neighbor to help move it into place
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WILL1E
Moderator
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# Posted: 9 Nov 2020 03:25pm
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I thought about that, but feel bad enough about accepting/asking help from anyone. Plus, i know he has a ball attachment for his bucket, but not sure he'd have anything for a 5th wheel hitch like what i have.
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Nate R
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# Posted: 12 Nov 2020 11:56am
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Glad you finally have your power and your camper in!
So, they moved the transformer...do you still have a phone box on either side of that backup driveway?
PoCo contractor called me and said my underground cable's getting run next week...Sounds like I might have the line energized by Thanksgiving.
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