New Years Eve.....

6:23 am - New Years Day, 1/1/2023 - GNHS -  55° F, humidity 97%, wind 8 mph out of the south by southwest.....rained from about 1 am to 4:30 am....cloudy right now with a forecast high of 60° F.   HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU AND YOURS!  On this date in 2016 I posted a picture of our new 2016 calendar........↴

.....so I'll post a picture of our 2023 lighthouse calendar.....so cool to see a fresh, new year....a clean slate......↴

.....the first day of a new year so full of possibilities.  So excited to see where it takes us!

As I wrote in yesterday's edition we had 7 bookings for Saturday, New Years Eve, so we were out opening the office at 7:30 am, and getting three of the RZRs ready for our 8 am customers.  For the first time since we arrived we had heavy fog, and everything was wet, almost as if it had rained.....

.....necessitating the wiping down of all the UTV seats before I could even get in to move them to the staging area.  I don't think we stopped to take a breath until after 10:30 am when the final customer left in his rental.  Four of the rentals were of the 'all day' variety, and 3 were half days.  

There is always something to do in this business and I had plenty to keep me busy until our customers began to return.  First up I spread some more gravel over the muddy ground (less muddy with each application of gravel) at the wash station, and then got out my Toro hand blower to move some more gravel and dust out of the parking area.  I worked on that for over an hour, and now have about 75% of the pavement clear.

The noise level here at GNHS with 99% of the RV sites, and cabins rented, was as you might expect with so many 'sand toys' in use.  As I drove around the park it appeared there was a 'sand toy' for every living human being on site.  There were literally hundreds of UTV's in motion all over park, and an equal number out in the surrounding desert environs.

Our half day rentals began to return around 2 pm, and then the process we began in the morning reversed itself as we were greeting returning customers, inspecting each UTV for damage, then fueling, washing, and putting away one UTV after another for the next three hours.  Fortunately the last two UTVs returned just after 4 pm, and I had them put away by 5 pm.

New Years Eve was also a day of NCAA College Football bowl games, the most important of which were the two semi final games featuring the top four college football teams in the nation.  The first game pitted #2 Michigan against #3 TCU, and I thought, as well as the rest of the college football world, that Michigan would win handily, but they lost an ugly, error filled game by 6 points as the clock wound down to zero.  Final score 51-45.  The 2nd game featured #1 Georgia against #4 Ohio State.  Again, the entire football world thought this would be a one sided game won by Georgia, but it came down to the last second as Georgia eked out a one point victory when Ohio's last second field goal attempt to win the game went wide of the mark. Final score 42-41.  Both games were marred by what I and many commentators felt was extremely poor officiating at the most critical times in the game.  At any rate, the final will be played next Monday in Los Angeles, I believe.  Will Georgia repeat as National Champions, or will upstart TCU (Texas Christian University) prevail.....we shall see.

As I write I look out on a very wet landscape, and know that in about 30 minutes I'll be wiping down three RZR's for our 8 am customers.  I wonder when they went to bed last night, because it seemed like there were fireworks going on until almost 1 am.

Thanks for stopping by!