Jay Richards

A picture of a pickup on the blog most likely warrants someone getting stuck. Instead, Jon backing green truck up nicely to dump off some garbage. The other week Jon was helping me unload some leaves to the huge pile in the woods and asked to drive the truck after we unloaded. So I let him drive out of the woods and there was no issue. He asked to drive again and this time solo. He went down the driveway a short to pick up some branches/sticks and all good. Hauling rocks, leaves, sticks makes chores a bit more fun, he said. We'll see how long the fun lasts! Pretty much everyone that has driven the green truck has been stuck, ran into a tree or rock(s) and never forget Andre when he pressed ze brake but it was ze gaz and hit a buz.


Jack on the jump. The dirt jump track has been in great shape this Spring. A few days rained out but riding when damp end of last weekend has packed it down rock hard. BMX racing starts this weekend and hopefully it doesn't rain too much the next few days it gets canceled but not looking too good now with steady rain Thursday and today (Friday). Planning on taking Jens and Jack for some racing action.

News this week coming out of Cable/Hayward area of the closing of Telemark lodge on May 5th. Its a bummer to see another resort possibly close its doors. I don't know much about the situation so I won't comment on it other than I am sure it has been very frustrating for GC and others trying to make things go and have it fall apart at the end. There is probably the most elaborate and fantastic trail systems in the Cable/Hayward area and TR was a resting ground for many silent sport enthusiasts and a huge part of logistical procedures for the Cheq and Birkie. Efforts underway in the Detroit Lakes area to try and have the county by back Detroit Mountain and create recreation possibilities for area residents. More will be known about that soon if things will move forward or possibly divide out for multiple ownership. Bottom line a lot of things behind the scenes that most people don't know about make it difficult to keep things going. Fees/Taxes, mostly the huge escalation in property taxes, and operating costs is the culprit.

Same day this week a sales rep for a publishing company stopped by after calling last week about putting Maplelag in a book. Seemed legit so I set up an appointment to meet at noon. Figured he could have lunch and sample Maplelag fare since we had a group this week and could have a tour and talk.

Around 1:30 he called and said he got lost because his gps told him to go down a certain road and it dead ended. I said didn't he look at a regular map for good measure and I commented how mapquest, gps etc. gets more people messed up than using a plain old map. He mumbled something and thirty minutes later he shows up, suit and tie. I told him a t-shirt would of been fine but he said the last resort he was at was owned by a person that came from the corporate world so he thought that was proper. Fine.

Even though he missed lunch, Deb set him up and we had some conversation than did a tour of the lodge and grounds for about a hour and a half. Had some good discussion on resorting and my views and philosophies. He has traveled across the state visiting close to 100 resorts so he has seen pretty much the whole mixed bag. After that, he said he wanted to show me something so we sat back down and he brought out a laptop, a few books and newspaper articles.

Basically he was looking for sponsorship of a book he was writing. The last and only time we did that we got taken to the cleaners. Once I figured out what he was doing, I got more defensive and questioned his professional sales tactics and the honesty of the book if the only people in there are ones that paid for it. I am not a number or "trend" person and the power point presentation regarding the status of resorts had some validity, imo, but it isn't how we work and saying I was wrong when he had never been here before didn't sit well.

The fact it took up over 3 hours of time on probably the most beautiful day of the week left a bad taste in the mouth but that's how it goes and you live and learn and a learning experience for sure so its good. Looking back and thinking about his whole approach was definitely by the book and it didn't work. Don't normally like to elaborate on things like this as it is all part of the business but just felt like writing it down so I would remember in the future. If I delete it in a few days, you know why. Thanks for reading.