This was the best deal yet, a horse ranch of about 60 acres. The castle was situated deep within and held a commanding view from its hill. Castle Dragon has reached its final form. The raised steel roof was sloped for drainage. The sprinkler system hung from it, instead of being positioned on the walls. The ranch would set up the hayride and I would direct the actors. A good advertising budget was split between radio and newspaper. The guy seemed sharp, we agreed on what to do and we did it. And if you believe that that is the way it went down.
The fire department arrives for its inspection and discovers that they made a mistake. The fire hydrant is too far away and they will not let me open. I said, "Excuse me, you guys approved these plans". They said sorry. Well, I had spent a small fortune on installing a fire alarm and sprinkler system, only to be forced to remove the roof of the haunt so that I could open. It seems that there was some confusion as how to classify the haunt once I removed the roof. By the time they make a decision, October was over and I was gone. Removing the roof got me open, but I had no working safety systems in place, other than fire extinguishers. The advertising did not seem to be working. Then I discovered that we were on a country station, too late. I walked up to the main entry area and noticed a DJ set up with a station van. We were doing a radio remote and not one person was responding. But my problems were only beginning. The ranch folks did not like the way the hayride was set up. They took over, added real guns firing blanks and dangerous horse stunts in the dark. They became careless in the loading - unloading procedure. A horse drawn wagon rolled over a log, displacing the driver and the wagon rolled over him. There were more than 1,000 people on site at the time. We gave out refunds to more than 900. During the incident no new customers that arrived stayed to purchase tickets. Not till all the customers on site during the accident were gone did we begin to make money again. Our business was zero on the Saturday before Halloween for an hour and a half. The ranch tried to make off with all the money. Although I made not a dime, all the actors were paid. The ranch did manage to make a little extra; they stole my steel roof. The wall was especially effective this year. The guy that did it the year before was back and he wanted to do nothing but the wall. He was awesome. He was too awesome. One Thursday night he comes to me and says that he has a problem. I walk back with him and he shows me that a particular wall will not stay attached to the floor. I examine the wall and discover that the floor is more like a trampoline, it moves up and down. I close the castle, crawl under the deck and see one floor joist broken completely in two and another split nearly the same. I repaired the damage. My actor tells me that a group of four teenagers fell hard to the floor above the spot of the break. I had heard everything. Customers were now going through my floor. The castle had another visit by a twister; this is Texas. Castle Dragon was built on the site during spring. After it was completed a major storm system crossed its path. Ranch hands witnessed the event. But the damage told the story. The castle was positioned among trees. The southern end of the castle had trees all around it. The twister hit the southwest end of the castle, picked up the building and set it back down. The large trees on either side of this path were ripped to shreds. These trees were huge, 30-40 feet in height. I know the building was lifted because several of the legs holding the deck up fell off. It seems that I forgot to screw them to the frame, OOPS. The back wall for a distance of 40 feet was pushed in two to three feet. It took about one hour to reposition the back wall and secure it. Another twenty minutes to jack the deck and replace the legs. The greatest amount of time was spent on cutting the broken limbs and moving them from the exits that they blocked. The twister moved on, picking up an old car and flipping it around. One branch took out the phone cable, but that was a minor repair. I am exhausted and ready to quit the haunt biz.Mad Hatter
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