When the Plan Meets Reality: Adjusting the 2026 Playbook
When we mapped out 2026, we had a name for it: From Functional to Memorable. The idea was simple. Not a year of chasing new doors, but a year of getting deliberate about the ones we already had. Standardize every unit. Upgrade the tired spots. Build out a structured unit-visit audit so we could walk into any property, gauge exactly where it stood, and know what was missing — pulling from old reviews, past guest conversations, and what we were seeing and hearing on the ground. A calmer year. Improvement over expansion.
That plan isn’t in the dumpster. It’s in a file, waiting for us to finalize it. Because somewhere in there, the Adventure Cabins & Campground in Chassell fell into our lap.
It wasn’t a purchase we were anticipating. Honestly, we were trying to make this an easier year on ourselves. But the upside was too big to walk away from, so we jumped — and overnight we added eleven spaces, nine campground sites, a mix of what had all been long-term setups. That didn’t fit what we do, so the real work began: flipping units into short-term weekend stays and medium-term professional monthly rentals, one at a time.
And every time we think we’re caught up and ready for the next one, we turn around and find another touchy spot. We’d walk into a cabin thinking, “Great, we just finish furnishing this and drop in a good bed” — and then discover a lumpy mattress from 1990 sitting on a frame somebody hand-built out of two-by-fours, or a couch you sink straight through to the cross member. Little surprises, over and over.
One of the best moves we made early was clearing up the confusion. The spaces had all been numbered one through eleven, but they weren’t really one kind of thing. So we split them into what they actually are: the Adventure Cabins, Adventure Suites (east and west — the trailer), and the Adventure Outpost (A, B, and C — the old building, reborn as three apartments). Then we put up reflective red signs that light up when your headlights hit them on the way in, labeled individually, so nobody’s wandering around in the dark wondering where they’re supposed to be.
Not everything is a quick fix, though. A couple of the cabins had long-term tenants who have since moved out, and both had been smoked in, with soft spots in the bathroom floors from water leaks nobody ever addressed. Some of the past work was shoddy at best. We’re going to get those two quoted and done professionally — it’s more than I want to take on myself, and right now they’re bringing in nothing. I’d rather spend the money to bring them all the way up to the level we want, then move forward from there, than patch them and live with it.
And Chassell isn’t the only thing reshuffling the deck. We’ve also got a half-duplex rehab that’s fighting us every step of the way. That’s a story for another day — but it’s part of the same picture.
So here’s the honest truth: From Functional to Memorable is getting pushed to 2027. Not because it failed — because opportunity rearranged the calendar. Chassell has been fantastic, and it slowed the original plan down at the same time. Both things are true. That’s the part of this business nobody puts on the brochure: sometimes the right deal is the one that blows up your tidy little quarter.
We’re not sweating it. This is just real estate. You adjust as you go, you find the silver lining, and you keep moving forward. We’ve got about two and a half months left in 2026, a stack of units coming online, and a plan sitting in a file that’ll be waiting for us — sharper than ever — when January rolls around.