Fulltiming Road Runners

Actually, I called them.  Since we’ll be running behind on getting down to Quartzsite, I called Phyllis (she and Larry are the campground coordinators) to let her know.  It’s not a problem as far as they are concerned, “business” is slow right now and will be for the month of Oct.  She did give me some disappointing news though.  Just yesterday someone came in and parked in the spot we had last winter.  They parked on the other side of the two Ironwood trees from where we parked.  Technically, we could still park where we were last year, but we wanted the whole thing, not just half. *whine*

Maybe it’s a good thing.  Maybe we’ll find a really nice spot along the wash somewhere else.  Sandy had a pretty nice spot last year, maybe we’ll look and see if we  can park on that side, but get a bit closer to the trees and shade.  We’ll see.  At least this time we have the car so we can drive around looking for the perfect place.

Another thing about someone else having “our spot” is Thom stashed a bunch of firewood, so if it stayed stashed during the summer, they’ll have some pretty good campfires.  If they don’t find it, we can still go in and get it.

I had a wonderful time Friday at lunch with Polly and Barb.  It was fun catching up with things at the office and sharing my experiences with them.

When I got back from lunch Thom asked if I wanted to go north to Ben Franklin’s Crafts and then to Mike & Tiff’s to pick up mail.  Of course, I said YEP!  Ben Franklins had quite a beading department, but not the kind of beads I want… not at a decent price and quantity anyway.

Mike was in Washington at his friends wedding and Tiff and Coen were about to leave to go to dinner with her two sisters, so we just picked up our things and left.  We stopped on our way home to visit with Melani, Kirk and Brody for a bit.  It’s going to be hard to leave those three.  At least we can keep in touch by phone and email.  We both have Verizon Wireless, so we can talk forever at no charge.  They also said they’ll be going down to QZ for a visit (probably in January), so that’ll be really nice.

I’m getting restless just sitting here waiting for things to come in so they can finish up the trailer.  It’s not good when I get restless…. I have a tendency to shop and spend money when I can’t afford to spend money.   I downloaded a couple more free beading patterns, so maybe I can keep occupied with those and stay home.

Ya’ll stay healthy ‘n happy!

Toodles!

It’s now been 12 days of living behind Camping World.  11 of those days have been spent sitting and waiting for parts.  We were told yesterday the fuse block and fuse for our inverter should arrive by Thursday.  I’m hoping the other things come in before that and the service dept. will install them as they come in and not wait for it all to get here.  We’re supposed to be in Quartzsite the first week in October and once again we’re pushing the envelope!  The inverter fuse block won’t even be here until Oct. 2nd.

At least I have something to look forward to today.  I’m going to meet a couple of gals from the office I retired from.  It’s going to be great to be able to sit and talk and catch up.

It’s time for me to get a few things done.

Ya’ll stay healthy ‘n happy!

Toodles.

We’re still sitting behind Camping World waiting for parts.  Right now, I’m enjoying the sitting… have a hot cup of coffee beside me, rain on the roof and an occasional clap of thunder.  Lovely.

Utah really needs this rain.  It rained half the night and at 10 a.m. is still raining.

Yesterday we drove to Mike & Tiff’s to pick up our mail and my new cell phone.  We stopped in Kaysville to go to the Ben Franklin Crafts store, but we forgot we were in Utah, where many stores are closed on Sundays because Mormons aren’t supposed to shop on Sundays and they make up a large part of Utah’s population.   We’ll just have to take a drive up there in a day or two.  Maybe even this afternoon.

I got a few pics of Coen yesterday.  I’ll share one at the end of this blog.  He’s growing like a week and is soooo cute!  He’s going into his shy, Momma’s boy phase, so he wasn’t happy at all on my lap, but as long as he was on Momma’s lap he was more than happy to smile, laugh and talk with me.

Back to my cell phone.  It’s part of the “new every two” plan, where you get a new phone every two years when you renew your 2 yr contract.  I have no intention of leaving Verizon or the plan the were on, so I take advantage of the new phone when it’s time.  When you’re retired and living in your RV fulltime the cell phone is very important.  I couldn’t believe the variety of phones and functions available… phones that would download and play music, phones that would do your email and browse the internet, phones that take still photos, phones that take video pictures, and phones that do all of the above.  I could have gotten any of these phones for free.

I didn’t want any of the above functions.  I couldn’t find, online, a phone I wanted so I had to call Verizon to find out if what I wanted was even available anymore.  I told the gal I wanted a “dirt garden variety” cell phone.  I wanted to be able to make calls on it.  I wanted it to have a speaker phone.  I wanted to be able to text message on the very rare occasion and I wanted it to have external antenna capability.  It’s the antenna that was the stumper.  I had to talk to 3 people before I got one who even knew external antenna was even an option in the past.  Verizon has two models with the capability, one is a reconditioned phone.  I ordered the other one.

Being in the Meadows campgrounds this summer taught us that we want to do whatever we can afford to do so we are not without phone again.  Of course, the antenna isn’t a guarantee, but it should help in spotty areas.  I just hope that the capability on cell phones doesn’t go away completely.

Here’s the shots of Coen.

This is Mr. Funny Face

and this is Mr. Cute Stuff

Ya’ll stay healthy ‘n happy!

Toodles!

Well I guess its about time I gave an evaluation of the summer camp hosting job with American Land and Leisure at the Meadows camp grounds , Ogden canyon, Utah.

            In the beginning the camp ground was a mess due to storm damage over the winter and probably winter visitors after the campground was closed last season, I don’t want to think it was from the previous host not taking care of the place. Most of the work was accomplished the hard way due to the lack of proper tools and support by the area managers. Several things they said we would receive in a few days never did show up even after several requests for the stuff.  The days were long and pretty demanding,  We worked closer to 70 to 90 hours a week way more than the 35 we were paid for. I probably shouldn’t whine much because it was my standards, and my wish to have the campground meet them that caused a good part of the extra hours.  The only real problem with the hours was the lack of a real day off, any time we took off just meant more to do before we left and after we got back, I think the longest we were gone from early May till September was about 7 hours at a time maybe 8 once.

            The worst problem though was that there was no dependable method to get help in an emergency when you had one. The closest phone was at the campgrounds above and below us, both a bit more than a mile away. When they were not there, there was not an option other than to drive down the canyon 10 miles or so to where cell service was available.  We did have radios (we bought our own because the ones they provided were more like toys and simply did not work well at all)  when you did call on the radio the odds were that no one else would hear your call. That is one condition that I do not think I will be willing to work under again

            I truly believe that if the area managers had been better suited for the job things could have been much better and most of the problems we had with getting things done would have gone away. I think that they were simply overwhelmed and not suited for the size of the area as well as not as equipped to deal with people as they should have been, their reliability and ability to communicate and follow through were severely lacking. Part of that responsibility should fall on the company’s management because of a seemingly lack of training and oversight to ensure that the area managers could do and did the job properly.

Do I regret going there, not really? It was quite a learning experience and if we do this kind of thing again my expectations and standards will be much lower, as sad as that is to say it will be the reality. I don’t think I will ever work myself that hard for nearly as many hours again for anybody, Yeah, right.

            The things that make the summer stint worth it was the opportunity to meet so many really neat people and to be close enough to Judy’s Son so that she / we could spend some time with them and her new grandson. I also don’t want to forget to say that when all is said and done I think the pluses out weighed the minus stuff and the lessons learned will help prevent getting or letting a job get into the minus stuff as much, to bad about letting standards slide though

Thom

We’ve been getting a lot of spam comments on our blog and it’s a pain in the neck to have to go in and mark them as spam or delete or whatever else I want to do with them, so I just set our comment section so you have to be registered before you can comment.  I hope this doesn’t cause any hardship for our readers who like to comment.  It’s quite simple to register… just go to the bottom of the menu to the left and click on “Register” under Meta.  Follow instructions and it’s done!

The service department just got word that all the work they need to do has been approved by the factory, parts have been ordered and the things that are coming from the factory will take 2 weeks to get here.  That puts us up against the timing issues again.  At least this time we can maneuver  our arrival time in Quartzsite a bit if needed.  We still want to get there as early in Oct. as possible so we can hopefully get the same spot we had last year.  Thom says he doesn’t want to build another rock walkway. 

We took the birds down to have their wings clipped this morning.  Mucuy’s beautiful blue flight feathers are all gone, but at least we don’t have to worry about him flying out the door.  The last time Kirk, Mel and Brody came up to the campground, Mel was outside, walking to the door, talking, and Mucuy heard her and immediately flew to the door to greet her.  Luckily I didn’t open the door until he went back to his cage.  Mel and Brody are his two favorite people.  We had the guy clip Lymon’s toenails as well as his wings so Lymon isn’t feeling real secure on his perches right now.  He’s used to his long needle sharp toenails gripping things.

I ordered my new phone today.  With most cell phone companies, you get a new phone when you renew your 1 or 2 year contract.  It’s time for me to renew our 2 year contract so I did that and ordered a new phone.  I don’t use any features most of the cell phones offer other than speaker phone and speed dialing, so I ordered a “dirt garden variety” phne.  One thing I did make sure it had though, is external antenna jack.

Gotta go fix lunch.

Ya’ll stay healthy ‘n happy.

Toodles!

We left the campground yesterday around 2:35 yesterday afternoon and arrived at the dealer’s 1.5 hours later.  This morning they started the work on our trailer.  The broken day/night shades have been replaced and a couple of other things were done.  There are a few things on order now so we’ll be waiting for a few days to a week, then the trailer will go back into the service bay for the final work.

I don’t want to get to Quartzsite too early, temps there are supposed to get into the high 90’s, low 100’s for the next week.

I need to call a friend from my old job tomorrow and try to make arrangements for us to meet for lunch, and I need to call my Dr. here to see if I can get in this week to get a prescription written and have a spot on my back looked at.  We need to go to Costco to buy toilet paper, paper towels, kleenex and a couple boxes of wild bird seed.  …oh!  and a  bottle of mango peach salsa for Thom. We also need to go to the liquor store and buy at least a case of Montego Bay Rum.  It’s the only type of reasonably priced rum Thom likes, and we haven’t been able to find it in Arizona, California, Idaho, South Dakota, etc.  I don’t know why it’s so readily available here in Utah, but since it is, we’ll take advantage of it.

Today, while the trailer was in the service bay being worked on, I sat in the customer’s lounge and worked on my latest hummingbird.  I finished it today.  I personally believe it is my best one yet!  I wish the pictures showed the real colors.  It’s my version of the Rufous Hummingbird.  The “rufous” beads look pretty orange in the pics, but are actually a cinnamon topaz color.  I need to write down the “pattern” for the colors so I can do another one similar to this one, then I can box it up and send it to my favorite brother who has always loved Rufous Hummingbirds and their contrary nature.

From the Back

We’ll keep you posted.

Ya’ll stay healthy & happy.

Toodles.

….to pack up.  We will be leaving here Sunday morning.

We were feeling fairly confident about coming back next spring to the South Fork Campground, since Barb had told me we could have it next year because the current hosts wouldn’t be coming back.  Last Sunday when Barb was here to collect the money, I asked her if we could plan on managing South Fork next season and she told me she already told someone else they could have it.  To make a long story short, I sent an email and made a phone call to the head office.  We don’t know what will be next year.  We’ll keep you posted.

There have been rumors that things will be changing in the canyon next season, but rumors are just that and you can’t make plans based on them.  We’ll wait until we get word from someone official.

Remember a while back I mentioned I had sent an email to Virgin River Gorge campground ranger saying we were interested in hosting the campground this winter?  Wellllllll, I got a phone call day before yesterday regarding our email.  We were one of the top candidates.  Unfortunately we had to tell the gentleman we are already committed this winter.  He did say he would keep our file open for the winter of 09/10.  We plan on stopping at the BLM office in St. George on our way down to Quartzsite.  He would like to meet us.

Thank heavens Thom has us in pretty good shape as far as being ready to leave, because it’s cloudy and rainy today.  It’s tough to load the truck rack and the flatbed trailer in the rain.  Of course, I could still be working on the inside of the trailer, but I finally got in the mood to blog, so thought I’d best do it now, or it will be another 4 days probably.

Many of our birds have headed down to Mexico now, so I don’t have the Black Headed Grosbeaks or the Lazuli Buntings or many of the hummingbirds, but today I managed to get pics of some of the birds that were here in the spring, then left for the summer, but are now back.

The Lark Sparrow left shortly after we got here last May, but is now back and quite pretty.  This one is young and still has the dark stripes on his chest.  As he matures they fade away.

This is the Green Tailed Towhee nervously sharing the stump with a chipmunk.

And this one is the biggest of the 3.  He is the Spotted Towhee.  I think this guy used to be called the Rufous Sided Towhee.  Isn’t he pretty?!

It dawned on me yesterday that we have been totally without “shore power” (elec. hookups)  for a year now.  Yes, I have to admit I’ve missed it at times, but I believe we’ve done very well without it.  I think I would have been much more comfortable without it the last couple of months if we hadn’t lost the inverter in July.  Without the inverter we are only able to have 110 electricity when the generator is running, and without the inverter, the generator does not charge the batteries, so the only way the batteries got charged the last two & 1/2 months is thru the solar panels.  The inverter will be fixed before we head for Arizona.

I also have to admit I look forward to having a spot to park our trailer where we DO have “shore power”.  We’re committed to boondocking for the next 6 months, but when we get a post for the summer season, I hope we have electrical hookups!

We’ll let ya’ll know what’s happening with the Ogden Canyon and our positions next spring as soon as we know.

In the meantime, ya’ll stay healthy and happy!

Toodles!

Yesterday Barb came to collect last weeks money and we talked about closing the campgrounds.  She said they’d probably close the Lower Meadows next Friday and leave the Upper Meadows open until Sept 22 and she and Dave would do the cleaning and collecting.

Today Thom and I had to go down to get our Honda 2000 generator that was in for repairs.  We left around 11:10 a.m. and didn’t get back until a little after 5:00 p.m.  That’s what they call a “day off”.  When we got back, the gates to the Upper Meadows and the Lower Meadows were closed AND locked.  When we take our “day off” we don’t take the campground keys with us, because we know the gates will be open until we close them at 10 p.m. at night.  We had to borrow keys from Perception Park (all USFS gate locks are keyed alike) to get our gates open so we could get to our trailer.  Barb had left a note saying the gates would be closed from today on (no camping) and we were off the payroll effective Wednesday the 10th.  From talking to Barb yesterday, the hosts in Perception Park got the impression we were being fired and she knew then she was closing our campgrounds today.  Of course, we know we’re not fired, we know we have a great reputation with the home office, and Barb and Dave know that too.

I’ll be posting again in a day or two while we are getting ready to go, before we leave.  I’ve more things on my mind to share, but now isn’t the time, while I still only have half the story and all my frustrations.

In the meantime, I want to show you two pics of the little guy who has come to dinner here.  There is a plant in our front yard growing around a stump that looks a lot like ivy.  This forked horned (2-point) buck loves that ivy and came down here two nights in a row for dinner.  He’d probably still be coming here, but a group of boy scouts over the weekend chased him up the hill.  I expect he no longer feels welcome.

They told us things would really slow down after Labor Day weekend, but we sure didn’t expect this!  By this time on Thursdays we are usually half full.  We haven’t got a single camper in either campgrounds yet.  It’s really cooled down in the canyon so that may be part of it.  We’ve had highs in the 70’s and lows in the high 20’s & low 30’s.  Wouldn’t it be something if we were empty this weekend.  I don’t think it will happen but ya never know.

Yesterday I had pancakes for breakfast, knowing the carbs would bring my blood sugar way up, so right after I ate I took a good brisk walk (in between photograph shots) to bring it back down.  There’s not much in the way of birds, flowers or critters to shoot.   Summer is gone and Fall is already here.  I did get some lovely fall color shots that I want to share with ya’ll.

I don’t know what kind of leaf this is, but I thought it was pretty with the “shadow leaf” behind it.

The Wild Geraniums have given me so much pleasure in so many ways and are continuing to do so.  They bloom from Spring through Summer, they draw the deer in to munch on them, and now the leaves are turning gorgeous Fall colors.

This next photo represents the end of Summer and beginning of Fall.  I set the aperture of my camera so the flowers would be blurry, representing the end of summer, and the leaves sharp, representing the new Fall.

Last fall picture… the Cow Parsnip seed bunch.

I finished my 2nd hummingbird.  I’m calling it a Broadtail Hummingbird though the colors aren’t true.  It does have the red throat and more white in the tail.

I’m loving the relaxed feeling I have, in spite of only having 10 days to get packed up and on the road.

Now I think I’ll take a cart ride over to the Upper Meadows campground and see if there’s anything work taking pics of across the meadow and in the campground.

Ya’ll stay healthy and happy!

Toodles!

We received a comment from a reader today that pretty much indicated I sound angry/sad/bitter in my blog posts.  This is my response.  I don’t feel like I’m an angry person, I don’t feel sad or bitter….

I guess I’m appearing much more bitter and unhappy than I feel or wish others to think we feel.  When I blog, I’m sharing feelings and thoughts  I’ve had that day.  They usually are more intense than those that stick with us in our memories.

Thom and I are thoroughly enjoying our time together in the Ogden Canyon, and we thoroughly enjoyed our time in the Arizona Desert.  We have had moments and frustrations in both places, more so here in the canyon than at AZ.  I seriously feel the time we get to spend with my son, his wife and my grandson, the time we get to spend with the wildlife here and the many different kinds of birds, critters and butterflies I get to see and photograph pretty much makes up for the frustrations we go through here.  Will we come back here?  Not to the Meadows campgrounds.  We will never work another job where we don’t have phone service of some kind.  We have, though, already put in our bid for one of the other campgrounds in the canyon that does have phone and electricity.  I can’t imagine not being able to spend time with my Grandson next summer.

Wherever we are, Thom and I find happiness in just being together and being able to experience nature.

This first year as fulltime RVers has been a learning experience.  Our experiences in the future will get better because we have become smarter.  In the meantime, since we’ve retired we’ve both become happier and healthier, and we look forward to more experiences as Workampers and we intend to learn from each of them.