Author: Lee and Tracy

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First Time Working In A Utility Co. Park – Fire and Rain

Disclaimer: The company we are working for this summer has a very specific media policy. I will not be mentioning them by name, or mentioning the specific names of anyone I am working with, except for Lee.  Also, because it’s not really that difficult to figure out which company it is, I want to be clear: I in no way speak for the company or my co-workers, and am only recounting my personal experiences.  Also, any details I get wrong in this or any other post are due to a misunderstanding on my part.  

Thursday I was back to work and thankfully it was a slow day.  I didn’t feel any discomfort at all, but wanted to make sure I didn’t overdue it, so I focused on detailed litter pickup as my “extra task” for the day.  When we have slow days we try to fill in our time with extra tasks.  They include maintenance, hanging signs, watering trees, spraying our bathrooms, and putting water in the pit toilets.   Although we pick up big litter as part of our daily duties, on occasion a detailed walk through is called for.

It’s surprising how much litter can “hide” in the vegetation surrounding the parking lots, so walking slow and really looking hard at the details is called for.  I walked Moore Creek and Hole-In-The-Wall (our main river sites) and ended up with a bucket full of small trash.  Since the temperatures were much cooler, this wasn’t an unpleasant thing to do and it feels nice to look over an area after it is complete.  Lee worked in the campground on Thursday and he ended up having a very busy day.  One large group had rented the entire campground starting on Friday and there were numerous checkouts along with additional cleaning at the day use areas.

I was excited because Friday I was going to get to work in the office for the first time.  One of the office people flew up to Alaska for the weekend for a wedding (people do that here in Oregon, you can fly round trip to Anchorage from Portland for $250!) and I had volunteered to cover some of her hours.  I had spent a couple hours training the last two Mondays and felt pretty confident about my ability to handle what was thrown at me.  Plus, since only one large group was checking in, it was going to be an easier day, which turned out to to be a good thing because I was surprised by how busy the phones were. I opened the office at 10am and before I even had money in the drawer had my first walk up.  They were interested in extending (which unfortunately we could not accommodate due to the large group) and we were off tho the races from there.

For the next two hours the phone was ringing and folks were stopping by wanting to see the campground or see if we had any openings and things were in general pretty excited.  It did slow down after a couple of hour, but I spent the rest of my time making courtesy calls to upcoming reservations between answering incoming calls.  Not kidding, three times I picked up the phone to make a call and someone was already on the line.  Like I said it was fun though and as I told my supervisor when he called to check on me later in the day, “It beats cleaning toilets lol.”  Really it was nice to do something else and I very much appreciated how the other office person stayed available and was very helpful to me.

Lee and I also got some alone time, because I worked 10am -3pm and Lee worked 3pm – 9:30pm, with me joining him at 7:30pm to help close the gates.  I know I have mentioned it before, but we are spending a LOT of time together and having some time apart was really nice for both of us.  He had a very nice day working the river sites and was even able to help a couple with small kids who were biking in the area and looking for a place to camp.  Lee’s a big softie when it comes to little kids and thankfully he helped them find a place to stay.  I can’t imagine heading out from Portland on bikes with two kids in tow and no firm place to camp for the night, but obviously people do it, and although I appreciate their adventuresome spirit, the mom in me cringes at the thought.  Thankfully he was able to find them a place and made sure they both made it there.  What folks don’t really get about this area is that outside of Estacada there is zero cell service.  So if you are winging it, and your first choice doesn’t work out, you can’t just start calling other places.  We run into this all the time with folks who are looking for a last minute campsite or more commonly made arrangements to meet friends and then can’t find them.  Phones are such an omnipresent part of all of our lives now you don’t really think about not having them, and folks come out here and when they run into difficulty are a little lost.  We do what we can, when we can, but we don’t have cell coverage on the road either and usually there isn’t a lot that we can do.  Thankfully in this case, Lee was able to help.

Saturday we were a little worried about because there was a big event down at the main marina and some of the boat trailer spaces would be taken by the event.  On hot weekends both the main marina and ours have been maxxed out with boat trailers, and losing parking spaces was a serious concern. Luckily one of our fellow camphosts got involved in the marina event early on and he made sure the boat trailers who usually go there parked in the campground overflow parking lot.  This stopped many of them from going down river to our marina and definitely helped with traffic control for the event in general.  We also were super lucky because it was the first overcast day in weeks. So although we had many fisherman out on the reservoir the number of recreational boaters was lower than it has been in awhile.  I’m not sure what would have happened if we would have had our normal weekend traffic levels, but the combination of our camphost getting involved and the weather made the morning manageable.

The day wasn’t without incident though, as when we were leaving the campground for our evening run a young couple came into the campground and pulled up to us.  They told us a car had flipped into a ravine upriver near one of the Forest Service campgrounds and there was a fire.  They had been unable to call for help because they had no cell service and stopped at our campground because it was the first place they saw.  Lee immediately called 911 (who was already aware of the incident) and we finished grabbing our stuff and headed upriver.  Before we could leave the campground a second car pulled up and they said “15 trees were on fire.”  OK this was worse, because forest conditions have been very dry and the fire was only 10 miles upriver.  We assured them 911 had been called and then headed upriver to check out the scene.

For the record, dealing with fires is definitely out of our job description, but we are living less than 10 miles away and Hole-In-The-Wall was 2 miles downriver from where it occurred.  When we arrived, they had just closed the road and smoke was definitely billowing.  Lee and I got out of the car and walked up towards the Forest Service Law Enforcement truck where we were told, 2 people had been seriously injured and were being taken to the hospital, the fire was not under control and they would be “dealing with it for a while”.  The Ranger also asked us if we could help clear a “hole in the traffic because he was getting ready to evacuate the forest service campground this was next to.  We were happy to provide assistance and told the folks in waiting cars it was going to be a while.  Many couldn’t leave because there was no other good way to get to their destination and several of them were staying in the campground and had just come back from boating.

What we saw when we pulled up

 

One water truck on scene and lots of smoke.  What we didn’t realize at the time was the fire was on both sides.

I really felt bad for them because I knew there was nowhere else to stay close by because this time of year all the campgrounds are packed on the weekends.  After getting the cars to move, went on about our route and made sure Hole-In-The Wall and Moore Creek were fully stocked.  While we were doing that several cars who had turned around stopped and used them, so I was glad we were able to provide a place for people to wait it out at least. I was also glad that evening when it started raining.  We had gone 57 straight days without rain (second longest streak in Oregon history) and the fact that rain came on a day when we needed it for traffic control in the morning and to help with the fire in the evening felt like providence.  Plus I like the sun, but I was longing for a little bit of cooler temperatures and the rain means we wont have to water the trees this week.

The next morning Lee drove up and saw that the fire was still not completely out although it was well contained.  The road was open to one-way use and they had folks in place directing traffic. Thankfully they had it under control, although we did see that there were signs of fire on both side of the road.  We are not exactly sure how that happened, but one anecdotal report we heard said they hit an electric pole which is what actually started the fire.  It could have been so much worse, and everyone was really thankful it was responded to so quickly.  On Monday morning he was finally able to get some pictures when the fire was completely out and it was clear there was impact on both sides of the road.

This is the right side of the road where the car flipped.

 

The left side saw much more fire damage though

 

A long swath was burned along the road

This is what it looks like when fire response is onsite in less than 20 minutes, I can’t imagine what could have happened with a longer delay. The fire crews also had lots of available water from the Clackamas River and all in all we felt pretty lucky how this all turned out.  Our campground is 1 mile from the edge of the Mount Hood national forest, which is over 1 million acres of largely undeveloped land.

Sunday continued to rain and was overcast and Monday was the coolest day we have had in a couple of months.  I enjoyed the change in temperature, but was surprised by how much colder I was without the sunshine.  Crowds were also low because it has been almost a month since they have stocked trout.  The water is warm this time of year and there is a big break between stocking, so although some fish are there even the most experienced fishermen are having some trouble catching their limit.  This should change next week though as we have three big stocks scheduled starting August 22nd and over 20,000 trout will be going in the reservoir in the next few weeks.  Fish = fishermen and warm temps = recreational boaters, so when we combine those two things crowd levels are high.  Plus of course we have the eclipse and since we are only 4 miles from totality the next couple of weeks should be a little crazy.

We all appreciated the little break from the crowds and heat this week although my recycling certainly was impacted.  I only got 4 bags of recyclables this week (less than $10 worth).  I’m fine with that, happy to have the break, and I even had time to take a few pics of the osprey babies.  Still haven’t caught them flying, but they are getting pretty big and hopefully I’ll get to see that soon.

 

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First Time Getting a Colonoscopy

If you’ve had a colonoscopy you can probably skip this one, unless you have some concerns about how this works in an RV, which I will be talking about.  Don’t worry, it won’t hurt my feelings. Also, I am NOT a medical professional, so this is simply a first hand account from a regular person.  When it’s your turn to get the procedure done, read the paperwork, talk to the doctor, and follow their advice.,  I simply offer this as a first-person account from a patient.

I decided to write about it for a couple of reasons.  I like writing about firsts.  There is a clarity of vision that happens when you do something for the first time and this to me is a pretty big first.  I knew when I turned 50 this procedure would need to take place and since I am an analyst by nature I started asking friends who had gone through it for information.  It’s a pretty personal subject,  and when almost everyone I talked too said something along the lines of “it’s not that bad…pause…the prep is the worst” I simultaneously felt better about it (after all, they had survived) and concerned about the dreaded prep. So when my time came I decided to go ahead and write about it.  Yes, there is poop involved, but I write about poop all the time, and more importantly the procedure seems to me to be a rite of passage, where we transition from “young people healthcare” to “older people healthcare.”  That’s just my take on it, but it seems like a dividing line milestone of sorts, and as such deserves attention.  Plus it turned out to be much more complicated than I originally envisioned and that is always worth a post.

I am going to start with how difficult it was to schedule this procedure.  If you have a “regular” job and live in a house, and have a doctor, scheduling one of these might be an inconvenience but isn’t that difficult.  For me, this was not the case and I started trying to schedule this last summer in Alaska, and almost 1 year later I finally am having the procedure.  In all fairness, Alaska was a difficult place to schedule something like this, and the closest hospital was a couple of hours away.  But after that we had the beet harvest (40 straight days of work with no scheduled days off), Christmas Trees (6 weeks of straight work with no scheduled days off), and then 2 months of gate guarding with no scheduled days off and a 24/7 schedule.  I thought about doing it while gate guarding since we were about an hour away from San Antonio, but I wasn’t sure how I could make the 24/7 schedule work with the prep.  Towards the end, when things slowed down, we probably could have made it work, but you can’t just schedule these appointments last-minute.

For example, here in Oregon I went to the doctor at the end of May, who referred me to the specialist, who contacted me 30 days later, and then scheduled the appointment for 6 weeks after that.  All in it took 3 months to get the appointment scheduled, so keep that in mind if you are a person who travels frequently.  One way around this of course is to have an established relationship with a doctor, who might be able to work with you to schedule the physicals and colonoscopies close to one another. Or, if you follow a route and know in advance when you will be in a place you might be able to hit the appointment on two different trips.  With our work schedule this was very difficult for us and ultimately I feel very lucky we were able to fit it all during the 4 months we are in Oregon this summer.  Being next to a major city absolutely helped.

After the specialist called to set the appointment, I had to do an initial screening.  Because I had no health issues, I was able to participate in an online screening which saved me an hour long drive into the city of a screening appointment. It took about 20 minutes (mainly answering health question) and then they sent a large packet of information.   Included were several forms that had to be filled out and 16 pages of instructions. Just to be clear, I am not a medical person and these instructions were specific to me.  Make sure you read yours thoroughly, because, in my case at least, it turned out the prep process started a week in advance.

Basically I had to stop taking herbal supplements (no problem as my multivitamin was fine), stop taking blood thinning medications (again no problem, I don’t take any), and finally stop eating visible nuts, seeds, and whole grains.  This one gave me pause.  As I read further that meant no popcorn (that’s a bummer), no jams or jellies (since Peanut butter and jelly is a go-to for me that wasn’t great), and finally no tomatoes.  What??!!  I love this time of year because there are only a couple of months where real vine tomatoes are available and my own plants are finally starting to pink up.  What a bummer.  And not surprisingly, as soon as someone tells you that you can’t eat something all you want is to have it.  Some fruit you can eat if you pick out the seeds, but I tried that with a tomato and was basically left with a shell because all the good flavor is in the middle where the seeds are.  Sigh..lesson learned.  Don’t schedule these tests in prime tomato season!

We also had to get a Suprep Kit which ended up costing a ridiculous $87. Basically it contained two bottles of liquid and a couple of plastic cups, I wonder how much extra they charged for those cups.  Our insurance unfortunately didn’t help at all with the cost of the kit and although the specialist office offered a free sample we would need to drive over an hour into town to go get it.  Ultimately we just bit the bullet and paid full price at the Walgreen’s 20 minutes away, and thankfully I had money in our HSA account to cover it.

Next I had to go to the store and get a list of items for the 36 hours I wouldn’t be able to eat.  Oh yes, I was surprised to read that starting at 7am the day before, clear liquids (and gummy bears) only and then no liquids at all 4 hours before the procedure.  I don’t think I have ever gone 36 hours without eating solid foods before and I was a little concerned because I am hypoglycemic.  I was diagnosed in college (took this test that almost made me pass out), but since then I recognize the symptoms and control through my diet.  Plus, the effects seem to have lessened as I have aged (and put on more weight) so really it isn’t that big of a deal.  Still, I have never gone that long without eating and wanted to make sure I had lots of options to choose from.  I also needed to get some tushy wipes, because well you know, there is lots of wiping and skin gets chafed.

This was another area where living in an RV had an impact.  Yes, they sell septic safe wipes, but Lee didn’t feel it was a good idea to put those in the tank in any event, so we came up with a workaround to use a trash can and a liner during this time period and keep the wipes out of our tank.  All in all I thought it might be pricey and I was right because by the time I was done I had spent $60. In all fairness, I went to the local market that is more expensive and I am sure I bought more than I needed, but I didn’t want to run out of the few items I could have.  The list of what I bought is below and the most disappointing part of the list was my need to stay away from anything cherry flavored because the dye might make the colon look inflamed.  Cherry stuff is my favorite and I am just not a huge fan of other flavors so my choices were somewhat limited.  Anyway here is the list

  • Two packs 7th generation wipes
  • Vasoline this didn’t help at all and later I sent Lee out to buy Desitin which worked MUCH better
  • Two 2-liters 7up
  • Two Powerade white cherry not a fan and two Powerade lemonade not great but ok
  • A six-pack of Propel berry flavored  which I liked much more but these power drinks are not cheap
  • Halls Mentho Lyptus recommended to help numb the taste buds before drinking the Suprep.
  • Crystle Light to mix with the Suprep seriously how bad does this stuff taste
  • Minions Popcicles.  Since cherry and grape flavored were not allowed I was lucky to find some Minions popscicles which only have yellow and blue Popsicle.  Not a huge fan of those flavors, but since it is on of the few “solid” foods I can eat I bought them. The lemon ones were really good and made me feel “full” at least for a little while. The blue ones were totally yuck!!
  • Two cans of chicken broth and two cans of beef bouillon.  These are important for protein and thankfully I had a Clear Japanese Soup recipe I have been wanting to try anyway.  Basically it is a can of chicken broth 1 tsp soy sauce and 1 tablespoon of sherry.  It was really yummy, but I wish I could have added some scallions and thinly sliced mushrooms. I checked on-line and soy sauce is allowed and it turns out white wine and beer are also allowed and I decided to roll the dice on the little bit of cooking sherry and by the way with alcohol allowed I understand how people get through this!
  • And finally four bags of gummy bears!.  The only thing you can eat that is solid is gummy bears and thankfully I am a big fan.  

Gummy bears and popsicles are the only thing you can eat that you can bite into and I wanted to make sure I had plenty of each.  I should stop and talk here about how weird it is not being able to eat something when there is food nearby.  This requires willpower and some mental concentration, especially because the RV is a small space and Lee was of course eating.  He did offer to leave at lunch and dinner and eat out if I needed him to (which was very sweet), but I felt like if I needed to I could just walk outside. He was nice enough to eat Hamburger Helper, which is not something I will eat, but I have to say on this particular day it smelled pretty good.

It did occur to me at this point though that I was very lucky to not have an eating disorder.  Food is a basic human need and as such for many people is tied up in their emotional state as well. During one of my pregnancies I gained 50 pounds and it wasn’t until then that I realized how much food and my weight impacted how much I felt in control. I was lucky that was a temporary situation, but I learned enough to know how serious eating disorders can be for people.  Which led me to think how difficult this must be for people in that situation and wonder why there isn’t an easier way to do this.  I understand the mechanics.  Things need to be cleaned out in order for them to take a look, but the process of cleaning you out seems pretty extreme and somewhat archaic.  I wonder how many people avoid the test because of what they have to go through in prep.

Thankfully for me my two big addictions, cigarettes and coffee (black which is how I drink it) were allowed, along with soft drinks.  It didn’t say anything about them needing to be clear soft drinks, by the way, and even said Coke was OK.  I am guessing that is because lots of people have soda addictions and getting them to give them up for 36 hours would be tough.  My paperwork didn’t say anything about alcohol one way or another.  I found the bit about beer and white wine being OK online, but since the last thing I want to do is add alcohol to this process it wasn’t a big deal for me.  I’m guessing they didn’t want to print that alcohol was OK in the paperwork, but since it is OK they left it out all together.   Definitely ask your own doctor about this if it is important to you and  if you decide to drink make sure you have lots of other fluids as well to stay hydrated.

I had scheduled the procedure on Wednesday at 1am which meant that starting at 7am on Tuesday clear diet.  So I thought about what I wanted my meal to be on Monday night and decided on Pzza Hut thin and crispy pizza.  What goes in must come out, so I wanted to make sure I stayed away from anything spicy!  It’s kind of a bummer that this is taking both of our days off, but Lee was pretty understanding about it and we settled in for some household stuff that didn’t require much physical activity.  I did do the recycling first thing in the morning, but by choice decided not to do anything else strenuous for the next two days.

While I was waiting until 6pm for the first Suprep dose, I read through all of my paperwork.  Everyone says they don’t remember the procedure, but it wasn’t clear to me if they didn’t remember it because they were knocked out or if it was because the anesthesia makes you forget.  Turns out that if you read between the lines of the release forms, you are awake during the procedure.  I had to sign a form stating they may not be able to finish the procedure if the patient was too “uncomfortable.”  So obviously you can feel something when it is happening and I wasn’t too crazy about experiencing something and then forgetting about it.  I am young enough though to have talked to people who had the colonoscopy before the “forgetting” drug was used and what they remembered didn’t sound that pleasant so maybe it’s for the best.  In my opinion these tests are incredibly important and if that’s what it takes for people to go back for a second test, so be it.

I also ate my gummy bears, tried some soup, and tried the different drinks I had.  Sugar was a bit of an issue.  I wanted things that were sweet, but if I overdid it I didn’t feel that great. When  you are hypoglycemic the body creates too much insulin if you overdo it on sugar and the body “crashes.”  I usually combat this with avoiding sugary things in the morning and only eating deserts when I have proteins and carbs already in my system.  That way the effect is minimized.  I obviously couldn’t do that this time around, so I tried to intersperse no sugar options with the more sugary alternatives.  In retrospect I really should have bought sugar free gummy bears, because I went through a bag of those in the morning and then had to stop eating them for a while.  The soup helped some, but not enough.  I could have bought a clear protein shake of some sort which would have given me the protein I needed, but the local grocery store didn’t have any of the clear versions and  since they are so expensive and I wasn’t sure I could handle the taste I decided to try broth instead.

Finally 6pm came around and with hesitation I opened the mixture I had to drink.  I mixed it with a bunch of water, per the instructions, and then drank the 16 oz down.  First of all it tasted of medicinal berries and although it wasn’t super pleasant it certainly wasn’t undrinkable or anything. I got it down in about 10 minutes and then sat to wait for the result.  The instructions said the effects would start in anytime between a few minutes and a few hours, so I put on a loose pair of sweatpants and stayed close to the bathroom.

About 20 minutes later I started to feel pretty nauseous and then the beginnings of a headache started.  I was focusing on keeping the drink down mainly and then my stomach started to feel a little upset.  It started with some cramping in the stomach area and I had some gas.  At this point I should mention we only have one bathroom, but thankfully we have access to another work bathroom if Lee needed it.  I’m pretty sure I will be in and out of ours for the next few hours so Lee needed some place to go if nature called.  I also started to feel a little light-headed, and it could be a complete coincidence, but my nose got stuffed up and I had to blow it several times.

41 minutes later I had my first bowel movement.  It was watery, stung a little, and took several minutes to finish.  Hey this post is about a colonoscopy, you should have expected I would talk at least a little about the bowel movements!  I continued to feel nauseous and a few times had to fight the feeling that I was going to throw up. Pretty soon though things settled down and honestly it wasn’t that bad.  It was almost liquid and although I had to go every 10-15 minutes the first couple of hours it settled down after that.  I did start to get a little sore though and I really wished I had gotten the Desitin instead of the Vaseline which I found largely unhelpful.  I also wish I would have sprung for some medicated wipes although I found some hemorrhoid pads in our closet which helped quite a bit. And on the plus side I wasn’t really very hungry, all that pooping was a decent distraction.

Even though things slowed down I didn’t quite trust it enough to fall asleep, so stayed up until about 11pm.  I was pretty tired and fell asleep right away, but then woke up at midnight and went to the bathroom one more time.  This time it really burned, and although I took a shower and tried to spray the area with warm water the burning sensation did not stop.  Essentially, I had a pretty bad case of “diaper rash” and my cheeks were seriously inflamed.  This time it hurt pretty bad and it took me over an hour to finally fall back asleep, because I couldn’t find a comfortable sleeping position.

The next morning I woke up at 6:40am and prepared myself to drink another batch.  I wasn’t sure why I needed to, since I was pretty sure nothing was left in there, but my mom (who is a nurse) has specifically mentioned not skipping the second dose, because people do it all the time and it’s not good.  This early in the morning the taste was much worse, so I added a little crystal light lemonade to the mix (which didn’t help the flavor much) and struggled to get it down.

I also sent Lee to the grocery store to pick up some Desitin. I am not sure why this wasn’t recommended in my prep package but I would have killed for some last night.  While he was gone I drank the drink in as large of chunks as I could, rinsing my mouth out with water between sections.  I also stood up while I was drinking it (think chugging a beer) which helped me get more down in each section.  And I popped one of the mentholyptus cough drops in my mouth which did help numb my taste buds a bit which was helpful towards the end.  My nose was also immediately stuffed up, which helped with the smell if nothing else and I guess that wasn’t a coincidence from the time before .

I felt incredibly relieved when I got it down and was on the toilet almost immediately. I  fought the nausea, sipping on the followup 32 oz of water I drank, and tried to get through the morning.  It didn’t help that despite everything I was hungry this morning but the last thing I wanted to do was eat anything.  What goes in must come out.  Plus I only had until 9am until I had to stop drinking liquids of any kind, so I focused on getting hydrated.

No liquids is way worse for me than no food, because I drink water almost constantly.   I also remembered to take my jewelry off and like I said just tried to get through it. On the positive side the Desitin provided some instant relief and Lee even made me laugh when he handed it to me. He’s been a real trooper through all of this. Finally we left to go to The Oregon Clinic and since it was a long drive I was nervous and took a towel to put down in the car and extra pants and underwear.  Thankfully I was fine on the drive although I did have to use the restroom a couple of times before the procedure.

The procedure itself went great.  They took me right in and prepped me for the procedure.  The nurse, Hope, was really nice and they verified my health history, took my vitals, and put in an IV.  They verified who I was and what procedure I was having done several times and it was obviously a well run organization. Turns out they do 60 colonoscopies a day in this facility and after two new rooms are built will increase that to 90.  Some people might not like that, but it actually made me feel better.  I figured with that much volume they knew what they were doing.  Plus the nursing staff made it feel personal and despite the efficiency in the process I didn’t feel like I was being rushed through.

I had time to ask questions and I did clarify whether or not I would be completely knocked out.  Turns out they do NOT use the “Twilight anesthesia” and Vercet to make you forget but instead completely knock you out.  That was actually my preference and I was super relieved.  When I asked about the language that stated they would stop the procedure if the patient was in extreme “discomfort” and she explained that was for respiratory distress I felt better about the whole thing.

Eventually they wheeled me down to the procedure room and I answered some more questions for that nurse and the anesthesiologist.  Right before the doctor came in the song “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” came on, which made me laugh, and I explained to the doctor how appropriate that tune was for my first time colonoscopy. Dr. Lumm smiled and then was all business as he explained what they were going to do.  He also told me if I got a clean bill of health I wouldn’t have to come back for 10 years.  Nice!!

They had me roll on my side, put the medicine in and I was out in less than 5 minutes.  When I came to I asked to be taken to the restroom and was able to go with little difficulty.  I wasn’t in any pain thankfully although gas is a pretty common side effect and I did pass some of that.  Hope passed me along to Ben to finish off and he took some vitals and then got me a drink of water.  Not long afterwards the Doctor came in and told me I won the “colonoscopy jackpot.”  No cancer, no polyps, and I didn’t need to come back for 10 years.  Awesome!!  He went over some things to watch out for and then was on to his next patient.  Ben finished telling me about the side effects I should be concerned about and then told me how to get dressed.  The funniest part of the paperwork was don’t drink alcohol, don’t drive, and don’t make any major life decisions. The last part totally made me laugh and in less than 20 minutes or so I was out in the waiting room with Lee.

I did feel a teeny bit rushed at the end to be honest, but I was also starving and wanted to get something to eat.  We stopped and got a McDonald’s breakfast sandwich and hashbrowns (my choice because I thought it would be easy on my stomach) and then drove home.  I am sitting here finishing this post and it is less than 1-1/2 hours from the procedure.  I feel really good and am glad that it is all past me.

I know what I wrote above sounds unpleasant, so why get these tests done?  According to the American Cancer Institute, “Colorectal cancer is the third most common type of non-skin cancer in both men (after prostate cancer and lung cancer) and women (after breast cancer and lung cancer). It is the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States after lung cancer. In 2016, an estimated 134,490 people in the United States will be diagnosed with colorectal cancer and 49,190 people will die from it…Studies suggest that colonoscopy reduces deaths from colorectal cancer by about 60 to 70%”   I’ll take those odds, and 36 hours of discomfort once every few years seems a fair price to pay for me. Yes, I hope they come up with an easier way, but in the meantime this is what we have.

So,  I hope what I wrote does not dissuade anyone from getting the procedure.  I hope knowing the details will actually encourage people to go through with it.  I think fear of the unknown is often worse than the thing itself and wanted to provide as much information as I could. My advice is to plan the two days out in advance, buy everything you need to be as comfortable as possible, and don’t forget the Desitin!  Seriously, the diaper rash symptoms were the worst part, and that stuff worked great.

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First Time Working In A Utility Co. Park – Record Temperatures

Disclaimer: The company we are working for this summer has a very specific media policy. I will not be mentioning them by name, or mentioning the specific names of anyone I am working with, except for Lee.  Also, because it’s not really that difficult to figure out which company it is, I want to be clear: I in no way speak for the company or my co-workers, and am only recounting my personal experiences.  Also, any details I get wrong in this or any other post are due to a misunderstanding on my part.  

The Weather Channel was predicting a high of 108 on Wednesday and needless to say we were concerned about working in that level of heat.  It is highly unusual for this part of the country and Extreme Heat warnings were all over the news.  Thankfully we had Tuesday and Wednesday off so were able to mostly stay in the air conditioned rig on Wednesday but we did have several errands that needed to be done.

We love having guests and going to beautiful places on our days off, but real life continues and by Wednesday at 11am when Jim and Diana left I had a major list.  In the past I would obsess about the list and let it tie me into knots, but instead I talked it through with Lee first thing in the morning and he said he would help me with as much as he could.  So over the next two days I fixed my job searches, called the auto insurance company about our rates rising yet again.

Long story short I was given a $30 a month credit for signing up on auto bill pay but that was only good for the first year and they had raised every rate for everyone in Florida the next two years.  At this point I am paying almost double what I started at, and although I like this company very much and appreciate how they handled the incident where we put regular gas in our diesel engine and killed it, in February I am going to have to shop around. The only price break they were willing to discuss with me was if I put a GPS device on our truck that “graded ” our driving and although I know we are excellent drivers I am absolutely not going to do that unless forced to it.  A little too Big Brother for me.

I also called the dentist and worked with them to get our new insurance information from our current employer (appointment is on August 15th) and fielded a call from the colonoscopy center about my upcoming procedure.  Speaking of that, I needed a prescription for that and my Blue Cross ACA plan did absolutely nothing for me in negotiating a lower rate.  Our out of pocket costs were $87 for that which is ridiculously high for basically prescription Ex-lax.  Our other alternative was to drive an hour to Portland and try to get a free sample, but ultimately we just used our HSA card and paid Walgreen prices.  Lee went and picked it up for me.

Lee also went and got our mail, fan our budget reports, made a grocery store run to get a few items we needed for the weekend, flushed the tanks, and did the mounds of laundry that had been piling up. I went through all the pictures, wrote three blog posts (to get caught up), got my eyebrows waxed, read the instructions again for the colonoscopy as some things (like not eating any food with seeds start a week in advance) and made a large pot roast so we would have leftovers for the weekend.

Yes that is a lot, but that’s what happens when your work schedule is as heavy as ours is for 4 days out of the week.  Thursday actually wasn’t that bad though, because we both started early in order to beat the worst of the heat. My Thursdays are so much better because the guys at Timber are covering for us on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I am not sure why this wasn’t happening before, but they started last week and what a difference.  One guy filled the truck with trash on Tuesday and the other pulled 4 bags out of trash in the Culvert on Wednesday (which was packed according to him because of the high temperatures.  Normally I would have had to deal with all of that on Thursday and since I pulled an additional 7 bags of trash and cleaned one pretty messy bathroom, which would have been a long day for me.  But since I had the help I was done by noon, and thank heavens for that because it was 103 by the time I was done.

The temperatures were actually lower than expected because of smoke in the area.  The river was full of haze (which we later learned was smoke) but because there was no smell we weren’t sure what it was.  Turns out the smoke had traveled down from British Columbia and the Mount Jefferson area and actually worked to our benefit.  The haze cut some of the worst of the suns UV and instead of 108 degrees we only got 103 which was a blessing. I felt bad though for some fellow dreamers Steve and Diane who have been working in BC all summer and I know from Facebook they have been dealing with the smoke for a couple of months now.  We were happy to have it though because by the time Lee finished his shift at 1:30pm he was drenched with sweat.  It’s pretty shaded in the campground, and he tried to take it easy, but it gets hot in some of the cabins and yomes and they needed to be cleaned for the next round of guests.  Finally after eating lunch and finishing off a couple more errands we were ready to relax and watch some TV.

My mom recommended this show called Bloodline and it is really fantastic.  It’s about a family who lives in the Florida Keys and if you haven’t seen it, it’s absolutely gripping.  The acting is amazing and the plot is original so I never know what is going to happen next, I love that in TV Shows and it is pretty rare as so many shows are formulaic.  IT’s intense though and after a few episodes, I needed a break.  I am not sure if they can keep this quality up for future seasons but so far Season 1 is fantastic.

Despite what you might think, most people I know watch quite a bit of TV.  There are rainy days, hot days, and days where you are just too tired to do anything.  Yes we are in a beautiful place and in theory would like to spend our free time out in nature, but the reality for us (and many of our friends) is sometimes you just want to chill. When we first started on the road I used to feel vaguely guilty about that, but now I am glad we are able to relax in a comfortable environment and veg out on occasion.  After all in the grand scheme of things we are way more active than we used to be in New England or Ohio.

Friday I spent more time in job searching, finishing up a blog post and starting a new one, and setting up the new Fitbit Lee had bought me while at Walgreen’s. I have been talking about wanting a step counter for quite some time, but wanted something small with minimal bells and whistles.  The price of the basic Fitbit Zip was only $60 though and he went ahead and bought it.  I was hoping setup was included in the present, but alas that was on me, so I sat down to see how difficult it would be to set it up.

First I had to download the program on my computer, Iphone, and Ipad, which all took a while because it was 59 MB per device. Next I had to “Join Fitbit” which was essentially setting up an account. I put in my age (50), sex (F), height (5’4″), and weight (132.5).  Then my name, email, and password.  At this point it occurred to me they would be collecting quite a bit of information about me, but then I shrugged and continued.  Yes, I try to be cautious about the data I have online, but I am not super diligent about it.  Plus what was the alternative. I did take a moment and read their privacy policy where they say they will never sell your data, but I largely take those promises with a grain of salt.  But then again other than 100% keeping your info offline, it’s part of the world we live in.

Next I had to put the battery into the Fitbit and although I am sure I could have figured it out I carried it over to Lee and had him do it.  He needed to get involved somehow 🙂 I inserted the “Dongle” into my computer and then did an update.  Apparently this was necessary for the first sync so keep that in mind if you don’t have a laptop or computer handy.  The update was quick and then I had to enter the numbers on the screen.  Unfortunately I had it upside down and entered the wrong numbers, but then tried it again and it worked.

There was a dashboard and badges and all sorts of interesting things, but since I didn’t have any steps yet I decided to wait until the next day to check all that out with real data.  I also had to setup the apps on the devices.  I turn Bluetooth off (to save battery power) but since that is the way the device syncs needed to go back and turn it on.  I also had to go into my email and verify my account so I could use the pre-existing account to sign in. Got all that setup up and then took another look at the dashboard.  The food tracker seems kind of interesting, but then again let’s wait and see how well it works. Update: Turns out on average work days I am walking about 5100 steps or 2.1 miles with a 1500 a day calorie burn.  That’s not bad, but since I did a quick calorie count and am eating more calories than I am walking off (I’m hungry while working), I need to either walk more or more likely be a little more careful about what I am eating on these long work days.

Friday we start at 3pm and unfortunately weren’t really able to change our schedule to avoid the worst of the heat.  I have never worked outside in temperatures like this and it gave me new respect for people that do it all the time.  We have great AC in the truck, but when we left it to empty trash or check a restroom we were slammed with a wall of heat.  Both of us were sweating in no time and the heat made us feel a little nauseous.  Because of the temperatures the lower launch and culvert areas were very busy with locals and consequently many of the trashcans were overflowing.  So not only were we standing in full sun pulling trash, but in some cases we had to manually transfer the overflow into a second bag so we could lift them.  Not fun.

It wasn’t all bad though.  Our water tank came in and Lee was very happy getting it setup with a hose and spigot.  This is going to make our lives so much easier and we were both thrilled it finally came in. It does move around a bit though (even filled with water) and Lee is trying to figure out how to strap it down.  The only downside is less room in the truck bed for trash, but we will be changing our route to make more frequent trips to the dumpster to accommodate.  Since most of what we do requires water, it is well worth the inconvenience.

 

We also came upon the coolest thing up at the “kid hangout” place in lower launch.  A clean cut young man was there with his group of friends and they had a device that was on wheels.  I walked up to ask what it was and immediately he looked worried.  Turns out he built a motor that pulls a line across the water.  It was his invention and totally amazing. Why he invented it was of interest to me as well.  He doesn’t have a boat but wanted to water ski, so built a motor that allowed his friends to do that. Gotta love American ingenuity and I told him he should definitely go to engineering school.  Lee talked to him about how it worked for some time and then they showed us with one of his friends skiing.  Really, really cool.  And I should say as much as we hear about kids in trouble and drug use in this country, there are also kids like this one who are out there inventing things.  Fantastic!

The wipeouts are the same lol

 

And finally we got to see the baby ospreys out of the nest.  They have been getting bolder and bigger and two of them were standing on the nest when we went by in the evening so I got some pictures.  Not sure if the third one made it or not, but I was thrilled to see these little guys out and about.  Can’t wait to see them start to learn how to fly.

They were definitely the babies because we have seen the parents and they are much larger than this

Plus the babies were screeching at the mama

Who was flying over by the dam ostensibly looking for fish for them

So so cool, but unfortunately no third baby

 

Saturday was MUCH better from a heat perspective.  Yes the temps were in the 90’s and it was still hot in full sun, but it was manageable, especially when we managed to stay in the shade.  We were using our new water tank quite a bit, which helps cut down on the need to run back and get water and the extra time made the evening shift much easier.  In the morning, while it was still cool, I spent some time in the men’s restroom at Faraday covering some obscene comments someone carved into the wall with the putty I bought a couple of weeks ago.  That was actually less unpleasant than it sounds, as I propped open the door and we have managed to get the smell largely under control in those bathrooms.  I’ve seen graffiti in bathrooms my entire life, some amusing some not, and this definitely fell in the uninspired category.  Plus one poem took up a largish section of wall and it took quite a bit of putty to cover it.  For the record I have seen very little of this during the summer and like everything else hopefully removing it quickly will stop others from adding their words of wisdom.  The job didn’t really bother me and since I found a relatively easy fix I was happy to take care of it.

Oh and one really cool thing happened on Saturday.  There was a man in the morning at the lower launch with an absolutely beautiful wooden canoe and I stopped to talk to him.  He said he had built it himself and it was the first time he had put it in the water.  He invited me to take a closer look and the inside was absolutely stunning.  The detail work was amazing and the wood was so beautiful.  Looked like a work of art.  When I asked how long it had taken him, he shied away from the question and said he intentionally did not keep track of the hours.  He had made a commitment to himself that he would work on it until it was “done” with no outside enforced time frames.    There is a lesson in that and I stood and watched him as he put the boat in the water for the first time.  It floated and good for him, I hope he enjoys it.  It really was a beautiful job and I wish I had my camera with me so I could share a picture, but I don’t usually take it unless there is something specific I want to take a picture of.

Sunday was hot again, manageable but the humidity was a bit of a challenge.  Plus the smoke was back and air quality wasn’t that great.  On the plus side, folks have been leaving me little bags of recycled cans all week along our route and I set a new recycling record with over $39.60 in cans.  Not all the trash can users are so nice of course (see picture below from one trash can this weekend, but I have definitely seen an improvement overall and I do like getting those “presents” if recyclables.

Seriously?? Could have been animals I guess since the bag is ripped up so bad but we haven’t had much of that.  This looks human made.

And lastly  we had a beautiful sunset on Sunday evening.  For some reason the lyrics, “smoke on the water…fire in the sky” came into my mind as we closed the lower launch and I sang them to Lee softly.  It was a beautiful sunset and just one more day and then it’s time for the weekend.  Most of that will be taken up by my colonoscopy and the prep for it, but at least we can stay in the AC.

Camper Chronicles is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, a program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. We very much appreciate any purchase you make via our website links.  There is no additional cost to you and helps support our blog.  Search Amazon.com here

Or you can check out our recipe book filled with 80 real recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. The cookbook specializes in recipes that have a limited number of ingredients, without sacrificing flavor and is organized into categories that matter to full time RVers such as Happy Hours, Travel Days, and Pot Lucks   You can preview the kindle version on  Amazon or the Apple version on Itunes.    It is also available in paperback.

 

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First Time Looking for a Consulting Job – The Search Continues

After spending a few days trying to keep up with all of the potential jobs out there, it soon became clear that I needed to narrow down the search criteria a bit.  Between working and just living my life, it’s hard to find time to look through 30+ potential jobs a day and I was concerned that I might actually be missing a really good opportunity.  So on Wednesday I spent a couple hours reviewing my various searches and tweaking them a bit. No single job search seems to have the perfect combination of factors, so I am relying on numerous searches from various sources and hoping I don’t miss anything.  A person really could spend countless hours doing this, and I am trying to strike a balance between effort and payoff.

The main problem I am having is the lack of a concrete job title.  Having a varied skill set is great, but that also means the job titles are varied as well.  Yes, you can search for parts of a title, but that also brings back jobs that aren’t what you are looking for.  My two major keywords are “analyst” and “project”, but using project manager for example (depending on the particular search engine) also brings back anything with manager in the title and that list is obviously very long.  Once the lists come back, I then need to scroll through and look at the locations eliminating any place that will be too cold this winter.  I haven’t found a good way to eliminate the northern climate in my searches, so I’m manually removing them.

I decided that my first choice of location would be in the Carolina’s, and I was able to set up a couple of searches specifically for that area, but if I did something similar for the entire south I would have way too many searches.  For those of you who have never done this, it’s really not that different than making travel plans when you have a destination in mind but only a vague idea of how you want to get there.  In order to start looking for campgrounds, you really need to have some idea of your route planned, but sometimes you plan your route based on campgrounds you want to stay at.  I guess what I am trying to say here is that that much choice can lead to difficulty making any choices at all in the beginning, but the more you narrow things down the clearer the route eventually becomes.  This job search has been very similar to that.  But, just like when you are crossing the country and you think about all the places you might be missing, I feel the same way about the great jobs I might be missing that are just outside of my searches.

Which led me to thinking about letting people find me.  I am lucky enough to work in a field that has some professional recruiters and their full time job is matching people with employment.  In order to get on their radar though, I needed to post my resume out on a few of their websites.  One good way to do that is to apply for jobs that they are “holding.”  Many companies don’t hire directly anymore, but work through staffing agencies, and applying for any of those jobs generally gets you into the staffing companies database. Sometimes these applications can be extremely time consuming as you need to retype you resume into their online forms, but in general technology is much better in this area.  Most have the ability to upload the information directly from your resume or from your Linked In account.  I liked the second option the best, because I am confident in my profile and the formatting, and it was during one of these uploads that I discovered something interesting about my security settings.

At some point I changed Linked In so that my profile would not be available to recruiters.  I was very surprised by this and honestly cannot remember exactly when I did it.  I believe it may have been towards the end of my tenure at my previous company and I think I just forgot to set it back once I left. Or maybe it happened in one of the many software updates and I just didn’t see it, but essentially I was set up so that only friends of friends could see my profile.  Very similar to Facebook, and what that meant was anyone who was looking for someone with my skill set wouldn’t find me.  Over the years I have had recruiters reach out regularly, but it has been a while since that has happened, and since we have been focusing on other types of employment I honestly didn’t think much of it.  Now that I have changed the setting back (and set up some new job searching profile settings) I will be be curious to see what comes of it. One of the best things about the Linked In setting is you can put places you would be interested in working and it allows you to pick numerous cities, or in my case, numerous states.  I’m just glad I stumbled across it, because I have to believe it was limiting my exposure, and like I said, I will be interested in seeing how many of those “I saw your resume on Linked In” emails I will be getting.

And while I am doing all of this work, it is not lost on me that anecdotally at least, most people find a new job through their personal network.  This has always been a bit of a struggle for me because I worked for the same company for such a long time.  A few years before I left I started really paying attention to my network and as people left the company and moved onto other opportunities, I tried to maintain those contacts, at least casually.  I’ll be the first to admit I am pretty lousy at this.  I envy people who have strong networks of people they stay in contact with, and although I love seeing where people end up and like keep track of their various successes I was never very good at reaching out.  That’s one thing that has changed for me with being part of this mobile lifestyle, and I have learned how to maintain friendships, at least,  across long distances. Thankfully some people I used to work with seemed genuinely glad to hear from me and those people I am also Facebook friends with shared how much they have enjoyed reading about our “adventures”.  Plus we have met a couple people on the road who are also working and Kat in particular (who is work based out of the Raleigh area) said she would check around for me and see what’s out there.  From this perspective at least, it’s a shame that most of the people we have met while on the road don’t work, and even those we who do are primarily working in the Work Kamper arena, but that’s the path we have been going down. I know there are lots of mobile workers out there, I just haven’t spent the time getting engaged in those Facebook/RVer groups.

Ultimately that is what this whole job search comes down to…time .  I turned a blind eye to this side of my professional life over the last 15 months and now I am playing catch up.  It’s not the end of the world of course, people re-enter the job force all the time, but if you have ever done it you know it can all be a little daunting. I just keep focusing on doing a little bit every day and being patient with the process.  I also have to keep reminding myself this is not an emergency.  In my past job searches were mainly triggered by an immediate need and consequently had a sense of urgency attached to them.  If anything I probably started this process a little too soon, as most of the jobs seem to have near-term start dates, and I have plenty of time to find something.  Even if I don’t, I have a perfectly good job lined up and we heard back from the Gate Guarding recruiter just yesterday about our upcoming availability.  I don’t need to find a consulting job, I just want to find one, and it’s important that I don’t lose site of that and jump at any opportunity that fits my basic criteria.  Again, not that different from choosing campgrounds on a cross-country trip 🙂

Update: Not too long after I wrote this post one of our long-time readers, Greg,  who is a mobile worker reached out and connected with me on Linked In.  Hopefully over time I can build up my network with RV enthusiasts who are also mobile workers, and with Kat, Greg, and Casey as a starting point I am pretty hopeful about that. So, if you are a fan of the blog and work in an industry that uses project managers or analysts  please feel free to check out my Linked In profile and send me a connection.  I’ll be honest, it’s a little uncomfortable for me to even say that.   By nature, I really am lousy at networking, but if there is one thing I have learned over the last 4 years is how important having a community can be.  I’ve tried in my own small way to provide support to others and asking for help in return is not a bad thing.  Plus you never know.  The perfect gig is probably out there somewhere and I just don’t know about it.  Having extra people keep an eye out simply increases my chances.  We actually got our current job in Oregon because a reader sent me the job description and overall this has been a nice experience for us.  In the meantime I will keep plugging away and as always will keep you updated. 

Camper Chronicles is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, a program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. We very much appreciate any purchase you make via our website links.  There is no additional cost to you and helps support our blog.  Search Amazon.com here

Or you can check out our recipe book filled with 80 real recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. The cookbook specializes in recipes that have a limited number of ingredients, without sacrificing flavor and is organized into categories that matter to full time RVers such as Happy Hours, Travel Days, and Pot Lucks   You can preview the kindle version on  Amazon or the Apple version on Itunes.    It is also available in paperback.

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First Time at Mount St. Helens

The week started out really great with my discovery on Monday of this little fairy village one of the girl campers made.  The intricacy was amazing and it was really large, so we all left it as is and just admired how pretty it was.  A future camper may tear it down, but we all were impressed enough that no one wanted to touch it.  Thought I would share a few pictures here since it was so cute.

The whole village which was done in a large square bordered by a rock “wall”.

 

Loved the detail

 

And she even made a tiny swing!

Tuesday we went and saw Dunkirk for Lee’s birthday and on Wednesday Lee’s friend from high school, Kate, came to visit.  Lee and Kate were really close, but she moved to Portland shortly after our first daughter was born and he hadn’t seen her in 27 years.  He was really excited about spending time with her again and finally our schedules matched so she and her husband Harth (yes that’s spelled correctly) came out to visit.

Kate and Harth

Normally I like to cook for guests, but Kate and Harth are both on special diets so it seemed safest to just let them bring their own food.  Kate had salmon, Lee and I had whitefish, and Harth had some vegetarian tacos.  Really cool couple and hearing about the Portland area from folks who have lived here so long was very interesting. The conversation just flowed and Lee and Kate “rediscovered” each other and I really enjoyed getting to know her better as well. Finally it was time for them to leave, because she had to work in the morning and hopefully we can come see them at their house soon.  They are in the middle of a bathroom renovation which has dragged on a little longer than expected, but we hope we can see their place in September.

I always loved Kate’s smile…that’s one thing about people that rarely changes.

 

After the visit we started our long weekend and it was one of the best best we have had since being here.  No major bathroom incidences (hooray!!!) and we actually closed the gate a few minutes early Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  Unprecedented!  We don’t know if it was because sunset is coming sooner, the sheriff’s boat that was patrolling the reservoir (not a common occurrence), Lee’s birthday karma, or sheer dumb luck, but we were happy to enjoy it. Oh and I made a record $29.10 recycling.  Score!  It seems unfair to not go into more detail when things are going well, but there isn’t a lot to say and I want to move on to Jim and Diana’s visit.

Jim and Diana are volunteer interpretative hosting near Bend, Oregon and they brought their rig to the campground to see us.  They arrived around 3pm on Monday and were settled in and down at our campsite by around 4:30pm.  Jim has a pretty serious gluten allergy, so we had spent some time discussing menu options and finally settled on shish-ke-bob marinated in Wishbone Salad Dressing.  As I was going through my recipe book trying to figure out what to make them, I was shocked by how many basic seasonings have gluten in them.  Lipton’s onion soup, gravy mix, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, some tomato pastes and tomato sauces, and even Good Season’s Dry Italian seasoning mix are not gluten free.  And as I learned later, some items that don’t have gluten in them themselves can’t be trusted because other items that do have gluten are manufactured on the same line.  Take ice cream for example.  Unless the label specifically says gluten-free it can’t be trusted because ice creams like cookies and cream do have gluten, and they are all manufactured on the same lines.  Really surprising how tough it was and gave me a new appreciation for people who struggle with this. Thankfully they really liked the shish-ke-bob and since Diana brought brownies and apple crisp for Lee’s birthday I didn’t have to worry about a gluten free dessert!

My pile of shish-ke-bob. I learned a new technique by the way. Let the mushrooms sit in water that is boiling hot for 1 minute before putting on the grill. They stay deliciously moist that way!

 

Diana bringing Lee apple crisp

 

Look whose happy!

 

Well Lee is

 

We even broke out these special little ceramic plates Lee’s parents sent to us. The ant on the plate is actually painted on which cracks Lee up.

Lee had also bought Jim Blue Latitudes, which is a book about Captain Cook’s adventures for his birthday that we just missed and I gave Diana a package that Rick had left for her.  I haven’t mentioned it until this point because it was a surprise but Rick beaded a friendship bracelet for both Diana and I when he was here in Oregon.  Fantastic job and they are his first ever bracelets, so Rick now the cat is out of the bag and you are going to have to do them for all of your RVer friends 🙂

My bracelet

 

Diana’s bracelet

 

The next morning we knew it was going to be hot so we tried to get an early start.  Jim and Diana had been to Mount St. Helen’s in the 90’s but a whole new section has opened up since then so it was a new experience for them as well.  One of the best parts of the park is it is absolutely free until you get to the very end and then it costs $8 to get in, or is free with the American the Beautiful Pass.  At first I’ll admit I wasn’t that impressed.  Initial views are of half a mountain that’s not very pretty and it wasn’t really awe inspiring.  But we stopped at the Forest Learning Center (which is free and I highly recommend) which had a 5 minute video that included actual footage from the event in 1980 and I realized we were facing the non-explosion side.  I left with a whole  different perspective and when we finally got to the side where the mountain had exploded it was genuinely amazing.  Let me just show you.

Initial views from the Learning Center

 

One thing that was unsettling was even from that distance we could clearly see steam coming from the mountain and Lee captured some shots with the long lens

 

Free visitors center which had a better gift shop than the monument itself.  We actually came back so Lee could get a T-Shirt there.

 

This is a popular place for elk viewing but we didn’t see any except for this guy

 

One thing I didn’t understand was much of the damage was done by the boiling mudslide. 57 people died in the aftermath, mainly because the scientists didn’t expect the eruption to take out the entire side and the landslide, winds, and steam took out 157,000 acres of land.

 

My absolute favorite part is they decide to handle what was left in two ways. The larger portion they replanted and closer to the mountain they left to naturally recover and they are studying the effects.

 

The planted forests in the area had this weird blurry look. That’s not an out of focus picture but rather the way it looked to the naked eye. We weren’t sure if that effect was because it was planted or some other factor but all of us noticed it.

 

I found this breakdown interesting because we are surrounded by forests up here and it shows what percentage is owned (and consequently managed) by which agency. We run into this up where we are working as different agencies cover the many areas close to us.

 

After checking out the learning center, Diana found us a shaded place to have lunch which was great because it was starting to get VERY hot.

We drove a little farther in and there was a beautiful turnout where we could see the hole in the mountain and take pictures.  This stop had places large enough for RV’s to park and was totally free.  Since it was a popular spot I asked a family from Portland to take a group picture for us and Diana asked about what they remembered from the day.  Their daughter was our age and in high school when it happened and the father talked about sitting on his porch and being able to see the 15 mile high plume of steam and ash.  They also talked about how unsettling followup eruptions were and how they remembered 4 major ones that occurred after the initial blast.  It was very interesting hearing their perspective and I was so glad Diana asked them about it.

Me and Lee

 

Jim and Diana

 

Lee, me, Diana, and Jim

The views were good from here but still not as close as we would like, so we drove all the way down to a new visitors center that is positioned dead center to the crater.  This is the only part that requires payment and it is $8 as I mentioned, but worth it, and of course free if you have an America the Beautiful pass, which we both did. I recommend walking up to the viewpoint first and taking some pictures and then going into the visitors center and seeing the movie.

Lee, Diana, and Jim on the huge viewing balcony.  This area is full sun though so definitely bring a hat. They also have numerous ranger talks out on the balcony.

 

My favorite part was the crater itself and you can see the glaciers that have formed. We saw numerous craters and glaciers like this in Alaska and it never occurred to me each one had erupted at some point which resulted in the bowls up there.

 

This was my favorite picture, because I can “see” the moving lava that formed this  dome.  It continued to change in size after the eruption.  Absolutely fascinating and I couldn’t take my eyes away from it.

 

This is the before and after picture which shows the day before and the day after the eruption. That really brought it home.  And although no video exists of the events a series of still photographs were taken by an amateur photographer which later were turned into a video morph by geologists.

 

 

 

This shows an overview of the areas that were planted (to the far right) and the ones that were left alone to recover naturally. Nature has done a nice job of bringing portion of it back.

 

This picture shows a lake which was created by the blast blocking the river.

 

And Spirit Lake which was a popular resort area and was changed from the blast as well.

 

This shot shows a pretty good view of where the lava flowed.

 

And the close up which doesn’t really show how deep this trench was.

 

The visitors center was built into the hillside and the roof was natural terrain which was pretty neat.

 

The movie was excellent and at 16 minutes one of the best of these types I have ever seen.

 

At the end the curtains raised.

 

And we got a view of the mountain which would have been more dramatic if we hadn’t seen it when we were walking up, but still pretty cool idea.

 

The lava flow.

 

And this tree showed how the wind blast tore the bark from one side, but the lee side still had bark.

My favorite part of the movie was when it showed how nature reclaimed the land.  The first mammal to return were the gophers who had survived the blasts under the soil and by coming to the surface brought much needed soil to mix with the ash.  Many plants can’t grow in the ash but lupine’s love the nitrates in ash and they were the first plant to return covering the floor in a vibrant sea of purple.  They then died providing areas that other plants could grow and the ground looks something like this.

Trees that were knocked over and left in place covered some areas of the hillside.

 

Many were twisted from the winds.

 

Early adaptors.

 

Stumps that remained became tiny havens for plant growth.

 

And eventually the animals returned like this curious rock squirrel.

After watching the movie it was really hot, but we walked up a paved path to get a 360 degree view.  Although we were at 6000 feet, it was still in the 90’s and because of the clear sky the sun was really beating down. The path goes farther along for about a mile, but I wasn’t up for that so we saw the compass at the top and then headed back down the hill to visit Coldwater lake.  The water wasn’t that cold, but there were lots of people there, trying to beat the record breaking temps.

 

Jim was telling us he wanted to have a compass on the ceiling of the RV so he always knew which direction they were facing and I was saying they must have something like that.  I went out and did a quick search and although people mention they have seen them I couldn’t find one. You’ll have to let me know if you track one down.

 

Very cool compass.

 

The lake was beautiful and Jim and Diana were tempted to grab their kayaks (which they carry with them) but since it was getting late we all decided to head back to Estacada and try to find a place to eat along the way.

Because of Jim’s gluten allergy he needs to be careful about local restaurants and usually makes his determination on whether it’s safe by looking at a menu and talking to the staff.  If they don’t get a good feel they just leave, but like us they love local restaurants so they always try. The Fire Mountain Grill caught our eye on the way in and so we decided to stop and give it a try, with the understanding that if Jim felt uncomfortable we would move on to the next place.  Luckily they had gluten-free buns on the menu and it was clear that they understood gluten allergies and could accommodate them.

The restaurant had no air conditioning, so we decided to eat on the porch.

 

Which had a nice view of the river.

 

Me, Diana, Jim, and Lee

 

Jim loved his Bison burger on a gluten free bun and they even had a gluten free lava cake which they both enjoyed. Lee and I split this 5 mountain berry cobbler which had fresh berries in it and was fantastic!

After an early dinner we all headed back and ended up at the campsite around 7:30pm.  It was a long day and a hot one, but really interesting, and the company of course was fantastic.  Jim and Diana headed off the next morning and we spent the day running errands, cleaning house, job searches, and some relaxing to get ready for this week of work.  Temperatures in Estacada have been in triple digits and come close to hit record highs of 105.  Thankfully, unlike many people who live here, we do have air conditioning, and it’s going to see some use as we try to beat the heat.

Camper Chronicles is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, a program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. We very much appreciate any purchase you make via our website links.  There is no additional cost to you and helps support our blog.  Search Amazon.com here

Or you can check out our recipe book filled with 80 real recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. The cookbook specializes in recipes that have a limited number of ingredients, without sacrificing flavor and is organized into categories that matter to full time RVers such as Happy Hours, Travel Days, and Pot Lucks   You can preview the kindle version on  Amazon or the Apple version on Itunes.    It is also available in paperback.

 

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July 2017 Budget

I know some of you guys find the monthly budgets boring, and trust me it’s not fun for me either, but I continue to think it’s important to “prove” the finances to the folks who are researching the lifestyle, and it continues to prompt Lee and I to communicate about our finances. So I am going to keep doing this, but I understand if you skip these posts because they don’t really relate to you.  This was a really good month with only $2400  in expenses, and since we made $3311 we were able to put around $1000 back in our savings account.  We also made $68 in book royalties (thank you very much to everyone who bought a cookbook!) and around $90 in recycling, but I am not going to add that to our revenue figures here.  I will report out on the royalties at the end of the year along with our Amazon Associate revenue ($283 year-to-date and again thank you for those who clicked our links), but the amounts at this point are small enough I think it would just muddy the waters.  I feel the same about recycling.  Yes, I am making about $28 a week in this, but since I am turning around and spending the money at the grocery store or farmer’s markets it’s a bit of a wash.  Technically I should add the purchases and subtract the recycling, but since some of those purchases are “splurges” it would muddy things a bit.  Plus it’s not really worth all that effort.  Suffice it to say I get my money and then buy staples and the occasional ice cream with the money. Occasionally I buy myself some fast food lunch.  Anyway, for those of you who haven’t already nodded off, the details are below.

 

Food – We were about $48 to the good, which is largely due to the recycling money.  Prepared meals for our long work days and the lack of time to cook dinner is taking it’s toll, but we are holding our own.   I am also finding the time to keep working on new recipes for hopefully a second recipe book in 2018, and those special ingredients can add up.  Considering all the extenuating factors, I am just fine with where we landed in this category. 

Dining Out –  We were a little bit over ($23) but not too bad. It’s hard not to grab fast food when you are working these long hours, but the recycling money has helped there and the lack of decent restaurants close by has been a life saver in this category.  If there was a McDonald’s nearby we would be in trouble 🙂

Entertainment – We were under in this category by $57 but still felt like we did stuff.  National Parks are free for us since we have the America the Beautiful pass, and the only thing we really did was go see Dunkirk for Lee’s birthday.  Between the movie costs, popcorn, and lunch it was a $100 splurge, but since we had done little else this month didn’t feel bad about that either. 

Truck Fuel – Truck fuel was amazing this month ($74) and a big reason we spent so little.  Since we have the company truck and usually grab local groceries at the end of our shift we rarely use our own vehicle. I take it into town once a week for recycling and Lee took it to the WinCo once.

Home – We did great in this category this month only spending $19.47 and it was another reason we spent so little.  Working so much and traveling so little meant we didn’t really need anything and Lee isn’t working on any special projects. What creative energy he has in this category is being spent on work-related projects and those costs are covered by the company expense account.  He’s happy either way and it costs us nothing and is a benefit to the company we work for.

 

Camper Chronicles is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, a program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. We very much appreciate any purchase you make via our website links.  There is no additional cost to you and helps support our blog.  Search Amazon.com here

Or you can check out our recipe book filled with 80 real recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. The cookbook specializes in recipes that have a limited number of ingredients, without sacrificing flavor and is organized into categories that matter to full-time RVers such as Happy Hours, Travel Days, and Pot Lucks   You can preview the kindle version on  Amazon or the Apple version on Itunes.    It is also available in paperback.

 

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Looking for a Consulting Job – The Beginning

I had set the somewhat arbitrary date of August 1st to start looking for a consulting job, but as the date approached I found that my anxiety around the whole process increased.  Theoretically the entire exercise should have been something I looked forward to.  After all, it was something I was interested in doing for a very long time, and I had gone to a considerable amount of trouble to put myself in a position where finding a job wasn’t an emergency.  I have no kids depending on me, low monthly expenses, no debt, and could work and live anywhere in the country where we could handle the winter weather in the RV.  Lee was totally on board, my skill set was solid, and after a year of working other jobs I was definitely ready to jump back into the professional world.  Even with all of those factors in place though, I was very nervous.

It wasn’t just that I had been out of the market for almost two years, but more that I hadn’t seriously looked for a new job in more than 10.  I worked for the same two companies for 22 years and occasionally I would look and see what was out there, but I was never willing to take the plunge and make the switch.  Plus, we lived so far from a major city, Lee had a job he loved, and we had kids in school, so relocation wasn’t really a good option…at least not for a voluntary job change. Now I can look across the entire country, and have way more choices, which is overwhelming in its own way.

I have been faced with seemingly overwhelming tasks before, and the best way for me to handle them is to break them down in smaller chunks and just start the process.  And instead of waiting another week, I woke up on Wednesday (after another restless night) and decided to begin.  Most of my work information is on my laptop, which rarely gets used, so the first step was making sure I had a clean platform to work from.  That meant checking a separate work email account I had ignored for several months, updating my resume on Linked In and several other sites so it would come up in employer searches, and making sure my information was up to date on professional websites I was associated with.  This was no small task itself and took a few hours.

It is important to note here that the process of finding a job takes time, and that time is uncompensated.  For those who are working in a white collar environment with a computer, some of that can be done during the regular work day, but for those of us who are working “blue collar” jobs all of that must be done during our time off. And it requires some research on how to use the job search tools out there.  Don’t get me wrong, tens of thousands of people do it every day, but just like I had to set up Work Kamper  to look for work kamping positions, I need to reacquaint myself with Indeed and other job search sites.  I am not starting completely from scratch here though.  I have spent time talking to some folks who are in my field and who have looked for positions to hear about what worked for them and once I get into it I am sure it will get easier, but unless I am tremendously lucky I expect to spend hours on finding a job.  Since we are already working 35 hours a week, those hours will need to come from our free time.  I’ll make sure and keep track of how many hours it takes to find that first job and include that in the final analysis.

And yes, there will be a final analysis. It is my intention to look at consulting just like I have looked at every other job and weigh the pros and cons as it relates to the lifestyle. And maybe that is why I am so nervous about the whole thing.  Consulting isn’t a “no-brainer”.  Sure, if we look at jobs simply from how much money we can make it would be, but that’s not how we look at jobs anymore.  We look at jobs based on a much more complex matrix now.  Location, hours required, and stress level are all big factors.  Whether a job is omnipresent or whether it can be put away during off time is another one.  I am still judging my life by the WOW moments and pretty pictures I take, and if I am tied to a phone 24/7 that will have an impact.  It did in our first year on the road and I am in no big hurry to sign up for that level of stress again.

The question is, can I find a consulting job in a great location, for a relatively short stint, that makes me feel like I am making a difference while still allowing me to have a personal life?  That is a tall order, and ultimately may be next to impossible to find, but I am committed to trying to find it.  And of course I am completely aware I could have worse problems.  Unemployment rates are pretty low and having lots of choices to wade through is much better than the alternative.  So it’s time to stop thinking about it and start doing it .

I sat down at the computer at about 8:30am and dove right in.  First I went to Linked In (which I had ignored for over a year) and was pleased to see I had a couple of private messages from folks I used to work with.  I replied and let people know I was getting back into the professional world and then made sure my contact information was up to date.  Recruiters have the ability to see when the last time you updated a site and generally skip folks who aren’t active so any kind of update is important at least once a month to keep the connections active.  I also downloaded the Linked In app on my new phone so I could keep in contact easier and opened my professional gmail account which I also hadn’t looked at in over a year.  This account had 663 emails, but since most were notifications I was able to clean it out in about 20 minutes.  After doing that I downloaded the Gmail app for my phone so I could have both the Camper Chronicles email and my consulting company email on that device.

Looking at email led me to Flexjobs.com which was a tool I used to use for the occasional job searches.  Thankfully the account was still active and I updated my information on their site as well, including uploading a 2017 version of my resume.  I chose to not list my work kamping jobs on my professional resume, but there are no gaps in employment as my consulting company employment will cover this time period.  This is a bit disingenuous since I haven’t strictly been consulting, but I am more than happy to discuss that in the interview process.  Having a big gap in employment is a bit like having your house on the market for a long time period; it makes people wonder.  How I am handling this is akin to taking a house off the market for a month and then relisting it to reset the dates.  It’s just how the game is played, and I am past the age where I feel the need to do everything strictly by the book.  If this lifestyle has shown me nothing else it is how to color outside the lines and make it work for me.

My answer by the way for what I have been doing the last year is pretty simple.  I took advantage of a buyout and took some time off to travel.  I’ve done some volunteering, worked the occasional seasonal job, and traveled the country, including spending a summer in Alaska.  All of that is completely true, and the specifics of what those various jobs entailed is really not relevant. There is a possibility of course that some employers might be concerned that I took the long break, but with my prior work history showing long-term commitment to two companies I really don’t think it will be much of an issue.

As I was wandering through the various sites and job postings things were a bit haphazard, but in a good way.  I didn’t make myself crazy by needing to see every single posting out there before applying, instead anything that looked interesting I submitted a resume to.  I know this may lead to a deluge of responses, but I wanted to cast a wide net and see what came back.  One of the first recruiters I signed up with was Kelly Services.  By submitting my resume to them, and making it clear I could travel, I was showing I would be open to multiple positions. I also set myself up with a profile on their website which put my resume into their database, and hopefully while I was looking for them they would also be looking for me.

This initial “refresh” of my information took about three hours.  Just to be clear, that would have taken tens of hours if I didn’t have a resume, Linked In account, and website already in place.  That work was done during my last few weeks of my prior job and in the first couple of weeks after my transition.  Even though things have just sat I am glad I did the heavy lifting back then, because dusting it off was relatively easy.

My next chunk of time was spent setting up more refined job searches. I wanted to make sure I was getting daily emails on new opportunities, but in order to not miss anything you need to be very careful about how your searches are setup.  I played around with different criteria and saw the results and ultimately decided on what worked for me.  This process is a bit frustrating as the search criteria didn’t quite match what I was looking for.  I found Flexjobs.com to be pretty friendly because they only showed legitimate companies who had “flexible” positions, but I wasn’t 100% confident my search criteria was inclusive enough.   Indeed.com was even worse.  It is probably the number one site people use, but their search engine choices were not very helpful for me and my results were either really small or many hundreds of jobs.  I needed to be honest with myself on how much time I would have to go through job descriptions so a strong search engine was a must.  Finally, I reached out to fellow Dreamer Ruth who had recently completed a successful job search, and she recommended Virtual Vocations.com.  Even though the cost was somewhat steep at $15.99 per month, I decided to give it a try because she had such a good experience with it.

So on Friday I spent another 3 hours setting up job searches and applying at a few positions, including another large staffing company.  Virtual Vocations is a great resource when you are looking for full-time work, but since I am looking for temporary work at this point I prefer Flex Jobs.  I tried to spend some time on Indeed, but there is so much out there it was pretty overwhelming.  It’s definitely a rabbit hole and you could spend an entire day searching and looking and still have more to look at when you were done.  I did set up a couple of job searches there as well, so we will see how that all plays out over time.  And the best news of all was I contacted by Kelly Services to submit my application to a company.  Unfortunately their recruiters cover specific geographic areas (which makes sense for local employment) but at least I talked to someone.  What really excited me was when I did some research on the company it was polar opposite of the very conservative New England company I worked for.  Not surprising since it is based in California, but that is exactly why I wanted to try consulting in the first place, to have exposure to different industries and different corporate environments.  Don’t worry, I am not going to jump at the first thing I see, but it is a nice start, and I am particularly excited about the fact that the job is a 3 month position. Yes, there is a ton of work out there, but most of the jobs are 6-18 month commitments.  If it was virtual I would be more willing to start with a longer time commitment, but for something onsite, short-term is better, at least to start.

So that’s it for now, I will let you know how things progress over the next few weeks.  We have our heavy weekend schedule, of course, and then Jim and Diana are coming to visit and we are taking a trip to Mount St. Helens.  Lots going on here, hopefully I can keep all the balls in the air!

Camper Chronicles is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, a program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. We very much appreciate any purchase you make via our website links.  There is no additional cost to you and helps support our blog.  Search Amazon.com here

Or you can check out our recipe book filled with 80 real recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. The cookbook specializes in recipes that have a limited number of ingredients, without sacrificing flavor and is organized into categories that matter to full time RVers such as Happy Hours, Travel Days, and Pot Lucks   You can preview the kindle version on  Amazon or the Apple version on Itunes.    It is also available in paperback.

 

 

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First Time Working In A Utility Co. Park – Long, Hot Summer Days

Disclaimer: The company we are working for this summer has a very specific media policy. I will not be mentioning them by name, or mentioning the specific names of anyone I am working with, except for Lee.  Also, because it’s not really that difficult to figure out which company it is, I want to be clear: I in no way speak for the company or my co-workers, and am only recounting my personal experiences.  Also, any details I get wrong in this or any other post are due to a misunderstanding on my part.  

I’ve been toying with writing this post for a while and because I wasn’t quite sure how to present my thoughts, I kept shoving them back in the corner and sticking with the easy stuff.  This happens on occasion.  It’s much easier to write about the pretty stuff, and the fun stuff, and even the not so pleasant events than to talk about personal shortcomings.  I’ve always been a person who prided myself on good customer service.  I have tons of experience, starting with my earliest jobs, and although the necessary patience doesn’t always come easily to me, overall I think I am above average in this area.

It’s relatively easy to be pleasant when you are in a good mood, fulfilled in your work, being paid well, and the people you are dealing with are being decent.  It’s not so easy of course when you are under stress.  My worst experience in this was a job in my 20’s when I worked a “retention” position.  It was with a company who gave you a “free” service for 90 days as part of a new credit card, and then after the 90 days if you didn’t cancel they charged your credit card. I started almost every phone conversation by being yelled at.  People were upset their credit card was charged, didn’t remember signing up in the first place, and wanted that charge reversed immediately.  My job was to talk the person into keeping the service (and the $39 charge) and a 40% recidivism rate was considered excellent.

It was brutal and I think I lasted about 9 months before I had to leave and I only lasted that long because I was pregnant with my second daughter at the time.  The job had good benefits (which I needed), I could sit in an air conditioned environment all day, and the supervisors did whatever they could to make a crappy job more pleasant.  Plus, with the retention bonuses, I was making decent money at the time and with a 1 year old at home and another on the way, we needed the money.  Still, it took it’s toll.  Minute after minute, hour after hour, getting yelled at every 5 minutes or so wore me down.  There were people who seemed to be able to completely turn off any emotions associated with the other people, but I was too young and too empathetic to just ignore it.

Nothing in my work experience has ever come close to how horrible that job was, and this is not even close, but as I am writing this I am reminded a bit of how there was a cumulative effect on my overall ability to provide good customer service.  In a perfect world we would treat every customer encounter as our first and use all of the positive energy we had to resolve it amicably.  But unless you are one of those rare people who seem to have a boundless store of energy, that simply isn’t the case.  I’ll give you a simple example.

For some reason whenever we pull up to clean a bathroom, people see the truck and immediately run over and get in line.  I get it, and have absolutely been guilty of it, and asking the cleaner to “wait just a minute” seems totally reasonable.  The problem is that the time we spend waiting for them delay other cleanings down the line and if there are enough of them we get behind schedule.  Initially I waited for everyone.  I was being a good guy, but then I found myself rushing through the jobs, or worse not getting to a location because of those delays, and now generally if someone isn’t already in line when I pull up I make them wait.  There are exceptions of course.  Little kids, pregnant women, folks in obvious “distress”, I will even stop mid cleaning and allow them to go, but I try to keep those to a minimum.

And if you think that is crazy I’ll give you an example from this week.  I pulled up to the restroom at Moore Creek, which is used by the white water rafting groups and because I was running a bit behind I was barely in front of three large groups of rafters.  I let a young girl go and by the time she was done there were 7 people in line.  25 minutes later (and no I am not kidding about that) the line finally diminished and I was able to clean the bathroom.  Yes, this was an extreme example, but it happens on a smaller scale almost every single day.

And not for nothing, it’s not fun cleaning a bathroom when someone “jumps in” and then is in there for awhile.  All the guys in the campground have had people come into nearby stalls while they were cleaning and I was cleaning the men’s toilet one day, was in a stall, and a guy walked in and used the urinal.  I waited until he was done to leave, but I had no idea how awkward something like that could be.  I never understood why people made such a production out of closing down the bathroom and always thought they should leave it open while they cleaned other toilets, well, now I totally get it.  I’m still trying to use good judgement and err on the side of the customer as much as I can, but when you are doing something unpleasant to begin with, and just want to get it over as quickly as possible, it’s pretty tough.

And that’s sort of my point overall.  There is a perfect way to handle almost every single customer interaction and I am certainly capable of it, but when it’s crazy hot, I’m physically tired, we are at the end of a very long day, or it is one challenging interaction after another I start to feel stretched.  Interestingly, Lee seems to have a much longer fuse when it comes to these interactions.   If you had to pick who was better with people overall, I think I would win that one, but he is steadier overall and seems less prone to allowing environmental pressure to get to him.  (I’ll take the credit, but I don’t really deserve it. Most of the time the useful part of my brain is occupied with my own bizarre thoughts and I am barely aware that there are even other people in the world. And every time I finish an interaction I reset back to whatever I was thinking about and people don’t exist any more. So each subsequent person pretty much feels like the first one, to me. – Lee) 

Even when it does get to him he is able to compartmentalize those feelings and stay remarkably even keeled when dealing with customers. In all fairness part of that is as a smaller guy dealing with somewhat drunk people, he is hyper aware of the fact that at anytime if an interaction escalates someone could take a swing at him.  (Something like this happened a week or so ago. We pulled up to our most remote spot, which rarely has anyone at it, and it had one car. Male and female sitting inside. We got out, and I locked the truck, and we went down the boat launch stairs to check the trash, keeping one eye on the couple in the car. When we came up the stairs, the guy got out of the car, because of course he did. I moved a little quicker up the stairs, to get to the top before he did, and I kept myself between him and Tracy while she unlocked the truck and we exchanged the standard pleasantries at the back of the truck. While we chatted he kept moving just a teeny bit closer to me, like a lean that turned into a step, and I would compensate by leaning/stepping back to maintain that ever important personal safety bubble. This happened enough times that we traveled this way, almost imperceptibly, from the passenger side at the tailgate, to the fuel tank door on the driver’s side. And the whole time talking about nothing of any consequence, but nonstop chit chat, which was very distracting. By this time, Trace had actually gotten into the truck and was just sitting there, so I decided I was done with the pointless chit chat and didn’t want to move forward of the driver’s door, so in the middle of his next pointless sentence and lean I gave him a great big smile and said “You have a great night, drive safe!”, opened the door and got in and we left. – Lee)  I was completely oblivious to all of this by the way.  I rarely worry about my physical safety, although I am more aware now than I ever was in my youth.

When I am tired, hot, and cranky I tend to get a little short with people.  (I can attest to this. – Lee) The “mom mentality” kicks in and it takes energy (which I have little of at the end of these long weekend days) to keep my voice on an even tone. Usually I am able to keep my cool, but I’ll be hones,t occasionally some “tone” leaks out.  I am not rude or abusive, but I definitely step on the customer service line in these instances and it bums me out.  Closing the gate at night is a particularly difficult time for me because we are at the end of a very long day.  Lee starts at 4:45 am, and the day ends at 9:30 pm. And we do that every Saturday and Sunday. Even though we aren’t working that entire time, it’s still a long day.

We aren’t eating well (dinner is a quick sandwich grabbed on a 15 minute break or eating at 9:30pm) and I am not sleeping well at all.  You would think we would fall into bed exhausted at the end of the day, but I’m still “keyed up” and usually can’t fall asleep until after 11pm.  Fridays and Sundays are generally OK because it’s mostly locals who know the end of day drill, but Saturdays are always tough.  We have lots of out-of-towners who don’t really understand we close the gate promptly at 9pm and despite giving numerous warnings starting at 8:15pm they often wait to start packing up until the last minute.  I get that they don’t know we have been going since early morning, don’t understand we have to get up first thing the next day, and probably wouldn’t care if they did.  But we aren’t done when we close the gate and still need to do a security sweep of the campground, empty any trash we have, and eat something before going to bed.  It’s a long day.

This Saturday was the worst we have had so far from that perspective.  It started off busy because a local combination AA /Veteran’s group was having an all day BBQ down on the lower launch beach.  They started arriving to set up their pop-up canopies and food stations at 6am. We had no idea this was happening, but swung into action to help handle the additional traffic.  Lee and I both spent all of our morning shifts down there and worked with the group to make the most out of the existing parking space.  The group organizers were great to work with and by 11:15am every car and boat space was full, I had cleaned the bathrooms twice, and we had emptied many bags of trash and given them extra bags for later.  I even asked one of the guys at Timber Park  to do a mid-day sweep while we were on our long mid-day break and I actually felt great about the level of customer service we provided.

Fast forward to 5pm when we came back on and the first thing we did was go back to lower launch to scope out what state it was in.  The bathrooms had held up pretty well, but we cleaned them again and we removed 4 huge bags of trash from down by the beach.  The group had completely turned over at this point and now we had several small groups at the beach area.  Because we hadn’t touched any of the other sites we ran up and dropped off the full bags of trash we had in the bed of the truck and then we hustled to make our rounds.  The culvert area was completely packed and that trash was overflowing.  Someone had added a third bag which really helped, but it took a while to pick up the overflow and now we were really running behind. We didn’t even have time to recycle, plus it was crazy hot in the full sun and we dealt with the bags and got back in the air conditioned truck as quickly as possible.   Thankfully the river sites were in better shape so we got back on schedule and headed down for another quick sweep of Lower Launch.  More trash removal, and then a quick bathroom clean and sweep of Faraday.

We made it back to the culvert by 7:30 and there was music blasting from two cars and at least 12 vehicles in the lot.  Lee started to make closing announcements on the bullhorn and I started trash pickup and asked the folks with the music blaring to turn it off.  Everything was going fine, with most people leaving, but there was one truck that simply wouldn’t leave.  We waited and waited and finally I gave last warning and we headed up to the gate.  At this point the people in the truck trotted over and making crappy comments about being rushed out they finally departed.  Lee saw a campground parking sticker on their window though as they left, and later I made it a point to ask the hosts about this particular vehicle because they were obviously pretty drunk.

We made it down to the Lower Launch by 8:10pm and it was still very busy.  5 boat trailers in the lot and at least 15 cars, which is a lot for that time of night, even on a Satruday.  Several groups still had pop-up shelters up and two groups were BBQing.  We started making announcements at 8:15 and then headed up through the gated area and made announcements to folks fishing and the boats up there.  By the time we got back down to the beach at 8:30pm I was pretty annoyed that the largest group on the beach was still grilling.  I walked over with my bucket and trash pickers and politely mentioned they really needed to start packing up now because they had a ton of stuff and they made some drunken comments to the affirmative and I started picking up litter.

By the time I made it to the end of the beach the trash cans were once again full and there were several boxes of trash on the ground.  I went and called Lee over and we drove the truck down into a parking spot and started picking the trash up.  While we were doing that someone pulled a small car up and completely blocked us in while they were “packing up.”  I say that because what they were really doing was standing around talking to each other and now it was 8:45pm and we still had to clean the bathrooms.  Lee tried to get the truck out, but couldn’t get past them and they just sat there talking and looking at us.  At this point I had had enough and jumped out of the truck and told them to move their vehicle because we had work we needed to do.  One of the guys looked at me and said, “Relax Lady,” and I swear I saw red.  I said, “We have been working all day and we still have work to do before we leave” and then I shut my mouth… with effort,  and jumped into the truck.  They finally moved and I was fuming as we went up to clean the restroom.

Something about his tone and demeanor really pushed my buttons, but I knew I had said too much and nothing I would say would make it any better.  So we cleaned the bathroom, saw all of the boat trailers were out of the water, and headed up to the top of the gate.  At this point, most people get a clue and the locals at least (including the “Relax Lady” guy got out of there, but the big group down on the beach was still taking their sweet time.  Finally we were able to shut the gate and then we headed back to the campground.  Turns out they had a rough day too, and the guys from the lower launch were in one of their “problem sites” but they had already addressed their concerns with them.  We made our security sweep, threw away 8 bags of trash in the dumpster, dropped off some items in the lost and found and went back to the rig.

I know in the grand scheme of things losing my temper is not such a big deal and it happened under extreme duress but it bothers me.  (Personally I wouldn’t describe it was losing her temper, I would describe it as being another two lines of conversation away from losing her temper. – Lee) It’s not like I was unbearably rude or cussed the guy out, but I hate feeling that upset and certainly hate showing it. More concerning is as the season progresses the fuse is getting shorter and shorter and I know I really need to get a handle on this now. Deep breaths are definitely called for, and remembering that although it is my 100th such conversation, for most of the visitors it is their first. And I really need to figure out how to get better sleep on the weekends.

Oh, one last thing, and for those of you with sensitive stomachs, stop right here.   We made it through the whole week with no major messes and then our second to last bathroom on Sunday night Lee opened the door and immediately put up a hand to stop me from entering behind him.  That’s part of the problem.  Despite our best efforts, when we open the door we never really know what we will find and this was something new.  There was tons of bright red…material spattered all over the toilet, seat and lid, with spatters on the wall at the men’s room at Faraday.  Lee walked in to get a better look and at first glance it appeared to be blood.  I then took a look and it was not good.  We have a special blood cleanup kit for instances involving blood, but the quantity was way too much for the materials we had on hand.  It looked to me as if someone might have had a miscarriage (which does happen in public restrooms on occasion) and although the color was still bright red neither one of us felt comfortable getting right on top of it and examining it.  Plus it was getting late and we needed to close some gates so we took pictures, locked the bathroom, and awaited further instructions from our supervisor.  Both of us felt this was the best solution, because there is another bathroom at this location and it was getting close to closing time.

The next day our supervisor took a look at the pictures Lee sent him. If I haven’t made it clear I really, really like this guy.  He is by far the best person I have worked for on the road and has gone out of his way to make this experience as pleasant as possible for us.  He told Lee he thought it was not blood, mainly because the mess had not changed color, that it was more likely thrown up berries.  There are tons of berries in the area and not all of them are safe for people to eat, and unfortunately someone appears to have eaten some bad ones.  That was much better than the alternative, but still not great, and on Monday Lee took the water trailer, lots of disinfectant, and a mop bucket to clean it up.  It wasn’t fun for him and I was really grateful it was my campground day, but he got it done and we were both glad we received clear instructions on how to handle it.  (I didn’t mind so much. It couldn’t have been blood, blood would have been much darker by the next morning. And there was no odor, so I just told myself I was cleaning up spilled food. I hosed everything out with pressurized water using a plant food dispenser on the hose to add lots of disinfectant and than used a mop and squeegee to take out the water. By that point it was so diluted there was no color at all. No big deal. I’ve cleaned up worse from my own kids. – Lee) So if you are keeping count, that is at least three weeks in a row with a major bathroom mess and if the universe is trying to tell me something I’d like to say back: I get it!!

On the plus side, we have lobbying pretty hard for a 100 gallon tank  to carry in the truck so we can add the gas powered pump and always have a pressurized water source, and after this incident our boss ordered one.  Plus I made $20.70 in recycling (not so bad considering how crazy it was) and we have some fun stuff scheduled for our days off, including a visit from a friend of Lee’s that he hasn’t seen since our wedding.

Camper Chronicles is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, a program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. We very much appreciate any purchase you make via our website links.  There is no additional cost to you and helps support our blog.  Search Amazon.com here

Or you can check out our recipe book filled with 80 real recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. The cookbook specializes in recipes that have a limited number of ingredients, without sacrificing flavor and is organized into categories that matter to full time RVers such as Happy Hours, Travel Days, and Pot Lucks   You can preview the kindle version on  Amazon or the Apple version on Itunes.    It is also available in paperback.

 

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First Time at Crater Lake and Rogue River

I travel with what I think of as a a “Big Bucket List” and a “Little Bucket List”.  The Big List are things I knew about and wanted to do even before becoming a full time RVer, and the Little Bucket List are things I only learned about once we started researching the lifestyle.  Little bucket list items are rewarding because I probably would have never even known about them if I wasn’t part of this community and traveling, but Big List items really validate for me what a great choice we made in this lifestyle.  I mention it because Crater Lake was definitely a Big Bucket List item and the number one thing I wanted to do while we were in Oregon.

What I didn’t understand was how far away Crater Lake would be from our temporary home. Even with our new tent and spending the night, a solid 5 hour drive is a stretch. Thankfully our friends and fellow RV Dreamers Bert and Kat were doing their first ever month-long volunteer stint about 45 minutes away from Crater Lake, so a plan was born to travel down and spend some time with them, and see the lake.  Initially I wanted to camp near the park, but they were totally booked in the month of July and the first come/first serve sites usually fill up before noon.  That wouldn’t work for us since we wanted to come down Monday night after work, so Kat and Bert asked their boss if we could stay on their site.  Happily he said yes and on Monday night we headed down to Klamath Falls.

Beautiful tent site, and I loved this old tree, plus we had electric and access to a bathroom.

 

They are volunteering at a wildlife area.

 

Where they plant trees, weed, build bird houses and other fun nature stuff.

 

Plus beautiful views of Mt. Shasta

 

Amazing full hookup site and they have the area all to themselves

 

I did make the mistake of leaving the rain fly off the tent the first night and even with the heater it got very cold.  Cold air “poured” into the tent (they made fun of me for saying poured but that’s what it felt like) and I didn’t get the best night’s sleep.  I drove 15 minutes into town and got myself a McDonald’s breakfast sandwich to start the day and when I came back saw they were gone getting Lee a HUGE cinnamon roll, so I drove down the road to the dock and took some great pictures of birds.  I saw hawks, egrets, pelicans, and Killdeer (a first for me) along with numerous small birds I couldn’t identify.  It’s basically one large marsh and depending on the time of year sees heavy bird traffic.

Oh yes, this was as big as his head. He did share it though.  The girls know their audience!

 

The Killdeer let me get pretty close

 

And the pelicans flying across the water were amazing

We wanted to get an early start, always recommended for any National Park, so started driving around 9am.  The drive into the lake was pretty and there were several places to stop, but nothing really jumped out at me until we saw these cool rock formations and an intensely green meadow.  The rock formations were caused by steam blowing up through the lava and it’s important to note that this entire area (including  Crater Lake) were formed by the volcanic eruption of Mt. Masuma over 7,700 years ago.

This information sign really surprised me because we have been to Lassen and had no idea Mt. Mazama had a larger impact.

Soon we arrived at the Crater Lake entrance and it was $10 to enter but free with our America the Beautiful pass. We stopped at the visitor center and wanted to watch the movie, but the small auditorium was already full.  I will say the visitors center was a disappointment.  It was very small and had very little information.  There is another visitors center in the lodge that we didn’t see that might be nicer and it was a little confusing when we came in which way to go.  The road around the rim is a circle, but because of heavy snow and a major reconstruction project not all sections were open.  Finally we determined we needed to get on the East Rim road and very soon there was a place to stop.  I will let the pictures speak for themselves, but WOW, WOW, WOW!

Our initial views

 

First Look

 

Lee and Kat walked down to the edge

 

Have to have a little truck porn

 

Lee’s panaorama shot

 

What is so special about the lake is Wizards’ Isle

 

Which had amazing turquoise water in it’s cove

 

There are also very cool rock formations along the banks.  I don’t know what that light colored water is.

 

The neatest of which is shaped like a pirate ship, but unfortunately we couldn’t get any closer than this

Yes, the water is that blue and yes it is even more amazing than it looks.  We stopped at almost every stop and took tons of pictures, because none of us could get enough of the view.  Plus what is great about the lake is it looks different depending on when you come.  I would like to visit it again in May when the peaks are still snow covered, but in order to drive the entire road will also need to visit it in August.  Plus they have boat tours that run (you need to book well in advance) and one hike that leads down to the shore.

 

There were large patches of snow left along the mountainside and people were playing in them where they could reach them

 

Snow along some of the banks

 

Some remaining banks showed how high the snow was and even in May most of this road was still closed

 

We got lucky on the portion of the road that was under construction and only had to wait about 10 minutes

 

Tiny tour boats racing across the water

 

And two boats doing a scientific survey of the water clarity and depth

 

The non lake side was also very nice with huge plains and mountains in the distance

 

The scope of it was amazing…Kat’s response says it all

 

And there was beauty in the small details

 

The view at our lunch spot

 

Another panoramic view

 

Me, Lee, Bert, and Kat taking a selfie

Around 1pm it really started to get crowded and we had made it to Skell Point which was the last place open by car.  While we were there two couples who were frequent visitors were pointing and exclaiming, and it turned out that they were looking at the Old Man of the Lake.  This is a tree stump that has been bobbing around the lake since at least 1896 and because the lake is so huge sightings of it are incredibly rare.  One couple told us they had been coming at least once a year for 15 years and this was the first time they had seen it.  Usually I get super excited about stuff like this and I do acknowledge that it was a rare sighting, but to be honest it was a log in the lake and Kat and I were kind of taken aback by their excitement.  Lee and Bert got it though and were very into it, so here’s the picture so you know what you are looking for.  This was taken with a long lens, so you need to have sharp eyes to catch it. In reality it was just a tiny speck. We were at least 100′ above the water, and it was only visible if you stood in a specific spot. Move to the left or right a few feet and it disappeared behind an outcropping.

The old man in the lake. The bobbing up and down was pretty cool

Since it was still pretty early, we decided to take the north entrance out (and avoid the construction) and take a longer way back to Klamath falls.  Since we were in two trucks we had walkie-talkies and Bert took the lead with Kat navigating.  It’s always hard to know where to stop when you are on an unknown scenic drive, but they stumbled across two incredible places along the Rogue River and that surprise of those sites was a perfect way to end the day.  I love gorges, but this one was very special and although small was full of raging water.  Plus we had never seen a land bridge and we all thought that was really neat as well.  I’ll be honest the pictures don’t come close to capturing either experience, but Lee took some video and that does a much better job of giving you an idea of how special it was.

Nice walkway along the Chasm and it’s only 1/4 mile long

 

The Chasm

 

The top was absolutely beautiful with multiple water sources and HUGE logs

This rock was fantastic. Lee got some great video of it

 

The end of the gorge with a humongous tree

 

My absolute favorite part was this living stump

 

The sign explains how the roots are intertwined so the stump is still alive. It has bark on the top of it. Very, very cool

 

A little ways down the road was the land bridge

 

The sign showed how lava created the bridge and then the water came through

 

This lava cave was big and amazing

 

Where the water goes into the land bridge

 

The bridge although it was hard to capture in its entirety

 

Where the water comes out on the land bridge.  Again the video does a much better job of capturing it

 

 

Finally we made it back and were all starving so we ate around 5:30pm.  Bert and Kat bought us some huge T-Bones and, no shock, Lee was very happy.  We had a wonderful time staying with them and are looking forward to the next time our paths cross. Although the drives there and back were super long and this is not something we could regularly do, combining amazing sites with great friends totally made it worth it.  Kat and Bert thank you very much for helping me put a big check mark on the bucket list!

The next morning we got up a little after sunrise (after a much better night of sleep, with the rain fly on the tent the heat stayed in better) and packed up and headed home. We intentionally chose a different route back which took us through Sisters, Oregon which is a pretty amazing area itself.

The three sisters. Much prettier than the picture I was able to get

Camper Chronicles is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, a program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. We very much appreciate any purchase you make via our website links.  There is no additional cost to you and helps support our blog.  Search Amazon.com here

Or you can check out our recipe book filled with 80 real recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. The cookbook specializes in recipes that have a limited number of ingredients, without sacrificing flavor and is organized into categories that matter to full time RVers such as Happy Hours, Travel Days, and Pot Lucks   You can preview the kindle version on  Amazon or the Apple version on Itunes.    It is also available in paperback.

 

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First Time Kayaking on the Clackamas River

Conventional wisdom recommends that anyone who is becoming a full time RVer invest in three things; good hiking shoes, bikes, and kayak(s).  With visions of all of those activities in our heads we started our full timing journey with two of the three.  Oddly, the one item I skipped (decent hiking shoes), I came to regret when I sprained an ankle during a hike and hobbled around for three weeks.  Now my Merrill Hiking shoes get tons of use and I will absolutely replace them with a like pair when they eventually wear out.  On the other end of the spectrum we went to quite a bit of trouble to bring our bikes.  Lee had a custom bike rack built and we carried them everywhere with us the first two years.  Unfortunately we never found a good way to cover them, so every time we wanted to use them we had a rusted chain, flat tire, or some other bike issue and despite our best intentions they saw little use.  Finally, we gave them away last summer in Alaska, and only rarely do I wish we had them.  The main problem for me is that I like to take pictures, and I am not coordinated enough to ride a bike and stop frequently with a big camera around my neck. It just wasn’t fun for me.

Finally, we purchased a Sea Eagle Kayak. Lee liked that it was inflatable (thus easier to store) and I liked that it was a two person kayak.  I had this vision in my head of riding in style (and barely paddling) as Lee moved us down beautiful rivers, but again, the reality did not live up to my fantasy.  First and foremost, when we went to one vehicle finding a transport company to give us rides, was much more difficult than we thought it would be.  Also, Lee made it pretty clear he wasn’t interested in doing all of the work.  Setting up an inflatable takes some time in and of itself and with our work schedules neither one of us was super interested in the tons of manual labor paddling upriver entails.  Don’t get me wrong, we love floating downstream, but the upstream was just too much work.  We tried some lakes to avoid needing to go upstream, but neither one of us was getting the experience we wanted.

Let me just take a minute here and say LOTS of our friends kayak, bike, and hike on a regular basis.  We definitely fall outside of the “normal” curve on this one, but we are also working physically demanding jobs on a regular basis.  Even if we weren’t though I am not sure we wouldn’t have the same issues.  I think my main point is we didn’t completely change who we are overnight simply because we became full timers.  As big a fan as I am of buying everything you need upfront, you might want to hold off on these items until you get some experience with the lifestyle.  Except the hiking boots.  Definitely buy those, because even if you aren’t planning on tons of hiking, odds are you will experience lots of places with uneven ground.

All of this really came to a head this summer, because we are living on a beautiful river.  We both wanted to get out and kayak, but the idea of paddling against the current (especially after our long, hard days of hauling trash and scrubbing bathrooms) was not appealing.  So it was get rid of the boat (which was super pricey at $850) or find another solution.  Lee really wanted to try a trolling motor, and although I had some major concerns about throwing good money after bad I agreed that it was worth a shot.  Lee did the research, found the motor, and figured out the mounting and finally we took it for a maiden voyage.

All the boat stuff including new motor and battery case

 

Lee put on the mount

 

Strapped on the battery

 

And added the motor

We launched from the Promontory Marina next to the campground and since we had no idea how long the battery would last we headed upriver.  I’ll just jump to the end here and say it was a huge success.  Lee loved having the trolling motor and we had enough battery power to go upriver and get most of the way back.  I was able to take lots of pictures and we only paddled when we got into shallow areas or if I wanted to add a little speed.  The view from the river was also really cool, and as familiar as I am with the river at this point, being in it gives you a totally different perspective.

The view from the marina

 

The Clackamas River

 

I loved these trees, not sure what they are but very pretty

 

It was fun seeing the campsites from the river

 

The Day Use Area

 

And you can see a hint of our camper in the upper left hand corner

 

We made our way up to these wooden structures which we think are there for the fish to rest in

 

Several people were in the area either fishing or paddle boarding

 

I loved these structures

 

They were really fun to kayak in and out of

 

And super photogenic

We went far enough to get some great views of the cliffs

 

Found the base of this waterfall by hearing the water trickle into the river

 

And saw this area on an island where people sometimes camp

 

It was fun and Lee had a really good time with the trolling motor, so hopefully we will be doing more kayaking in the future.  Time will only tell, but my personal favorite is still the scenic drive for seeing an area.  This was nice because you get into nature and see things with more detail, but we only covered a couple of miles of terrain while doing it.  It really comes down to personal preference I suppose.

After kayaking we started our weekend and mostly it was a really good one.  I made $27.70 recycling, which was great, and despite the heat and larger crowds we managed to keep up OK. One of the most exciting things was they finally cleared the slide on the road between Lower Launch and Faraday and we are now able to drive straight through.  Not only does it make our lives easier, it is also beautiful and on Thursday I stopped and took a few pictures.  Right before getting on the road I stopped and checked on my ospreys and discovered three large sized chicks in the nest.  They were on the outer edges of my range but I got a couple of decent shots!

Can’t wait until these guys start flying.  If you look close you see three heads

 

The parent was keeping an eye out

The road to Faraday

 

Good signage around where the slide was

 

They only have half of the road open

 

What’s left after the slide. The rocks with metal netting are used to stop any further slides

 

Really long area which is why it took so long to open the road

 

Some beautiful views of the Clackamas

 

Ending at the dam

 

We even felt good enough to have lunch with fellow Dreamers Julie and Casey who we had met briefly at the 2016 rally.  They are full-time and living in Portland where Casey is working and they were willing to come down during our long break on the weekend.  Julie even brought lunch (which included pie!) and we had a great time getting to know them better.  Casey is a scrum master, which is somewhat similar to what I do and I picked his brain about working while living on the road.  They asked us questions about Alaska and other areas they hadn’t experienced yet and it was a great exchange of information.  Plus they are really nice people and we just enjoyed the company.

Julie, Casey, and Lee who is excited about his pie!

 

So the week was really good with only one sour note.  I thought about leaving it out, but I need to include it because it was kind of a big deal at the time.  On Sunday, we ran out of toilet paper at the Lower Launch and someone wrote “Poop” with a giant “X” in excrement on the wall.  I scrubbed it off, but it really was a bummer way to end the week, because seriously who does something like that?  It obviously happens though, and for those of us who clean bathrooms, it is not pleasant at all.  It isn’t just dealing with the fluids, it’s how intentional the act is.  Craziness. And don’t get me wrong, Lee and I both know these sorts of things are going to happen, but we also shake our head and think who does something like that?

Well, next up is our Crater Lake trip, and we are both very excited about that, and since we won’t be cleaning any bathrooms there I am sure it will be amazing 🙂

 

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Or you can check out our recipe book filled with 80 real recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. The cookbook specializes in recipes that have a limited number of ingredients, without sacrificing flavor and is organized into categories that matter to full time RVers such as Happy Hours, Travel Days, and Pot Lucks   You can preview the kindle version on  Amazon or the Apple version on Itunes.    It is also available in paperback.