Author: Lee and Tracy

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First Time Sampling the Fruit Loop

Our friend Rick came in to stay in our campground for two weeks and since he was such a wonderful host when we visited him at Hecata Head, I felt pretty bad that we barely spent any time with him when he arrived at our campground.  He knew our schedule was crazy though, and he was mainly using our campground as a jumping off point to explore the area, and with our work schedule he didn’t expect us to be tour guides.  He’s really great about exploring on his own, so I loaded him up with information and in no time he was off exploring the spots I mentioned.  I did want to hang out with him though, so Tuesday I planned a trip for us to explore the Hood River Fruit Loop.  Lee was welcome to come of course, but after the intensity of the weekend he really just wanted a day to himself, so Rick and I jumped in his convertible and off we went.

I was pretty excited about the convertible.  We used to own one before we went on the road and although I don’t regret having only one vehicle there are lots of drives that would be wonderful in a convertible and the fruit loop was definitely one of them.  The first place we stopped was Trillium Lake.  It is one of the National Forest service day use areas, and from what I had read it has the best views of Mount Hood in the area. Wow, they weren’t kidding!  It was a little tough to find, but once we got there the views were absolutely spectacular.  We also stopped along the way to take a Mount Hood trip and through sheer luck stumbled across a piece of the Oregon Trail.  The trail meanders all throughout this area, and I have to say that standing on it felt historical.  Some places we visit just carry the weight of their history (Kitty Hawk comes to mind) and standing on the Oregon Trail felt the same to me.

This picture is not color enhanced in any way. It actually looked like this.

 

The ducks liked it and since it is stocked with trout there were several fishermen nearby

 

Standing on a little slice of history

 

All along the drive we had several glimpses of Mount Hood. I never get tired of seeing it.

 

That was just the teaser because the real purpose of the journey was the Fruit Loop.  It is a road which surrounds the picturesque town of Hood River and because of the river valley soil it is known for it’s fruit trees and wineries.  I wanted to travel the loop for myself for the fruit trees, but I also wanted to stop at a couple of wineries and see if I could get my Dad a bottle of wine for Father’s Day.  My Dad is not really hooked into what we are doing and generally only has a vague idea of where we are, but he does like it when I send him presents from our travels and since this part of Oregon is known for it’s wine, and he loves wine, it seemed like a good fit.  Unfortunately what I know about wine could fit in a shot glass, and the whole process is a little intimidating to me, so having Rick as my wing man was a good thing!

A map of the fruit loop with 29 different sites to stop at. This doesn’t include the restaurants in the town, just the local farms and vineyards

 

Our first stop was the Draper farm

 

The cherry trees were absolutely beautiful and the free samples were amazing. The metallic strips are to keep the birds away

 

Yes they were this red!

This store had cherry cider, but no samples unfortunately, but I did buy some Rainier cherries which were yummy but a steep $6 a pound.

 

Next up was Packer Orchards

 

Which had beautiful views of Mount Adams. There are 5 mountains that are visible in this area at times and almost all the farms had a beautiful view

 

A hill full of fruit trees!

 

Packer had some amazing homemade cookies and we bought some for Lee

 

And these amazing cinnamon rolls although I had to pass or I would have been in a sugar coma.

 

Almost every farm stand had preserves and other canned items for sale and all the produce came from the farm. Love that!

 

We nibbled our way through many of the farm stands and I bought some homemade honey mustard for Lee and found some bing cherries for $2.99 a pound which I got to select from a huge bin. We also stopped at Fox Hard Cider, but it was too early in the day for me to start drinking.  What I really needed was lunch, and since it was 12:30pm, we headed into Hood River to find a place to eat.  I had heard that Hood River was full of great restaurants, and I hadn’t really done much research, so we just drove through town until I saw a restaurant I liked from the outside (with a parking place nearby) and we walked in.  We had no idea what the menu would be, and were both surprised when we saw it was a Swedish restaurant named Broder Ost.  I have never been in a Swedish restaurant in my life, but Rick (who is from Wisconsin and whose wife was of Swedish descent) was very familiar with the food.  He was excited at the menu and I was excited for him so we ended up ordering some traditional menu items.  I had Lefse ( a first for me) and Rick had hash with smoked trout.  Mine was really good, but I had no basis of comparison, but Rick of course did and he was VERY happy with both items.  Lefse is a potato pancake and making it in the traditional way is pretty time consuming.  Rick took one bite of mine and said it was absolutely made the traditional way and he loved his hash.  What a pleasant surprise for both of us and it was nice because it felt like Rick’s wife Sonya (who passed away several years ago) was with us in spirit.  Seriously, what are the odds we would randomly walk into a Swedish restaurant?

The hash.  The walnut bread was really yummy.

 

Lefse. Have to say I don’t like fried eggs, but these were baked and outstanding! I didn’t like the pickled onions much, but I did like that my breakfast came with a salad.

 

After lunch, we walked across the street, because I had to stop at the olive oil place.  Whenever we travel and see an olive oil store, I have to stop because my friend Deb owned one and has convinced me how much better their olive oil is.  This one had teas, spices, olive oil, and vinegars and I ended up buying a Tuscan olive oil which will make a great bread dipping sauce.

The picture is dark, but there were tons of olive oil tanks to sample from.

I didn’t want to spend more time in town, because we still had to get to the wineries and we continued our drive to the top of the fruit loop.  My first stop was billed as the oldest winery in the area and since their fields were close to the Columbia River and their vines are 35 years old, I thought this would have the best wine.  Don’t ask me why I thought that, seriously know nothing about wine, but we made our way there and despite several twists and turns  showed up at the door.  All I can say was the whole place looked a little sketchy.  I know smaller vineyards are no frills, but the tastings were $5, and the whole layout was not very clean.  I just had a bad vibe from the whole thing and we left and went on to one more place.

The tasting room was no frills which I could live with but didn’t look clean which I couldn’t. Plus the woman who was running it wasn’t very nice

My second choice vineyard was called Marchesi Vineyard and was interesting to me because they had Italian vines.  I like Italian wines and I know my dad does because he had gone to Italy, so I thought maybe this would be better.  This setting was more like what I was expecting with the vines within eyesight and a very nice tasting area.

Unfortunately it also had the air of pretentiousness that I hate about wineries in general.  I walked up to the counter and while I was waiting my turn the manager asked the woman in front of me if she liked the rose.  The woman replied “It was OK,” and the manager said in a snotty tone (and this is a direct quote) “You must not have an Italian palate.  The rose is an excellent wine.”  Seriously, give me a break.  The customer started stumbling and said something about not being new to Rose’s and then someone walked up to help me.  I tried the Pinot Grigio (reasonably priced at $2) because I know what I like in that wine and thought if it was good maybe I could trust the reds were good.  Seriously no clue what I doing here.  Rick, my supposed wingman, witnessed the Rose conversation and went and sat down with his phone and waited for me to be done.  So I was on my own when the manager walked up to me and started asking questions about shipping.

She said I didn’t want to ship it, because the cost would be as high was the bottle of wine and I wanted to pack it in my suitcase.  I took a breath, put on my best corporate voice, and explained I was traveling and I wanted to send my father a present from my travels.  I asked how much the shipping was for two bottles and she quoted the same price.  I raised an eyebrow and she explained it was $30 to ship one or two bottles because the packing was for two bottles.  OK. She softened at this point, when I talked about sending it to my father and I explained I knew nothing about reds. I asked what she would recommend, flattering her a little on her expertise, and she started with a $42 award winning bottle of wine.  I pivoted asking about the Pinot Noirs, which the region is known for and she stated those were also award winning.  Ultimately we decided on the Noir and a Barbera and the wine plus shipping cost me $100.  Normally I wouldn’t have spent this much, but her attitude was annoying and I was willing to back up my attitude with some coin.  That’s what is dangerous about wineries in my opinion, maybe it’s all part of their selling strategy, I just hope that the wine is good, since I still have absolutely no idea.   I am never doing that again though unless I have someone with me who has a palate.

The winery incident aside, it was a beautiful day and Rick and I headed back to the campground.  Lee enjoyed his time off and he really liked his presents and a few days later I took the cherries and decided to make my first ever cherry pie.  I thought with such a sweet and fresh ingredient I couldn’t go wrong, so I found a recipe online and started in.

I read you can pit the cherries with a chopstick. It was messy but it got the job done

 

They were beautiful

 

My pie wasn’t perfect looking

 

But the inside was beautiful

 

It took me two hours to make the pie, an hour to cook, and another 3 hours for it to cool.  Basically it was an all day project.  We were both very excited to taste the pie, and after all that work, it really wasn’t that good. Yep it’s true.  I am sure it was the wrong kind of cherries (I used Bing) and/or the wrong amount of sugar (I used 2/3 of a cup), but I ended up throwing it away.  I know, crazy right? But when Lee, the lover of all things pie, doesn’t like it, it’s not good.  It wasn’t awful really, it just didn’t taste that good and although I am happy to add the mechanics to my skill set, it is not something I will be trying again in the near future.  It’s a ton of work.  Still it was fun and I am really glad Rick and I got to spend the day together.  Next up, some kayaking on the Clackamas River.

 

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Reader Question: Would We Do it all Again?

Stacey sent a very thoughtful question and although I answered it in the comments, I think it deserves a longer answer, hence this post.  The question was “If you knew then what you know now,  would you still trade your former careers / work life including sticks and bricks living for your current lifestyle? I guess I’m wondering if work camping experiences are an acceptable trade off for living the full timing RV lifestyle instead of waiting to do it after retirement. I know that the preference is a uniquely individualized choice, but I’d like to hear your personal opinion now that you’ve done it for some time and experienced varied work camping jobs.”

The short answer is: Yes.  If you are a person who likes brevity you might want to stop right here, but there is of course a much longer answer.  First and foremost I am a person who believes in “the journey”.  Every decision I have made, every challenge I have experienced has led to who I am today.  Looking back on my life, the most interesting times were the most challenging and the times of personal growth usually came from something difficult or scary.  So I am not a person who carries around a lot of regret.  Most of my decisions, good and bad, I can live with because they were my decisions and I learned from them.

That being said, I don’t have to experience everything the hard way anymore.  I can learn from others and I am not averse to taking the easier path once in awhile.  I’m older and hopefully wiser now.  So if I knew would I do it?  It’s possible I wouldn’t have had the courage to do this if I knew exactly what I was getting into, but I hope I would have.  This lifestyle is the biggest risk I have ever taken in my life.  That statement should be put into context, because I have never been much of a risk taker, but for me it has challenged me in almost every way.  I don’t think that would have happened if I would have waited until retirement.  I know it wouldn’t have happened if I would have waited until I had tons of money in the bank.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the transition is tough for people regardless of your income level or savings account, but for me some of the biggest lessons I have learned have been around living without a safety net.  Many people have already learned that lesson.  They were fired, started their own business, dealt with a major illness, or got divorced.  I have never experienced any of these things and as thankful as I am for that, I also didn’t know that I would make it out the other side.  Not intellectually know, because of course I believed that, but know deep down in my gut I would be able to handle major changes. My life was relatively stable and sedentary and I was comfortable. I think it’s pretty clear I am not comfortable now, and haven’t been for the last 3 years.

But people rarely grow when they are comfortable.  Yes, they avoid the lows in life, but often they don’t experience the amazing highs either. Life was bland and vanilla and for many, many years I loved it that way.  Looking back on the last three years I see a series of images.  Things I absolutely know I never would have experienced, because going on vacation cannot buy them.  It’s just not the same.  Those moments have to be part of the equation and frankly I can’t imagine many things that would tempt me to give those up. You might think I could have experienced them if I would have waited, and maybe that is true.  Or maybe I could have experienced equal or better experiences just at an older age.  Possibly, but I have always been a bird-in-the-hand kind of person and to me it would have been riskier to wait until I retired.  Too many things could have happened in the 18 years between now and then.

Plus, my life as it existed was about to change anyway.  My youngest daughter was leaving the nest to go into the Air Force and Lee and I would have been in a big empty house that we didn’t like very much.  Yes, we could have downsized into something smaller, but in our case that change wouldn’t have been enough for us.  More importantly for me at least, my former company was about to be bought by a larger company.  I didn’t know it at the time I took the buy-out, but within 6 months of my leaving, Tyco would be bought by Johnson Controls.  My boss, who I really liked, took a totally different position and in order for me to stay with him I would have probably needed to relocate. If I would have stayed in the same position, I may have survived the cut, but it would have meant longer hours, more travel, and definitely more stress.  I survived two major mergers in my 15 years with Tyco and  I honestly don’t know if I had another one of those in me.  Even if I did manage to survive the deep personnel cuts that always come with a merger,  it’s brutal watching colleagues lose their jobs.  It’s very possible that if I have stayed I would have been looking for new employment anyway, but with the liability of Lee needing to stay in the area and a relatively high mortgage hanging over my head.  Knowing what I know now,  selling the house and becoming debt free was the smart move and I am pretty sure we would not have been able to do that if we had stayed in the area.  So the short answer is I don’t regret at all leaving our sticks and bricks lifestyle.

To answer the second part of the question as to whether the work kamping jobs are worth the full-time lifestyle, I would say the answer is largely no.  If we were supplementing other income and could work them, yes, probably.  If we were volunteering for fun, social interaction, and to help with costs, definitely.  But working the amount of hours we work and the types of jobs we have, absolutely no.  I’m not sure how Lee feels about that so he’ll need to jump in here.  We believed we would be able to work a little and play a little when we started doing these jobs, but its mostly been 10 months of work and 2 months of play, and that’s not a fair trade-off to me.  It would be if the jobs were easier and/or more interesting, but they aren’t, and unless we were willing to stick with the same jobs year after year and follow a set route I can’t see that changing.  That’s a great compromise for many people, by the way, and I respect it.  If you want better pay and more interesting work you can always spend your summers and/or winters in the same places and eventually you will get there.  Nothing wrong with that, but we get the big WOW moments from seeing new places and without that travel I still don’t think I would like it.  I think Lee would be fine with that though, but again he needs to jump in.

(I take a longer view, overall. I think it’s possible to have something resembling a route, and also have the freedom to get the WOW moments, but if I ever feel like I’m chasing something, then I know it’s a losing battle. I’d rather stalk it. I also think that while the WOW moments mostly come from being in new places, I think that we have nothing but time to see new places, and I’d rather get all the WOW I can in a place before I go searching for new WOW. I agree that at the moment, the “recipe” we have is not a good one, and I often wonder how many people start off and give up at this point, because it’s so far away from what they imagined. I’m pretty stubborn, though, and I am convinced that the right recipe is out there, and I constantly remind myself of how unhappy I was before.-Lee)

(Most of the time I feel like my worst day here is still better in the grand scheme than my best day before. The grass is greener syndrome is powerful, and I am avoiding it with everything I’ve got. I do think that if you break the year into two longer seasons of summer and winter and two shorter seasons of fall and spring, then it’s logical that part of the recipe might be that you find a recurring gig in either summer or winter, and intellectually I lean toward summer for that. That would have the added benefit of giving you an anchor point for medical/dental stuff. I know some people might recoil from the idea of spending years experimenting to find that perfect repeating summer gig, but for me it beats a life of grind every time.-Lee)

(Overall, I’m looking for a combination that allows some freedom to travel, but also gives me a little stability. Ideally, a combination of hammering the budget down to the point where we can use the two long seasons to make money, and make enough to play during the short seasons, or some combination. I agree that working 10 months, and taking 2 off is not a good deal, especially if some or most of those of those two months is dedicated to getting from one gig to another. Anything that gets us closer to a 50/50 split would make me happier. I’m also willing to have less in general to get there. For me the trick is to fine tune and tweak until we’ve squeezed as much as possible out of the time we have and the money we can get.  I’m the kind of guy that turns a dish soap container upside down and lets it sit for an hour to get all the soap out, but I think bending over to pick up a nickel is for suckers. I can do something else while gravity gets the soap out for me, but I’m never getting back the ten cents worth of time I spent picking up that nickel. For me, seconds add up faster than nickels.  – Lee)

What isn’t covered in your question is are there any other ways to make money?  The answer is demonstrably yes as we have met many people (mostly younger) doing all sorts of interesting things to cover their costs.  We haven’t even started exploring those options, because we were focused on the most common traditional work kamping jobs, but our focus going forward will be doing exactly that. I’ve never really had an entrepreneurial spirit and again I’m not much of a risk taker, but there are lots of mobile jobs that while out of my comfort zone are not a complete stretch for me.  We believe most work kamping jobs are designed for people who are trying to supplement existing income.  That makes sense because in the past the majority of the work kamping community was in exactly that position.  The demographic of full timers is changing, however, but the work kamping job market has been slow to change to accommodate those of us are financing our travels by working seasonal jobs. We do see some small changes in this area and I expect big changes in the next 10 years, but for right now few of these jobs have been a good fit for us.

What I have learned from trying them though is we can support ourselves that way if we need to.  It isn’t our preference, but it is workable.  (What we’re doing this summer is an excellent example of that. It pays $14.25 per hour and we each work about 35 hours per week, but between the type of work it is and the split shift schedule, it takes enough out of us that it feels a lot more like a sticks and bricks lifestyle. – Lee) This gives me the freedom to be choosier about what types of mobile professional jobs I take.  We aren’t desperate and we know there is work out there, so I can be sure I am not jumping from a less than ideal situation into a worse one.  One thing I absolutely have achieved is less stress.  These jobs may be unpleasant and they are not totally without some stress, but it doesn’t come close to what I was experiencing in my former profession.  My ideal job would be something of relatively short duration, in a nice place,  where I could use my skills and contribute to the betterment of society in some way.  I am fully aware that is a tall order, but at this point I don’t believe it is an impossible goal.

I’m not sure what Lee is going to choose to do. He has talked about trying to get a small business off the ground, but that will require some stretching on his part and a considerable amount of non-revenue generating time to get it started. We have some money in the bank, a really varied skill set, and relatively low monthly costs so whatever we decide to try I think we will be OK. We just need to stretch ourselves.

Which sort of brings me back full circle to my original point.  Once again our desire for this roving lifestyle will be the catalyst for change. We don’t know where that change will lead us, but as long as we love each other and take care of each other, things will be alright and probably we will end up in a better place than where we started.  We usually do.  That alone makes me grateful we started down this path.  Plus, as we are walking along the path,  the view is really amazing.  Seriously, you cannot put any sort of price tag on that.

Thanks for the question and giving us a chance to write about it.

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First Time at a Timber Fest

Estacada used to be a logging town so it’s not surprising that the theme for its Fourth of July celebration was a Timber Fest.  What was surprising was how large the event was, especially considering the town only has a population of 3,000.  In order to cover the costs of the event they do charge a $5 admission per person and depending upon where you park an additional $5, but since this includes the festival and a very good fireworks display the price is reasonable.  We, however, were able to get in for free and VIP park since our trainers live in the park used for the festivities, which was a good thing.

When we arrived after our shift around 1pm, it was pretty crowded, but the footprint is nice and large for the event so that helped with not making it feel jam packed. Although it was hot that day, the park has tons of mature trees and the most crowded areas were in the shade.

They had logging equipment around for the kids to see

The local library had a booth with a free craft

We liked these little custom RV’s  these folks were selling.  No kitchen in them though, but the sleeping area was pretty cool.

Happy to see the dunk tank over by a pretty large kids area

And they had these red-white-and blue alpacas wandering about so of course I have to get my picture taken

Lee was starving when we arrived and we headed straight for the food.  This was a big disappointment, mainly because the lines were very very very long and the vendors were pretty slow in getting the food out.  Lee waited (and didn’t move at all) in a line for Thai food for over 10 minutes before giving up and getting a mediocre brat for $8.  We are actually pretty spoiled when it comes to festival food as our former hometown of Keene had a huge festival each year and the local non-profits provided amazing and reasonably priced food.  This was more of the food truck variety and largely it disappointed, although I did get some pretty good Italian Ice from one vendor.

The line that Lee waited in and ultimately left.

I did see this…a first for me, but didn’t give it a try. I ate before we went to the festival

The kettle Corn smelled delicious

Not as good as I ate as a kid in Philly, but not bad

The real draw are the lumberjack competitions and that is what I was really excited about.  Unfortunately the layout was in full sun and the amphitheater setting (I am sure it is designed this way for safety) doesn’t allow for great views.  I did get a few pictures with my long lens though and I have to say the crowd was really into it and several local favorites were competing which was nice to see.  The biggest problem was the schedule was pretty haphazard, so unless you were willing to sit for the entire 4 hours and watch events, it wasn’t clear what event would be happening when.  I really wanted to see log rolling, which wasn’t happening when we were there, but did get to see a few other events. Lee waited patiently up by a tree in the shade while I watched.

The log rolling tank was neat.  It was a shame I missed this event

Two man saw competitions

The log chaining race was pretty neat. We had seen this on the show Ax Men so I was somewhat familiar with it

The ax throwing was pretty cool. They were aiming for a beer can in the middle so if it was hit it sprayed out.

Amazing muscles on these guys

My favorite event was when they relay race, where they ran out on the little log, cut the end off, and then ran back with a running chainsaw

Looked crazy dangerous but fascinating to watch

All in all, pretty good for a small town celebration and obviously some work and planning had gone into it.  We only stayed for a couple hours though and then we headed back to the RV for some chill time.  We went back around 9pm for the fireworks and our trainers came and got us in our new gator.  It will be coming to our campground this week and we are all thrilled it has a roof for those rainy days.  They showed us their special spot they watch the fireworks from and they were really good. I realized it’s been a couple of years since we have seen fireworks, and we both really enjoyed them.  My pictures were better than expected, but Lee took some very nice video.

 

 

Afterwards, we stopped at Lower Launch. We weren’t sure what to expect, but there was only one car down there, with a couple sitting in lawn chairs fishing by moonlight. We drove around the parking lot to sweep our headlights everywhere to see if there was anyone else and give them a chance to pack up. They didn’t move at all, just glanced our way and went back to fishing. A quick “woop woop” on the siren and they immediately jumped up and put away their pole and took off. We cleaned the restroom, emptied the trash, and shut the gates (all by truck headlight and full moon, we really should have brought flashlights!) and we made it back to our RV by 11:30pm.  Overall it was a nice day and I am glad we were able to help out some folks by working in the daytime and closing the gates at night. Plus, despite the late night I slept until 9am and woke up full of energy.  I had been putting off a couple of special projects and after some coffee and breakfast jumped right in.  I went through my books and put together a bag of books to donate to the local book store.  I also went through all of my clothes and put together a bag to donate and pulled out all of the Tshirts I had been saving.

Since we went on the road I have wanted to make a T-shirt quilt from the places we have visited.  Initially I thought I would do it myself, but after talking to a couple of my friends who are long time quilters and hearing about what it would require, I realized it was beyond my skill set.  Luckily, my sister has a friend in South Carolina, Pollyanna Picnic Quilts,  who makes these quilts and after I saw the one she did for my niece’s graduation I was pretty excited.  I started laying T-shirts out on the bed and was texting Ruth to get additional information.  Finally we got on the phone and talked through my options, because the amount of choice was all a bit overwhelming.  I knew I could just send the shirts and let her determine the order, but I really wanted to do the layout myself and really needed to understand the construction process to figure out what would work. Ruth was great about talking it through with me and also said she would be in communication throughout the process, to make sure she was doing exactly what I wanted.  I loved that!

I also got Lee to come help me, which really was a game changer.  He is a creative person and thinks about patterns in different ways.  He immediately started talking about all the different ways we could lay the T-shirts out, but because I am more visual he had to show me what he meant each time.  So we spent a couple of hours moving T-Shirts around while I saw all of my different options. Seriously, how many husbands would do that?  We tried it by color, pattern, size of logo etc.  I knew I wanted to make sure the ones with stiff logos were at the bottom (don’t want to rest my arms at night on those) but we had to be careful that we didn’t have all of the same colors lumped together.  I am pretty fond of blue and green so had much more of those colors than other ones.  Finally, I settled on chronology of travels (which was what I originally wanted to do) but instead of going left to right, we went up and down which made the color distribution better and allowed for the ones with the stiff logos to be at the base of the quilt.  We also measured the bed and determined that we wanted each square to be a uniform 14″ x 15″ and we needed a border of 18″ to make it long enough to hang over the bed. My head hurt when we were done, but I was very happy with it and now the shirts are all stacked nice and neat, I have made a quilt diagram to send her, and I  think we will have something that looks good aesthetically and has meaning!!

One of the many versions

The T-Shirt pattern

And the quilt measurements. I’m not much of a drawer, but I think she will get my meaning

Ruth has several other orders, so our quilt will take about two months to complete, but I told her I was fine with waiting.  Plus her quoted price of $200 seems incredibly reasonable to me.  Very excited about this and looking forward to seeing the finished project!!  Now I just need to find time to get it all in the mail.

Thursday, our youngest daughter Kay came and we were both very excited to see her.  As I have mentioned before, she is a Korean linguist in the Air Force and in August will be stationed in Korea for one year.  Thankfully, she was able to find time to see us before she left and although it’s only one weekend we were very glad she was able to come.  We have gone more than a year without seeing our other daughters, but there is something about her being in another country that makes it more challenging as a parent. Mentally you know you can’t just jump on a plane if you need to, well we could but it would be a lot more complicated, and it just makes the thought of separation much tougher.  Plus it doesn’t help that she will be next door to a crazy person who keeps testing his missiles.   Don’t get me wrong, I am extremely proud of her and believe her skills could make a difference, but it’s hard as a parent to know your child will be so far away and in a potentially unsafe place.

And logistically the weekend is the worst possible time for us to schedule a visit.  Thankfully she’s always been a low-maintenance kind of kid, and is very understanding of our crazy schedule.  Things were even more complicated when our friend Rick came on Friday, but he was also very understanding.  The weekends are just really tough and you can’t really plan anything throughout the day.  I did try to squeeze renting a jet ski (something neither Kay nor I have ever done), but unfortunately the marina only had one that was operational and it needed intermediate level skill to rent.  I did take her to the farmer’s market and the book store and Lee took her on a drive upriver, but mainly we just talked and she caught up on some much needed sleep.  She did spend FRiday in Portland though, which we made work by dropping her at the train station in Clackamas and then picking her up off the bus in Estacada.  She had a good time, even thought she was alone, and I really admire her independent spirit.  That will certainly serve her well in life.

They have such a wonderful relationship. It’s fun to watch. Plus she is way smarter than him and wins arguments all the time.  I don’t even enter into the fray but he can’t help himself!

I forgot to mention last week that I made strawberry preserves for the first time with my Instant Pot. Steam setting for 10 minutes worked great after the jar were sterilized in a regular water bath

Rick, we didn’t get to see much at all over the weekend, because we were crazy busy.  It was warm again and we had two major messes in two different bathrooms that required additional time to clean up.  You know how I said my nose was getting desensitized?  Well it just goes to show you that life has a way of proving you wrong.  We are hoping the last couple of weeks are just an anomaly because of the holiday, but if these levels of mess continue on a regular basis we are both going to be pretty unhappy.  Things happen on occasion and we get that’s part of the deal, but from Tuesday – Saturday we had four instances of messes all over the floor and one instance where someone tried to start a fire in one of the pit toilets.  That goes beyond accidental and into intentional malice, which is quite a bit tougher to handle, especially since we are working so hard to keep these areas clean.

We did all get together finally for a pot luck our boss had on Sunday.  Thankfully, he was fine with friends and kids coming, so we were able to attend and everyone got a chance to spend a little time with our daughter.  It was fun and after we met, our fellow camphost who is nearer Kay’s age invited her over for a campfire and some talk, which was incredibly sweet of her.  We worked until 9:30pm, spent a little bit of time with her, but then went to bed because I had to get up at 5:00am.

Monday, Kay flew out and thankfully Lee was able to change his schedule to take her to the airport.  I was in the campground, so stayed behind, but it’s probably for the best.  I’m not great at saying goodbye, especially when I know I won’t see the person for awhile.  The last thing a 21 year old wants is her mother bursting into tears at the airport. I’m really, really proud of her though and I will be focusing on that, plus I made $21.30 recycling this week, so that’s good.  To celebrate I bought myself some Oregon Black Cherry Tillamook Ice cream.

 

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 – Fourth of July Weekend

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.  

This week we voluntarily changed our days off in order to be able to help out on July 4th.  We had no plans and since the newbie camp hosts would be alone, we thought we could switch our days off and help out. I didn’t really take into account though how tiring that 6th day would be, but despite that I don’t regret it.  It’s always nice to be able to help people and since it was an even switch of days and hours it cost us very little. I also decided to take everyone’s advice and do a little recycling.  My thought was to pick out what was sitting on top or on the sides of the cans and see where we ended up at the end of the week.  It was stinky, but with the pickup sticks wasn’t too terribly bad.

The weekend started off slower than expected, mainly due to cooler temperatures, so we had time for a few special projects.  Lee, at my request, taught me how to use the pole saw, which is basically a chain saw on the end of a long pole.  It wasn’t as heavy as I thought it would be, but it is of course super dangerous and I paid close attention to what I was doing while I used it. It’s good to learn a new skill and it felt really good when I cleared Hole-in-the-Wall, but it isn’t something I would want to do on a regular basis.  Still, something to add to the work kamping resume.

You can extend the pole even farther but I was too chicken. As you can see the face mask was a little large for me and kept slipping down, which kind of defeated the purpose

Even did one branch from the back of a truck

We also placed two new trashcans at the lower launch.  The first was down on the beach which we hope will help with the crazy amounts of traffic being generated there and the second was up behind the gate where we kept finding trash and broken beer bottles.  By sheer luck we met a group of kids up at that spot and found out what the allure was.  Apparently they are jumping into the water from this spot (about 20 feet) and then climbing up the bank with the rope used by the fishermen.  As these things go it actually seemed pretty safe and if I was a little bit younger I might even give it a go myself.

New trash can

It’s hard to show how steep this is, but I climbed down once and trust me the rope is VERY necessary

This is the view from the jump. The wood boundary that people fish off is to the left. To give you an idea of scale, those logs are each over 2′ in diameter.

Saturday, was also relatively quiet so I spent some time filling the water up in the pit toilets.  At my request, most of the pit toilets were emptied before the holiday weekend and this really helped with the smell.  They did need some water added though and I took the large trailer with me.  I also watered the trees at Moore Creek, since it hasn’t rained in a while here.  The trees are only two years old and need some extra help to keep them alive.  The best part of Saturday was I finally got to go to the local farmer’s market.  My morning shift ends at 12:30pm and since we are back on at 5:30pm I usually don’t want to go, but this week I found the energy.  I was really glad that I did!

The farmers market

Unfortunately there was only one vendor with vegetables but their selection was good and prices were very reasonable

The main building is an antique shop and I really liked it. Each section was it’s own little room and it was really nice

They even had this cool chicken coop out back

Sunday got much hotter and things were much busier.  Not as busy as last weekend, but busy enough for sure.  We didn’t do any special projects, just kept up on the sites.  I did take the time to take a few pictures of Faraday Lake though.  The water was released and for the first time we can clearly see the fish channel.  This channel is actually pretty interesting as it was built by the company to protect the fish.  They don’t like warm water, so the deeper (and cooler channel) helps them live longer.

The picture doesn’t really show how huge it is

The geese are still hanging out. They like walking on the ledges

I also took this picture of the bridge that we drive over to get to Faraday. It’s a pretty tight fit

The most interesting thing that happened all day was the large booming noises that were coming from near Moore Creek.  There is a forest service area where people shoot guns right down the road and since it is in a canyon the sound really carries.  It can be startling to the white water rafters that come down from Portland, but we have gotten used to it.  Still today was a little different as these deep booming noises were going off.  When I arrived one of the raft drivers was visibly upset and since I was in “uniform” he thought I should help fix the problem.  That happens pretty frequently, as law enforcement is pretty scarce here, so the truck and uniform make us somewhat official looking.  Even though the shooting “range” wasn’t our area, I told him I would check it out and with some hesitation drove down to that area.

There is a little pull off and a huge hill which blocks the area where they shoot, so I VERY carefully walked up around the corner.  I didn’t go far, because there were at least 20 people up there and they were shooting quite a bit.  Thankfully, a couple of young guys were walking out and I asked where the booming noise was coming from. They explained that some people had Telluride targets, which according to them were not flammable just really loud and perfectly legal.  I thanked them and went back to the rafting driver, who was not happy and stated it was ruining the experience for the rafters. I didn’t disagree, in today’s climate hearing gunshots and having no idea where they are coming from, is alarming and the giant explosion sounds were worse.  But I explained it was National Forest Service land and they would need to register a complaint with them and then went on my way.

Monday was a campground day and it was my busiest one yet.  I thought it would be slow because people would be staying the entire four days, but that wasn’t the case.  I had 15 ins/outs and a full campground besides.  I was super busy and barely stopped all day, but I got all, but two of the sites clean.  People were very nice and there were lots of kids in the campground, so it was pretty pleasant until (skip the rest of this paragraph and the next one if your squeamish)  a gentleman walked up and said there was a used tampon in the men’s shower. He was so nervous and slightly embarrassed to tell me, but I thanked him.  I really would rather know these sorts of things so I could address it right away.  It’s not fun dealing with a used tampon, but at least it was quick and I don’t even want to think about why it was in the men’s shower.

Apparently it’s our weekend for that sort of thing as the newbie camp host closed the lower launch Monday night and someone pooped right on the floor in front of the toilet.  He only covers that bathroom one night a week and I don’t blame him that he wasn’t thrilled.  I heard the story when I went out on my run and found the exact same thing at Faraday.  This was a first for me, as it definitely looked deliberate and it was definitely not the way I wanted to start my day.  The only good part of the shift was when I came back to the campground and Lee told me his story.  He was getting ready to get off his shift and a woman came up and said there was poop in the women’s shower.  Lee went in to take care of it and saw a “log” laying in the drain.  He decided it looked a little too “perfectly shaped” and looked a little closer, then started laughing. It was an unopened pine cone!!  He brought it out holding it in his hand and the woman initially looked horrified, but then he let her in on the joke.  So apparently Lee has better karma than me or the other camp host, and hopefully that will be our last encounter with poop outside of a toilet for the rest of the summer.  It’s not likely though.

On the plus side I turned our recycling in and we made $13.60, which covered  the cost of the visit to the farmers market.   The recycling station is at the local super market and there was a line to recycle, so the concept is working at least in Oregon.  I’ve never really done it before, but you feed each item in one at a time and there is a pretty high tech conveyor belt and bar code reader and a slip with your total pops out at the end.  It goes faster than you would think, but it’s pretty smelly in the recycling station as well.  Stale beer is not my favorite odor.  I will say though that if nothing else this job is toughening up my olfactory senses.  I was always pretty sensitive to bad smells, but the sort of continuous assault on the senses has actually benefited me in this area.  Gotta look for the positives. And it’s a few extra bucks so I may keep doing it.  Our fellow camp hosts are also looking for ways to make some extra money.  One couple has created fire starting kits which are actually pretty creative.  They are cutting a slice of a Duraflame log, adding some newspaper and kindling and charging $4.  Pretty smart idea and one we are tucking away for the future.

 

Anyways,  we are off for a couple of days and we are going to the Timberfest, going to see fireworks and Kay is coming to visit before she heads to Korea.  So hopefully we will have a nice couple of days.  I’ve also got a couple of projects to work and that will keep me busy.

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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June 2017 Budget (with Revenue)

From a financial perspective it was a good month with $3227 in income and $3085 in expenses for a net profit of $142. As happy as I am that we broke even, I will say I don’t feel adequately compensated for the work we are doing.  The problem isn’t so much the hourly rate of $14.25 but rather the fact that we are limited to 35 hours a week each. In order to get the work done in a week that we need to we are working hard!  Physically we are both very tired and the weekend schedule (three back-to-back close/opens) is brutal.  Since most of our hours are during peak customer times, we have to work extra fast to squeeze in anything extra.  That additional 5 hours each would allow us to slow down our daily pace a bit.  I only mention it because it probably isn’t that clear from the other posts how hard this job is.  We don’t have much energy for seeing the local sites and I don’t even have much energy to blog.  I was hoping that we would be able to adapt to the workload and have more energy for personal stuff,  but the combination of hard work and crazy hours is definitely taking its toll.  At least we aren’t working this hard and losing money. The details are listed below.

 

Groceries – We went over by $116 in this category.  At the beginning of the month we did a Costco run and then another big grocery run later in the month.  The costs at the local store are much higher, but the drive to the Winco is around 40 minutes.  With our schedules those are hard to do on a regular basis so we end up buying locally.  We also can’t cook dinners on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday because of our schedule, so Lee and I are both relying on prepared foods to get us through the weekends, which generally cost more money.

Dining Out – We only went over by $20 which was not bad considering our crazy schedules and the trip to the coast earlier in the month.  Part of what helps here is the local food is really not that great and since we don’t have any fast food chains in Estacada the temptation of buying fast food is taken away.

Entertainment – We were under by $75, largely because we haven’t really done much of anything.  We could have blown the whole budget when we went to the ocean though, so it’s a good thing. 

Home Equipment – We were over by $90 which was mainly some last minute camping supplies and our new silverware.  That silverware makes me super happy.  Totally worth the overage!!

 

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 a Lavender Farm

Sunday despite the over 100 degree temperatures I really needed to go somewhere.  So when we heard about a nearby lavender festival I decided to give it a try.  Asking Lee to go out at noon in that kind of heat is not done lightly, but he loves me, so he decided to come along.  Lavender farms are very common here, and although I don’t like the smell of lavender particularly, I did want the opportunity to photograph them.  It was a small festival, really just two farms, but it was nice and although we didn’t stay long I was happy with the pictures I got. The festival itself was at Eagle Creek Lavender, and it really was a beautiful place.

Eagle Creek Lavender

The fields were in bloom

They had a lavender distilling machine

And a debudder

And some pretty cool drying racks.  You know it’s hot when lee is in shorts and flip flops.

This sign was in two places at the festival. Not sure what kind of crazy lavender accident they were expecting, but it was pretty clear they had no liability if one did

The best part was this really great gift shop

Sachets were super cheap, but despite going to the source I still didn’t like the smell

The honey though was absolutely fantastic and we bought a large jar of it

The house on the property was VERY nice. The lavender business must be a lucrative one

Lee took advantage of some sprayers they had set up to help with the heat

They had some BBQ available for sale

And picnic tables along the water

We saw lots of floats in the river

And you could watch them go by. We really want to do this, but there are limited put ins and take outs along the river, so it will require some planning

Lee’s favorite part was a small car collection

They had old farm trucks and a wrecker which we had never seen

The neatest one was this model which it turns out was a limited release through Sears and only a few thousand were made

Loved the hood ornament

Despite being at many car shows we have never seen one of these

It was pretty hot after looking at the cars so we drove down the road to the next farm.  Our fellow camp hosts had told us they had a beautiful view of Mt. Hood and it didn’t disappoint.  The farm itself was closed when we got there, but we were able to take a couple of pictures.  Their lavender was planted in concentric circles, which was really cool, and was much bigger and prettier than the other farm.

Mt. Hood in the background

It was nice to get out for a little while, but we had to get back to work by 5:30pm, and it was a hot one.  Still, I was glad we at least got to do one thing special during the week.  Monday was a regular work day and then on Tuesday we received a visit from Kat and Bert.  We met them at the 2016 RV-Dreams rally, and they were passing through on the way to a volunteer job in Klamath Falls.  I was a little worried that their rig would be too big for our campground, so received permission from our boss to have them stay next to us and boondock for a couple of days.  It was great seeing them and thankfully the temps were much cooler, so we spent lots of time eating meals and sitting around the fire and talking.  Kat, Bert, and I did take a tour of our river sites one day, and we went in and walked around Estacada a bit.  The town is all dressed up for the upcoming Fourth of July celebration and looked really cute.  Since I haven’t really shared many pictures of the town, I thought now was a good time to get some pics.

Sitting around the fire and catching up with Kat and Bert

I did take them down to see the ospreys

And the town of Estacada looked great with the flowers blooming

One of the best thing about the town is the numerous murals that the art council has commissioned over the years

This one, on the local grocery store, is my favorite

Bert was excited to try the local brewery

And was super bummed that it didn’t open until 4pm

So we went to the book store, but it closed at 3pm so we just kept wandering around

This combination cafe and flower shop is something I have never seen before

And Kat stopped dead in her tracks when she saw this mural

This one is on the side of a local bar and I have to admit the naked motorcyclists is a bit odd. The expression on her face was priceless though

After the tour, we bought some local beer and headed back to the campground for a fantastic steak dinner.  It was so nice for them to go to the trouble of seeing us and we are making plans to meet up in crater lake which will be near their volunteer gig.  Loved seeing them and love our RV-Dreams family!!

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 – Lower Launch Closure

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.  

This was a light week for us because the Lower Launch was closed all week.  The company we worked for had a construction team come in and build some fish habitat on the reservoir, and we didn’t have to open or shut that gate or clean the restroom Mon-Friday afternoon. That was actually a good thing because the road all of our sites are on is undergoing paving and the delays getting to and from the various sites did add  some time to our day.

I hung these signs myself. Not a perfect job but it was pouring down rain and these are the first signs I have ever hung

Our original plan was for Lee to change his days off and paint the lower launch bathroom, but we received a text on Tuesday that our rig was finally being moved on Wednesday. We have been on site for 6 weeks and because the trailer couldn’t be moved in the rain, and they had some competing priorities at another campground, we weren’t able to get into our permanent spot.  We understood, but not being in our spot caused a general low-level unease so we were happy that it was getting done.  We had to be on site while it happened and I took pictures of the process.  I thought it was kind of interesting so let me show you what happened.

First we had to pack up our rig and move it down the road a bit to give them room to work.

 

The sewer tank was supposed to be emptied by the sewage company the day before but they didn’t show up

 

So the employee who coordinated the move brought “the bot”.

 

We all held our figurative (and literal) breath when he picked this up and moved it. But he went nice and slow

 

Then the construction company brought in a big fork lift

 

And lifted the trailer

 

I wondered how he was going to turn it, but our co-worker had the idea to lift it and back the semi trailer under it which was brilliant

 

Nice and easy down it went

 

And then they were off to another location

The chipmunks were going crazy the entire time.  There were two big nests underneath, but thankfully they didn’t have any babies in them.  After the trailer was moved, we waited an hour and a half and then the employee came back and used the bot to flatten the gravel on the site.  He did a really nice job, considering what he had to work with and we appreciated his attention to detail.

The trash left over after the move.

 

I used the cement blocks to make a little enclosed area for my tomato plants, which are getting huge by the way

Chipmunk nest

Flattening the site

Looked really nice when he was done

 

In our new space

While he was gone, and after he left we worked on the area in front of our new space.  I had this idea that if we could clear some of the brush away we might have a better view of the river.  Well it turned out even better than I could have hoped for and both of the campground maintenance guys took some time and helped us along the way which was very nice. It took most of our day off to get it done, but  I am absolutely thrilled to be in our permanent spot and I love the view.   The only bummer is we are still very close to the very bright LED street light and at night it completely lights up our rig.  I did talk to our boss on Thursday and asked if we could possibly have a switch added because it does feel a little bit like we are in a parking lot. These sort of things happen when you are moving into a new spot and as our boss said, it never occurred to him how bright it would be because he never comes to the site at night.

So full of brush you could barely see the water

 

First Lee took the big limbs down that were hanging out into the road

 

Then he went down into the brush and weed whacked. I used the limb loppers

 

We were making progress.  The front layer was gone

 

Then I stood at the top and yelled out where the remaining few small brush areas were. This was pretty funny since we had to yell and the guys were shaking trees to show me where they were

 

Voila!!

On Thursday I also got extremely lucky and managed to get a hitch for our work truck.  Part of the challenge of everyone covering multiple sites with limited cell coverage is it is hard to coordinate with people, but I got extremely lucky and on Thursday when I stopped by the office all the major players were in the same area.  Folks really do want to help us, but as I said folks are going in a million directions, but today all the stars aligned and we got a hitch for the truck.  This is a big deal, because now we can use the riding mower, sprayer, and water trailer without needing to take the hitch from the folks at our sister location.  I was very excited!!

On Friday we went into Gresham so Lee could get his physical blood work done and we could go to Winco.  We also decided to break down and buy some new silverware, since our current set is missing quite a few pieces.  It’s a shame because we both love the pattern and the “heft” of it, but when we tried to order a replacement set online the “exact replacement” was considerably lighter weight.  Lee actually weighed it and our old silverware  knife was 90 grams and the new one was 67 grams.  Not cool!  Thankfully Amazon has a wonderful return policy so we are shipping that silverware back and decided to go into Bed, Bath, and Beyond so we could actually hold the silverware in our hands.  It sounds like a lot of trouble, and it actually was, but we spent about 45 minutes picking out new silverware.

Why?  Well some things in our minds require actual handling before purchase and it is not coincidental that many of these things matter to us on a deeper level as a measure of financial stability.  When we were young and poor we had cheap sheets, cheap silverware, cheap plates, and cheap knives.  As we became more successful we replaced those things with better quality.  Some of those items we happily traded in when we start our new lifestyle.  Our new plates for example were extremely inexpensive and  the major factors were whether they were microwave safe and whether or not they were breakable.  Glasses went through the same process, with heavy-duty drinking glasses giving way to a plastic alternative.  But a few things we weren’t willing to change for their cheaper alternative (I’ve spent lots of time talking about the importance of 800 thread count sheets to us), and silverware instantly fell into this category.

We’ve had the same set for at least 10 years now, but over the last few years have lost a piece here and a piece there at various group dinners and we were to the point where we were constantly running low on forks.  It’s kind of funny to me that we were both 100% in agreement over the necessity to replace them with something good, but I suppose it makes sense because we both like to eat.  Lee was more concerned with the shape of the spoons (lots of weird stuff out there now) and I was more concerned with the shape of the small forks, but eventually we narrowed it down and selected something we could both live with.  The winner was Towle  brand and the pattern was Stephanie.   We also splurged and got a great deal on Cuisinart steak knives (as our steak knives were even older than the silverware) and we got a heck of a deal for $19.99.  One of the store employees also gave us outstanding customer service and spent lots of time with us as we picked out the knives.  He actually helped us hone in on a cheaper alternative which rarely happens in a store experience.

Steak knives

 

They were super sharp!

 

And I love, love my new silverware

When we got back on Friday we started our day with a 2pm maintenance meeting.  Lee is not usually a fan of meetings, but our supervisor ran a really good one and everyone was engaged and lots of questions were either put on the table or resolved. He also talked to us about the upcoming heat and made it clear he was fine with our moving our schedule (as possible) or moving tasks to the coolest part of the day.  That was really nice of him and showed he trusted our judgement which I appreciated.  The company provides sunscreen and electrolyte drink packs to their employees to help with the heat and we also learned they have a 24 hour nurse hotline to help with work related injury.  More nice benefits of working for a large company.

After the meeting, we headed out to do our runs and every place we went was pretty crowded.  Shutting the Culvert gate at 8pm was a bit challenging since there were groups of teenagers looking for a place to hang out, but I had no qualms about shooing them away and making them find another spot. Turns out I am pretty militant about gate closures and the main reason for that is trash.  The crowds in the morning are generally pretty good about cleaning up after themselves, but the later it gets the messier (and drunker) folks are so the early cut-off is a good thing.  Lower Launch also reopened on Friday and it was both packed and a bit messy, but because it had been closed all week we expected it to be a little rougher.

Saturday though was crazy.  It was really hot (highs of 97) and it seemed like everyone headed to the river. I don’t blame them, there is no local swimming pool and the river, with its mountain stream water, is a great place to cool off.  Unfortunately, there is no good place in this area for people to swim.  The river and reservoir have lots of places for folks who want to raft and kayak,  and lots of places for fishermen, but minimal places for people to cool off in the river/reservoir. I know there is a local committee that meets regularly to talk about the river resources and is very serious about apportioning them, but I am not sure that people who want to swim are represented.  The rafting companies are there and local fishermen, but with all this river space, I am not sure why there aren’t more picnic/swim areas.  Because of the lack, the lower launch tiny beach (if you can call it that)  fills up, then the culvert and folks keep getting pushed up river.  The large marina gets full, then the Promontory Day use and finally that small dock down by us.  At one point in the day our fellow camp host counted 41 people on that tiny dock, which is really way too many.  I think the problem is the current is too swift for swimming up river and the forest service only has one place (Big Eddy) where folks can go swim.  None of this is really much of an issue during the week or when the weather is rainy or cooler, but on a hot weekend every single place is packed.

That meant more work for us of course and once again we were trying to squeeze in an extra project.  I have been wanting to spray down the pit toilets since we arrived here, but needed a water source to do it.  There was a solution to this problem of course, a big water tank that is normally used for transporting fish, but we needed a hitch and a working trailer to make all that work.  Since we got the hitch we needed now we needed the trailer.  Since it had sat over the winter, Lee and one of the camp hosts spent the better part of 2 hours replacing the battery, making sure the brakes worked, putting air in the tires, etc.  I also learned how to tell the difference between a 4 cylinder and a 2 cylinder engine and how to use the hose on the tank.  I have to say everyone has been really great about showing me how to do mechanical stuff.  Occasionally they seemed surprised I have never done a thing before, but I always point to Lee and say married to a guy like him, how much maintenance do you think I’ve had to do in my life 🙂 The best part of this job (aside from the view) has been the opportunity for me to learn new things and I really appreciate folks helping me with that.

The water trailer with a 300 gallon tank

 

It had a water pump, hose, and engine on it to pump the water

Finally it was done so we took it up to one of the fish ladder labs to fill it up. They have a huge hose and we filled the 300 gallon tank in less than a minute. The bad news was that it was lake water, and although it was pretty clean it does have lots of pine needles in it.  That isn’t a big deal when you are using the hose to water plants, but whenever we tried to use a sprayer it got clogged up pretty quick.  Still we muddled through and Lee and I sprayed down the toilets at Faraday, then I took the trailer all by myself up to Hole in The Wall and Moore Creek and did those bathrooms.  Those sites are actually great because they are designed for boat trailers, and I had no difficulty pulling in and turning around.  We didn’t do Lower Launch (which probably needs it the most) because of the crowds, but Lee is going to tackle it on Monday.

So it was a really hot and crowded weekend (temps hit 101 on Sunday), but we took our supervisor’s advice and did most hard tasks in the morning or evenings.  I also spent more time down at the lower launch directing traffic which the folks with boats seemed to appreciate.  My only complaint about the weekend was the incredible amount of trash that was generated.  Mostly people were very good about getting it into a trash can but almost every can was full of beer cans and beer bottles.  Oregon has a very generous recycle policy, so I am not sure why folks aren’t packing those out, but what are you going to do.  I completely get it is our job, by the way, but since I am not much of a drinker, it’s never going to be my favorite thing.  I am super tempted to start recycling those bottles myself for the extra cash, but can’t face picking through all that garbage.  At 5 cents a can/bottle though it might be worth it.  To give you an idea of the scope of it, we currently have 20 trash cans we check at least once a day.  On Sunday we emptied 12 bags of trash in the morning and on our evening run we emptied 17.  That was a total of 29, very full, big black trash bags.  Like I said, a lot of trash.

Despite the heat, we did take a little bit of time on our break on Sunday and went to a local lavender festival.  I got some really nice pictures, but am going to wait and share them in the next post.  Oh, and Kat and Bert are coming to see us on Tuesday which I am super excited about, so we should have some fun on our days off next week, and the week after July 4th our youngest daughter is going to stop by and spend a few days with us on her way back across the country from San Francisco before she heads off to Korea for a year.

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 – Father’s Day Week

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 promising a walk through of what we do on campground days, and since Monday is my campground day, and it finally stopped raining so I could get some pictures, I thought I would share those details in this post.  Many people think camp hosting jobs are easy.  Heck, I thought they were easy, and on some days they can be.  Campground host duties are very much driven by how full the campground is, and since this campground is largely used on weekends, those are the busiest days.  We are seeing more people during the week though now that school is out, and the workload has increased exponentially.  It’s a pretty simple equation.  More people means more campsites to clean, and the bathrooms and showers see heavier use.  There are more questions to answer, more firewood to sell and deliver, and more time spent on making sure folks are following the rules.  Since we only work day shift, I can’t speak to the evening duties of the camp hosts, but I can give you a run down of what an average mid-week day shift looks like, at least for us.

During the week, the camp host opens the gates to the campground, the marina next door (you can see the gates to the marina just beyond our gate in the picture below), and the lower boat launch, which is about a mile down the road. Since all gates are supposed to be opened by 6am, we get up and out the door by 5:30am and drive to the three locations to allow plenty of time to get all the gates by 6am.

Campground and Marina Gates

 

Lower Launch Gate

 

This one is tough for me because of this heavy bar, but with the use of a crowbar I can do it by myself

 

One of the nicest things about mornings on the river is the mist.  Almost every day the mist hangs above the water, and it is really pretty in the mornings.  After opening the gate at the lower launch we unlock the bathroom and I always like to take a minute to look around and enjoy the mist on the water. It’s much prettier than the pictures below suggest. We’re pretty low in a canyon/valley, so it takes several hours for the sun to finally hit the water on the reservoir.



After opening the gates, we come back and check the marina.  We look for trash and check the dog bag holders, but anything major is left for the evening shift.  There is a large fish cleaning station, picnic tables, and a significant amount of weeding down there, but since we just fill in one day a week that is not something we tackle. After checking the marina, we unlock the bathrooms at the campground day use area and check the playground, again looking for trash or mess from the night before.  Rarely do we find any issues there, because the evening shift cleans and locks those areas prior to locking the gate.

Doggie bag dispensers

 

 

Next is Small Fry Pond and this takes a little longer.  This pond is for children under the age of 18, stocked with fish, and is open to both campers from our campground,  and the public.  The amount of traffic it gets varies wildly, so it requires a morning check of the three trash cans and picking up litter along the trail.  It’s a beautiful little path down to the pond, and not the worst way to start a morning, but not so fun on a rainy day because the path is a little steep and can be a bit slippery, especially when hauling out a full trash bag. This area also has it’s own fish cleaning station, which see some use, but thankfully I rarely have to clean it.  The evening camp hosts usually check this prior to closing the gate and so far I have been lucky not having to deal with fish guts that early in the morning!

Path down to the pond

Small fry pond has a path all the way around it which I walk looking for litter

A thankfully clean fish cleaning station. Mr. Newbie and Mr. Kayaker do a great job of keeping the fish cleaning station clean.

Next up is another large day use area.  This area can be booked for the day for a small fee, but can be used by anyone if it is not reserved.  Generally it is in pretty good shape, but needs extra attention the morning before or the evening after a booking.  Again, I have been pretty lucky with this as well, but always check it, because sometimes folks hang out there or have an impromptu gathering and it can get messy.  It’s a really nice day use area with a huge fire pit, lots of picnic tables, including some under a roof, and a fireplace under the roof, a large charcoal grill, electric stoves, large sinks, and two bathrooms (which are only opened if someone books the site). Below is a picture from the river edge looking back up at the day use area.

 

Beautiful views of the river from the bottom of the day use area.

Once the day use area is cleaned I head back to our RV.  I take the company truck to complete the first set of tasks and then hand it off to Lee who runs up and down the river on Monday.  Usually I get all of those areas checked and cleaned by 6:30am, but occasionally it pushes closer to 7am.  Once I hand the keys over, I walk down to the campground to start my day down there.

The first thing I do is open the maintenance garage and pull out the Gator.  It’s pretty early and the gator makes a pretty loud beep when you back it up, so I try to back it out very quickly.  I make sure it is stocked with a wet mop, dry mop, rake, and squeegee along with making sure the black tub has full cleaning supply bottles.  I then take a quick run down to the two sets of bathrooms and poke my head in and make sure the toilets, sinks, toilet paper, and showers look OK for the morning rush.  It’s too early to do a complete cleanup, but I will spot clean areas I think need it. Most of the time the real issue is the sinks or empty toilet paper rolls, so I can take care of that pretty quickly and quietly.

One of Lee’s first project was organizing the shop. He even added the top shelf and made sure there was enough room to park the gator inside.

 

The gator with the nifty mop holder that the guys created from PVC pipe

 

Main restroom with showers.

 

Modern toilets and showers

 

After the morning restroom check I come back to the office and wait until around 9am when folks start waking up and I can make more noise.  I use this time to read work emails, look at the communication log, look at the ongoing maintenance list, and look at today’s check ins and outs.  The number of campers checking in and out will largely drive my day, so on days with less check in/outs I can work more on the task lists, but other days that (along with cleaning the bathrooms) is the bulk of what I get done.  At 9am, I head out with the cleaning supplies and start working on the sites.  All sites are cleaned as soon as the campers leave, so theoretically sites that weren’t occupied the night before shouldn’t need to be touched, but it never hurts to take a second look.  Sometimes campers “spread out” into adjoining sites if they are unoccupied and the Yomes are not completely airtight so needles and dust can get in. Cleaning a Yome involves sweeping or blowing the floor, mopping it, and spraying the plastic mattress covers with disinfectant and wiping them  with the dry mop.  Generally they don’t take that long, but they do take longer than a regular campsite.

Office

 

Desk area with the well maintained communication log. Everyone here does a great job of using this

 

The maintenance list is ever changing, but there isn’t much on here that I have the time or skill set to work on. I do try to jump in where I can though

 

I make this map with the Ins and Outs every Monday and then check off the campsites as I complete them. Of particular interest is any campsite with an In and an Out as those need to be turned as soon as possible

 

The Yomes are very popular

 

They have two sets of bunkbeds in them and most have electric

 

We spray with disinfectant and then use this dry mop. Very effective

The campsites are generally pretty easy.  They have a tent area which may need raked and a fire pit that needs cleaned out.  One of the perks of the job is we get to keep any leftover firewood, and we carry a metal bucket on the gator to put pieces in.  Since checkout time is not until 1pm many people start fires on their departure morning and it’s not uncommon to walk away with 5-6 pieces.  The only tough cleaning job for me is the cabins.  They are incredibly nice and only a year old, but the bunk beds are tall and it’s hard for me to climb up and clean the top bunk.  For whatever reason those just wear me out and I am always grateful when there are just a few I have to work on in a day.  They also take the longest and for me it’s about 20 minutes each, so when we have lots of check ins and check outs it can be hard to get done before my shift ends at 1:30.  It’s fine if we don’t get everything done and have to pass some things along to the next shift, but I like to get as much done as possible so they can focus on guest interactions and the maintenance list.

Campfire rings. It’s amazing what people leave in them. The worst is half eaten food though and the worst of that I have seen so far is when someone poured beans all over a piece of wood. Gross!!

 

The cabins

 

They have electric and a small electric stove. They still smell like new wood and although they are rustic they are really nice and very reasonably priced.

 

Great river view from one of the cabins

While touring the campground we also clean the 4 cook stove areas.  This is a really nice feature and all campers have access to two hot plates, a counter, and a sink.  Some folks keep these areas very clean, but others are kind of messy and it requires Easy Off and a scrub brush to get them somewhat clean. Along with these cook stations are two more fish stations, but again I rarely have to clean those.  Have I mentioned I am super thankful for that!!

The green cone in the front is the dump sink and takes the grey water from people washing dishes  to a tank. One of the guys cleaned this the other day and wow was that a gross job. The rotting food smell was pretty intense.

Campground days are an 8 hour shift and since most of that is working I am definitely pooped out at the end of those days. But we have our two days off so I can rest up and then the rest of the week is river sites.  Thursday is Lee’s campground day now and we mainly switched because of moving the dumpsters.  I took some pictures of that process so you can see it, because it is really hard to explain.

Back the gator up to the small dumpster. It’s easier if you can roll them, but they are too heavy for me to move when they are full

 

Use a GIANT ratchet strap to attach the can to the gator, getting it as tight as possible so it doesn’t move side to side

 

The giant ratchet strap was super intimidating for me, but now I feel comfortable. If nothing else I think I have finally gotten over my somewhat unreasonable fear of these things.

 

This steep hill is the worst. It goes down to where the dumpsters can be emptied by the garbage truck and going down this hill with the rattle of the wheels and the push of the weight is a little nerve wracking. After doing this a few times I was happy to trade days with Lee

The whole thing feels a little Beverly Hillbillies to me, but it does get the job done.  Not much fun in the pouring rain for sure though and the last two Thursdays Lee has worked it was raining pretty hard.  Still he is a trouper about the whole thing and since he was worried about me getting hurt was happy to make the switch.  Now on Thursdays I run the river alone and it is one of my favorite days.  Although no one checks our river sites on our days off, generally they are still in pretty decent shape and I actually have some extra time.  This week I decided to ride over to an area we don’t technically cover, because there are no trash cans, but several regular dog walkers have mentioned there was trash over there.  There certainly was, and I picked up three 5 gallon buckets worth of what looked like “picnic trash”.  I also unfortunately found my first needles and drug paraphernalia.

2 needles and a metal plate

 

Needle disposal box

I have actually been expecting this since the beginning and thankfully had ordered a needle disposal kit which we carry in the truck. Thankfully I never pick up trash with my bare hands and always use the quik pickers and since they were capped there was no danger.   Let me be clear here, these are public areas, and we all know that drug use has become an epidemic in all areas of the country.  It’s not surprising then that in this out of the way corner I found the needles, and in a way it is good news because I think it shows the areas we are focusing on, the drug users are staying away.  In keeping with that premise, we decided to add an additional trash can in this corner of a day use area we cover and we also let our supervisor know so he could tell security and the authorities.  It was mildly unpleasant though, and not something I wanted to run across on my favorite work day.

Friday and Saturday it rained and/or was overcast so we followed our route but couldn’t do any extra projects, but finally Sunday was bright and clear.  It was also Father’s Day which we knew would be a busy day, it was also the first non rainy day in 10 days and we desperately needed to weed on the river sites.  After doing some initial traffic control at Lower Launch Lee went and borrowed a trailer with a John Deere riding mower and a powered 45 gallon weed sprayer and we set off to Hole in the Wall.  Lee is a really good teacher and showed me how to use the tractor, trailer, and sprayer and I felt pretty confident by the time his shift was over.

The sprayer had three bars you could position which made spraying the rocks much easier.

Unfortunately though I had to do the beginning of the late shift by myself (Lee had used his hours earlier in the morning) and every site was packed.  I emptied 14 very full garbage bags from the various sites and most were very heavy because they were full of beer cans and bottles.  I also was scrambling to clean floors and restock toilet paper because we were almost out at both Faraday and Lower Launch.  Still I managed, but I was super tired by the time I went to pick up Lee and for the first time we had some difficulty clearing the lower launch and shutting the gate.  Despite three polite time checks, there was one boat who didn’t even come in until 9pm and then we had to wait an extra 15 minutes until he put his boat on the trailer.  Long day and a physically demanding one, but we did get a bunch done.  Lee went back with the sprayer and did Moore Creek on Monday so at least the two worst sites are done.

But it wasn’t all hard work this week.  I took a few minutes to get some bird shots. I have been waiting for a sunny day to get a few bird pictures and they include a Violet -green swallow which was kind enough to stay still on the gas pump for me and is a first for me!!

The goslings are so big. Many of their faces turned black practically overnight

 

This Osprey looked smallish so I think it is the partially grown baby.  Not 100% sure though

 

Super excited about this Violet -Green Swallow

 

Violet Green Swallow

 

 

 

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 Heceta Head Lighthouse

A few weeks ago I realized that three of our RV-Dreamers friends were both volunteering at Heceta Head Lighthouse at the same time, and were both staying at the Carl G. Washburne State Park.   This was pretty amazing, since they had never met each other, and it was a sheer coincidence that they would be at the same place at the same time.  We immediately knew we wanted to spend the weekend with them but weren’t quite sure how to work that out, and after considering moving our rig, or staying with Rick in his Class A, or taking our tent, we decided to take the tent. Not only would be get to hang out with them, but we would have a place to take our trial run with the new tent, and if things went horribly wrong, at least we would be with friends. At the end of our work day Monday afternoon we headed for the coast.

It was a 3-1/2 hour drive to their location near Florence, Oregon, but since we packed up the night before, we made it in plenty of time before dark.  After seeing everyone and exchanging hugs we started to set up the tent. Our experience with tents is very limited so we bought an “easy up” version, but “easy” is a relative term, so it did take awhile.  They had a fire going and gave us plenty of time to figure it out so eventually we did. It certainly was much easier than the tent we used when the kids were small but it did require some reading of the directions.  The good news is the tent worked great with plenty of space for  us.  We had an absolutely fantastic weekend with our friends and since I took over 1,000 pictures, I am going to largely let some of them tell the story.

Beautiful sand dunes near where they were staying

Rick and Jim/Diana’s sites were right next to each other. We stayed on Rick’s site but walked next door to get coffee in the morning at Jim and Diana’s!

Beautiful State Park one of the cleanest and best maintained I have ever seen

Lee was trying to figure out the tent. There were lots of strings we never really figured out how to use.

I liked the sun room area

There was plenty of room inside, lots of head space,  and yes, we took everyone’s advice and bought an air mattress Good call!!

They made dinner for us, so after getting set up, we sat around the fire and exchanged stories.  We all write blogs, but not everything is covered in those, so we filled in the blanks on what had happened since we last saw each other, and Rick and Jim and Diana got to know each other better.  Jim and Diana had been carrying around a present that they bought me when we were doing the beet harvest, which was so incredibly funny and sweet and Rick brought out a hard copy version of my cookbook and asked me to sign it.  That was the first time as an author anyone had asked me to autograph my book and was so kind it really brought tears to me eyes.

Diana, me. and Jim

And the very cute (and practical) spatula they bought me.  How cute is that!!

Signing Rick’s cookbook.  I really had to think about what to say and where to sign it.

The fact that they cared enough about us to go to that much trouble meant the world to me, especially since it has been a rough couple of weeks, and I will say again how blessed we are to be part of the RV-Dreams family.  They didn’t stop there though.  They really rolled out the red carpet.  They fed us dinner every night and breakfast in the morning, plus Rick let me use his shower. We even had an electric cord we could use to plug in a space heater at night and the site was free with them picking up the $7 per night cost of our parking pass.  It was a great way in which to try out our tent, and their generosity was amazing.  Hopefully we can return the favor in the near future, although it will be pretty hard to top!

Tuesday morning, Lee, Rick and I headed out to explore because Jim and Diana were volunteering at the lighthouse that day.  We knew we wanted to see Jim’s tour later, but Rick (who was off) also wanted to show us  the area.  First stop was Strawberry Hill a beautiful little day use area with lots of tide pools and seals. This are of the coast of Oregon is chock full of Day Use areas and campgrounds and it is all designed to allow the public easy access.  Fantastic!!

Walking down from the parking lot.  Rick’s very cool walking stick is made from part of a Yucca cactus.  It is strong but incredibly lightweight.

Beautiful coast views

These rocks are treacherous and we had to watch our footing, but so worth it

Maxine, (Rick’s dog), loves the ocean and exploring the tide pools

So many mollusks

We were able to get very close to seals on the rocks

Maxine couldn’t help herself though she had to get in the water near them. See the guilty look on her face when Rick tried to get her to come back

The seals were having none of it though and they all went into the water

They kept a watchful eye until we backed off a bit

We moved down to a different section of the beach and let Maxine fetch a stick for a while to get rid of some of that energy. She loves the ocean and is a joy to watch

Breathtaking! I did my best to capture the coast. All I can say is it is wild and untamed

This view from the Cape Perpetua scenic lookout does a better job of capturing it

Strawberry Hill is around the corner but the rocks we were standing on earlier are like these

 

We wanted to get down to the lighthouse when they first opened so we headed over the Heceta Head.  Volunteering at a lighthouse is one of those work kamping jobs that almost everyone wants to try at least once and there is quite a bit to recommend it.  This volunteer job has them working 4 days with 4 hour shifts and they give lighthouse tours all day.  Our friend Jim is a major history buff and his great-grandfather helped build a lighthouse, so this job was perfect for him.  I won’t get into all of the history of the lighthouse, referring you instead to Jim’s excellent blog post on the topic, but I will share some pictures of our experience there.

The only downside is the volunteers have to walk 1/2 mile each way to get to their job. It’s a beautiful walk, good exercise, and dog friendly

These two rocks are bird sanctuaries and were covered with sea birds

The views along the way were very special

 

This lighthouse keepers house has been turned into a bed and breakfast. It’s pricey but they serve a gourmet breakfast and they have wonderful views of the ocean and lighthouse

You can tour the B&B, but we were eager to get to the top and turned the corner to see Jim and Diana.

Rick, Lee, and Diana

Picture I took later of the area.  There are volunteers at the lighthouse and they take turns doing tours so in between they can stand at the rail, talk to folks, and enjoy these amazing views.  Nice gig!!

 

The parking lot we started at is down by the bridge, but despite the elevation change the walk is not that steep

Me by the lighthouse for scale. Jim took this picture and he has gotten pretty good at it since that is something they do for visitors

Jim gathering everyone for the next tour group

Lee was fascinated by the tour and Jim did an excellent job

The only bummer was you can’t go up to the top of the stairs. Still well worth the visit even if we didn’t have friends there

Next we went into Florence and treated Rick to lunch at Chen’s Family Dish.  This was the best Chinese food we have had on the road in three years.  Seriously, I gave it 5 stars on Yelp.  The restaurant was simple but immaculate.  The service was great and the food was reasonably priced, extremely tasty, and best of all, piping hot.  Really, really good and if you are passing through the area I highly recommend it.  After food we headed to Sea Lion Caves.  This is a really interesting attraction that has been in existence for over 75 years and has an elevator leading down into a giant cavern with sea lions in it.  The price was a little too high at $14, but the views were great, and the cavern itself was really neat.  I have never been in a sea cave before and really enjoyed it, although I did hear some people complaining about the smell. 

Walking down to the elevator we could see the lighthouse in the distance

These painted sea lions are around the area. This one was really beautiful

The elevator replaced the stairs that formerly went to the bottom and this drawing shows how big the cave is

 

It was tough to take pictures in here and no flash was allowed, but Lee managed to get a couple of decent shots

There was a neat waterfall on one side of the caves and a view of Heceta Head lighthouse in the distance

After the cave we stopped at a large pullout and I took a picture of the lighthouse.  This is one of the most photographed lighthouses in Oregon and bonus we got to see sea lions and a huge flock of Brandt’s Coromants on the rocks below.

 

Next we went back to the Cape Perpetua Visitors Center and learned that there were blowholes nearby and it was still high tide.  We raced down to the blow holes and had a fantastic time taking pictures of the action.  Lee and I could have stayed there all day.  Rick headed back to get dinner ready and let Jim and Diana know we would be a little while and we spent a very enjoyable hour exploring the blowholes.

Visitors Center

This berry guide will come in handy later on

The skull of an Orca. Jim said he saw 4 of them off the coast the other day and although we didn’t see any of these or whales the bones were pretty interesting

View from the visitors center

As you can see these holes were huge, and there were several of them

There was a hand painted sign stating people had died getting too close to these, but these folks weren’t detered

I hung back a bit, but Lee got right up in the action

There were holes and deep canyons, and lots of rocks. So very beautiful

One of my favorite shots of the day

And the coast itself was absolutely stunning of course, plus the skies cleared up and we even had a little bit of sun while we were there

Rick made us all fish he had caught on a recent deep sea fishing cruise and we had delicious Linc Cod and Rock fish

The we all decided to walk down to the ocean and watch the sunset

There was some mist on the ocean which made for beautiful pictures

 

And Maxine loved running and playing on the beach

We went back and talked and enjoyed a campfire until we saw that it was fully dark and the stars were out.  The five of us drove back to the lighthouse and walked up the path (with flashlights) so we could see the lighthouse at night.  One of the volunteers had told Jim to sit right under the lighthouse and look up, which we did, and it was truly magical.  We couldn’t really capture it with a picture, but it was like being under a kids crib mobile as the spotlights rotated and the clouds appeared to move. We were expecting to see a single beam of light rotating like at an airport, or a flashing light, but the lens rotates around the light, so you get 8 beams of light that spin and spin and spin. Very cool.

We all sat on the ledge and looked up at the night sky. That was a moment I will always remember.

We walked up to the top of the path and Lee took this shot at eye level with the light

This was as close as Lee could get to what we saw. In order to get any picture at all he had to take a long exposure, so the beams are really wide, but this is showing how far each beam travels in about 4 seconds. In reality the beams were much thinner. The beams are pure bluish white light and they bounced off the mist. You could also see them in rainbow colors when they hit the trees and hill behind the lighthouse.

We have been blessed to have many magical moments on the road, and doubly blessed that so many of them were with good friends.  This moment is one I will always cherish and Lee, who has always loved lighthouses, said it was his new favorite “on the road” experience.  Plus, we are really grateful that Jim, Diana, and Rick went out of their way to see us and made us feel so very welcome.  Rick will be coming our way and staying in our park for two weeks, and we hope to see Jim and Diana once they move onto their next volunteer gig in Oregon.  These moments really remind me of why we became full time RVers in the first place, and it couldn’t have come at a better time! Thanks guys, and can’t wait to see you again. Below is a short video with highlights from the trip. As always, it’s better to watch it in 720 or 1080.

 

 

 

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 – A Rainy Week

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 started the week off with a firm mental commitment to myself to try and just focus on doing the job and stop analyzing everything so much.  My friends are all going to smile when they read this.  They know what I am like and that this was a tall order for me, but I wanted to try if for nothing else as an experiment to see if it improved my quality of life.  I’ll get into my conclusions at the end, but will say from the beginning it wasn’t easy.

Monday was my day to work in the campground because Lee and I have switched campground days.  Thursday (Lee’s ne day) involves moving all the trash dumpsters out of the campground and I was finding that a little physically challenging.  Lots of things we have done have been a little tough for me, but since our boss has made it very clear he doesn’t expect me to do anything I can’t physically handle, I have gotten pretty good at just looking at a task and saying, “I can’t do that one.”  Unfortunately, the downside of that is the bulk of what I can do is largely scrubbing toilets and cleaning floors.  Oh, and picking up trash.  I am pretty good at using the grippers to pick up “micro litter”.  Our campground days are 8 hour shifts and start at 5:30am when we open the gates.  Once this is done, we check the campground day use area restrooms, walk around the small pond and pick up trash, and check trash cans and clean the fish cleaning stations.

The fish stations are a metal sink with a grate in the bottom and are used by the fishermen to clean fish.  This is by far the least appealing part of the job for me, but thankfully they don’t usually need cleaning on Monday mornings.  Next we check the two main bathrooms in the campground for large messes, or missing toilet paper, and once that is done we have some free time.  You can’t really start roaming around the campground until at least 8am so I used that time to read the pass-on logs and look at campground emails.  During this time period I have lots of time to think and that’s when ideas about improvement start to flow.  Still, I was sticking to the plan, and just read the logs and replied to some direct questions and then headed out to start cleaning around 8:00am.

We have a list of campsites people are coming into that day and a list of campsites people are leaving, so I did some rounds and cleaned the incoming campsites.  They are cleaned after use, but sometimes people “spread” into other campsites, so another check of the fire rings and for litter is a good thing.  Around 9am we can start cleaning the bathrooms and I decided that the smaller restroom really needed a deep clean.  So I pulled out mop buckets, a hose, cleaner, etc and sprayed the bathroom down.  The walls already looked really good thanks to the efforts of Mr. Kayaker earlier in the seasons, but the baseboard needed some extra attention so I spent the next hour and a half working on those.

Not much else to do while you’re cleaning bathrooms other than think, and I spent the time working and thinking about stuff. By the time that was done I was pretty tired and hungry, so I packed up and took my lunch break.  Once lunch was done I started working on the sites people had left, but still had several sites that were still occupied.  Check out time at the campground is 1pm and check in time is at 4pm, and people actually stay here right until 1pm.  Unfortunately we had two cabins and one campsite that were being turned over to new people that same day and they were the ones who chose to stay right until the last minute.  This was my first opportunity to clean the cabins, so I scrubbed floors, cleaned beds and tables, and cleaned the campsites around them.  That was a tougher job than I thought it would be but I managed to get all the sites cleaned and turned by 2:30 when I was done for the day.

Afterwards I was very tired, but decided to take advantage of the sunshine and walk down and sit by the river.  I took a chair, book, and some water, and spent a couple of hours sitting in the sun.  That was nice, especially because a beautiful woodpecker landed on a tree about three feet from me.  I have only seen one other woodpecker this close the entire time we have been on the road and I took it as a sign I was headed in the right direction.

Afterwards I was still tired though, so I took a nap and then we watched some TV and went to bed.  The next day I had my appointment at a dermatologist.  I’ve never been to one, but my mom was concerned about a patch on my right cheek so I drove into Clackamas to get it checked out.  The doctor was great and the appointment was very quick, with them using a spray liquid nitrogen on the place on my cheek.  It was pre-cancerous cells but nothing too serious as there is only a 1% chance they will become cancerous.  Still they like to get rid of them when they can and the spray is a fast and easy way to get the top layer of your skin off.  It stings quite a bit going on but since then no issue although I do have a scab on my cheek which makes it look like I got in a bar fight 🙂

I also received information on all my tests with my other doctor online and once again I have to commend the medical coverage in the Portland area. In other places my Florida license raises eyebrows and sometimes issues, but here everyone has been very nice.  It seems pretty common that people come and work here for the summer and I don’t get treated any differently than any other patient.  The most amazing proof of this was my mammogram.  They found a small cyst during the test and they immediately requested my previous mammograms from New Hampshire.  Within 4 business days, and yes I am still amazed as I type this, they not only had my scans from 2011, 2013, and 2014 but also had done the comparison and determined there was no change and everything was fine.  Wow…impressive!!  The government has been pushing very hard for all medical information to be online and for doctors to work together to share results and I am a happy beneficiary of that.  If those scans weren’t available, they probably would have wanted to do an MRI and/or a biopsy which I know from previous experience runs thousands of dollars.  This way they could clearly see there was no change and all of those tests were unnecessary.  The whole experience was top notch and made me very happy.

Wednesday we explored, which you saw in my last post, but Thursday it was back to work. My favorite day of the week is the day I am in the truck alone (I am sure it is Lee’s also) not just because it is a short day, but because it is during the week and I get to set my own route.  Working with a partner, even when it’s your husband of many years, requires discussion of routes and priorities that simply don’t apply when we are alone.  To start the day I went to get gas and since our badges still aren’t in, I stopped to borrow my supervisor’s.  We had the opportunity to have a nice chat and he told me how much he appreciated the information I was providing to him.  That was great to hear, and I opened up a little bit about what I used to do for a living, but said I don’t want to bother you with this stuff if it doesn’t matter.  I told him, this is just how I think, and I am as surprised as anyone that it didn’t just stop once I left the corporate life.  He was happy to have information about what was going on at the sites though and I felt much better.  Not every boss we have had is interested in my analysis and on occasion it has caused me some issues, so I am very tentative on what information I offer and when.  Our supervisor was happy to get the information though because “we are closer to the job” than he is, so I felt that I could at least drop him an email when these things occurred to me.

Just to be clear, my emails relate to traffic patterns, challenging in providing a great customer experience, and the occasional idea (such as adding a third toilet paper bar to a couple of restrooms).  They are not rocket science.  But, as I said, I have learned the hard way that some bosses take the feedback as criticism no matter how careful you are and that rarely goes well.  Thankfully our current boss doesn’t fall in this category.  What I realized by Thursday was this is just the way I think.  My earliest job memories (at the age of 16) include me trying different ways of making cheese plates at a racetrack, and bussing tables different way to see which one took the least amount of time.  What I realized was this is not a new thing.  All I did (and it was largely subconscious trust me)  was find a job and education path that honed those skills.  Not that surprising really.  Lots of people pick jobs that enhance their innate abilities and being a business analyst is the ultimate end result of honing that particular skill.  So it is part of how I think and I don’t think that is a bad thing, but what I can control is what I focus it on and the level of frustration I have when the thoughts/ideas never get acted upon.

So Thursday was a good day, despite the fact it started raining and we headed into the weekend.  Although Lee and I like being done early on Thursday and not being back until 3pm on Friday, Friday nights are our least favorite day.  The sites don’t get any attention for 24 hours and at least one of them is a mess when we finally get to it. We never know which one that will be though, so opening that door initially on Friday night we kind of hold our breath (literally and figuratively).  This week though we got some warning, because one of the drivers for a rafting company warned us about the changing rooms at Moore Creek when we walked up.  Moore Creek sees a ton of use, because most of the rafting companies meet their guests there.  They use the changing rooms to get ready and leave their personal vehicles, while they are driven upriver in the van with the boats.  When the ride is finished they usually stop here as well, so the site probably gets double the traffic of any other river site.  It’s not uncommon for the toilet paper to be practically empty on Friday nights and the toilet and floors always need scrubbed, but this night was a new level.  And I am going to stop right here and give fair warning.  If you do not like reading details about restrooms cleanup stop here and skip the next two paragraphs!!

The driver apologized for the state of the restrooms as a group of young boys they were with had made a mess earlier in the day.  She looked embarrassed when she said she thought they had peed on the floor of the changing room, but we were totally unprepared for what we saw when we opened the door.  One side did have urine on it, but since I have a strong set of rubber boots that wasn’t a huge deal.  The other side was full of dirty towels though and for some reason this really bothered me.  Since the incident occurred early in the morning when we were off the room had looked like this all day and why she didn’t at least pick up all the towels I am not quite sure.  Lee saw the look on my face and to his credit said he would handle it, and I went over and cleaned the toilet area.  This is not the first time we have been taken aback by what we had found, but until now I didn’t feel right about mentioning it. Twice we have found piles of human waste within steps of a pit toilet and in both cases we just sucked it up and cleaned it up.  Toilet “explosions” are somewhat common and a long handled scrub brush along with a mental attitude of someone couldn’t help themselves go a long way in that situation.  But the condition of these changing areas seemed deliberate and frankly malicious and my overall attitude was “Seriously, as if this isn’t bad enough.”

There is a difference between cleaning campground bathrooms and bathrooms open to the public.  Sure these types of things can happen in either place, but it’s much less likely in a campground.  For these roadside toilets, lots of people stop throughout the day and night and since they are not manned there is a certain amount of anonymity involved. I have been hoping that the first two instances were an isolated case, but this third made me realize that this type of behavior was more common than I thought and was definitely going to be part of our summer. And that’s why I am mentioning it.  It would be disingenuous to just show pretty pictures of the river and not talk about this kind of thing because for some people they might be a deal breaker. And to be clear, if you take one of these jobs you have to be the one that cleans it up because that is what we are being hired to do. There is no one else, it’s us.

That realization hit me pretty hard, and since it rained Friday, Saturday, and Sunday so distracting  side projects were largely off the table, we spent a lot of time cleaning the bathrooms and scrubbing floors. And since I wasn’t thinking about work, I had quite a bit of time to think about my life, where I was, and the choices I had made. I want to be perfectly clear here.  I in no way think I am too good to clean a bathroom.  But this job, more than any other we have had, is about as opposite from my former life as possible.  The idea was if we made decent money, people were nice to us, and we were in a beautiful place it wouldn’t matter what we did all day long every day. And since working these jobs we have met lots of people who have found their way to that place.  I, as you know have struggled, and have often felt like I was doing something wrong, because I couldn’t just settle in.  “Life is too short” and “Worry less you will be happier” have been pretty common themes in feedback I have gotten either online or in person from folks and although I know their hearts are in the right place  something in me rebelled against it.

But when I was focusing on the minutia of the jobs, and essentially distracting myself, I didn’t really think too much about it.  Well that’s not fair I did think about it, but shied away from it because in some ways it felt like a rejection of earning money this way meant a rejection of the lifestyle itself.  This time though really forced me to face it head on and the stripped down nature of the job itself didn’t give me any place to hide. The conclusions were ultimately pretty simple.  At 50, I am not willing to commit the next 15 or so years of my life to earning money this way. Once the novelty of these jobs wears off, and that cycle is getting shorter and shorter, I am generally not happy.  The sole exception to that experience has been gate guarding, which was good for me because I had lots of time to write. The other jobs have been physically demanding with challenging schedules, and compared to my old life low paying.  If we were in a situation where we were working occasionally to supplement existing income, maybe it wouldn’t be such a big deal, but since we are spending about 10 months of the year working these jobs and have only a couple of months of “down time”, for me at least it is a high price to pay. Yes, I love this lifestyle and I absolutely feel lucky to be able to spend my life traveling from beautiful place to beautiful place, but for me it is not enough.

Saying this out loud to myself, was a pretty big deal, and I really felt like I needed an objective opinion on it and called my friend Jo. She is a working full timer and a psychologist and although I called her as a friend, her background certainly didn’t hurt.  I laid the situation out and then asked her as a friend and a fellow RVer if I just “needed to get over myself and suck it up” because enough already this was what the life was.  Her response, and wow do I love her, was to say essentially say they are your feelings…own them. And then she said  something that really resonated with me, “Who says you need to do these type of jobs.”  I know that sounds simple, but it disconnected the lifestyle from the type of work we are doing which, for me at least, is a very important thing.   She also helped me to remember that I had a job that “fed my soul” and just because I was burnt out and wanting to try other things didn’t mean those emotions were any less valid.   She recognized that I am a person who gets quite a bit of my self-identity from what I do for a living, and just because I became a full time RVer that didn’t mean that would go away.

She and her husband Ben work as a traveling nurses and not every contract has been a good fit for them.  Plus, because they do different work (she is a hospice nurse and he is a surgical nurse) one of them can be content and the other less so.  I can relate to Ben’s situation in particular because he was previously working in a large city in a trauma hospital and had to be at the top of his game.  Many of their contracts now are at smaller hospitals and the work is often less challenging. The work conditions are also different, because they, like us are temporary.  Even in a professional environment, it is common for the “scut work” to go to the temporary employee so they have to be really careful when they are choosing their jobs to try and find out what the nature of the day to day work will be.  So she gets it and talking to her was exactly what I needed.

I don’t want to rush into anything.  I want to find a contract in a cool place where I think the work will be fulfilling.  That is a tall order and I am ok with waiting for the right thing.  After all we have determined we can live off other types of employment so it’s not an emergency.  What has changed for me is I no longer feel I need to prove anything to myself or anyone else. I am also fully aware that if I am not careful contract work could end up being the same for me, but I am hoping it will give me more opportunity to “feed the soul.”   We will see where it all leads us, and in the meantime I will fulfill my current obligation and continue to enjoy this beautiful area of the country. There really are worse places to have an emotional crisis 🙂

 

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.