Work Kamping

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First Time Selling Christmas Trees – Initial Setup and Training

As I stated in the last post, we made arrangements to meet with someone from the company and arrived at our lot.  In our case, the tent and fencing was already in place and it took some maneuvering to get our rig into place, but with help Lee did a great job fitting us into the spot.  The tent is quite large and the fence goes beyond the tent in the back with a little section for our rig.  My biggest concern was our rig would be right on the main road, but this is definitely not the case, and for the other setups we have seen, they are not on the road either.  This company has 15 locations in the San Antonio and surrounding areas, and many of the people who work for them come back year after year.  We did need quite a bit of hose though, and thankfully Lee always carries extra.  The water spigot was pretty far away, but the water pressure is still good despite the hose length and it is city water which is nice.

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Our tent with trailer.  Felt a little bit like I had joined the circus

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The space where out RV is in relation to the tent.

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The gas station next door. The manager is very nice. He came over and introduced himself

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The light from the car wash lights our outside area all night. Since our bedroom is in the back, it isn’t that big of a deal and is really good from a safety perspective

Saturday,  we drove into San Antonio for training at the warehouse and it was clear this was a mature operation.  The owners have been doing this for 30 years and own the tree farm in Oregon along with living here during the Holidays.  After some initial chatting with folks, Lee and I were separated into two different groups.  He went with the men to learn about the care and setup of the trees and I stayed with the women and learned about the paperwork aspect of the job.  As a general rule I am not a huge fan of division of labor by sex, but in this particular case I kind of understood it.  These trees can be as large as 16 feet and and can weigh 175 pounds.  So, the division of labor seems to be based more on physical strength than aptitude.  That being said, I had three returning managers in my training session and they talked about carrying trees.  So although there may be an initial division of labor, it sounds like it’s all hands on deck when things get busy.

Our group jumped right in and started going through the detail.  I received a huge, hard backed three ring binder and several other folders with Lot #12 specific information.  We were encouraged to ask questions and the returning managers jumped in frequently to add more information, and to be honest in the beginning it was a little overwhelming.  The main problem was I completely misunderstood what this was.  My only experience with Christmas trees was buying them from small, corner lots when they were small.  This company is NOT the same as those.  We will be providing 4 types of trees and they are all hand selected by the owner.  Every tree comes with a warranty to live through Christmas as long as they are cared for properly and since they are “high end” trees their care is important.  One of the main things we learned was the timing of when they are fresh cut and watered and there is relatively small window of time when the tree can leave the lot and be put up and in water at the person’t house.  We also sell wreaths, garland, custom made stands, preservatives, floor protective coverings, and watering spouts. Some of these items I had never seen before (I was not alone in that) and others were much more high tech than what I remember from the past.

Along with products we also sell services which include flocking (spraying the tree or wreaths with a paper pulp product that looks like snow), tree delivery, and tree setup.  Along with the overview of these items, we covered in detail different types of coupons and gift certificates, the nightly 3-page sheet that I have to fill out, and cash/credit card accounting.  We also spent a significant amount of time talking about hiring, scheduling, and managing the temporary employees.  After 6 hours my head was full and I went home with my cash register to practice on and an arm full of documentation to read.  I also took an additional 4 pages of notes that included best practices from the more experienced managers that were there.  It was about as different an experience as one could be from the beet harvest.  This company gives you the tools and guidelines to sell the trees, but also encourages independent thought and ideas.  The atmosphere is very entrepreneurial and best practices and new ideas were all openly discussed and encouraged.  I was very impressed by this, but in many ways this presents it’s own set of challenges.

I spent my career working for large corporations and have little experience in owning my own business.  We are learning with Lee’s video and RV Tech business, but this is still not a strong area for me.  This will definitely challenge me though, and I walked away thinking this would be good for me as I will get a chance to stretch those “muscles” a bit.  Plus the pay structure is designed (flat rate with commission) to encourage out of the box thinking.  With that much openness though there is also ambiguity and you should keep that in mind before considering one of these positions. If you are a person who likes a very specific set of job duties and regular daily routine, this may not be the job for you.  We are managers in the truest sense and expected to deal with most issues autonomously.  We were given mentors (the other tent in New Braunfels) and thankfully the smallest operation in the group.  Actually, I was really glad about that.  I like a challenge, but the complexity of the operation is intimidating enough that I was happy our tree sale volume may actually be half what the busier lots is.  Plus with a low set of expectations regarding sales, it’s much easier to succeed than competing with a very successful previous year.

Most importantly I liked the people.  Everyone was very nice, and genuinely said “Call me if you need anything.”  We were handed a list of everyone’s phone numbers and so far folks have made themselves available to answer questions.  That may change once we get busier, but my plan is to learn everything I can in advance.  The cash register has a training mode, and there is lots of documentation to dig into that will keep me busy.  So what’s next?  Our trailer was delivered Sunday and a team of people will be coming sometime this week to help set everything up.  I also have several other business items that were put on hold during the beet harvest that need to be taken care of.  Cori and Greg hit town on Thursday and if it ever quits raining we would like to find time to do a little exploring.  There’s definitely plenty to do, and the main trick has been not letting it overwhelm us, but to try and tackle things in some sort of systemic way.  I feel like we made good progress on that today, so I am taking a little break and writing this post.  Now I need to get back to my to do list.

Oh and here’s a few potential challenges  I learned about selling Christmas trees.  I thought were interesting.

  • The trees are roughly one year older than their height.  So a 7 foot tree was planted 8 years ago.  That makes the current supply of trees dependent on what the growers projected in the past.  It’s interesting, because the availability of trees does change from year to year and is somewhat cyclical.
  • Fire ants are a problem here.  They can get into the trees and that’s not good.  I have spent some time, treating every ant hill I can find, but there are lots of them.  Hopefully the treatment works and this is a non issue.
  • Feral cats can be a problem.  We have two that regularly hang out at night in the car wash next to us and in the past people have had them climb into trees or even spray on them.  The key is to make sure all trees are inside the tent at night.  Flocking is done in the open air, so these will need to be moved inside before we close.
  • The whole Happy Holidays versus Merry Christmas is still a thing when selling trees.  When I was in a corporate environment working with people of many different faiths and cultures I was always careful to tell people to enjoy their holidays, but I think if they are buying a Christmas tree a “Merry Christmas” should come along with it.  Plus here in Texas the sentiment is firmly in the camp of not “taking Christ out of Christmas” and you can offend people if you say Happy Holidays instead.  I have always felt the whole argument was silly, personally, but I will be extra careful to say Merry Christmas in greetings.
  • If the local power goes out you could find yourself doing things by hand.  Since we have solar and a generator, we could run an extension cord from our rig and keep going.  That may seem obvious, but I am glad they said it because I may not have thought of that in the heat of the moment.
  • It’s super important to immediately tag and move a tree that is being placed on hold.  If the tree isn’t tagged you could forget which one.  Not cool.  If it isn’t moved to the back, all of sudden people want to buy it and that could become an issue.  I get it as the kids and I spent way too much time trying to find the “perfect” tree.  To find it and then lose it would have been very upsetting.
  • Service animals can be a challenge.  By law you are not allowed to ask people about their dogs, so people bring them into the lot with expected results.  Dogs and trees often equals peeing.  Some of these trees are very expensive and you can’t easily get the urine smell out of the tree.  Again, hopefully this is a non-issue, but will have to see how it goes.  If people carry their dogs that solves the problem, but not everyone is willing to do that. (Technically, you are only allowed to ask two things of a person with a service dog. 1) Is it a service dog? and 2) What task or work has it been trained to perform. That’s it. Nothing else. Also, interestingly, a business has the right to charge the customer for an item if it is damaged by the animal. So this is a non-issue. – Lee) 
  • Not surprisingly constant cell phone usage is a problem with the younger work force. I am not sure there is any perfect solution for this one, but it should be addressed in the interview process. (I am 100% certain of the solution. No cell phone use while they’re on the clock. This is part time, seasonal work, and if they can’t go two or three hours without access to their phone, they can work somewhere else. I’m paying them for their time. All of it. – Lee)
  • We don’t offer colored flocking, but I guess people can put food coloring in a spray bottle and lightly mist the flocking to make colors.  You can’t get deep colors that way, but I am told the pastels come out nicely. (We do offer glitter on the flocking. It’s my understanding that flocking is messy operation, so I’m pretty sure I’m going to look like the ugliest stripper in the San Antonio area. – Lee)
  • Speaking of flocking,  people like to touch it, and since it is paper it can get ruined that way.  So we are going to have a small demo, flocked tree for people and kids to touch and Do Not Touch signs for the others.  Since I didn’t know touching the flocking damaged it, I understand why it’s necessary, but I wish there was a friendlier way to say it than Do Not Touch.  Maybe I will come up with something. (How about “Touching This Stuff Ruins It. Why Do You Hate Christmas?” ? – Lee)

That’s some of the more generic things I learned, and since none of it is specific to their process, I felt comfortable sharing it.  I think the overwhelming message here is “Who knew selling Christmas Trees was this complicated?”

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No Feelings of Resentment

I know, it’s an odd title for a post, but hopefully it will make sense in a minute.  One of our big concerns about taking a work kamping job for the entire summer was that would we feel resentful about the job because it was “keeping us” from seeing the beautiful stuff.  We spent hours talking to people about this possibility, and a large part of the reason we chose Alaska for our work kamping job was because we felt the more dramatic the location the less likely we would feel resentful.  Keep in mind that we’ve spent the last five months doing mostly what we wanted, and that’s how most people in this lifestyle like it.  And although we picked Alaska, we knew we weren’t staying in one of the tourist destinations, like Denali.  Several people who used to live here said, “Why would you go to Glenallen?” or “It’s the most boring place in Alaska.”  Seriously, lots of people were concerned both by our choice of work kamping for the summer and by where in Alaska we were choosing to park for four months.

Consequently we were a little nervous.  Maybe we would feel resentful, or unhappy, or “stuck” because we couldn’t do whatever we wanted.  It turns out that that hasn’t been the case at all.  I know it’s still early (we are only just starting week 3 here), but so far neither one of us feels that way at all.  On the contrary, we really like the work we are doing.  Both of us feel like it’s a fair days work for a fair day’s pay, and we get to do it in a beautiful place with truly spectacular weather.  I am sure there are more breathtaking places in Alaska, but it’s pretty amazing right here.  I freely admit a huge part of that is the way that Darlene and Marc are treating us. We have been working in all aspects of the campground, and the little improvements we have been allowed to make are really rewarding.  When someone borrows a DVD for the night, or grabs a book, I feel great about that.  When I complete a section with the weed eater, I get immediate satisfaction because it looks so much nicer.  There is plenty of work, and we go to sleep tired and satisfied with a job well done, which is no small thing.  In my corporate job I often experienced feelings of “Am I really making a difference?”, but here the difference we’re making is immediate and noticeable.  Plus, Darlene and Marc truly seem to appreciate our help.  They are not falling all over themselves or anything (which is good because that makes us uncomfortable anyway), but they take the time to express their gratitude for what we’re doing. They also are really concerned that we have a good time while we are here.  They are keeping an eye on our experience outside of work and as much as possible making sure that we are having a good time.

Having said all that, I am really struggling with the transition from working for a large corporation to a small business.  All of my adult work experience was for 2 extremely large corporations, and I liked it that way.  There were rules, tons and tons of them, and over time I learned how to navigate the complicated environment.  When I would get frustrated by how long change took,  I would think longingly of working for a smaller company where changes could be implemented quickly.  As a “change agent” the bulk of my job was talking people into making changes, implementing those changes, and then monitoring the results.  I liked it very much, but sometimes it felt like I was pushing a big boulder up a hill. Now I am in a situation where change is relatively easy, but what I didn’t count on was a much higher level of ambiguity.  I never was very good with ambiguity, I always put it on my reviews as a self-improvement category, and it honestly never occurred to me that in a small business things would be so fluid.

At first I thought we were all just “settling in”, and maybe that is the case, but more likely it is the nature of a small business.  One of the major advantages of small businesses over large corporations is the ability to be nimble and respond quickly to changing business needs.   Here I am seeing that in action every day.  On the one hand it is heady stuff.  Having the ability to make a change and immediately see the impact, good or ill, on the customer and/or revenue stream.  On the other hand, it creates an environment where every day, or even every hour can be different. That’s new for me, and honestly I am still adjusting.  To be clear I am not talking about adapting to a customer need on the fly.  This I like and think I am very good at.  It is changes in how we do paperwork, close out the night, clean the bathrooms, etc, that leave me feeling uneasy.  A huge part of me yearns for the structure that I found so confining for all those years.  Contrary right? All in all this is a very good experience for me.  The odds are that we will be working in small business environments much more than with large corporations, and I need to learn how to function effectively in this world as well.  Luckily, since Lee has a lot more experience in this arena he has been helping me find my way.  And again, Marc and Darlene have been very understanding as I muddle through.

At this point you might be thinking “At your age why put yourself through all of that?”.  Well, unlike most of our peers, we always knew we would have to work on the road.  In order to travel as we wished, we also knew we would have to work in different capacities than we had in the past.  We could be resentful of the fact that we have to work at all and then transfer those feelings of resentment to any job we have, but what is the point in that?  I know some work kampers do that, and frankly, shame on them. We aren’t going to stop being who we are as workers simply because we make less money and have less responsibility.  At the end of every day we want to feel like we provided more value than the money we were paid, but we also need to leave the job at the end of the day.  That’s tough for both of us, but we are working on it.  Not everything is our problem to solve here, and the trick is recognizing that and being OK with it.  That really is the key, and at almost 50 this is not a skill I have ever been able to master.  I absolutely need to figure that out though, or I will start feeling resentful, and that would totally be on me.  No one is asking me to take that on, it’s just in my nature, but if I am going to make my life all about a job, I might as well go back to the corporate world. I went to a lot of trouble to leave all that behind.

Anyway, the work is good, the people are nice, and we are in a beautiful place.  We thought that combination would be enough for us, and so far it really is. To slightly change subjects though,  I should say that how we define a beautiful place may be different than other people.  The country is full of breathtaking vistas and many  RVers make a tour of them and after a few years are done. For me a beautiful place is about more than the view.  It’s about the people, the animals, the art, and the quirky little attractions we find along the way.  When you drive through a place and get out and take “the picture” you can say you were there and you experienced it, but the level of experience is quite different.  Don’t get me wrong, there are many, many, places where we have done just that, and that’s just fine, but as I have said before when you “live” in a place, the experience is different. The type of beauty you see is different.

How can I explain this?  Picture a beautiful landscape photograph of a mountain with a forest and a river in front of it. The overall scene is breathtaking, but there is also beauty in every little corner.  The flowers, the trees, the birds,  maybe an animal all live in one little corner.  You can kayak on the river, hike the trails, see the view at different times of day in different light and in different weather. That big, beautiful mountain scene is made up of many smaller little vignettes, and if you just jump out and take a picture, you will never get to experience any of that.  Not that it is all good of course.  There are bugs, overgrown trails, other people, and bad weather that can all get in the way of experiencing the area.  And it can be boring.  Some days I am out and everything I see has an innate beauty and other days I feel like if I see one more tree, rock, or whatever I will go crazy. I don’t love every landscape (there were whole sections of desert that I didn’t care for) and I don’t love every experience despite the beautiful setting (10 straight days of rain in the Redwoods comes to mind.). I get bored, frustrated, annoyed, and irritated just like before, sometimes all in one day.   The difference is on the whole I still have the feeling of “I can’t believe this is my life!”.  When I compare the “now” to the “before” it amazes me.  Three years ago the thought of me spending the summer working in Alaska was unthinkable.  Seriously, it would never have even crossed my mind as a possibility. And now that I am actually doing it, and for once in my life I am trying to really live in the moment of it.

I could spend my time focusing on the things that I don’t like, but why in God’s name would I do that to myself?  I could also Pollyanna, pie in the sky, gloss over the reality of the experience, but again, why?  I spent too many years of my life thinking about “someday” and that someday is here right now.  I have no expectation of perfection (Lee and I may differ in that respect).  All of the really great things in my life have come with some level of sacrifice (raising children comes to mind), and since I don’t expect perfect what do I have to be resentful of?  I know I am spending a lot of time on this, but so many people were genuinely concerned about us that I sort of feel like maybe I am missing something.  Or maybe it’s just too soon, and that’s fair.  We certainly do better when things are new than later down the road when the shiny wears off.  I hope not though.  I hope this is the start of a new way of seeing things, and a new way of living.

We will see, and as always, all I can do is be as honest with myself and all of you as I can bear to be.

But really, this doesn’t suck. At all.

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First Time Interviewing as a Couple

Let me start by saying I don’t like interviews much and working at the same company for 15 years had put me in a position where all of my interviews have been for internal positions and mostly with people who knew me by reputation.  Consequently I haven’t done an “outside” interview in a really long time, and I have never done a joint interview with my husband.  So Tuesday when it came time to interview with two potential employers I was pretty nervous.  Let me back up a bit though.  Using the criteria we have established in Should we Lock in the Summer? I had selected two potential summer jobs.  One was Northern Nights campground in Alaska, our first choice for location,  and the other was with Adventureland in Iowa which was very interesting because of the unique type of work.  The interviews ended up being as different as two interviews could be and I think really show the spectrum of what you could experience in an interview in this lifestyle so I wanted to share them and our preparation experience.  

You might think, “I’ve interviewed before and these are lower paying jobs, so how hard could it be?” and if you are doing this solo that might be true, especially if you are a person who interviews well.  Interviewing as a couple, however, is different and you might want to work out a basic game plan before getting on the phone.  How we chose to handle it was to write down  a list of questions and have one person take the initial lead. I  strongly recommend actually writing them down and checking them off as they are answered and I also recommend taking notes.  If you are planning on doing multiple interviews this will help keep the details straight and helps make sure you don’t forget anything really important.  The list of questions will vary depending on the job you are applying for and needs to include any concerns that either person might have.  Lee and I are different people so of course have different priorities, and our list reflected that.  Determining who will take the lead initially sounds silly, but you don’t want to talk over each other.  In our case, I dealt with the initial pleasantries in the interview, got us started on the questions and Lee made sure all the questions were answered and wrapped the call up making sure NOT to commit on the phone.  This was an agreement we had made prior to the interview that we would under no circumstances accept a position without first talking about it and again I highly recommend this.  To a certain extent you are going off “gut feel” when you take the position and your gut and your partner’s might be saying two different things. We had discussed in advance there would be possible outcomes of an interview; we both wanted the job, neither of us wanted the job, he did and I didn’t, or I did and he didn’t.  For this particular summer we agreed we would only take a job if both of us wanted it, that could change going forward (sometimes one partner has to take one for the team), but since we are so new at this we wanted to make sure we both were extremely interested.  Under those circumstances it is important that you have a post interview review with each other and find out what everyone is feeling.

Am I over complicating this?  I don’t think so, because no matter how close a couple you are, when it comes to work every person is a little different, and unless you owned and ran a business together you probably know very little about how your spouse behaves in their work life. I actually had an opportunity to work with Lee a little here and there over the years, but have never worked with him for 4 months solid.  It’s a slightly different dynamic and one worth talking about a bit before jumping into a work kamping position. I know this about us, and after a somewhat intense pre-interview conversation we were prepared for the two calls.  Oh, and think about where you are going to have the call.  You are on a speaker phone so make sure you are in a place with strong cell signal and limited background noise.  The interviews both went around 45 minutes so make sure you have gone to the bathroom, have a drink handy, and a note pad and pen laid out.  We did ours at our kitchen table with the chairs pulled at a 45 degree angle from each other. Oh, and I made the mistake of not setting up a specific time (via email) for the interviews and left it open as a block of time (in the morning and after 1pm) which I don’t recommend.  Next time I will set a specific time, making sure to be clear about time zones and who will call who.  There was a bit of back and forth on the calls because I left it vague which just adds to the stress.

The first call was with a small campground owned by a couple in Alaska.  We interviewed with Marc who had seen my ad on Work Kamper News and reached out to me via email.  The ad was free with our Work Kamper membership and basically stated we were looking for a position in Alaska for Summer 2016 and gave the link to our Work Kamper resume.  I am a big fan of the Work Kamper website and had decided to give the personal ad a try when I wasn’t seeing anything that would work for us in their ads. This turned out to be a great decision as Marc knew our qualifications and was highly interested in us before we ever got on the phone.  The interview was more of a conversation where we asked our questions and Marc answered them.  He didn’t have hardly any for us at all. It was very relaxed and pleasant and although I did most of the talking early on, Lee and Marc talked more towards the end.  Afterwards, Lee and I talked about our initial feelings and both gave the job a thumbs up.  And just for a starting point our questions were as follows:

  1. What will we be doing?  Can you walk us through an average day?  I would be helping inside the office and Lee working on general maintenance outside.  We are the only work kampers and would be working in conjunction with his wife Darlene. Marc will be coming down every other weekend.  They also have a housekeeper who comes once a day and does the heavy cleaning.  Occasionally everyone pitches in, but the job for me won’t be solely cleaning which is a huge plus.
  2. Can we combine days off or take extra if we work it out in advance? Absolutely,they want to be sure we don’t get burned out and have time to explore the area.  Since Alaska is so big, sometimes you need more time than just a day trip, plus Kelly and Bill will be in Seward 5 hours away from us and we wanted to make sure we would have time to see them.
  3. Where is the camp host site and what type of hookups does it have? Lee had the campground pulled up on Google Earth and asked specifically where the site was and if our rig would fit in it.  Sometimes the camp host sites are in the least nice spot in the campground and we just wanted to talk that through.  In this case we would be up in the front near the owner’s RV and have full hookups. 
  4. Is there cell coverage? Before getting on the phone we both read RV Park Reviews for the park which I really recommend. Not only does it give the guests perspective on a campground (numerous reviews stating how nice the owners were) it also can give information on cell phone coverage.  We just wanted to make sure we verified that in advance.  They also offer free WiFi which is a nice bonus. 
  5. Can Lee do RV work in his time off? Many campgrounds won’t allow this, but in Marc’s case he saw it as a way to add additional value for his customers.  Since Glenallen is a jumping off point for many other places, he gets RV’s with issues all the time and the one mechanic in town is very busy.  We were very glad to hear he was not only fine with it, but would welcome it.  Huge plus in our minds!
  6. Can they guarantee 40 hours a week for each of us? Although we had covered this point in email, it is important enough that it was worth talking about again.  Not only could he guarantee the 40 hours but said additional hours were available if we wanted them. For us this is the only way to make Alaska work without seriously draining the bank account and most of the jobs I had seen that offered 40 hours were resort work, which we didn’t want to do at this time.  I get it, most work kampers don’t want or need that many hours so most campgrounds have two work kamper couples who split the hours.  Marc has a small campground though and only has his wife and one couple so they are able to be very flexible in what they offer.  Another huge bonus for us because we can get the hours we need but also take off the time we want.  
  7. Are there a lot of seasonal campers? The “personality” of  a campground seems to vary based on the clientele and although they have numerous returning customers every year and locals on the weekend, most people don’t stay there for long stretches of time. This is where Lee and I differ.  I like seasonal campers,  Lee prefers when folks are coming and leaving.  Neither one was a deal breaker, but we did want to know what type of campground we were walking into. 

The first interview went very well and I breathed a huge sigh of relief.  We worked well as a team and I really liked Marc and the position very much.  The second interview was with Adventureland and was about as different as two things called by the same name could be.  We spoke to Gary, the Director of HR, and the  conversation was very scripted.  They have a very long online interview form (along with a personality test), so really Gary just needed to verify we had experience working with the public.  He then explained in great detail the position and how the program worked.  The presentation was very comprehensive so we mainly listened and I only asked a couple of clarification questions.  Essentially as Year 1 employees we could apply for four different positions, Games, Rides, Food, and Retail.  Each position has different rules and hours.  Although there is some variety within what you do for a department, there is no floating between departments.  We heard the detailed descriptions on Food and Rides and determined we would be more interested in Rides.  The rides department works a six day week with 5-7 hour day or night shift.  There is a 1/2 hour break per shift and if we both chose rides we would get the same shift and the same days off. If we chose different departments we would still get the same days off, but might have different shifts. Some of the perks include a free campsite in a very nice campground, free uniforms, reduced rate meals in their commissary when working, and a bonus at the end of the season if you stay until the end. They also do about 20 special events (ice cream socials, day trips, etc)  for the work kampers throughout the season especially towards the end when the park is only open on the weekends.  The downside, for us, was in Year 1, the AV job Lee was interested in was not available to work kampers and I couldn’t float from department to department for variety.  Also, I was disappointed to hear that Year 1 all rides would be the “flat rides” no roller coasters, water park, or water ride positions available.

I appreciated very much Gary’s thoroughness, but it was obvious the script was designed for an older, retired couple.  Makes sense since that is the current demographic of most full timers, but many of the benefits weren’t as appealing to us as a younger, working couple.  Still, I would love to try it for a summer, just to check working at an amusement park off my bucket list and they seem to have a very organized program, which I approve of.  After talking it through though, it was no contest.  We gladly accepted the Alaska position and are now locked in for Summer 2016.  Since I turn 50 in August, I am very excited about celebrating that milestone in beautiful Alaska and this is a position we never could have taken if I was still working my corporate job! I also feel much better about our ability to interview as a couple.  Turns out that having two people on the phone can be an additional benefit when gathering information and making a decision.

Lessons Learned

  • Prepare your questions ahead of time
  • Discuss as a couple your “game plan” before getting on the phone
  • Be in a comfortable setting with good cell coverage for the interview
  • Take good notes
  • Absolutely do not make a decision while on the phone.  Talk about it first then give your decision via a follow-up phone call or email.
  • Be honest about what you both need as individuals, especially if the commitment is for several months.
  • Make sure you have something in writing that details what you spoke about and you confirm via email that both parties agree.  Better safe than sorry.

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  • As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.  Search Amazon Here
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Should We Lock In the Summer?

First of all, I’m sorry for the premature post from yesterday.  I hit the wrong button and unfortunately there is no take back on emailing the follower list.  I’ll be more careful in the future and thanks for those that emailed me to let me know.  I couldn’t email you back immediately because of the post status…sorry again.  Anyway, it continued raining for 11 straight days and finally on the 12th morning, the sun came out.  I personally have never experienced that many days of straight rain and I can’t tell you how glad I am for the sun.  One positive thing that came out of the experience is that we seem to have found a partial solution to the rain noise on the slide-out.  We went to the hardware store looking for rubber mats used to line tool chest drawers, and instead I found a Wenzel Portable Folding Mat that is commonly used at the beach or on the floor of a tent.  They cost $12, are 60 x 78 (fits perfectly on our slide-out, folded in half) and is made out of a woven mildew resistant material.  They’re very similar to what most people use as an outdoor mat under their awning, but the material is thicker. Since it was much cheaper than the rubber lining  we thought we would give it a try.  It does significantly dampen the sound during the rain.  Lee has a decibel meter on his phone, and the slide-out with the mat on top was more than 10 decibels lower than the slide-out without.  Plus, the mats do more than one thing!  We can also use them for picnics or days at the beach, etc.  They fold up into a pretty small package and even have a carrying handle.  I don’t know how long it will hold up, or how often we will actually use them but for right now I am a fan.

The rain also gave us lots of time to talk and work on some things.  We have been having  a problem with our sink. It’s an under-mounted sink, and the clips that hold it to the counter top are screwed into the cabinet wood around it. However, the two strips of wood that go across the back side of the sink is not part of the cabinetry, it’s just glued to the bottom of the countertop. The glue holding one of the wood pieces under the counter is failing, so the sink dropped just enough to break the silicon seal that goes around the edge between the sink and the counter. So water seeped in and caused more of the silicon to come loose, and the sink to drop even further down. Lee’s original idea was to just take it out and mount it from above so it rested on the counter instead of hanging underneath, but no surprise, the hole in the counter top doesn’t allow for that. RV fixes are always  more complicated than you originally think so when you decide to work on a big project, you really need to think it through.  Will you be in one place for several days?  Can parts can be mailed to you since rarely are the parts available at local hardware stores? Can you easily run to a hardware store and grab other parts and materials?  Since we have a solid mail solution and are familiar with the area here we decided it would be better to take care of it here than in Monterrey, where we want to spend time with our daughter. Or Pasadena during the Rose Parade events. Or wait until mid-January and risk it getting worse.

While Lee was figuring that out, I was looking for a summer job for us.  The posting for many summer 2016 jobs actually come out in December and many of the more desirable positions get filled early.  Originally we were fully committed to Alaska, but after looking at all the options available now nothing seems quite right.  We need to make enough to cover our monthly expenses or we will have to eat into savings.  The jobs with flexibility in schedule don’t pay very well and the jobs that do pay well require 40 plus hours worth of work leaving little time to explore.  When I expanded the search nationally it seemed that most of the jobs seem to fall into these two categories.  More importantly almost all of them require an entire season commitment.  It’s one thing to sign up for a job that’s less than optimal for a short period of time, but making a bad decision for an entire summer is much more serious.  If you are a person who can easily walk away from a commitment, that’s less of an issue.  Sign up, check it out, and if it’s not working, leave.  But as I discussed in my previous post I am not 100% comfortable with that.  Plus it’s not just my requirements.  Lee and I bring two different sets of desires to any job situation so it needs to at least be a partial fit for both of us.  And it’s further complicated by the fact that since we are still new to work kamping we think we know what matters but there is no way we can be totally sure.

With all this stuff swirling around in my head I got a little overwhelmed.  So many choices, so many unknowns, I got nervous about making a decision of any kind.  And maybe we shouldn’t.  My possible consulting jobs aren’t available this early nor are Lee’s possible onsite video jobs.  Maybe we shouldn’t commit to anything until we are closer to the dates.  But if we wait could we lose out on a terrific summer opportunity.  Not to mention without a commitment things would be very ambiguous for the next several months and I although I am getting better dealing with ambiguity it has never been a strong suit of mine.  These situations are where having a “take what comes” personality are a huge advantage, and I am so jealous of those people in moments like these.  But if nothing else I have to be honest with myself about who I am at this moment and those feelings have to be factored in.  So Lee and I sat outside in the sun, by a nice fire, this morning and I talked it through with him.  As a side note, we have gotten so good at talking about things objectively and being there for each other without letting the situation make us feel like we have failed. We couldn’t manage that in 25 years in a sticks and bricks but one year on the road has accomplished it ….yay us!!  After talking it through we put together a rough priority list that we could both live with.  It’s not perfect and certainly doesn’t encompass everything, but it should give us basic framework to make the decision.

  •  How much we make.  Making a ton of money is not the most important consideration.  If it was we might as well go back to our regular jobs.  It’s all about maintaining enough money in the account to sustain the lifestyle.  Sometimes we will make a little less, sometimes a little more, and sometimes we may need to take less than optimal jobs to put money back in the kitty.  That being said, for us, it has to be front and center to the conversation because we can’t sustain this lifestyle if we don’t make enough to pay our way.
  • Where is the job. A beautiful place is not enough.  I always thought it was.  “Give me a shack with a view” was one of my favorite sayings.  But weather, cost, crowds, the nature of the work, access to cell/internet etc can all make a beautiful place not so beautiful.  The Redwoods for example are amazing, but not so much after 11 days of rain.  Where the job is ranks second because beautiful scenery and  places to explore are one of the major benefits of being full timers.  And it doesn’t have to be knock your socks off beautiful either.  We have found wonderful things to do in almost every place we have been.  But we have to think about what a place would look like for a long-term gig.
  • Who are we working for We are absolutely unwilling to be treated poorly.  We have experienced plenty of that already in our lives and although we have no expectation of being catered to in any way we are also not willing to tolerate nastiness.  Some people couldn’t care less about this.  It truly rolls off their backs,  and more power to you, but neither of us is interested.  This is a tough one, because you can’t really know until you get into the position.  A phone interview helps and if you are lucky you can talk to someone who has worked there, but this could definitely change everything.
  • What we will be doing  I thought I could do anything for the perfect place to stay and to some extent that is true, but for longer stints what I will be doing matters more.  This may change with experience and age, but for right now and especially for a 5-6 month commitment, I want to work in a place where some of my skills will be utilized.  I understand that some places are just looking for bodies to fill slots and I respect that, but the perfect position would be one that would be fun and challenging. This is where I think the fact that we aren’t retired hurts us.  Some folks had plenty of stress and challenge in their working life and are more than content to just do what they are asked and no more, but that’s really not in my nature.  At least not yet.  However, if the before mentioned three items are all really good, I think I could handle it.
  • How long will we be doing it We like doing short term contracts and when we envisioned this lifestyle it was with the thought that we would work short stints and then move on.  All of the items above are much easier to handle if its for a short period of time.  Anything is, really, but there are a lot less short term jobs than we thought and most of those have either been 100% volunteer or filling in last minute for another employee.  The downside to volunteering of course is no money and the downside to filling in is the stress (for me) that comes with not having a position and the related travel plans locked in.  Plus, many of the really cool jobs require longer stints and they can because they are in high demand.  I totally understand employers wanting to fill blocks of time.  On-boarding and training people is costly and time consuming and minimizing those events is just good business.  It does put the work kamper in a tougher decision making position though.

So that’s our framework and priority.  It’s amazing how long it took me to verbalize all of that, but that’s what happens when things are rattling around in your head. Now using this we need to gather more information about the jobs.  That will involve internet research, phone interviews, and lots of communication with each other.  I am surprised by how hesitant I am about the phone interviews.  One of the downsides of having the same job for 15 years is you’re not very good at calling potential employers.  I give my friend Kelly huge credit for just picking up the phone and talking to people.  I wish I was more like that, and I definitely need to get out of my comfort zone and start making some of these calls.  I’m hoping that with the framework in mind it will be easier to get the information I need and if not, well, we don’t have to do anything.  Luckily we have some time to figure things out and I would rather deal with the ambiguity than be pressured into making a bad decision.

I will let you know how it turns out and since it is once again raining I should have plenty of time to work on it.

 

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Honoring a Commitment

It has rained on and off for 9 straight days as of this posting.  If I would have done more research, I would have realized that this is the norm in this area for this time of year, and actually we were extremely lucky to have such beautiful weather the first two weeks we are here.  I also realize we could have it much, much worse.  Our friends Jo and Ben are in Reno and they just got 8 inches of snow, Deb and Steve are with family and they are dealing with cold and snow, so definitely I will take the rain over those conditions any day.  Kelly and Bill are  working mandatory overtime at Amazon, five 10-hour days of labor intensive work.  The rain is better than that, although they are doing well and in the home stretch.  I tell myself these things to try to put the weather in perspective,  but the rain is not great.  It can start to be a bit like Chinese water torture with the constant drip-drip-drip.  Sleeping at night has been tough for me, since the rain on the bedroom slide-out has been particularly loud and I have always been a light sleeper.  Even when the rain stops, it’s still dripping under the trees, and although I got about 15 minutes of sun when I drove to Fortuna one day, other than that it has been constant gloom. And to be clear, part of me is like “boo-hoo, suck it up cupcake”, but the other part of me that envisioned an unrealistic life of constant travel and near perfect weather is a bit disgruntled.  Part of the major appeal of this lifestyle is the ability to pick up and move on if things aren’t working out.  That might be the number 1 reason Lee loves it so much.  But the reality is although you can always leave theoretically, numerous factors can get in the way of that.

If we had not made this volunteer commitment we would absolutely be gone.  Down to Monterrey, our next stop, a little early, and in the sunshine.   With the rain the campground traffic has slowed to a crawl and if we asked I am sure they would release us early, but again, we made a commitment.   In our old lives this would be a no-brainer.  You are living in an area with people who know you and your reputation follows you. Now we are moving around and it is extremely unlikely we will ever see these people again.  I like the Redwoods, and so glad we had the first two weeks, but I don’t think I would take another work kamping job here.  Too dark for me, and not enough sky for Lee. Plus it is a volunteer position and doesn’t volunteer by its definition include choice?

There seems to be a spectrum for how people feel about leaving a work-kamping job.  At one end of the spectrum are people who have given their word and will honor it no matter what.  On the other end are people who feel that this whole lifestyle is about freedom and they always have a choice regardless of the circumstances.  Most people’s comfort zone seems to fall somewhere in between and their attitude on the subject doesn’t always line up with how they behaved in their prior life.  I know people who were 100% dedicated to their professions and wouldn’t have dreamed of not honoring a commitment who now feel completely different. I’ve talked to others who would stay and endure conditions that I certainly wouldn’t in order to do what they said they were going to do.   Most people though seem to fall somewhere in the middle and the decision is very situational.   Most people for example feel that if a work kamping job is not as advertised or the employer is not keeping their promise it is totally fine to move on.  I feel that way and frankly for me that’s an easy one.  When my employers in the past broke their agreements, I was being handsomely compensated and had a family depending on me, so I often accepted it.  For work kamping the compensation is generally low and I no longer have children to support or a mortgage to pay.  So under those circumstances I draw that line at being lied to or taken advantage of in any way.  That’s my line, and like I said, a pretty easy one to establish for myself.

But where it gets tricky, at least for me, is when things aren’t so pleasant but it’s not on purpose. The weather is not good, the people are not nice, the workload is more than expected, and/or we run out of fun things to do in the area.  In those circumstances the itchy feet start to kick in and the desire to move on is strong. In those circumstances, you get to decide whether to stay or go.  There may be budget/campground availability considerations for early departure, but aside from that the only thing keeping you in place is whether or not to honor the commitment. By the way, most people don’t flat out say “I am leaving because I don’t like it here” to their employer.  “Family emergencies” arise that give people an easy way out without a confrontation. But the reality of the choice they made still exists no matter what they tell the boss.  And honestly I don’t know if this is something you could decide in advance without being in that position.  You may think you are a person who would always stay or a person who would always leave, but who knows?  All this freedom and choice can be heady stuff for those of us who had precious little of it in our previous lives.  If you never had it you don’t know how you will react when you do.

For us thus far we have fallen back on “we can tolerate anything for short periods of time.”  And this has largely been true when the length of our stays have all been under 10 weeks.  What will that look like when the commitment is longer?  I don’t know, and for that reason we have been trying to stay away from season-long commitments as much as possible.  But looking ahead, in order to make enough money to afford this, that will likely  be required.  I know  I want to be a person who always honors her commitments, but I also want to be a person who feels free and has choice.  Those two statements right now feel like they are in direct contradiction with each other and it’s troubling.  Still, for right now it’s only 7 more days and even if it rains every one of those (which I don’t think it will) I can handle it and that’s the immediate.  The future will need to take care of itself for awhile.

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Thoughts on our Park System and its Rangers

Since it’s been raining almost continuously for the last several days (apparently we are setting some kind of a record), I thought I would take a few minutes and talk about our park system.  Although Full Timers come in all political varieties, one thing I think most of us agree on is the importance of our National Parks system. The parks contain the beautiful places we want to go, but they also provide work kamping opportunities and in general really nice places to stay.  Initially as a person who hadn’t camped, I found the system pretty confusing.  But since I am a curious person by nature over time I think I have cobbled together some understanding of how it all works and I wanted to try to explain that here.  At the top of the park system food chain are the large National Parks like Yellowstone and Glacier.  These parks are well funded and well maintained, often charging up to $30 a week for access.  Since these are all definitely places to visit eventually, we recommend an America the Beautiful pass ($80 a year or a lifetime membership for $10 after you turn 62) as a way of mitigating those costs.  Most people know about those places but many might be shocked by the cost, I know we were.  Along with the well-known parks, however, there are numerous lesser known national parks.  These vary in cost from the $30 above down to free, and include everything from wildlife areas to historical monuments.  Kitty Hawk for example is a National Monument and cost $4 for entry.  Although these parks do vary based on location and funding, in general, they are well maintained and range in size from the very very large to the very very small.  Outside of many of those federal parks are state parks.  In general, the federal parks seem to have the “A” locations and the state parks have the “B” locations close by.  There are also many amazing state parks that are nowhere near a federal park. Many state parks have a park pass of some kind and those vary wildly from state to state.  Unless you plan on spending a lot of time in a state with such a pass, its really not worth the money to buy them generally.  They are designed for the state residents who frequently go to the parks.  The state parks vary wildly on quality based on funding.  Some have “day use” fees, a charge to use the park for the day particularly common when there is a lake, others are totally free.  Next there are county/city parks and although these are less common some really nice ones exist across the country.  They are a little harder to find, mostly just used by locals, and on occasion have “day use” or vehicle entrance fees.  The public land that is not managed by one of the aforementioned groups generally falls under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management.  BLM manages millions of acres across the country and has the most opportunities for free or nearly free camping.  I knew next to nothing about BLM when we started full-timing, but our work kamping job in Susanville was for BLM and we got somewhat educated on how the process works.

What I have found interesting about northern California is Federal, State, County, and BLM parks all exist very close to one another.  It is very easy to cross the imaginary line between one park into another here and unlike other areas they all seem to hold some prime real estate.  Thus these different agencies need to work in close proximity with one another, sometimes even sharing office space, and although their goals are the same (protection of the land and its resources) their methods and chain of command are somewhat different.  As with any other inter-agency interaction there is some conflict, made worse by extremely limited government funding.  I approve of these agencies working together, and I definitely approve of elimination of unnecessary funds, but after seeing the vast scope of the ranger’s responsibilities I am a little concerned about the long-term viability of our park systems.  Here in this portion of the Redwood Forest they have just four rangers covering 52,000 acres 24×7. That’s 81 square miles. To put that in perspective, Toledo, Baltimore and Kansas City are all 80 square miles. Initially, I thought “How hard can it be?”  The land largely takes care of itself and the campgrounds and visitors centers bring in some money.  Perhaps that was true when we were children, but the world has changed and the job is much more complicated.  The two major threats this park system faces are drug cartels and poachers.  Apparently the Redwood climate is perfect for growing marijuana and the Mexican drug cartels have created large farms inside of the more remote portions of the forest.  When I discovered this I was incredibly offended.  This is public land and my tax dollars are paying for this and the thought of drug cartels using this land for such a purpose just makes me angry.  Not only do these cartels cut down trees and steal precious water resources for their crops, but they also engage in turf wars that occasionally end up with dead bodies.   When I inquired about whether the DEA gets involved, I was told only if it is a huge farm, but the smaller growers are handled solely by the rangers.  All four of them. They use some pretty creative techniques to discover these grower locations, which I won’t get into, but are very philosophical about the fact that they can only do what is possible with the resources they have.  As a matter of fact, they are very philosophical about the job in general.  They take the world as it is and do what they can, always with a real dedication to protecting the natural resources.

The second issue here is poaching of the Redwood trees which makes me even angrier than the drug cartels.  These full grown trees are worth between 2-3 million dollars each on the underground market! So despite the logistical challenge of cutting down a tree and getting it out of the forest, attempts are frequently made.  Sometimes they leave the tree and just cut off the burls, which have a high “street value” as well and are used to make clocks and other decorative wood items.  The local population is extremely helpful when it comes to reporting suspicious behavior and the rangers themselves are well-trained and dedicated to protecting the trees.  All that being said, with so few of them it does happen and the thought of a 1,000 year old tree being taken really sickens me.  Yes they are just trees but they are many many hundreds of years old.  They have survived fires, loggers, and floods to exist today and they deserve to be protected for future generations.  Along with these park-specific issues, the rangers have the standard duties of coordinating volunteers and park aids, overseeing the campgrounds, law enforcement in the park area, overseeing maintenance of the facility,  and of course, educating the public.  We have all seen park rangers and thought, what a great gig.  I know I certainly thought that.  But we see only about 10% of what they do, and some parts of the job are not so great.  Not that one person I have talked to has complained.  They are proud of what they do, despite the long hours and what I am sure is relatively low pay,  it was clear to me it was just not so much a job to them but a calling.  I don’t want to over romanticize the rangers, but the ones I have met have been pretty impressive.

So, I went back and forth on whether or not to write this post.  In general, I try not to get political, because that is not what this blog is about.  But since these parks are such an important piece of what we do as full timers, I felt it was important enough to write about.  We are all concerned about our taxes, and everyone wants to get the most value for the money we pay.  For me, the value of these parks is incalculable.  That doesn’t mean they should get a blank check by any means, but the next time you hear about funding for our parks system, please keep in mind all the things that they do.  I know I will.

Oh and I forgot to mention they also get involved in community events.  Here at the Visitors Center they have annual tree lighting ceremony and Santa stops by.  This year Santa came in a Ranger truck that was really cool.  I got to talk to the volunteer who helped with that this year and he was an incredibly nice man named Scott.  He is a retired police officer, brand new full-timer (May 2015), and despite not having raised any children was the perfect man for the job.  He was a little nervous before he started, but was a natural.  The local choral group also came and sang and the ranger’s and volunteers made cookie and punch for everyone.  It was a really sweet small town event, and since the nearest mall is 1-1/2 hours away, possibly the only chance some of these kids will have to get a picture taken with Santa and it was nice to see the park system give a little back to the local community.

All the stuffed animals were decorated

All the stuffed animals were decorated

They really cracked me up

They really cracked me up

My absolutely favorite was this weasel

My absolutely favorite was this weasel

June (back right) is 95 years old and still volunteers frequently. She's awesome!!

June (behind desk) is 95 years old and still volunteers frequently. She’s awesome!!

The rangers were singing along with the choir

The rangers were singing along with the choir

Santa came in on the back of a rangers truck

Santa came in on the back of a rangers truck

And he lit up the Christmas Tree

And he lit up the Christmas Tree

Santa was great with the kids

The kids all had a really great time

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Supporting our Blog

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  • As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.  Search Amazon Here
  • You can purchase the ebook telling the story of how we became full-time RVers.
  • You can purchase our recipe book filled with 80 recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. You can purchase the kindle or paperback version on Amazon or buy the Apple version on Itunes.

 

 

 

 

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The Post That Kept Changing

As I go through my weekends, I generally start to write my posts in my head as we do things.  Not whole paragraphs or anything but lines about different things I see.  I try to then take a picture to help me remember or sometimes I will jot a note in my phone.  Somewhere along the line the name for the post comes into play and I usually get pretty excited.  I like the “First” time doing anything and the best weekends are the ones where I have so many firsts I need to pick one.  This weekend was a little different though.  The post was going to be “First Time in Tahoe”, but that didn’t happen, then it was going to be First Time Riding the Biz Johnson Trail”, but that didn’t happen either.  I’ll tell you why in a bit.

First the week.  Things went well.  I had some work things going on and Lee spent a ton of time working on the second video for Howard and Linda.  We were happy to find out that the first one, an intro to their website, was well received at their most recent rally and as soon as he makes a few tweaks for Howard that one will be done.  The second one is on their Utility Body Werks Hauler bed and is more video than pictures which is actually less edit intensive.  Since he is doing this editing in our rig, I am seeing first hand how much goes into these videos and it can be fun to watch.  I did tell Linda though this week that at one point I had him put on headphones because I simply couldn’t listen to the same audio clip for the 50th time lol.  I am not sure how he has the patience for it, but I do believe it is not unlike composing music where every single note counts.  I also found time to work on both my new resume and my consulting website.  I would like to have both of these done by the end of next week, although that may be too aggressive a timeline, and Cori has been very helpful for both processes in giving me an objective “hiring manager” opinion.  It’s nice to have friends!  I also had a really long talk with my friend Dr. Jo about how things were going with the transition and she was also very helpful.  I didn’t really want to talk to her in a professional capacity because I didn’t want to impose on our friendship, but after talking to Kyrston my oldest one morning I realized I was being an idiot.  I am lucky enough to have a friend who is also a psychologist a little over an hour away from me during what is arguably the biggest transition I have been through since becoming a mother and I am not talking to her…just dumb.  And of course she was happy to help, I think her attitude was a bit “What took you so long?,” but she understood I needed time to come to it on my own.  She was great about validating the importance of what I was going through and let me know the warning signs I should keep an eye out for if things were getting too overwhelming.  She also approved the tactic I have been taking of making sure every day I do something that is for my new life.  I am making sure I don’t overdo it, but every day I work on something for the consulting business, this website, or work kamping.  So despite the short paragraph above, it was a very full week for the both of us and we were really looking forward to the weekend.  

A couple of things happened near the end of the week that I should talk about though.  Fair warning, the first one is about poop, so if you have a delicate stomach you may want to skip this paragraph.  Part of living in a camper is becoming well acquainted with your poop.   You deal with it when you dump your tanks, you deal with it in the toilet bowl (water pressure doesn’t flush like a home toilet), and if you are work kamping you probably deal with it when cleaning the restrooms.  And after a month, we finally ran  into a messy bathroom situation.  Lee was down cleaning the restrooms and one of them had poop all over the toilet seat, on the floor and even on the wall some.  He thought it looked like someone had not quite made it to the toilet and as he stared at the mess several things went through his mind.  He thought there should be limits to what volunteers were asked to do; he wondered if he should call the BLM maintenance person to handle it; and of course he was aggravated because someone left this mess in the first place. Then he thought about how nice this job has been, what a great deal overall it has been for us, and the fact that we knew this might happen eventually.  What decided him was the fact that you can’t say you are willing to do the unpleasant job and then not do it, so armed with bleach, gloves, and a long handled scrubber brush he dealt with it. I was proud of him, and hoped that when my time came I would handle it as graciously.  I didn’t think it would be the very next day, but there it was.  I made the rounds and one of the close bathrooms and one of the farther away bathrooms had poop all over the toilet seats.  And of course I didn’t like it, but I did what needed to be done.    I don’t think in either case it was deliberate maliciousness, but let’s see how common this will be.  Three times in one weekend is a bit concerning.  I am talking about this because  I want to give a well-rounded account of our experiences and that would be a deal breaker for some people. I will say though if you are unwilling to clean bathrooms it will severely limit your work kamping choices.

The second thing that happened was I started to get some fuzzy vision in my right eye.  Over 5 years ago I had an eye surgery called PRK (like Lasik but more intense) that completely changed my life.  I went from “coke bottle” thick glasses to no corrective lenses at all and although I have always known it wouldn’t last forever it was worth every dollar spent.  I do get nervous about my vision though and really felt after several days I needed to get it checked out.  Susanville is a very small town and there is only one optometrist here and he doesn’t take Aetna insurance.  But I have a bunch of money in an HSA account and although he doesn’t normally take new patients they made me an appointment at the end of Thursday.  He did a very thorough examination and determined I was getting a sty (pimple on the inner eyelid) and then gave me suggestions on over the counter drops to us.  He also recommended the 20/20/20 rule since I work on the computer so much which is every 20 minutes take a break and blink 20 times and then stare at least 20 yards away for a few minutes.  According to him you normally blink 20 times minute normally, only 10 times when watching TV, and only 5 times when working on the computer.  This leads to dry eyes which is exacerbated by the arid conditions here in Susanville.  I felt much better after talking to him and felt the $94 dollars was reasonable for the time he spent with me.  I do need to get a prescription eye exam and he couldn’t fit me in for 1-1/2 months and we will be gone then.  So I will make a trip to Reno for that visit and get my glasses there.  One thing I have noticed about small town doctors is they are not lacking in work.  I couldn’t get one dentist in town to accept a new patient and even the MD’s seemed overbooked.  Luckily we are close enough to Reno that there are tons of doctors there and more have openings.

So, we were really looking forward to the weekend and our long awaited trip to Tahoe.  I have wanted to go there every since Lee came home from a work trip about 20 years ago and said I would love it.  But when we were getting ready in the morning it started to sprinkle.  No big deal I thought, it never rains here and even if it’s here it won’t be there.  Well, Lee checked the weather and it was going to rain all day and there were even flash flood warnings.  So we decided that we would wait until another day.  We could even go during the week when my job ends.  Instead we decided to ride the Bizz Johnson trail on Sunday.  On occasion Lee takes bikes up the trail for groups (using the BLM truck and trailer), and he was scheduled to make the trip on Sunday with a group from Reno.  We thought we would take our bikes along as well and bike the 26 miles back, then take our truck up and retrieve the BLM truck.  I was a bit nervous about a 26 mile bike ride since I have never done one but wanted to experience the fall colors and get some shots of the trail.  So Saturday we were at loose ends and I went back to my initial list of things to do.  Luckily I had one rainy day activity and we drove down to Reno to see Harrah’s automobile collection.  Lee loves car collections and since it was only $10 I thought “Why not give it a shot?”.  Well I am really glad we did.  We had some initial trouble finding it, despite its name it is not in the Harrah’s casino, but a few streets down. It was really great.  According to the signs it is considered one of the top 5 museums in the country and I really enjoyed it.  The collection focused less on cars of famous people, although they had some of those, and more on the history of the automobile.  Plus along the way they had some beautiful displays of clothing from the different eras.  Smart really, giving the women something to look at, but to my surprise I also really enjoyed the cars.  Each sign had some really interesting information on the cars from the progression of how it   impacted the automotive industry.  We spent over two hours there and I completely recommend it for a rainy day.  I learned a lot and definitely was not bored.

1892 Phillion only one care produced

1892 Phillion only one care produced

Beautiful wedding dress

Beautiful wedding dress

I was fascinated by the small windshields in the older models

I was fascinated by the small windshields in the older models

Each section of the museum was from a similar time period. This 40's era street was cool

Each section of the museum was from a similar time period. The black car was Sinatra’s.

Lee checking out one of Sinatra's car...he's happy

Lee checking out 1961 “Frank Sinatra” Ghia

They let you sit in this one so of course I had to dress up. I can see me tooling around in one of these

They let you sit in this one so of course I had to dress up. I can see me tooling around in one of these

1914 Detroit electric car

1914 Detroit electric car

Check out the battery bank.

Check out the battery bank.

I liked the displays of stockings

I liked the displays of stockings

And handbags

And handbags

One of our favorites a, Airmobile prototype which got over 90 miles to the gallon

One of our favorites was the  Airmobile prototype which consistently got over 80 miles to the gallon

The back was really cool with it's aerodynamic styling

The back was really cool with it’s aerodynamic styling

The 1936 DeSoto taxicab was one of my favorites

The 1936 DeSoto taxicab was one of my favorites

This 1921 Kampkar was amazing. It had a bed and eating area

This 1921 Kampkar was amazing. It had a bed and eating area

The 1921 Silver Ghost Rolls Royce was amazing. This one was made of solid plates of copper

The 1921 Silver Ghost Rolls Royce was amazing. This one was made of solid plates of copper

My personal favorite was this 1936 Mercedes Benz...wow

My personal favorite was this 1936 Mercedes Benz…built for Princess Nina Mdviani

This 1947 volkswagen didn't look that much different than my first car

This 1947 volkswagen didn’t look that much different than my first car

This was Elvis's car until he gave it to his Karate instructor

This was Elvis’s car until he gave it to his long time karate instructor

John Wayne's car. Can't really see the Duke riding in this

John Wayne’s 1953 Chevy.   Can’t really see the Duke riding in this

Lee loved the sliding doors on this model

Lee loved the sliding doors on this 1954 Kaiser-Darren

Afterwards we decided to go to In and Out burger.  I have heard about them but never been to one and since Lee loves them wanted to try it.  I love award shows and I always hear actresses talking about how they go in their expensive dresses to In and Out burger and the lengths they go to to protect those dresses.  I understand why now.  The burger is a good greasy and actually comes in a paper envelope to help you eat it.  Unfortunately I really hated the fact that the bread was crunchy all around the edge.  Other than that it was good but the bread ruined it for me.  Lee was happy though and I at least I know what all the fuss is about.

In and Out burger Reno

In and Out burger Reno

Despite the line service was pretty fast

Despite the line service was pretty fast

Here's mine

Here’s mine

Because it was so packed we had parked in the 7/11 next door.  We both felt a little guilty about that since signs were posted  but its hard to get the truck into just any parking space.  Lee decided to buy gas there since we needed it anyways and that made us a customer, but immediately after fueling up the engine started acting funny.  Aside from a poor initial alignment, we have thankfully had zero issues with the truck, but the engine started hesitating when Lee was giving it gas.  We made it back to Susanville, but were concerned and when he had trouble starting the truck that night, we decided to take it into the Ford dealership on Monday.  Thankfully for the first time in my life, I had loaded up on warranties on this vehicle.  We bought both the Premium Maintenance Plan – 72 month 125,000 miles for $3150 (which covers all of our routine maintenance including oil changes)  and the Premium Care extended warranty 72 month 125,000 miles $3396 (which covers over 500 items, including brake pads and loaner cars).  Yes, I know that’s a high price tag but I don’t regret it at all.  The peace of mind for 6 years is more than worth it and I had my eye down the road when our income might be much less.  But unfortunately we had to cancel the Biz Johnson trail ride because we didn’t want to drive the truck away from town 26 miles, just in case.  So Sunday was a football day…loved the Patriots/Colts game, and on the plus side now we have some activities to do after I leave my full time job.  This whole thing might be the universe’s way of looking out for me, since a couple of nice activities might just be what I need to help with the transition.  And I’ll let you know what happens with the truck repairs.

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by

First Time Work Kamping

One of the things Lee and I were the most curious about when we started full-timing was the concept of work kamping.  Essentially, work kamping is when you trade your time and labor for a free campsite.  There are many different variations of work kamping, but a common theme is it is a way for  many  full timers to reduce their campground costs.  Since most full timers in years past were retired people, many work kamper jobs are geared towards folks who are retired and want to stretch their retirement dollars a little farther.  But with the influx of younger full timers, there has been some change in work kamping and many positions now require more strenuous physical labor and/or more money per hour for work performed.  However, with so much variation and so many employers it was tough to really get a handle on what work kamping would look like for us.  This coupled with the fact that many of the assignments are long-term (4-6 months is common), although Lee and I were anxious to try a work kamping assignment we were cautious about what we applied for.  There are many websites that have work kamping opportunities and the most popular is Work Kamper News, which not only has job opportunities listed but also helps you build an online resume and allows work kampers to review the employers in a confidential environment.  Since we wanted to research what jobs were available, we purchased an annual membership. I highly recommend this if you are researching the full-time lifestyle because for a minimal cost of $27 a year you can see all of their job listings.  We now have the $47 Silver membership which includes the full listings, daily hotline emails for immediate opportunities, and the online resume builder which makes your resume available to employers on the website.

We have been watching the hot line emails for several months now and have even been contacted by a couple of employers.  Unfortunately none of the opportunities fit our existing itinerary.  Many people who have been doing this a while follow a route and know what areas of the country they will be in during certain time frames.  For those of us who are newer, there are so many things to see we tend to cover more territory and move faster.  Although I think we have done a nice job of not rushing all over the country and burning ourselves out (a common newbie problem), we also haven’t been really interested in staying in any one place more than a couple of months at a time.  Since most positions are longer than that, for us, work kamping hasn’t really been a good option.  I say that knowing full well that we have this luxury since we have income coming in and others may need to commit to a work kamping job right away.  If possible though I wouldn’t recommend it right out of the gate, since it is stressful enough settling into the lifestyle and I am not sure I would want to commit to a work situation immediately.  There always are exceptions of course.  Our fellow Class of 2014 graduates Linda and Scott Malchak found a work kamping job in Texas helping  create a new campground and they have been there over a year and absolutely love it.  She has some great info about the experience on her blog Conservative RV and I really recommend you check it out to get their perspective.

There really is no one true way when it comes to the when, where, and how of work kamping, but I do intend to share my experiences in this area because I do believe they will be a big part of our lives going forward.  Please keep a couple of things in mind.  This is our experience and depending on your personality and the employer  they absolutely will vary.  Also, I do not intend to bad mouth any employer in this forum.  If something particularly  egregious happened I would probably share that, but in general I am a professional person, these are jobs, and I don’t believe any kind of social media is the place for that. Within that context though I will tell my experience as accurately as possible.  It will be a balancing act, but I believe I can honestly relay our experience and still remain professional.  Also, it’s worth noting that I only say this now because it’s our first job.  Our experience so far here in Susanville has been great, just trying to set the stage for future experiences that may not be as good.  Anyway, on with the story.

A couple of months ago we had seen a position on the hotline to volunteer as camp hosts on BLM land and not only was the timing right but the location in northern California was perfect.  The commitment was only 2 months and after Lee spoke to Stan about the position we thought it would be perfect.  It is a volunteer position, which means there is no hourly pay for work performed, but we would get a free full hookup site.  Lee really liked the fact that it’s not actually a campground, but a day use location, that opens in the morning and closes in the evening, and is managed by the Bureau of Land Management or BLM.  Stan  has worked for BLM for over 24 years and is very enthusiastic about what he does.  He seemed like a great guy and the work for site tradeoff seemed very fair.  Essentially Lee would open the gate at 8am every day, check/clean the restrooms once a day, and walk one mile of the bike trail picking up litter, then shut the gate at sunset.  A couple of hours worth of work 5 days a week and we get to stay in a beautiful setting without other campers, for free. One of the good things about waiting until the last-minute to pick up a job is many of the shorter term positions become available.  People leave a position or have an emergency and need to be replaced.  The negative of course is the additional stress waiting until the last-minute may bring.  We decided to wait until the last-minute, although this really isn’t my normal preference, because we were adamant that we did not want to sign up for a 4+ month job right out of the gate as our first experience. Baby steps. Turns out we found something within a couple of weeks on Work Kamper and then found a second volunteer position in the California Redwoods for December by looking at the State of California website.   Another good resource for volunteer positions in particular are the Department of Natural Resource websites for each state you are interested in.  Although many of their positions may already be filled, and it requires many more emails and phone calls to nail something down, if you are looking for something in a particular area and love state/federal parks this may be something you want to try out.  Lee invested several hours with email/phone correspondence before finding and locking down the Redwood job, but hey, it’s the giant ancient redwoods and how cool is that?  One more thing I should mention: season really comes into play with these positions.  If you are willing to be in an area slightly out of season there is more opportunity.  Since we spent 15 years in New Hampshire a little bit of cold weather doesn’t bother us at all, we actually prefer it, and this allows us to be in areas where there are fewer people, hence more positions are available.

But, back to this experience.  We arrived in Susanville on Thursday in the late afternoon after a tiring day of driving. The last five miles into town were an 8% down grade. We were looking forward to getting set up in our new site.  What we weren’t counting on was the immediate need for orientation and paperwork.  Stan had asked us to contact him when we were close and we drove over to the BLM office.  Susanville is a very small town (pop 7000) and the BLM office is on the small side.  We didn’t think we could fit the rig in the parking lot so drove around to a parking lot nearby and then gave Stan a call.  He had us come into the office and gave us an orientation.  It was a really good one.  Stan introduced us to people, gave detailed explanations on how things would work, where to get our mail, etc, and introduced us to a ton of people.  He also told us all about what the Bureau of Land Management does, showed us maps of the area, and gave us some of the history.  He’s a very nice guy who is very passionate about the area, we just weren’t expecting all that information coming off several days on the road so we felt a bit overwhelmed by it all.  After filling out the paperwork, he led us to our site and as soon as we pulled the truck in proceeded to give us another two-hour orientation on the site itself.  He explained the job duties and told us where all the supplies were plus we walked some of the trail so he could show us the other set of restrooms, trash cans, etc.  We asked a lot of questions and he assured us that he was available either by phone or in person for any follow-up issues we had and then he left so we could finish setting up.  By this time it was getting kind of late and we were bushed, but thankfully we have our basic setup down to a science at this point and I had some easy travel day food that was ready to prepare. It was all worth it though when we had a moment to look at our new home.

Site at Hobo Day Camp Susanville, CA

This is the “off side” of our camper, which faces the road that comes into the day use site at Hobo Camp, Susanville, CA

The site is very nice. It sits at the top of a canyon, and is well removed from the upper parking area, and several hundred yards from the main day use area, although we can look down on the picnic area, restrooms and parking lot.  We have a nice new power pedestal, which includes two 50amp, a 30 amp and a 20 amp hookup. There’s a sewer hookup, and city water. Plenty of space for our car, a nice heavy picnic table, and a fire ring. Plus, there’s quite a bit of seasoned firewood cut and split and stacked, for our use. In the day use area there are several picnic tables and outdoor grills down the hill along with two pit toilets.  The main bathrooms and area was very clean when we arrived although the trail itself and second set of bathrooms needed a bit more work.  Overall, it just took Lee a few days to get everything ship-shape and organized and so far maintenance from that point on has been pretty easy.  We’ve also been visited by several BLM employees who are just checking in to make sure we are doing fine.  They had a bit of a problem with the last working couple and want to make sure everything is going well with us.  The last folks were a little overzealous with holding people to the rules, including locking someone in the park and refusing to open the gate to let them out, which is one of the reasons why they are no longer here. We just keep reassuring the BLM employees that we can keep an eye on things without going overboard.  Once the initial flurry of visits was done, things have been blissfully quiet.  The folks who use the park are very nice and have caused no issues at all so far.  Having the place all to ourselves every evening is absolutely wonderful.  There are a group of college kids who are volunteering as part of a college program starting next week and will be living on site in tents, but for right now it is just us and we are really enjoying the solitude.

View from our camper down the hill

View from our camper down the hill

Here's our camper from the bottom of the hill

Here’s our camper from the bottom of the hill

 

Picnic area

Picnic area

Picnic Area

Picnic Area

 

Very nice clean restrooms. Lee says they are barely used

Very nice clean restrooms. Lee says they are barely used

 

Cliffs across from the creek whete people like to rappel and climb

Cliffs across from the creek where people like to rappel and climb

 

In addition to the picnic area, the park has the Susan river running through it that some kids swim in, and part of a very nice rails-to-trails bike trail called The Bizz Johnson Trail  that goes for over 20 miles.  We are only responsible for the trail a quarter-mile in one direction and a half mile in the other, and the walk to look for litter is good exercise.   In October there will be some excitement on the trail as it is used as a qualifier for the Boston Marathon.  Generally though, aside from the occasional visit by local cross-country teams, the trail is used by people walking their dogs.  Out here in the west, dog walking and dog poop is handled differently than back east.  The local ordinance says dogs need to “be under control” and voice control counts.  Also, people don’t really pick up their dog poop.   The first time we walked the trail I was a bit horrified by all the poop on the sides of the trail, but after talking to the BLM maintenance guy about it realized that’s just the local culture.  At this point I just shrugged and let it go and I think that is a VERY important point to Work Kamping success.  I don’t live here, I am visiting and there is no point in trying to impose my cultural values on other people.  It just annoys folks and frankly what right do I have?  As long as I am not responsible for cleaning up the mess (which we are not) then let the dog’s poop wherever they want.  My job is to maintain the rules and regulations as they exist and in a reasonable way.  Period.  For example, medical marijuana is legal in California and occasionally people smoke pot in the day area.  We talked to the BLM employees about it and they simply ask folks to move farther along the trail and keep it out of the family picnic area.  I can see how someone could get a little crazy on this issue, checking cards etc, but really life is too short.  If someone complained or I saw an issue I might politely ask them to move down the road, then again I might not.  We have the number of Darren the local BLM law enforcement officer and would be more likely to call him or the police if we saw something suspicious.

But that’s all speculative as nothing weird has happened at all.  Just people coming in, walking their dogs, and leaving. The most excitement we have had is several new bird sightings, including a covey of California quail (say that three times fast) and watching a family of deer that likes to hang out near our site.  We did ask about local wildlife and were told mountain lions are at the top of the food chain here, but there hasn’t been a confirmed sighting in 12 years.  When I asked Stan what to do just in case, he said make yourself as large as possible and then said some people take their shirts off and wave them to make themselves even bigger.  He said this with all seriousness and I had to bite my lip to not crack up.  If I see a mountain lion I do not think I would start stripping under any circumstances, but I did really appreciate the pointer!!

Steller's Jay

Steller’s Jay

Western Bluebird

Western Bluebird

Covey of California Quail

Covey of California Quail

Y025 Y027

Baby

Super cute baby likes to hang out near our wood pile

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overall it’s been a terrific start to our first Work Kamping job.  We really love the site, the people are very nice, and we are appreciating the solitude.  Will keep you updated as things happen, but I totally get why people do this now.

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Supporting our Blog

We very much appreciate your support of our blog.

  • As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.  Search Amazon Here
  • You can purchase the ebook telling the story of how we became full-time RVers.
  • You can purchase our recipe book filled with 80 recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. You can purchase the kindle or paperback version on Amazon or buy the Apple version on Itunes.