3 Years, part 2 2-16-07

Sorry this wasn’t posted sooner. We are experiencing technical difficulties with our computer. I got a third of this typed and of course not having saved it yet, the program had an error and blam; gone.

Texas is still in the deep freeze. At least we aren’t dealing with snow and the winds! The low this morning was 26 and the high was 47. The SUN stayed out all day for the first time in a week and a half! Things are looking up…

Now yesterday I was wrong about when we left Yuma. Geez, I lived this, have the photos and my editor didn’t catch that big error! OOPS, me again. So we were in Yuma until March. We had a big scary thunderstorm in February while we were in Yuma, which made for some pretty cloud pictures. In March we were in California visiting family and friends and in April we were in Oregon doing the same.

The month of May we were maintenance hosts again at Goose Lake State Park. We spent most of time pruning back trees and shrubs to open up the campsites. We had a lot of rain that month and even snow. We enjoyed being there a lot, our site was away from the main part of the campground and the campground was a mile from the highway so it was a very peaceful place. We had deer and pheasants as our neighbors.

June was our most anticipated hosting position and once we got there we weren’t sure if we would be able to stick it out a week much less a whole month. It was well staffed, but the management was awful. We were the “Yurt Hosts”, which meant we were to clean the yurts that were vacated each day. We only had to do that for 4 days a week and it took less than a couple hours a day, but the staff constantly took advantage. We had to hunt down someone to show us their cleaning procedures, because we didn’t know what was supposed to be done and no one gave us any training and it was down hill from there. We loved the area and we were not too far from Michelle’s home so we decided to “buck-up” and deal with it. The positives far out weighed the negatives. One of the positives was we were able to be at Seth’s first birthday party. Being able to walk on the beach every single day and see it go through its many fascinating changes was a thrill. Some days there would be no beach to walk on and other days you needed to pack food and water to make the trek to get to the waters edge! There was a Tsunami warning issued while we were there and we were a major part of the campgrounds evacuation, which is a story unto itself. One of these days I’ll have to start the book!

In July we were the Store Hosts at La Pine State Park which is south of Bend, Oregon. We ran and managed the little camp store for a month and with our business experience we were able make changes to the store to make it more successful. Signage was its biggest issue; no one knew the store was there and if they did know they couldn’t find it. We had family visit on their way through for a few days which was really fun. The weather there was warm and pleasant which made our daily walks along the Deschutes River very enjoyable. I think this area is one of the countries most beautiful. If I wanted to live in cold and snow again this would be where I would settle.

August took us to new territory…Washington State. For the month of September we were hosts at Fort Simcoe State Park west of Toppenish. It was a day use park miles from anywhere in the middle of an Indian Reservation. The grounds and historical buildings were wonderful. One of the west’s hidden historical treasures there are several original Officer’s Quarters still standing after over 150 years, even sporting most of their original wavy-glass windows. The fresh produce grown in the area was wonderful.

We headed farther north in September to host at Alta Lakes State park. We were needed over the Labor Day weekend and then the rest of the month they didn’t really have much for us to do. Now mind you, they had an extensive list of “suggestions” for us, but when the paid staff was doing little or nothing and they wanted their volunteers to paint bathrooms and clear brush to make the trails 6 feet wider, we reminded them that we were retired. Having a host during a period when there aren’t very many campers isn’t very smart. So again we were happy to explore new territory, but the hosting experience wasn’t a thrill.

October was a great surprise. We were museum hosts at Fort Worden State Park in Port Townsend. The compound was large and beautiful and jutted out into the Sound. The fall leaves were stunning and it was getting cold, but it was still a pleasant place to hang out. We ran the museum and got to meet a lot of interesting people. The Park and its historical buildings are all still in use so there was always a lot going on. We made a trip to Vancouver Island and saw the Butchart Gardens, which for me was a thrill. We learned more than we ever wanted to know about artillery during our stint here at the fort.

So from the top of Washington we headed south and visited Michelle, Larry’s Mom, Andrea and friends. From there we headed south to Mesquite, Nevada and spent a week at Larry’s Aunt & Uncles and then on down to Yuma. We arrived back in Yuma on Dec. 18th and wintered down there again. Our park was way more full this time, but we got our same spot. That is where we finished out our second year on the road.