Quote of The Week:


"My tastes are simple: I am easily satisfied with the best."

— Winston S. Churchill

We were going to visit the Korbel Champagne winery yesterday. They're supposed to have a wonderful 50 minute wine cellar tour, some free tasting, and a great delicatessen where you can have a wonderful lunch. I say that we were going to visit them, but we didn't. Instead, we took Jenny in to the Urgent Care in Santa Rosa.

You recall that a few weeks back, we all had a short bout of what we were affectionately referred to as The Casini Crud. It was one of those short lived illnesses that includes sneezing, coughing, and aches and pains that last just a day or two. But everybody that got it had the cough hang on for a week or so longer, including me. But Jenny's cough never seemed to get any better. So we decided that it was better safe than sorry, especially with her history of pneumonia and the planned trip to Lori's next week.

We sat in the waiting room for over an hour and a half, but she was finally seen. Then it only took another hour or so, but she came out of the examination room looking much relieved. She only had a mild case of bronchitis. The doctor even said that it could have been caused, in part, but a pollen unique to this part of the country. Great! Just another reason why we don't like California all that much. Jenny was given some pills and an inhaler, and the doctor assured her that she would feel 100% better within 24 hours. The doctor also said that if she had not come in, she undoubtedly would have come down with pneumonia again.

Well, at about 1:00 or 1:30 today, Jenny said it felt like someone threw a switch on her and she started feeling just great. How's that for forecasting what would happen. That almost exactly 24 hours from when she saw the doctor. She will continue to take her medication and use the inhaler until it's all gone, but it sure is nice to see her feeling well again.

Jenny will leave for Columbus next Tuesday, and Bailey and I will be batching it for 8 days. She'll fly back in the following Wednesday. She'll be flying out of San Francisco, which is a bit of a drag. Everyone around here told us to fly out of either Sacramento or Oakland. But all of the tickets she checked were more expensive out of those other 2 airports, so S.F. it is. She'll fly to Dallas, have a 3 hour layover, and then fly on to Columbus. She's being really smart because she's not taking a lot of clothes with her. She realizes that for almost the entire time she's there, she'll be in Lori's house helping her to recuperate, so why take things she doesn't need. In fact, she expects that she can take everything she needs in one carry-on bag. I'm not betting against her!

I'll keep working my normal shift while she's gone. I might as well, since I wouldn't be doing anything else anyway. I'd love to be there with Lori too, but it's better that it's just Jenny and Lori. I'd probably just get in the way anyway.

We'll keep you all updated on how things are going.

Hi all. I don't journal very often because Garry is so good at it. I tend to ramble. Things are going fine here. We are getting used to the way Northern Californians live. I don't like it, wouldn't want to live like them, don't really want to ever come here again, but am getting used to it somewhat. I guess I am too much of a midwesterner. I like things neat and clean, picked up and cared for. Here they live in one of the most beautifull landscapes I have ever seen but they have no problem with having STUFFFFFFF everywhere. For example. There is a great little bakery and pizza parlor in a town of about 100 or so. The people that own and run it are friendly, welcoming and great pizza cooks, but the place is just messy. There are always boxes and just miscelaneous junk sitting in hallways. The couters behind the order desk are always filled with dishes, utensils and stuff. Also here at the campground everyone is always saying how beautiful it is. Now the location is beautiful, but the level they accept for landscaping and park maintenance is really bad. There are piles of rotten boards, old sections of fence, old tires, rusty hamock stands, rotted old silk flowers in pots by the store, hanging baskets filled with dead old flowers on the porch of the office and the store. The lanscaping around the buildings is overgrown and there are weeds and junk everywhere. There is a river attitude about things that is kind of "oh so what" There are two long term employees here that have this whole 116 acres park to take care of. One is in his 60's and one is over 70. Yea, I know. I know that it shouldn't matter to me, but I see the potential here and I just cringe. I guess I have to let that go. I talked to the manager about some things and he said that the owners were happy with things the way they were so no problem. We have been waiting for the new gatehouse to open since we arrived on May 1st. The old gatehouse is up at the top of the hill and has no bathroom. No portapotti was placed there because the "new gate house would be opening very soon" I have now resorted to peeing in a big cup because there is no one to relieve me at the gate and you can't leave 10 cars/rv's in line waiting to come down to go to the bathroom. This last Thursday we had 116 checkins. I was in the gatehouse from 8:00 am until 1:00 with no break. there were cars lined up at 8:00 and there was not one minute that there was not someone checking in. It was not pretty. Everytime I ask about when, he says, "this weekend for sure" and nothing happens.

ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG. I wish I had the guts to tell him that I would not be able to work the gate until there is a bathroom there. I'm not good ant confrontation.

Out fellow employees are nice and we enjoy talking a socializing with them. It isn't like St Cloud for sure. Those friends are special for sure. I look around here and think, WOW what Chris could do with this place. He is such a wonderful campground owner and employer. I wish we had gone back there this summer.

We are trying to plan a short visit to Tom's to visit sometime after I get back from Columbus and visiting Lori. I leave here next Tuesday. I am not looking forward to the flying part. I am a BIG girl and airline seats are not my friend. My longest legs are full, so no empty seats. Some of my short legs I have an empty seat next to me. I am looking forward to seeing and spending time with Lori. We haven' had any alone time since Sedona, and that was not really alone time. I am sure she will spend a lot of her time loggy and recuperating, but we can stitch and watch movies. She will need to walk some especially the first few days after surgery.

I am looking forward to Christmas this year. I don't think my Mom is. She really gets nervous about having so many people there. The nice thing is, if she would let us, she really doesn't have to do anything. We will get there early and help get everything up and do the cooking and baking. We will stay after to clean and do all the bedding etc. When we leave her house will be as we found it. We did it a couple of years ago and it worked well.

I am going to go and get in bed and watch TV.

I am reading some old but good books by Fern Michaels about world war one and two and Hollywood in the 20's. Great reads.

Talk to you all later.

Sharon Hoeft, e-mail me so that I have your e-mail address. I keep trying yours and it doesn't work. sumjefi@gmail.com






"If you aren't living the life your want, change it"

Ahhh, it's Monday morning and the first of our 3 days off. Of course, that doesn't mean that Bailey sleeps in. She always wakes up between 5:45 and 6:00 and INSISTS that I take her out. I can't blame her for that, but once I'm up, I can't go back to sleep. So I end up sitting, drinking coffee, and watching news programs. And what is Bailey doing? She's gone back to sleep on my lap!

Normally today would be laundry day and clean the coach day. But we may delay that by one day for a couple of reasons. First, Jenny blew up our vacuum cleaner in the campground office yesterday. The office vacuum just wasn't doing the job, so she came over and got ours. Well, ours was worse than the office one. She kept trying to make it work, but it just wouldn't do anything. She finally determined that the thing had basically just died. I guess that would have happened regardless of where it was being used. So we'll need to get a new one so that we can clean our house. Second, Jenny wasn't feeling well when we got off work yesterday. At first she mentioned that she just had an upset stomach. So when we got home, she took something to help her stomach and got into bed. A little later on I went in to check on her, and she was all bundled up under the covers shivering. I felt her forehead and she had a low fever. So she stayed in bed, and after awhile she felt better. But I'm letting her sleep in today so she can shake whatever it is she had yesterday. So we may have to run into town later to do our normal Tuesday shopping today and to get a new vacuum cleaner.

The benefit breakfast for the long time employee went very well. I believe that over $1,800 was raised to help Marvin pay some of his medical bills. We served pancakes, scrambled eggs, sliced ham steak, orange juice and coffee. But the eggs were something I've never seen before. The eggs came in a plastic bag and then were boiled. I guess hotels and a lot of other places use these all of the time, but I'd never seen them before. They were really good!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend. Ours was VERY busy, as the campground, which has 225 sites, had about 260 reservations. That meant that the overflow areas were full too!

Thursday and Friday were the really big days, with 126 arrivals on Thursday and 80 or so on Friday. That keeps us grounds guys very busy running around checking sites, delivering grills, pumping propane, and providing traffic control at the entry gatehouse.

Today, we only had one arrival and one departure, which is a real departure from the norm for us. But that didn't mean that we weren't busy. We were running around keeping an eye on things, picking up litter, pumping propane, and bagging ice. Boy, did I bag the ice. We have two ice machines that make cubes and one machine that makes block ice. We bag the ice ourselves and then sell it in the General Store. We have the same kind of ice chest that you can find in any convenience store, so it holds a lot of bags. We bag up 9 bags at a time (that's all that our hand dolly will hold), wheel them out to the ice chest and stack them inside. This morning, I bagged up 81 bags of ice and this afternoon I bagged 72 bags. You'd think that working with that ice it would be cool. But the ice machines are in this little back room, and because of all of the heat generated by the machines, it actually gets very warm.

When I wasn't bagging ice, I was doing the same stuff I mentioned before, but at a little slower pace. One of the other guys took out the honey wagon today so I didn't need to. In actuality, that wouldn't have been so bad because you don't have to be running around doing 6 different things all at once.

Tomorrow will be a back breaker. The vast majority of the campers will be leaving, which means that all we'll be doing is cleaning the campsites and camp fire rings once the sites are empty. Our goal is to have all of them cleaned before 2:00 p.m., which is check-in time for the next campers that are coming in. We won't make it! There will only be 2 of us working on it, and there are just too many to get done in one day. Besides that, the campground is hosting a benefit pancake breakfast for one of it's long time employees, Marvin. Marvin is a severe diabetic who has never taken care of himself. Recently he went into the hospital and had all of the toes on one his feet amputated as a result of gangrene. So the campground is holding this breakfast to raise some money to help him out. So as a result of the breakfast, things are going to get even more screwed up and delayed than usual. But it's for a good cause, so everybody will just have to deal with it.

Jenny and I have been sending applications out to different state parks and even some private parks in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana looking for our winter home. We've had some offers, but none of them have met our time frames. We'll keep looking, and I'm sure we'll find something. But as I think I mentioned before, we will be getting back to our volunteering or working just for our site, so we won't be working as hard as we have been for the last8 or 9 months. We're really looking forward to a more relaxed time. We'll let you know what we find!

Today I snuck out my camera with me for some "candid" pictures of some of the goings on here at the ranch. We're supposed to be at 100% capacity for the weekend, which means that all 225 sites are filled. We also were told that this is the way every weekend will be from now until mid-September based on our reservations that have been made. So it's going to be a busy summer. So I figured I might as well take some pics to give you an idea what things are like. Of course there's lots more to the park, but I didn't want to take all of the pictures in one day.

It was VERY warm today. I believe the thermometer hit 96. Thank goodness we have the afternoon winds everyday. The winds coming in from the Pacific make it completely tolerable. Besides doing our normal grounds work (cleaning firepits, picking litter, moving picnic tables, pumping propane), we also bag ice for the ice machine. With the temperatures as high as they were, the ice was flying out of the store. So I was sent up to bag ice for awhile. I remember the first time they asked me to bag ice. I thought, Great!, it'll be real cool. NOT!! We have 2 big ice machines that make the ice, and they're in a little back room behind the store. Even though the machines are making ice, they generate a huge quantity of heat. There's only one little window in the room, and it provides little ventilation. Within 15 minutes, I was wringing wet with sweat. Finally, after about 45 minutes, Barry, our grounds supervisor, came in and relieved me. I figured that I had bagged about 60 bags of ice, and when I went by the ice chest in the store and saw 5 bags inside, I almost fainted. We (the grounds crew) had somebody bagging ice all day, and we finally got caught up at about 4:00.

After leaving the store, I jumped right onto my cart and drove over to west side of the park so that I could get some of that good wind. I found a shady spot and parked for about 10 minutes. That's all it took to cool down and quit sweating. Thank goodness for that wind!

After lunch, I had honey wagon duty. For those not familar with RV parks or campgrounds, a honey wagon is a truck with a big tank on the back that is used to empty the holding tanks of RV's. A lot of our sites do not have sewer hookups, so those guests either drive themselves to the dump station or pay an $8.00 fee for us to come to them. I had 5 stops to make, and although it's not a particularly hard job (and it really isn't "nasty" like most of you are thinking), it's out in the sun and there is some dragging of hoses. So by the time I finished, which took just about an hour, I was sweating bullets again.

Once I parked the honey wagon, I went down to the store and got myself an orange/mango slushy (I'm becoming addicted to these things!) and drove back over to my shady spot again. After cooling off for a few minutes, I drove back to our coach and got my camera. I knew that we had pretty much gotten caught up on all of jobs for the day, but we still had about an hour before we were through for the day. So we basically drive around keeping an eye on things and taking care of small problems. That's why I knew I could have a chance to take some pictures.

So here are some random pics I took of parts of the park. As I said, I didn't take pictures of everything that I could so that I'd have more picture to post later. So this is a starter. Hope you like them.

( Sights and.....well, there are no sounds....at Casini Ranch )

Yes, we ended going to the Charles M. Schulz museum in Santa Rosa.

Actually, Bailey decided for us. When we got up this morning, we discovered that she'd thrown up at the foot of the bed all over the comforter. And since the washers here at the park can't handle that large of an item, we needed to go into town so that we could launder it.

After finding a very nice laundromat and successfully cleaning the comforter, we headed to the museum. It's a very nice museum, with loads of daily Peanut strips on exhibit. It was fun to see some of Schulz's early sketches that eventually became a published strip. Another interesting bit of information was that every day, Schulz's secretary went through his trash can and removed any pencil sketches she found. She would take them home, iron them flat, and then keep them in a file. Once the museum was built, those saved sketches became an invaluable tool for helping create the museum. What a thoughtful lady she was!

For the most part, you can't take any pictures inside the museum. I suppose that they don't want any flashes that might damage some of the rare drawings, although none of the signs prhibiting photography even mentioned that. I will admit that I did sneak a couple of pictures, but for the most part, all of the pictures are ones that were allowed.

I would encourage anybody in this area to stop and enjoy the museum. It's enlightening, entertaining, and a wonderful tribute to a very talented man.

( A Very Nice Museum )

We're on our 3 day off cycle, and we're taking it easy. Our first day off was Monday. We did the normal routine stuff - laundry and coach cleaning. Later we went out for my Father's Day dinner. We'd heard about a restaurant in Guerneville called The Roadhouse, so we thought we'd give it a try. Go figure I'd forget the camera again. The place was very nice, with a real rustic resort kind of feeling. The menu is rather limited, but I had the fish fry. It's cod with a panko breading. It was very good. Jenny had the baby back ribs, which weren't very good. As with all of the places out here, it was pricey. The fish was $15.00 and the ribs were $18.00. But for around here, those are fairly normal prices. If we go back, I'll try to remember the camera.

Yesterday Jenny made German potato salad for the employee pot luck, which we went to last night. The campground provided pulled pork sandwiches and barbecued ribs. They were wonderful! And of course, all of the other dishes that everybody brought were all very good too. It was a fun evening with good food and conversation.

Today, we have to make a choice about what we want to do. We will either go to visit Armstrong Redwoods State Park or go into Santa Rosa to visit the Charles M. Schulz Museum. I'll let you know which one we decided to go later. And I WILL remember the camera!

We've been looking for a good pizza place since we've been out here, and we finally found one. And believe it or not, it's in a bakery!

There's a little town near here by the name of Cadezora. We were told that the bakery in town has wonderful pizza, but the pizza is only available on Friday nights and during lunch on weekdays. So two other couples went with us last night to try it out.

Boy, was it good. Jenny and I had a large (so we'd have some leftover for lunch) with half the Kitchen Sink (that has everything) and half sausage and cheese. Frank and Linda had a whole Kitchen Sink, and Wally and Nancy had a vegetarian pizza. It was all good, and we had a great time, good food, and nice conversation. All in all, a very pleasant ending to the hectic day we all had.

( Good Pizza )

First, a Jenny update. She's feeling a whole lot better. She had a good night's rest Sunday night, and on Monday morning she was feeling much better. To play it safe, she just stayed home all day and rested. She's still got some coughing, but everyone else that had this (including me) still has coughing too. But she felt even better today, so I think we're past this little problem.

#1 You Gotta Be Kidding Me

I haven't had a haircut since we left Fallon, so I've been feeling a bit shaggy. Everytime we go anywhere, I'm on the lookout for a barbershop. The closest one to us is about 7 miles down the road on the way to Santa Rosa. It's right alongside a really neat 9 hole golf course that I definitely want to play. It's called Pete's Barbershop.

So today I decided that on the way to get groceries, I'd get a haircut. Jenny said she'd just sit in the truck and read a book while I got the haircut, so no worries. We drove over and parked right in front of the shop. I walked in and immediately noticed how neat, professional, and upscale the shop was maintained. It was only a one chair shop, and at the time, there were no other customers to be seen. The older gentleman standing behind the chair looked like he was maybe 60 years old, but very distinguished looking. I asked if he was Pete and he acknowledged that he was. With a little smirk, I asked if I would have a long wait. He chuckled and said "Not today".

So I sat down and he got to business. As he was starting, we were chatting and I mentioned that we were working at Casini. Like every other local we;ve met, he's known the Casini's for most of his life. A he proceeded cutting my hair, we talked about a number of other things. One of the topics that came up was the cost of haircuts in some of these salons. I told him about one of the other guys at Casini that went to a salon and it cost him almost $60.00. Pete laughed at that and commented how crazy that was for a haircut. I told him about a barber in Fallon that charged me $27.00 for a haircut. I said that I thought the only reason got away with charging that much was because his shop was the only one left in the country that had Playboy in the magazine racks.

Anyway, we had a nice talk while he finished. He handed me a mirror, and everything looked fine. I got up and asked him what I owed him. He said "Call it $20.00. The beard trim is on me because you're a first time customer." WHAT???????? I asked what it would have been normally. "$30.00".

:-O

I think I stammered something about how sorry I was for talking about haircut prices, but he assured me that it was alright. He even gave me 2 pocket combs as a gift. Two!

As I walked out I know I was saying "You Gotta Be kidding Me".


#2 You Gotta Be Kidding Me

We've started searching for our winter home. I think I mentioned that we've decided to look into Texas, Arkansas and Alabama. Today, I was checking out Arkansas state parks and possible camphost positions. I searched and searched through the state website, but I was unable to find any reference to volunteers. So I sent an email asking about volunteer positions.

I receieved a very quick response indicating that The Good Sam program provides the volunteers for Arkansas state parks. Wow. I've never heard of anything like that before.

So, I sent an email to those folks indicating our interest for a volunteer position. I received a response late this afternoon. A quick summary follows:

1. Volunteers must be Good Sam members. We are
2. They must be members of an Arkansas Good Sam chapter. We are not
3. They must attend a camphost training program at an Arkansas chapter Samboree. Fat chance
4. Good Sam only provides volunteers for 3 Arkansas state parks. Guess they don't want to be overworked
5. Volunteers can only volunteer for 2 weeks out of each year. Definitely don't want to be overworked

YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!

We've started calling this illness that's going through the workers her The Casini Plague. One of the other couples both had it bad enough that they each missed a day or two of work. Jenny ended up staying home yesterday, and she came home today at lunch time. She was feeling better today than she did yesterday, but she's still coughing badly and has had the on again off again fever. The fever is back tonight, although she insists that she is better than she was yesterday.

We've decided that if she gets through tonight reasonably well and feels better tomorrow morning, she'll just stay home and rest. We're on our 3 day off rotation starting tomorrow, so she'd have 3 good days to get this under control. We're supposed to meet some friends in Santa Rosa for lunch, and if Jenny is feeling better, I'll go but she'll stay home. But if she's not feeling better, we'll head in to town to find a clinic so she can get checked out. We just don't want to take any chances after she had that bout of pneumonia when we were in Yellowstone.

If you've been keeping up with our journal, you should have figured out what I just mentioned about our 3 day off cycle starting tomorrow that we did work today, which was the 5th day in a row. The manager changed our days off again. This time it actually works out alright, because we had a tentative appointment for Bailey at the vets for Wednesday morning. I guess we had a feeling that our schedule would change. But these changes sure make things hard to plan for.

It was a pretty busy day today because so many people were leaving. We were almost 80% full this weekend, which is about 200 campers. There were 144 of them leaving today. And most of them are what we call "turns". That means that we have a reservation coming in to the campsite that someone will be leaving, and we have to clean it between the time the guests leave and the new guests arrive. Since checkout is 12:00 noon and check-in is 2:00 p.m., that could literally mean that we would have only 2 hours to clean 144 campsites in 2 hours! Fortunately, many campers leave well before noon and many of the arrivals don't get here untila well after 2:00 p.m. Regardless, we're hustling all day trying to get all of the sites ready to go. And today, there was only 2 of us working grounds. I think there were only 10 sites that we didn't get to. But we always leave for last the sites that no one is coming in to, so it's no big deal. Those sites will get taken care of tomorrow.

But I'm wore out, so I'm turning in.

Hey, hey! I didn't need to take any cold medication today. My head feels normal (no wise cracks now!), my eyes aren't bulging, and I only sneezed twice the whole day. I think I've beat this thing with my iron will and good attitude. And maybe because I passed it over to Jenny! :-O

Yup. She started feeling crappy yesterday, and this morning she got up and could barely speak because her throat was so sore. She had all the same symptoms that I had. But she took her medicine and decided to go to work. She made it for half the day. At lunch she came home and stayed home.

So what do you do when you're home sick? Why, you make homemade chicken soup to make yourself feel better!

I got home from work and when I walked in, I smelled something wonderful. I asked what she was making and she said chicken soup. I said that it smelled great, and she said she was glad to hear that because she couldn't smell it. And it tatsed even better than it smelled. Once we finished dinner, she went straight to bed. We're hoping that she'll be able to kick this as quickly as I did. The day after my really bad day I felt great. We hope that happens tomorrow for her.


Need a little input from anybody out there. we're thinking of heading east when we leave here in October. we're talking about either Texas or Alabama. We have some good ideas of places to look for in Texas, but we have almost no information about Alabama. By the time we leave here, we will have accomplished our goal of working one year for pay. So now we can go back to volunteering in state parks or working for 12 - 16 hours a week just for our site in a commercial park. We can even start only working for a month or two and then take a month off if we want to. Boy that will feel great!

So, if any of you know of a great state park or commercial park that uses workampers and is in a warm, winter location, please let us know. We'll be doing our own searching at the same time, so I'll keep the journal up to date of what we're discovering.

I've been battling a really bad head cold for the last 4 days. It started on sunday with a bit of a scratchy throat, and by Monday, it was becoming a full blown cold. You know the kind - constant runny nose, sneezing, itchy/watery eyes, achey all over, head feels like it's going to explode, and eyes that felt like they were bulging out.

I started taking Benadryl, which worked very nicely. I was hoping to just get things under control by Wednesday, because we went back to work then. I guess I was lucky, because by Wednesday, I could function reasonbly well. I worked the whole day, but by about 2:30 or so, it felt like someone pulled the plug on me. I hit a wall and was barely able to finish. When I got home, I just sat down and hardly moved until I went to bed much earlier than normal. A decent night's sleep, and I felt "almost" normal today. Still have some stuffiness, but nothing like the previous 3 days.

So I think I've beat it. I expect that within a day or two, I'll be back 100%.

(I hope) ;-)

Today was our weekly trip into Santa Rosa to stock up on groceries. Real exciting, huh? Of course, we can't do anything half way. It takes us stops at 4 different stores to get what we need.

Stop #1 - The Wal Mart in Windsor. We go there because we usually need other things too, but we get our soft drinks, bottled water, and powdered ice tea (Crystal Light) because those items are less expensive than at the grocery stores.

Stop #2 - We head down State Highway 101 and get off to go to a California chain called Lucky's. They're the only grocers that we've found that carries Canola Harvest margarine. That's the only margarine that we use, so we need to make a stop there maybe every other or every third time we go shopping. Unfortunately, the meats and produce they sell isn't all that good. So......

Stop #3 - A Safeway store about a mile south of Lucky's. Safeway is all over the west, and we get the vast majority of our groceries at this store. They have really great meats.

Stop #4 - We stop at the Safeway in Guerneville on the way home so that we can pick up frozen items, such as ice cream so that it doesn't melt on the way home.

Now if we have other errands to run, of course we do those before we do any grocery shopping.

Today we needed to stop by the Santa Rosa Chevrolet dealership to schedule some maintenance on our truck. Lately our brakes squeal first thing in the morning and are very grabby. After a short drive, they loosen up and are fine, but clearly something needs to be adjusted. So before we left, I located the dealership with Map Quest so that we'd know how to get there. When we arrived, we weren't necessarily surprised that the dealership was closed. Well, not just closed. There wasn't a car in sight, there was no furniture inside the building, and there certainly was nobody around. It looked like this was our first up close and personal contact with the GM bankruptcy. Fortunately I'd jotted down the phone number, so we decided to call to see if there might be a message recommending another dealer. There was a message, but it didn't direct us to another dealer. It said that they had moved their location down the road a few blocks. Sure enough, when we drove down the street, there were the signs directing us into the Saturn dealership, which was now being changed to a Chevrolet dealership.

So we pulled in and parked at the service area, and before I could even get out of the truck, a fellow came racing out and opened the door for me. I asked him if things were so slow that they had to come out and take people right out of their cars? His reply was Yes! I explained that I needed to talk to the service department, and he explained that he was with service, and asked what the problem was. I explained the symptoms to him, and he asked when would I like to bring it in. I said anytime would be fine, but that I'd need to wait for it as it was our only vehicle and we were over 30 miles away. He asked if tomorrow was alright, and I said sure (we're off tomorrow too). So, I have an appointment for 9:00 a.m. tomorrow. Cool.

Below is a picture that I took of a sign that we see on our way in and out of town. Clover milk is a local product out here, so they advertise very heavily. All of their ads are cute, but I especially like this one.

As usual, we worked today. Saturdays' aren't too bad, because ,most of the campers have already arrived and won't be leaving until Sunday. So Saturdays tend to be just taking care of small problems and handling the routine things that occur.

Then there was today........

It all started out normally. Those of us on grounds went out into the campground and checked to see that everybody that was in the park were supposed to be in the park; we checked empty sites to see that they'd been cleaned before the guests that had reserved them arrived; and we kept our eye on a very large group of drunken rodeo people.

Say what??

Let's back up to last night. Our security people were making their normal rounds throughout the evening and night, but as the evening wore on, they became increasingly uncomfortable with a large group that had rented something like 10 sites. These people were here because there's a rodeo in Duncans Mills this weekend, and they attend the whole thing all weekend. But I digress.

As the evening wore on, they became more drunk, rowdy, inconsiderate, obscene, and many other adjectives that could be applied. Finally, near 9:00 p.m., our security people, which includes the campgrounds owner girl friend, stopped by these sites to warn the occupants that they needed to tone things down. The revelers became abusive and downright threatening to the security folks. The more they talked, the worse the problem became. But the "guests" did say that they would settle down. The security people left not necessarily assuaged, and later found out from other nearby campers that the party continued on well after quiet hours. So this morning, it was determined that they would be "asked" to leave the campground. But before thye could be contacted, they left to spend the day at the rodeo. So it was almost 4:30 p.m. when they came back. A small contingent of security folks went to the camp sites to have their discussion, and not very long afterward, a radio call came across all of our radios that all grounds personnel were to report immediately to the area near the camp sites and to stand by. at the same time, the sheriff's department was called, and before we knew what was happening, 4 squad cars arrived with lights and sirens, 2 fire department vehicles showed up, and the sheriffs department helicopter was hovering overhead. It seems that when the call was made to the sheriffs department, they were told that were 40 campers that had instigated a fight. Oops!

Anyway, after about 15 minutes, we were told to go about our normal duties. So I really haven't found out how everything turned out. I'll have to find out tomorrow.

One of the activities that they do here every Saturday evening during the camping season is to have a hayride. Actually they'll have as many rides as there are people wanting to go. It starts at 6:30, and they take the wagons all through the campground until they get back to the red barn. Then they off load those on the wagon and load up the people that are waiting. They may do only one trip around the campground or they may do 5 trips. It just depends on how many folks want to go on the ride. Paul Cassini, the owner, always rides on the back of the last wagon and tells stories while his girl friend drives the tractor. we haven't taken the ride ourselevs yet, but we will. But here are some pictures that I took as the hayride went by on the road in front of the employee area.

I've been chastised again. A good friend emailed me and commented, in a very nice way, that I haven't posted much lately. How could I argue? It's true. It's been almost a week since my last post - WHICH NOBODY EVEN COMMENTED ON! Come on guys. I thought I'd at least get a few "That's great for Steve", or "He seems like such a nice guy", or some other noncommital platitude. But no, not even a "Who the hell is Steve Stricker?"

I'm crushed.

I've finally been working on grounds crew for the last 3 days. It's been a real pleasure. The thing I like the most about it is that I get to talk with the guests a lot more. I really enjoy meeting new folks and talking about what we're doing and why they came here, and how much do they enjoy camping/traveling kind of stuff. What's amazing is that even in these tough economic times, I'm guessing that at least 50% of the people I talk with are planning on going full time RV'ng after they retire. Most of them do admit, however, that their retirement might be a bit further away than they had planned.

There was a big shake-up at the campground today - we think. The manager's daughter (Caitlin) was hired to "manage" the store. Since we've been here, we've become aware that about she does is sit behind the counter and surf the web. I've actually seen her sit there while there were 5 or 6 customners waiting to check out with only one other clerk helping them, and she didn't lift a finger to help.

Over the last week, she's been calling in sick quite regularly, and when she did come in, she'd tell everybody how she was so ill that she could barely get out of bed. Of course, unbeknownst to her, she was spotted driving and clubbing around town with her boyfriend the previous evening by one of the other workers.

So I guess her Dad had finally gotten fed up today. He wasn't feeling particularly well himself today, but he still worked when he had to. Caitlin had come in, but every 10 minutes or so she'd call him on the radio wanting him to let her go home because she felt so poorly. Apprently he finally came over to the store (this was after the day crew was off), called her into the back room, and a few minutes she came out crying as the night crew heard him say "If you can't work because you're sick, then you're done. Get out of here". Now it could mean that he just sent home until she feels better. But everyone here is hoping that it IS permanent. I guess we'll find out tomorrow.

My favorite professional golfer, Steve Stricker, won the Crowne Plaza Invitational golf tournament today. Steve is from Edgerton, Wisconsin, which is only a few miles from Janesville. Jenny even did some work for Steve's parents a few years back.

We've always followed his career, and although he's not as recognizable as Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, or many of the other big name golfers, he's had a very successful career.

If you're interested, here's a link Steve Stricker to Steve's PGA profile.


Just wanted to say - Way to go Steve!!

Yesterday I'd just clocked in and walked outside to head out into the campground when our mechanic, Rob, pulled up in one of the golf carts. He yelled out to me, "Hey Gar! Look what I've got!" I glanced in the back of the cart and spotted 2 gallons of paint. UGH!

So I painted again yesterday. But it turned out alright, because 1) it was a good color that covered in one coat, and 2) I got the entire cabin painted by the end of the day, including all of the trim.

So now the painting of the new cabins is completely finished because there are no more cabins. There is talk that maybe we'll be building a security cabin and an "office" cabin, but those decisions haven't been made yet. So unless they want me to paint some older stuff, I should be able to retire the paint brushes and rollers............for now anyway.

Jenny Update - She's been feeling MUCH better over the last couple of days. She still has the occassional pain, but not nearly as often or as severe as it had been. She'll be seeing the doctor next week, but I think by that time there won't be much to discover. We'rte keeping our fingers crossed that it was just a pulled muscle, and is slowly healing itself. Of course, it's helped a lot that she has kept the vigorous activity to a minimum.

It being Friday, we were expecting about 83 reservations coming in today. Jenny was in the gatehouse all by herself again, which she doesn't mind except that the bulding does not have a bathroom. Unbelievably, there are no other reservation people scheduled to work during the day, so she has to be very careful in planning her day, if you get my drift. It isn't too busy before lunch, but after lunch it becomes non stop people coming in, so she couldn't break loose even if she wanted to. But she got through it just fine.

Since we'd run out of paint yesterday, I worked on grounds crew today, which is what I will normally do. And what a nice change it was! I thoroughly enjoyed myself all day. The first thing this morning, I had to inspect all 83 sites before the guests arrived. Inspecting them involves driving the golf cart to each site and checking for litter and trash, making sure the picnic table hadn't gotten legs and walked away, and cleaning out the fire pit if needed. But I wasn't climbing ladders and throwing paint onto the side of a cabin, so it was great! The other fellow on grounds was checking the sites that had people registered to make sure that no new guests arrived in the middle of the night. All the while, one of us (whoever answered the call on the radio first) would go back to the store area to dispense propane or run an errand for the office. By lunch, I had all 83 sites inspected, so after lunch we started some of the routine stuff. We brought down a couple loads of firewood to be sold at the store, we checked on our new cabins only to find that the keys to the deadbolt locks didn't work in 2 of the cabins. We spent a good hour or so trying to find the correct keys so that the cabins could be locked up. And of course, as the afternoon wore on, more guests had arrived, which meant more requests for grills for the top of the fire pits, more propane calls, and more problems to solve for the guests.

So all in all, it was a great day. And I believe that I may just get to do it again tomorrow, because Mike left this afternoon and won't be back until tomorrow, which means he didn't get the paint that we need. Another reprieve! WOOHOO!

One of our favorite things about our lifestyle is the social activities that abound at most parks, or in our present situation...campground. So it was with some level of excitement that yesterday we attended the first pot luck of the season. One of the other workampers coordinated it, and it was to celebrate the fact that we all survived the Memorial Day weekend.

We all got together around 6:30, as some of the crew had to work until 4:30. In fact, there were a few that were working the "night shift", but because Wednesdays are generally slow, they were allowed to attend as long as their radios were turned on. Jenny had even planned far enough ahead that she used the leftover ham from our dinner on Monday night to make scalloped potatoes and ham for the pot luck.

As usual, eveything was very good and there was more than enough to eat. The campground provided the "beverages" and two cakes (one of them was an ice cream cake!). Everybody enjoyed the evening so much, that we all voted to have a pot luck once a month for the rest of the season. It was nice to see that Paul, the owner, and Mike, the manager, were even more excited about having regular pot lucks. According to Paul, the campground used to have pot lucks every Thursday for employees and for long term residents. And based on what he said, the evenings usually got rather wild. Now he doesn't necessarily want to return to that kind of activity, but he did say how much he's been missing them. So we should have some eveings ahead of us.

Quick work update - Jenny and I are finally officially members of the team now. She was scheduled to man, oops - sorry! She was scheduled to MANAGE the reservation gatehouse by herself starting today. Up until today, there's always been another reservations person with her. And I was given my own set of keys to everything in the park. I finally ran out of paint today with one cabin left to paint. So unless Mike picked up more paint tonight, I'll probably finally work in the campground tomorrow. That would be good, as there are only 2 of us scheduled for a Friday with 83 reservations due in. If I end up doing something else, the other guy, Walt, is going to be VERY busy.


( Pot Luck Pics )

We've seen a lot of different things in our travels, especially in California. But we were very surprised to find, right here in the middle of the Sonoma wine country, to find a few Llamas on a farm.

I'm posting this for my daughter Lori, who is completely enamored with Llamas.

So Lori - enjoy!

( Grazing Llamas )