Training and Hangin Out

Yesterday was kind of an open, do nothing day. I went into the office at 9 AM for about 3 hours of training on the point of sale system and the reservations system. They are pretty straight forward and will be easy to learn. I also helped the staff manager, Harv, move some computer furniture around to arrange a small office area for our Clubs specialist, Joyce. She will have total responsibility for booking and handling RV Clubs that make up a significant amount of the park business.

Josie and I went into town to Safeway to pick up some salad "fixings" for our staff pot luck that is scheduled for this afternoon. The whole staff, consisting of about 15 people, will be there for a "get to know each other" event. A good idea.

In the afternoon, Josie went into the office to be trained on the closing procedures. She spent about 2 hours doing that before coming home for dinner and we watched some TV for a couple hours before bedtime. All in all, it was a ho-hum day...

Settled

As there was some rain forecast for yesterday afternoon, we wanted to get our site dilemma resolved in the morning. I talked to Bill about moving our rig to a site that was tucked back into one of the small alcoves where we had a straight shot over trees for our satellite. He said to get it ready to move and he'll be there. With the tight maneuvering that needs to be done on many of the sites, Bill likes to move them himself with a special truck he owns for just that purpose. He really knows what he's doing. Below is a shot of our site after we got settled in:

Notice the satellite dish already positioned. There is a perfect angle for it and we should be set for the entire time we are here. Josie doesn't want any part of these site moves. It is scary to watch. There are hills and very narrow openings to these staff sites. Josie goes into the office and stays there until the move is completed. Bill likes to put his staff in these sites since they are for long term use.

With the move done, we could finally set up for a long term stay. That means bringing out the knick-knacks and decorative stuff that stays in cabinets while we are mobile. It also means setting up our patio with the carpet and lounge chairs plus setting up the grill.

The working environment and schedule appear to be relaxed here. Josie has spent a couple hours each of the last two days in the office for training and she gets credit for that time worked. There is a new schedule that has been issued for the next two weeks and we don't officially start working until Thursday, although they said we could come in for a couple hours anytime between now and then. We will still have our 3 days off together every week.

There is a pot luck staff dinner scheduled for Sunday afternoon for everybody to get acquainted. Bill is very big on creating a "family" environment and it explains why the staff that he has is very loyal and come back year after year. We are looking forward to the experience...

Delay in Site Decision

We had planned to discuss options with Bill regarding our site situation. As it stands now, we still don't have satellite reception, and the cable system they use is very poor compared to normal standards. The system provides 36 channels, and none of them are crystal clear. Staying in this site without satellite is not an option for us. Bill had to go to Fresno for the day to attend a conference, so we have to wait until today to talk to him about it. In the meantime, I searched the Internet for possible portable dish solutions and decided that, if worse came to worse, we could pick one up that would work for us for around $100. Not too bad. We would then be able to use that dish as an alternate solution anyplace we go where we can't get satellite reception with our roof mounted, automatic dish. We'll see.

Josie went into the office for a couple hours to begin her training with one of the staff members, Joyce. Every place we go has a different system for reservations and different procedures for the retail store and general campground operations. This one doesn't appear to be complicated, at least not yet. Joyce also gave us numbers of (staff) sites to check out that may allow us to use the satellite dish. While walking around checking them we found that there were a couple that would work for us so we need to talk to Bill about switching to one of those.

We took a trip into Sonora to the Satellite TV store when Josie came home to see what ideas they might have for our TV dilemma. They suggested we contact DirecTV and discuss options with them. We also priced the dish that they sold and discovered that eBay's price was much cheaper. No surprise there.

Today will, hopefully, settle that issue and we can finally get set up for the long haul in a site that works for us without any further expense. At any rate, we are enjoying the area and hope to get out to see more before we begin work officially on Monday...

Moaning Cavern Park and New Space

We started the day with another short meeting with Bill. He wanted to make sure everything was going well and said he wanted to move our fifth wheel into the permanent site. He also told us about some more things to see and do in the area. We took him up on one of the local attractions - The Moaning Cavern Park - that was only a few miles from here. I have also linked some reviews for these caverns which is must reading for anybody that is interested in different experiences. We didn't have time to do the tours since we had to get back for our move to a new site, but the attraction is one we will return to. I took some shots though that show a little bit about the caverns. The first one, of course, is the welcome sign:

The second picture is of the hole that you rappel down to get to the main chambers:

There were 5 teenagers getting ready to rappel down the hole, and I caught the first one:

This hole is about 15' deep and takes you to a landing that overlooks the main chamber which is about 400' deep. Not for me. There are also stairs that take you to the same landing. You can read the reviews which are enough to discourage anybody that is as claustrophobic or is afraid of heights like I am. Josie said she would like to do it.

Then there are the Zip Lines, which are outside and another, different kind of scary experience. You take a foot bridge over to a tower (below)

and you get placed into harnesses, given instructions, and sent down the line at a high speed. I was able to catch two people zipping by, and believe me,they were going fast:

There is an automatic braking system at the end, so you don't have to worry about landing at the other end. All in all, a very different experience.

After leaving the Moaning Caverns, we found a neat place at the edge of town to have lunch. It is called Frosty's, and they claim to have the best shakes this side of the state line. Josie and I each had a shake along with a couple of their special sandwiches and they were excellent.

It was then back to the campground where we got moved into our new site. I haven't taken any pictures of it yet because the site is a problem for us. There are some trees in front that block our satellite signal, and after moving the rig around a little on the site, we still had no signal. They have free cable here, but we weren't able to get a digital signal yet using it. We have some major decisions to make about our TV capability. That comes today...

Getting Familiar With The Area

We thought we would be working yesterday, but we just had a meeting. Bill wanted to introduce us to another Workamping couple - Larry and Susan - that also arrived on Monday. He also wanted to discuss the schedule and he needed to introduce the new couple to the park the way he did with us last week when we visited. Larry will be on the maintenance crew, and his specialty is working with the heavy equipment - backhoe in particular. Susan will work on the office staff and has indicated she doesn't want to work many hours since she wants to work on personal projects such as painting and writing. The schedule is as we thought - 4 eight hour days with 3 days off. There is a little tweaking that needs to be done on the schedule but for the most part we are satisfied with it. We will begin working on Monday, February 1st. We will have every Tuesday-Thursday off, starting out at least.

There are many things we need to familiarize ourselves with. We started by driving all over Sonora and the next town, Tuolumne (pronounced too-lom-nee). We made an interesting discovery in Tuolumne - there was a casino. Of course, we had to stop in to check it out. We signed up for the Member's Card and played $10 each on the slots. Not too bad - we played for awhile before the money ran out. The name of the casino is The Black Oak Casino. We then went to the Walmart in Sonora and we can see how they could easily convert it into a Supercenter which is planned this summer. It is huge and was pretty crowded. Josie transferred one of her prescriptions here, so it will be the pharmacy she will use while here.

We also drove around Columbia and stopped at the Columbia College, a very nice two year community college tucked back in the woods. The only other campground in the area is down the road from ours and is called the Marble Quarry Campground. It is not as nice as ours, mainly because of smaller spaces, but they do have a swimming pool which is probably their main attraction. While at this campground, we spotted some deer grazing nearby:

I'm sure we will be seeing lots of "critters" while here. Bill mentioned that there were lots of deer and mountain lions (because of so much deer) and racoons that like to eat the fish that he has in his small pond by the gold panning area.

It was then back home where I grilled a couple steaks for dinner and then to bed around 9:30 after a little TV. We have a few more days of play time before we start work on Monday, so hopefully, we can discover something interesting today. We plan to stay close to home though, since we will probably have to know as much about the local area as possible to inform guests that may want to venture out while they are here. Until tomorrow...

Safe Arrival in Columbia

Our destination was entered into the GPS's before we departed yesterday and we decided to follow the directions that were in Josie's GPS in the Jeep. The truck GPS once again had a different route and it indicated a much later arrival time so we knew that it was taking us out of the way. I will get those maps updated before we head out on a new trip with the truck. The only problem we had was we neglected to put our radios on the charger Sunday night and they ran out of charge about one hour into the trip. I have a small, plug-in inverter in the truck that I used to charge them so we lost only about one hour of use, and then we were fine.

We left at 10 AM and ran into rain about halfway there. It rained harder as we got closer to Columbia until it was a steady downpour when we arrived at 3 PM. They have put us into a temporary site until the rain stops and we will then be moved into our permanent site which is is a little higher in the campground. The rain is forecast again today, with clearing to begin tomorrow.

After we set up our fifth wheel and got the satellite up for our TV, we went to the office to talk to Bill, the owner. We will start working this morning at 9 AM even though we don't have an official schedule yet. Bill wants to get us started by getting familiar with everything so we aren't sure yet how long we will work today. He indicated before that he would probably have us working 4 eight hour days every week with 3 days off. That works fine with us.

We checked out the main grocery store in the area, a Safeway in Sonora. It is a huge and very complete Safeway and it's nice to know it is only a few miles away. We are looking forward to discovering all that the area has to offer...

Travel Day to Tulare

It was 9:30 AM when we finally had everything ready and hit the road for Tulare, CA. I entered the destination in both of the GPS's - the truck and Jeep - and we were on our way. One thing we didn't count on was that the routes calculated by the two GPS's would be different. Our travel plan is always that Josie follows in the Jeep and we stay in contact with our little Midland portable radios. We came up on the exit that would take us to Bakersfield the back way that we went last week and my GPS in the truck had us going straight. Josie got on the radio and asked what we should do. Thinking that my GPS had another cool way to get to Bakersfield, we followed the directions on mine. Not so. Evidently the older maps in my GPS did not have the route that was calculated by Josie's newer GPS so we ended up going through L.A. and over the Grapevine! Josie was beside herself thinking that she would have to drive through snow on the Grapevine. I'm sure it was a longer trip going that way but it was too late when we realized what had happened. We stopped at the rest area at Gorman on top of the Grapevine and got these two shots:

This second shot shows the snow that was on top, but not on the highway:

The snow was not a problem so Josie relaxed. The rest of the trip was uneventful and we arrived at our campground, Sun and Fun, in Tulare around 3 PM. The park is OK but not an "It" factor campground. Our space is shown below:

We will leave around 10 AM this morning which should get us to Columbia sometime around 3 PM. We will probably use the GPS that is in Josie's Jeep so that we don't get caught taking a longer route to our destination. Hopefully, we'll be all set up in our new location by tomorrow morning...

Gassed Up and Ready To Go

The main thing we wanted to accomplish yesterday was to fill up both vehicles for our trip. The cost of gas here is the same for diesel as it is for regular unleaded - $2.95 per gallon. We did the truck first. When I fill up the truck it costs over $100 so that's one reason we don't drive it much unless we are towing the fifth wheel. Also, we have a problem with our hitch on the truck that I wanted to try and get fixed. I went to 5 different locations trying to find somebody that could help with no success. Weekends are never the time to try to look for help with service problems. Anyway, we can still use the hitch (good thing!) but it takes longer to hitch up and un-hitch.


We took the Jeep out to dinner at Olive Garden and filled it up on the way back. The only thing left for us to do is to organized the inside for travel and pack the chairs and outdoor carpet away in the basement. Our plan is to be on the road by 9 AM this morning which will get us to our destination of Tulare at around 2:30 - 3 PM. We also informed Bill, the owner of the 49er Ranch, that our schedule would get us there Monday afternoon. He is returning from a family trip to Nebraska today so everything will be ready for us to start work soon after we arrive.


We took one last shot of the snow covered mountains here before we leave:



It should be a beautiful drive today. We will try to get some pictures along the way and will do the entry tomorrow AM from Tulare - we hope...

Clearing Up, Finally

After five days of rain (4.08" total), we are finally in a clear weather pattern. It looks like everybody in the Southwest, including Arizona, got pounded pretty good from these storms. The news had pictures of Flagstaff with all the snow it got so we are certain that Happy Jack is buried. We'll contact Chi Chi and Jamie and have them send us some pictures of their snow.

The rain lingered yesterday but we still went to Walmart again to pick up some more stuff that we needed for our new location. Other than that, we stayed home and hung out. Below is a shot that we took out our back window this morning that shows the snow - and how low it is - in the mountains surrounding us:

We definitely have canceled our trip to the golf tournament today. The rain has created a scheduling nightmare for the remaining rounds, and we think that perhaps some of the celebrities have left already. Also, the course is probably still very wet from the rains. It looks like we will leave Monday morning and stay in Tulare, CA for the night and arrive in Columbia on Tuesday. It makes for a leisurely trip up there. Fortunately, we don't have to go over any high passes on the trip. Going up Rt 99 has eliminated the Grapevine which was the real concern for us - we've seen pictures of lots of snow from these storms. We'll enjoy the sunshine here for another couple days while getting ready to head north. Later...

Record Rains

This area (Coachella Valley) now has a new rainfall record. It has rained a total of 3.88" through yesterday with 1.46" coming yesterday. Not only that, but we never got above 49 degrees the whole day. We also hear that there is record snowfall for this time of year in the mountains. The golf tournament (Bob Hope Classic) had to suspend play yesterday as a result of the heavy rain and will extend the tournament through Monday. That probably means that we won't go on Saturday since we wanted to see all the golfers and celebrities on the same day on the same course which only happens for the next to last round. That also means we would have to go on Sunday which probably will be our departure day.

Josie did her "girl" stuff yesterday morning and we went to Costco after that and stocked up on paper products. It was raining so hard that we had to take a couple detours because of flooding and the visibility was also very poor. The good part about going when we did though was that the rains kept a lot of people home and it wasn't crowded at all. There is a little more rain forecast today as the last of the storm(s) moves through. Believe it or not, there is another storm front due in by Tuesday. We hope to be gone by then.

It was nice for both of us to sleep in a little today. It will probably be a laid back, quiet day except for a trip we need to make to Walmart to pick up prescriptions for Josie. Until tomorrow...

Rain Keeps Coming

After not having any rain at all for the first 17 days in January, we've had 2.12" through yesterday. Already today, we are at .35" and today is suppose to be the wettest of the last 4 days. It's very unusual for so many storms to be coming through here at one time. In between storms, we have some pretty strong winds. The highest gust that we recorded yesterday was only 16 MPH, but our weather station is a little shielded by neighboring RV's so it's not a true reading of the wind. There is also lots of snow in the mountains.

It's difficult doing any maintenance as a result of the rain. There are complaints from people in the low areas of the park about the flooding in their sites. There is nothing that can be done about that since there is no place to drain the water. This is just a freak, stormy period, and they are the unfortunate ones to be in the low sites. There will be more of the same today, so I'm not sure how long I'll be working. Josie has already finished her schedule for the week.

The free time today will be used to begin preparation for our trip north. Josie will do her normal "girl" stuff this morning - nails, pedicure, hair, etc. We need to go to Costco to stock up on some non food items like trash bags and paper products. We're not sure at this point when we will see another Costco. There is a Walmart in Sonora that is being upgraded to a super store so that will probably be our best bet for those kinds of purchases while up north.

The timing for the rain is also bad for the golf tournament that started this week -The Bob Hope Classic. We have planned to go on Saturday, but may stay home if the rain continues. The forecast for Saturday is nice so we are hoping to go. That's about it for now...

Nasty Weather

It was one of those nasty, raw days yesterday where the temperature never got above 56 and the second storm came through dropping another .51 " of rain. We both worked our normal schedule except I got off a little early as a result of the nasty weather. To make it worse, the winds picked up and made it a total "stay inside" day.

Today is Josie's last day in the office and my next to last day cleaning the pool and doing other "light" maintenance. Most of my time is spent at the mini golf course trying to remove the remaining glue from the previous carpet that was torn up.

We're trying to figure out where we will stay on our first night on the way to Columbia. We can split the trip in half by staying somewhere between Bakersfield and Fresno, like maybe Tulare, CA, on Rt 99 where there is a decent campground. There is a Thousand Trails campground near Sacramento, but that is too far to go and it is somewhat out of the way. The total trip is around 450 miles and pulling the trailer would take us a lot longer than we took in the Jeep. We decided when we started this adventure that we would try to keep the trips pulling the trailer to around 300 miles or less per day. That always allows us to check into a place early enough in the afternoon to relax a little and to leave in the mornings without getting up in the middle of the night in order to reach a destination. What's the rush anyway?

More of the same kind of nasty weather is expected again today, so we will just dress warm and try to stay dry. Later...

And The Rains Came

Josie went over to the office in the morning to advise Kathi, the park manager, about our plans to leave next week. She was disappointed but understood. We still plan to work our scheduled days this week so that she has some time to either get replacements or reschedule the existing staff to cover our time. We weren't working that many hours, so she should not have a problem.

We went to the Verizon Wireless store in Rancho Mirage to take Josie's phone in for repair. Her phone has been a problem since she got the replacement phone a couple months ago. For some reason, it doesn't want to charge a battery. Verizon keeps replacing the batteries - this is the third one - saying that the batteries are just bad. We'll see.

It was about 3 PM when the rain started coming down and it rained buckets. We ended the day with .85" of rain and except for a brief dry period this morning, we expect the rain to continue. Along with the rain, we have cool temperatures. The high yesterday was only 63, and it looks like more cool weather the next two days. The forecast is for rain through Thursday, so my outside park maintenance work will most likely be affected.

The rain came at a bad time locally. The Bob Hope Golf Classic began yesterday and I heard where they will have the tournament rain or shine - except if there is any lightening, of course. We are going to try and go to the Saturday round and watch the celebrities play with the Pros. When we spent a lot of time here in the '80's, we went to these tournaments all the time. Of course, Bob Hope was alive then as were many celebrities that are no longer here. It will be very different this time. Regardless, it's always a fun day. More tomorrow...

We Beat The Storm

It's probably a good thing we left Columbia when we did as we could see the forecasted storm beginning to come in from the west. We left at 9 AM and arrived home at 4 PM. All the way down we could see the clouds on the mountains, dumping more snow. We hit a little bit of rain just as we approached San Bernardino, but that was it. The forecast is for the rain to arrive here this morning. After not having any rain at all since we arrived in this area, we are suppose to get rain all week.

The excitement is building for our new jobs but we have some things to take care of before we can leave. The target date for leaving here is January 25, depending on how things go. The Western Horizons Park will know today, as will the flower shop in Palm Springs. We just don't know yet what, if any, additional time would be needed to close out these commitments. We anticipate working our normal schedule this week while the park finds replacements.

The history and diversity of the area is unbelievable. As an example, the movie makers recognized the area as a valuable and convenient source of diverse locations. Some of the movies and TV shows filmed in the area are: High Noon (the house where Gary Cooper & Grace Kelly were married), Little House on the Prairie, Bonanza, Highway to Heaven, The Red Pony, The Great Race, The Big Valley, Rawhide, Unforgiven, and Back to the Future III. There is so much to see and do that we are looking forward to the (hopefully) extended time we will spend there.

That's about it for now...

Hooked After Long Day

Our day started with another meeting with Bill, the owner of the 49er Ranch. He answered more questions and described other advantages for us to become long term Workampers here at the park. People were coming in and out during the meeting, all with testimonials for the park.

I took some pictures of the park during a short break and have them posted below.

Starting with the entrance:

Then the office which also shows the trailer that we stayed in while here:

The next shot shows the back part of the park which contains terraced spaces for RV's:

Bill told us about the campfires that he conducts during the summer months when he tells stories and people sit around and cook marshmallows and sing. This is the campfire area:

Next is the area where people, mostly the kids that visit, come to pan for gold:

The last one is of an actual covered wagon (with a newer cover, of course) that was used by settlers in 1852 when the park first offered space to people traveling through looking for gold and is the reason it is the oldest RV park in California:

Bill told us about several places we should see before we left and we decided to go to the town of Murphys and visit the Ironstone Winery that is there. The town is only about 7 miles away and we crossed a bridge on the way that passes over a "leg" on Melones Lake, which is one of the huge lakes in the area:

We arrived at the town of Murphys and it's a good thing we had the GPS guiding us to the winery as we went directly to it after going down a couple country roads. Aside from being one of the top wineries in the area (there are several), there is a museum and jewelry display/store containing historical mining memorabilia. But the real attraction is a 44 pound gold nugget (The Kautz Nugget) that was discovered about 9 miles from the winery in 1992 and is the largest crystallized single gold nugget in the world - it has been appraised at $3.5 million:

After leaving the winery we drove through the business section of Murphys and were amazed at how similar it is to Julian, CA. A shot of the downtown follows:

We will definitely return to this town and visit the shops. The town of Sonora, CA is also a quaint town and I have a shot (below) of the downtown:

Overall, it was a wonderful day of visiting some local sights and pleasant discussions with Bill. We have decided after running the numbers that this would be a wonderful place for us to spend an extended period of time. We informed Bill that we accept his offer and will make arrangements to arrive back here as soon as possible. We have to now inform the folks at Western Horizon of our new plans and Josie has to inform the owner of the Palm Springs Florist that she will not be available to work during the Valentine's week. That is the only disappointment for us, but it works out better for us financially to begin our jobs here as soon as we can. More about that on another day.

The weather forecast is for a big storm to move in today, so we decided to head out early to try and beat the storm instead of staying over another day. Bill is also excited for us to come back so we feel we are on another good track for our life's adventure...

Travel Day to Columbia, CA

It was 6:30 AM when we left our rig yesterday. I keyed in the address of the park on the GPS and it said we should arrive at our destination at 2:20 PM. As we headed out, we thought that we would hit the rush hour traffic in LA as we went through on I-10 and I-210 to get to I-5. Surprise! We realized that the GPS had set a different route when we headed north past the I-210 exit and went toward Victorville on the way to Bakersfield. We thought the good news would be that we would miss the traffic through LA and miss the Grapevine, but we would have to go the whole way on Route 99 through all the small towns along the way to Modesto before turning off. It turns out it was good news all around. I haven't been on Route 99 for about thirty years and, boy has it changed - we never hit a traffic light the whole way. We were so surprised that we could do 70+ MPH through Bakersfield - and the whole way north - that we rejoiced that we were on this 4-6 lane super highway. We stopped a couple times for gas and potty breaks and we arrived at the park at 2:22 PM. We were able to make up the lost time from those stops by being able to go 70-75 MPH the whole way.

The last town we went through before Columbia was Sonora and we were pleasantly surprised at how nice this little town is. It is the town adjacent to Columbia and has the stores, including a Walmart and Bank of America, that we would be using regularly. Also, this is very close to the town of Strawberry where the back packers from our old church used to rendezvous after their backpacking trips years ago.

As soon as we arrived at the park, Bill Meissner, the owner, met us and took us on a tour of the park and told us about all the history surrounding the park. It is a fascinating place, to say the least. We sat and chatted about the jobs for quite awhile and he offered us the jobs for Workamping for at least the next 6 months. The package we discussed is not quite what we had hoped for, but is very close. We will use today to decide what we will do. I also expect to have some pictures by the end of the day. They have put us up in one of their rental trailers and like most other rentals in RV parks, it is old, but not bad. It is totally equiped with everything we need.

We heard the weather forecast which indicated that rain was coming for Sunday and Monday, so we may cut the trip short and head home on Sunday. This morning we will be meeting with Bill again to go over responsibilities and learn some things about how the park operates. We then have free time to explore the area for the rest of the day. It will be a difficult decision for us since we also have an offer for Workamping this summer in WA on the Hood Canal. That package is close to this one, which makes the decision even more difficult. We are happy that there are choices out there...

Late Post For Day After Birthday

This is actually the post from this morning that I didn't complete as a result of our planned trip to Columbia, CA.

My birthday turned out to be more of an average day than a special day. Of course, I had to work in the morning from 7 AM till noon. Josie was supposed to do the laundry while I was working but she got busy doing other things and didn't get the laundry done. I don't believe I mentioned previously that the manager at our park has been trying to move us from the site we were in to one that had metered electric so we could be accurately charged for our electric use. She had one ready for us to relocate to as soon as possible. We did the move after work and after a short trip to town to pick up a prescription for Josie. All of that took us till 3 PM and Josie then decided to get the laundry done while I finished hooking up the fifth wheel and setting up in the new site. Part of the material we had to take with us on our trip was a printout of some orientation procedures. As luck would have it, the relocation to our new site messed up my printer network settings and I spent another two hours trying to fix the problem - which I was not able to do. By now, frustration had set in since none of the day was going as planned. By 7 PM we decided to go to a new casino and play a few slots and have dinner. That didn't work too well either. We spent the small amount of money we budgeted for the slots and ended up having a nice, peaceful dinner at McDonald's in the casino and made it home in time to get things ready for our trip and went to bed. Some days are like that I guess.

There should be plenty of time in the AM tomorrow to describe our trip here to Columbia which was a different story. Until then...

Short Work Week

The schedule that we both have for working here is very short. Josie is done for the week after working two days at 7.5 hours each, and I am done today after working three days at 5 hours each. The only problem with that nice schedule is that it only pays for our space - but I guess that's not all bad either. The Palm Springs area at this time of year is very difficult for RVer's. Almost all of the parks are booked solid and if you can find a space anywhere it will cost at least $45 per day or $700 per month. As I said before, this arrangement will do for us while we are here even though we can't grow the bank account.

Josie said the complaints continued yesterday. Most of them were about the WiFi in the park. It is almost impossible to log on to the park network because people are using the bandwidth (available download time) for making calls to family utilizing the Skype software and the built in cameras they have on their computers. It will always be a problem unless the park makes changes to their network package. We will continue to use our Verizon data card and have as much access as we need. So much for the technical stuff.

After cleaning the pool in the morning, I spent the rest of my time working on the mini golf course we have here. The old carpet has been torn up and we are scraping the old glue off the cement to prepare the course for new carpeting. It's physical, but not back breaking.

We have to get our things together today that we are taking on our trip tomorrow. Josie will do laundry while I work today and we will pack our bags for an early departure in the morning. I'm not sure about the blog schedule for this weekend, but I expect to still be able to do the entries every day, but the time of day may vary. That's it for now...

Interesting Work Day

It is amazing to us that there are such huge differences in the parks where we have worked. Not because of the amenities or the park itself, but because of the people. Josie worked in the office all day yesterday, from 8 AM until 4:30 with a half hour out for lunch. I worked from 7 till noon. We have the same schedule today but tomorrow, I am the only one that works. That gives us the required 15 hours (each) total needed to cover our site and other perks. Josie said that the office staff is very nice but the people that came into the office all day had complaints - about their spaces, the fees, the bushes and everything else you can think of. Never have we seen so many people complaining about their situations. My job, of course, shields me from those kinds of complaints. I also work with some nice folks and, so far, the work is a lot more laid back than the last maintenance job. I cleaned the pool in the early morning and then did some site clearing the rest of the time.

Actually, some of the complaints are probably warranted. The Western Horizon corporate office has sent out a notice to all members that that there is a $35 fee tacked on to the annual dues which covers "prepaid fees". But when you check into the parks, you are charged $2 per day for electric, WiFi and cable. Another $2 per day if you have an extra vehicle. The complaints are from people who want to know why they are being charged all these extra fees. Valid question. But really, even with these small fees we feel that it is still better than paying $45 per night to stay anywhere else. Fortunately, we don't have to pay any of these fees as staff members.

We are eager to find out about the 49er park in Columbia, CA this weekend. The owner is obviously anticipating a successful meeting since he sent an email asking us about starting dates. That's a little premature though. Even if everything else is right, we still need to have an acceptable working contract with decent pay. The area sounds great so we'll see. Two more days before we leave...

Unplanned Hike

We decided to take a different way to the post office in Thousand Palms yesterday to see if it would be faster and to see some new areas. We turned onto a connecting road and stumbled onto the Coachella Valley Preserve, which we didn't know existed.






The Preserve straddles the San Andreas Fault in this area and there are palm trees everywhere that grow wild as a result of the underground water that seeps through to the surface along the Fault. There are several trails that you can take through the Preserve so we chose one that was a 2 mile round trip, the McCallum Trail:

Of course, we did the hike without any hiking shoes and did OK. It was a fascinating hike that took us through unbelievable palm tree clusters:

You actually walk along the San Andreas Fault throughout the hike -

until you finally reach the Grove above that contains the McCallum Pond, which is a pond created by this seeping water:

It was also fascinating since it contained tiny fish - pupfish - that are an endangered species and can be found only in this area and a couple tributaries that feed the Salton Sea. They cannot survive with other fish since they are so small and become food for the larger fish.

We plan to make another trip to the Preserve sometime to see more and take one of the trails that would require hiking boots. A side note: there were two earthquakes yesterday in the afternoon near Banning, CA, about 20 miles away, with magnitudes of 3.5 and 4.3. We didn't feel either one.

Today it's back to work. I start at 7 AM and I am meeting the maintenance crew at the pool. Josie starts at 8:30 and will go to the office. We'll report on our first day tomorrow...

Maybe a New Space

Early yesterday morning I went to the office to pick up the WiFi password and to find out about newspapers. We only really care about the Sunday paper since it is full of coupons. Anyway, I was told that our original space was not inadvertently assigned, but the space did not have an electric meter on it. See, we will get a $40 per month credit toward the electric bill while here and we have to pay the difference out of our pay. The problem that we have now is that this nice space we are in also is without a meter so we will have to move to a site that has one. Kathi, the manager, told us what site we would be assigned and we went to look at it on our way out to the store. It is not even close to being as nice as the space we are in so we will talk to her again today about other arrangements. Maybe they could install a meter on our site or forget the $40 electric credit. We'll find out.

We stocked up on some things at Costco and had our lunch there. Another thing we wanted to accomplish while out yesterday was to fill the one propane tank that was empty. We figured that we could fill the tank while in Desert Hot Springs checking out the local Vons grocery store. Wrong. We drove all around the town and never found a station that dispenses propane. Sheesh! There were tanks all over that you could exchange, but that's not what we needed. We finally found one on the way home that is just about a mile from us and they charged $3.59 a gallon for propane. When your the only game in town I guess you can charge anything you want.

Today we will fill out our paperwork for the Workamping jobs. Kathi has indicated that we will be working Tue-Thu for 5 hours each day. This will be a good arrangement for us until we can find something that pays a little better. We will be fine here at least until after Josie completes her commitment to the flower shop during Valentine's week. We are hoping that our weekend trip to the Sierra's will be fruitful...

New Digs

We waited around the campground at Thousand Trails until 1 PM when the mail came and my paycheck was there. Good thing. It would have been difficult to leave there without knowing where it was. It is sent from corporate which is located in Chicago.

Our move to the Western Horizons Park - Desert Pools was uneventful. We were worried that all the palm trees at the Thousand Trails park would make the departure tough. They were not a problem although there was one that came real close to the fifth wheel while rounding a corner to leave. Below is a shot of our new space:

The spaces here are larger and the roads are wider - plus there are no palm trees to dodge. The space we originally had reserved was inadvertently assigned to another guest but we can still move into that space when the guest leaves on the 15th. We may just stay in this space as it is a bit more private and is not bad at all. We are now ready to begin work on Tuesday and will meet with the park manager, Kathy, tomorrow to finalize everything.

We have been exchanging emails and communicating daily with the park that was mentioned in an earlier post, 49er Ranch. This sounds like an exciting place to work and is located in the Sierra Foothills town of Columbia, CA. It is convenient to Lake Tahoe, Yosemite and Sacramento, and has a history that goes back to the California gold rush days. The owner of the place, Bill Meissner, has invited us up to visit for a few days and talk about a Workamping stint for us. We are planning to go there next weekend (Jan 15-18) and will stay in one of his trailers. The whole trip will only cost us the gas and meals, so we are going. Who knows, this could be the big job that we have been looking for that can be a longer term fit for us. We will get a chance to check out the area as well as the park, and meet the existing staff.

Today is a shopping day for groceries and some other chores, such as refilling one of our propane tanks. We have gotten a lot of use out of the first tank, thanks to our electric fireplace. We hardly ever have to use the propane for heating. With the weather warming up now, and the fact that we have to pay for our electricity on this job, means that there will be very little use of the fireplace now. The last thing to report is that we have a clear signal with our satellite, so TV is not a problem here. They also have cable here, but we will stay with the satellite since we get lots more channels - particularly the movie channels. That's it for now...

Pulling Out

Yesterday was a frustrating day for us. We had hoped to receive two checks before we left here so we could save a trip back to the post office and the campground after we leave. The first one, the reimbursement for our water pump warranty work, was mailed on Thursday, instead of Monday as they told us. The second one was the important one - my paycheck - that was not received at the campground yesterday as scheduled. They say that it should come today, but we are leaving today. We will hang on until just after noon before we leave in hopes that it arrives. It probably isn't that big a deal anyway, since we are moving only about 20 miles from here.

Everything else is about ready to go. It doesn't take too long to prepare the inside. It is just a matter of putting things in drawers or cabinets and out of the way. It is always a surprise when we arrive at a new campground and come inside the fifth wheel to begin setting up. Almost always, there is at least one thing we either forgot to put away, or didn't secure well enough and it is lying on the floor. We have been lucky so far - nothing has been broken yet in any of the moves. The closest we came was with my printer which sits on the top of the dresser in the bedroom. We normally sit it on the bed that moves up under the dresser when that slide out is closed. When we moved from our night on the Colorado River to Ocotillo Wells, we forgot to unplug it and place it on the bed. When we got to Ocotillo Wells and opened the slide, it fell down to the floor. All we had to do was unplug it and it would still have ended up on the bed. Fortunately, nothing broke and it works fine.

There isn't much else to write about now, so we'll close this entry for the day and let you know about the move tomorrow...

Final Preparations

The water finally came back on at 1:30 yesterday afternoon. It was off for almost a 24 hour period. We went out to the post office earlier and when we stopped at the Ranger station on the way back in, the Ranger said the water would be on by 3 PM and asked if we needed any drinking water. They were handing out gallon jugs of Arrowhead drinking water to anybody that needed them. It is hard to imagine the inconvenience that this problem caused a lot of folks. Oh, and our new water pump worked like a champ. For those who don't understand the RV functions, when you are connected to water at the site you don't need the pump, but when there is no fresh water connection, you need to use your reserve water that is in the fresh water holding tank. That's when you need the water pump. People that do a lot of boon docking (staying where there are no connections) use the water pump exclusively. It pays to have a large capacity fresh water holding tank for that reason.

We made some of our final preparations for leaving on Saturday. The picnic table cover was cleaned and we also cleaned the grill which was a major task. The grill hasn't been cleaned for quite a while and that is one thing you need to stay on top of. It took over an hour of spraying with an oven cleaner and scrubbing the grease and grime from the thing. I promise to keep up with this chore in the future. We are just about ready to go with the outside stuff done. We didn't accumulate anywhere near the dust and dirt while here that we did in Ocotillo Wells in the "real" desert.

Today we will make a short trip to the bank and also pick up some miscellaneous stuff from the store and begin putting away some inside things for the short trip tomorrow. Vehicles are really packed in tight at this campground so we are getting a little concerned about pulling out of our space tomorrow without hitting a palm tree or another parked vehicle. It will be a real test...

Limping Through Final Days Here

We went to the store to pick up some grocery items yesterday and when we returned at about 11:30 we discovered that the water was off. I know there had been a problem with the water system here while I was working since I helped dig the hole around the main water line out by the road. Well, it seems that the situation has worsened. We still don't have campground water running anywhere in the park. It is a good thing that our water pump was installed and we put some water in the water holding tank when we tested the new pump. There isn't a lot of water there, but probably enough to see us through this. It is most likely a result of the old pipes that run the water system - everything is old. We're sure that there are some people that don't have stored water at all and they must be fuming. Right now, we are looking forward to leaving on Saturday and going to our new gig.

The Workamper Hotline has really heated up since the new year began. There were probably only 1 or 2 jobs per day being announced as available before the end of the year, but now there have been 6-8 jobs every day. One of the new jobs that we responded to was at a campground in the Sierra Foothills of CA centrally located between Yosemite, Sacramento and Lake Tahoe in the small town of Columbia, CA. It is at an elevation of 2100 feet and stays pretty mild year round. We'll keep you posted on what happens with that.

Today will probably be a day of cleaning outdoor stuff. We have a couple lounge chairs, the picnic table cover and the grill that all need to be cleaned before we leave on Saturday. With the weather being so nice, we may even go the pool sometime this afternoon. That's about it for today...

Joshua Tree National Park

We decided that a good trip for us yesterday would be the Joshua Tree National Park. We were right. We arrived at around 11 AM after a 55 mile drive to the West Entrance.

Because of the Golden Age Passport card I have as a senior, it didn't cost us anything to go into the park. We stopped at the visitor center before going through the gate and picked up a map and some other info so we would know where we were going. It didn't take long to see the unusual rock formations and landscape that this park is known for. It actually contains portions of two deserts: the Colorado Desert to the south and east, and the Mojave Desert to the west and north. At this juncture, the differences between the two are very subtle. There are, of course, Joshua trees everywhere. One thing that was fun for us was trying to use our imagination to find images within the unique rock formations, an example is below:

We both thought that the highest rock in this picture (top, center) looked like a teddy bear with a hat on. One thing became evident as we were driving along, and that is that there are lots of wild animals in the park. We spotted a couple coyotes and we got close to this one:

The other thing that became obvious to us was that this whole park is a haven for rock climbers and mountain climbers. There were small campgrounds throughout the park with tents and small campers filled with these climbers that were on vacation or on their days off. One of those areas we passed we were able to get a picture of one of these climbers:

This particular woman - and the male friend that is not in the picture - were climbing this huge rock formation without any ropes or equipment. That takes confidence!

There was an area called "Hidden Valley" in the park which was about a one mile loop trail that starts in a picnic area and winds through this area among massive boulders that were supposedly used as a hideout for cattle rustlers. We didn't take the hike, but we did use the picnic area to eat a lunch that we packed for the trip.

As we traveled along the main road in the park, we came across a side road that took us to a place called "Keys View". This is a lookout point that is at an elevation of nearly 5200 feet and looks out over the valley below. The information on our brochure pointed out the San Andreas Fault in the valley which is the short ridge you see in the middle of the picture that runs all the way across:

The picture above shows the Mount Jacinta Peak (upper right) that is in Palm Springs and we could see the entire valley from here. The picture below is taken in a different direction (southeast) from the same lookout and you can see the Salton Sea:

It was mentioned earlier that these rock formations bring out the imagination in everybody. Below are two pictures that we think are obvious images. The first one looks like a fish coming up for air or food:

This one is officially named "skull rock":

It was a very enjoyable and educational trip. We plan to return at some point to see other parts that we just didn't have time to see, and to take one or more of the hiking trails that are available throughout the park.

The trip home was interrupted by a stop at a familiar place - Cactus Flower Florist. Believe it or not, there was this shop in Yucca Valley with the same name as the one Josie worked for in Phoenix. They were aware of the Phoenix stores, but were in no way associated with them. It was the same as when we had our shop in Redmond, Wa., and there was another shop named Redmond Floral in Redmond, Or. Anyway it was a beautiful and successful shop and Josie had fun talking to the owners about that.

What an ending to a perfect day...

Miscellaneous Stuff

Yesterday was one of those lazy, let's just hang out days. Josie did some organizing of her recipes and I mostly used the day to follow up on emails to people and try to begin organizing for tax time. One of the emails was to Doubletree, our fifth wheel manufacturer, to try to shake loose a check that they owe us for the water pump warranty repairs. They owe us for the first pump (remember, we are on our 3rd ShurFlo water pump) that was replaced way back in early October. They have assured us that the check will be mailed this morning, at the latest. Sure, we know how the check's-in-the-mail game is played. I also wanted to make sure that my paycheck from Thousand Trails doesn't go to our Florida address, so I sent an email to Kate, the manager, to hold it for me to pick up before we leave. It's important for us to make sure we receive these checks as we don't expect to see another until our first checks at the new place - Desert Pools - in Desert Hot Springs.

We did venture out in the afternoon to Bed Bath & Beyond which is about 7 miles from us. We had a couple 20% off coupons and we needed to get some more coffee for our Keurig coffee maker so we accomplished that. Even with the 20% off coupons, I discovered that it is cheaper to get these coffee packs from Amazon.com, since there is no tax applied and no shipping charges and can be ordered in larger quantities. Anyway, Josie also found some Christmas clearance stuff that was 75% off and she got those for next year.

Today may find us taking a short trip someplace where we haven't been before, there are a couple things we thought about, so we'll let you know tomorrow.

Just about every night we get the most beautiful sunsets here and I thought I would end this day's post with a picture of the sunset from last night. Take care...

Let's Try This Again

We visited the Western Horizon park in Desert Hot Springs, Desert Pools, and met with the manager, Kathy, about the 2 openings they have for their staff. We got the jobs.

Here's the deal. Josie will work in the office for 15 hours a week and I will do "LIGHT" maintenance for 15 hours a week. The discussion about maintenance was very detailed and will include pool maintenance, cleaning sites, fixing an occasional leak and NO concrete work, electrical work, building projects, or heavy lifting. Our work days will be Tue-Thu every week which gives us Fri-Mon off every week. We will work 5 hours each of those days. Our site will be paid and we will get a $40 per month credit for electric. Right now, the time frame has us scheduled to arrive on Saturday, January 9, begin working on the 12th, and staying until mid April. We also informed the manager that Josie had a commitment to work at the Palm Springs flower shop during Valentine's week and she indicated that I could work her 15 hours that week to make up for Josie's time. This should cover us until we leave for our summer jobs.

We are happy that we both will be working together again on the same days, for the same hours. I will be nervous about the maintenance job until I know for sure what it involves, but we are almost certain that it is what I was hoping for at Thousand Trails. The fact that it is only for 15 hours a week vs 40 hours makes a huge difference by itself. We also made sure that we selected a site that has a clear satellite view to the south. The sites are much larger than here and we are hoping that the whole experience is an enjoyable one.

Our time between now and Saturday will be spent relaxing in the warm sun and doing what little preparation needs to be done for our departure...

Some Local Trips

As was mentioned yesterday, we wanted to check out the other Western Horizon park that would be closer to downtown Palm Springs. It is located in Desert Hot Springs and is less than 10 miles from the Palm Springs Florist. The park is "ok", but is old like most of the parks in this area. We spoke with the people in the office and found out that there may be a couple openings on their staff. They suggested that we return today and talk to the manager about them. Of course, I am staying far away from any heavy maintenance jobs so it will be interesting. We will find out the details today.

We then went to Walmart so Josie could get one of her prescriptions transferred there and then to Target to look for a tube cake pan that, for some reason, has been hard to find. We took the following shot while driving on I-10 that gives you an idea of the snow that is staying around on top of the mountains around here:

Lots of people take the Tramway to the top of this mountain to let their kids play in the snow. There are also miles of hiking trails up there and a lodge where you can eat, etc. We went there years ago and will probably do it again before we leave this area.

While driving around we stopped at a couple of other resort parks in the Desert Hot Springs area and picked up information on them. There were some really nice places that we inquired about Workamping and they said to send a resume since they do hire seasonal workers. That would be for next year though since they are all fully staffed now. We'll do that just to see if we get a response.

It was back to home and a quiet evening of watching TV before going to bed. It's nice staying up a little later now that I don't have to get up to go to work. We are enjoying the time while it lasts...

Lots of Football

Our day started yesterday with the Rose Parade on TV while having a relaxing breakfast. It still amazes us how people can develop such beautiful floats out of flowers and natural materials, and have them remain on the floats throughout the parade. It is still one of our goals to go to the Rose Parade and also take the tour of the float preparations. Maybe next year.

The football bowls then started and, fortunately, the Penn State game was on first. What an exciting game it was. Penn State was able to pull it out at the end with a field goal to beat LSU 19-17. It was bowl victory number 24 for coach Joe Paterno. Nobody will ever beat that record. The Rose Bowl was another good game but did not have the suspense and dramatic ending as the Penn State game. Ohio State won that over Oregon (26-17). Anyway, the games were fun to watch.

Since we have been eating a lot of (leftover) ham since Christmas, we decided to have something different last night - tacos. They were a welcome change. Unfortunately, we both kind of picked and munched all day, so our diets are postponed for another day. Nobody begins a diet on New Years Day, do they?

It really feels good to know that I don't have to go to work and kill myself today. We don't have anything officially planned, but we may go and explore the other Western Horizon campground that is closer to Palm Springs for our next stay. That would put us closer to the flower shop where Josie is scheduled to work during Valentine's week. We don't need to move until February 1. We're thankful for that. With a lot of free time now, we will plan to explore many other areas and enjoy our stay. What a relief...

Not Such A Surprise to Ending to 2009

The entire day yesterday, at least for me, was spent completing the floor in the Rec Room for the New Year's party last night. Below is a picture of the room as it is ready for the bash:

I had one helper all day who followed me with the wax while I ran the stripper and prepared the floor. It looks like a brand new floor. We also set up all the tables and 124 chairs, and moved all of the furniture to the outside deck and arranged that for extra seating. It was after we finished that job at around 4 PM that I wanted to talk to our resort manager to get clarification on the work schedule. It seems that anybody scheduled to work Friday's was expected to work on New Year's Day. I met with Kate for about 20 minutes and resigned from my job. Surprise? We had a very good discussion about how I misjudged the scope of this job and how she expected a more experienced maintenance person. I related to her that too much of the job involved heavy lifting and very physical work and I anticipated light maintenance, and not the every day back breaking jobs I had been assigned. It was an amicable departure and she said that I would make an excellent Ranger at another park and she would be happy to be a reference for me. The good news is that she signed us in for the whole month of January on our membership, which means we don't have to pay anything to stay here through January.

Now we can get on with what's most important to us - finding something that we both can do at the same location. We will try to get reservations at the Western Horizon park in Palm Springs, at least for the first couple of weeks in February, which will take us through Josie's commitment at the flower shop in Palm Springs for Valentine's day. That gives us about seven weeks to finalize a plan. It is also getting close to a summer job to begin somewhere around the first of April. We'll see.

The year 2009 was a wonderful year for us. We were able to put the problems with the economy and our house behind us and start a new life style that we had been dreaming about for a long time. We learned a lot, made some mistakes, made some great moves, met lots of nice people that we will stay in touch with, had a lot of fun, spent the whole last half of the year working together and are energized to make 2010 an even better year. That's what it is all about...