Wrapping Up First Week

Our schedule yesterday was the end of the first week for us. The hours were 3 PM to 8 PM last night and we met the last of the workers with whom we will be working the rest of the summer. Everybody is very nice and we don't see any problems with any of our co-workers that will be on our schedule. We are getting better at handling the customers and are just about ready for the busy period which will begin next week.

We now have 2 days to do some fun things that we've been waiting to do. The weather is finally cooperating and we should get some nice shots of areas we haven't seen, plus some shots of Yellowstone which we will visit tomorrow. Today's trip is to Idaho Falls which is the closest town with all the shopping outlets, including Sam's Club. It is suppose to be a beautiful drive there and is a place that is new to us, so we'll give it a try. The trips to Yellowstone will include travel through the Grand Tetons and we will be entering from the south instead of the east entrance where we entered from Cody 2 years ago.

There isn't much else to mention today except for our planned trips, so we'll make this a short entry until tomorrow...

Split Work Day

As scheduled, we worked yesterday from 9 AM until 11 AM, and then again from 3 until 5 PM. That gave us a chance to get experience doing check-outs and check-ins, along with the normal reservations. We both are getting the hang of the system now and can already see an increase in the customers. We are only a week or so away from the first big event of the summer season - a classic car rally - which is expected to give us our first sell out of the year. We had better know the system by then.

Our paperwork was also completed yesterday so it looks like we are officially on board. The folks that we replaced have been coming here for 4 years, which again, is a good example of the satisfaction that people get from working here year after year. They didn't come back this year as a result of surgery that the wife had earlier this year. Otherwise, we wouldn't have been offered this opportunity. So far, we are happy that we received the offer and are looking forward to the summer months.

Today is the last day of our first work week. We will work one block of time between 3 PM and 8 PM and have Thursday and Friday off before beginning our full schedule on Saturday. It appears that the weather will improve enough for us to schedule our first trip to Yellowstone on our days off. That is something we have looked forward to since we left Cody in 2010. We're off and running with our new opportunity and don't miss anything about Vista, CA - especially the long hours, intense sales pressure and ecalls in the middle of the night...

New Job Begins

We were on time at 8 AM yesterday for our first day of training at the Virginian Lodge. Judy Peters, Manager, spent the entire 4 hours with us up to noon showing us how things were done. It seems like a very simple system to learn and we feel that with a few real reservations, check-ins and check-outs, we should be ready to go. It is a much more relaxed work environment than most places we've worked and that probably explains why most of these workers are returning every year. There will be some very busy times but we've been in those situations before. We are excited about the next 4 months.

Following our short work day, we decided to take advantage of some clearing weather in the afternoon. We drove through the town of Teton Village just south of the National Park to take a short drive through the southern portion of Grand Teton National Park. I whipped out my Seniors National Parks pass and we were in the Park for the first time since our short stay in 2010. There was lots of new snow on the mountains all around us:

More clouds rolled in so our shots of the Tetons were limited. With 4 more months to go, we're sure to get some excellent, clear pictures of these majestic mountains. We stopped at the new Craig Thomas Discovery and Visitor Center that was on this southern loop road that we took through the small town of Moose. Among all of the other nice features within this Visitor Center, was a display of the Grand Tetons National Park:

It shows the dramatic mountain range of the Tetons and the Jackson Hole Valley between the Tetons and the mountains in Bridger Tetons National Forest to the East. The town of Jackson is at the corner of the display in the left center of the picture above.

It was a short introduction to many trips we will be taking through the Park in the next several months. Along with Yellowstone, just north of the Tetons, we expect to have some great photos of our time in this area, which is our favorite location of all that we've traveled to so far.

Our work day today will be split into (2) two hour segments. The first will be from 9 to 11 AM, and the second from 3 to 5 PM. Judy changed the schedule in order to give us some experience with both check-outs and check-ins today. The full schedule begins on Saturday of this week, following one more training day tomorrow and our regular 2 days off on Thursday and Friday...

Time to Clear Up

When I mentioned yesterday that it was snowing outside and very cold, it remained that way most of the morning. The high for the day yesterday was only 42 degrees with a low in the AM of 34. This is what it looked like outside our window at around noon:

It changed to rain around mid-day, and was probably the coolest and wettest of all the days we've been here so far. It was definitely a good day to watch TV. Fortunately, the Indy 500 was on and made for a nice TV day.

The elevation here is just over 6200 feet, so any precipitation this time of year will almost always include snow. We spoke with one of the locals at the festivities downtown the day before yesterday, and she said it gets down to minus 30 degrees sometimes in the winter. This is a popular destination year round as people flock here for the winter sports and most businesses stay open the entire year. You can't touch a nice cabin anywhere in this town for less than $1 million. Even the small homes on the local side streets go for $600K and up. There is no poor economy in this town. It is interesting to see the different people at the grocery store when we shop. There are the usual worker types and then there are the rich wives that wear $100+ jeans and diamond rings and jewelry that rival Liz Taylor's collection. It is also a destination town for many stars during the year. It certainly is a unique place by all standards.

Our first day on the job is today and, even though it is only a 4 hour day for us - 8 AM until noon - we are ready to begin. It promises to be another stellar summer experience from what we've seen so far. The clouds are parting and the forecast seems to be accurate. By the time we get some free days again, it will be warm and sunny.

Happy Memorial Day everybody...

Festive Weekend

The sun came out yesterday morning and it made us feel like getting out. Especially since we've had so much overcast and wet weather, it was a nice break. I started by picking up a lawnmower at the RV maintenance area and cutting the grass at our campsite:

That took all of about 10 minutes. We are responsible for caring for our own spaces which is only the second time we've had to do that since we started workamping. The only other time was at Greys Point Camp in Topping, VA. It's really no big deal except they use a ride-on mower to cut the grass at all the non-employee spaces and it wouldn't take a lot of extra effort to do a few more.

Anyway, we thought we would venture into town for some of the Memorial Day Weekend events and activities. It warmed up nicely as we arrived in town and saw that many more people had the same idea:

The planned activities included a parade - which we missed - and lots of entertainment on the street by those tents you see above:

It was a huge crowd and we stayed in that area to watch a couple Marching Teams. The shot below is of one of those teams and it was announced that these ladies in the group represented a total of 250 great grandchildren:

We walked around town and really enjoyed going into the neat shops, galleries and stores that Jackson Hole is famous for. We stopped for lunch at a place called D.O.G. and had very good Philly steak sandwiches before doing some more of the town. The clouds were rolling in and it was getting cool once again, so we went back to the car and headed out. On the way out we drove past the Elk Refuge on the edge of town to get this shot of the clouds and snow covered mountains:

We had thunder and lightening and the heavy rains came. It is just about at the end of the wet season here - from what we were told, and there will be very little rain the rest of the summer. There are planned activities in town the whole summer and we plan to enjoy as much of that as possible while we are here.

Today is our final day of relaxation before starting work tomorrow at 8 AM. It is snowing right now, but the weather is going to improve each day until we are off again on Thursday and Friday. We are anxious to get back to the Grand Teton National Park and to Yellowstone, so those days look like the first real opportunity for that...

More Cold and Rain

It appears that our traveling schedule had us arriving here just in time. It has been wet and cold since we arrived. Yesterday was probably the worse so far as it rained almost the whole day. Coupled with temperatures in the low 50's, it was just a good day to stay home and do nothing. Except for a short trip to the store to get some food and a stop at the Lodge front desk, that's what we did.

The other couple - Fields and Maggie - were on duty at the front desk and we chatted a while about the computer system and about the Lodge layout. There are 171 rooms here and we talked about the different room configurations. It doesn't sound too bad but it will take some time to learn the different rooms and their locations.

We also spoke with Judy, the Manager, and she gave us the catalog to select our uniform shirts for the summer. She will order 3 shirts for each of us - any color or style we want - and anything else we want we can order separately at our own expense. We will order a sweatshirt and a vest with the Lodge logo as extra clothing to get us through the cool days. She also has us scheduled to work on Monday from 8 AM till noon for training. The first week will be short days as we will be learning the ropes and preparing for the crowds that will be arriving in early June.

It's still cool - 41 - this morning and overcast, with just some occasional rain. The weather has given us a chance to complete some long overdue repairs in the fifth wheel - like re-stringing shades and fixing small water leaks. We did set up the grill last night between rain drops and had a steak and corn on the cob which we haven't had in what seems like ages. We are just waiting for the nice weather to arrive so we can take in the Tetons and get back to Yellowstone. In the meantime, we are enjoying the free time, no matter what the weather is like...

Winter in Late May

It has gone down to 32 degrees on each of the last 2 mornings. There have also been off and on showers with lots of snow in the mountains. We went out to explore some of the area and we could see where the mountains have had more than just a dusting of new snow:

Then, as we were returning home, we passed an area where we saw cars pulling off the side of the road just like they do in Yellowstone when there is wildlife to be seen. Sure enough, we saw our first animals since we arrived - moose:

This is one big reason why we love this area in northwestern Wyoming. We never know when we will spot animals and there are so many different kinds that can be spotted anywhere you go.

We spent most of the afternoon just trying to keep warm in our fifth wheel - high of 48 - and we took this shot out our window of our picnic table during the afternoon "snow" showers:

Even though it didn't last long, it is still snow on May 24. The elevation here is 6237 feet, so we can expect some of this right into June. The forecast is more of the same for the next few days, so our free time before starting work on Monday will all be in less than perfect weather. Of course, it is expected to begin to warm up and remain sunny beginning Monday.

There is so much to see and do here that we aren't concerned about just a few bad weather days. We have the whole summer ahead of us to enjoy everything that this area has to offer. It's nice to be back in this area and even nicer to be starting a new job where we feel comfortable and have regular, realistic hours...

Jackson Hole, WY

It was a smooth travel day - for a change. We traveled 188 miles of 2 lane mountain roads from Logan, UT to Jackson Hole, WY. It was a beautiful drive of not much else but mountains and green pastures. Here is a picture of the typical scenery we had all day:

Even with the mountain passes and twisting, winding road, we averaged over 8 MPG which I thought was pretty good. I guess our new tires, lighter load and slower speeds all contributed. There were several small, western towns that we went through, similar to this one - Afton, WY:

The skies were threatening all day and we did go through a few sprinkles, but nothing heavy. The forecast was for rain, but we just avoided the bad weather. It was very chilly - 51 degrees when we arrived at Jackson Hole at 1:30 PM, and there was snow forecast in the mountains.

We stopped in the Lodge to introduce ourselves and to get directions to the camp site. We met Judy Peters, Manager, and Mike the General Manager. I didn't catch his last name, but they are both nice folks. They directed us to our site in the RV Park which is directly behind the Lodge. This is a shot of our site that we will occupy for the next 4 months:

It will take a little time to completely settle in, but we like the campground:

and it is convenient to work. This shot is the view of the rear of the lodge and you can see the location where we have to park the truck (on the left):

We will start work on Monday, the 28th when we are scheduled for just a couple hours to learn the system. The real crowds don't begin to arrive until June, according to Judy. We met a couple that we will be working with - Maggie and Phil Fields. They are from Florida and have been coming here for the last 10 years to work the summers. We met some more workers and they all have been returning for years. That says a lot about this place when the workers all return year after year to work. Phil gave us some really good info on Jackson Hole but we have until Monday to explore on our own. There are lots of fun things to do: chair lift to the mountain top, horseback riding, white water rafting, hiking, the Tetons just up the road, and, of course, Yellowstone - plus lots of nice restaurants and fun activities in town.

There are a few small things to do yet to complete our set up here, but for the most part, the next few days will be spent checking out the town and exploring all the new areas. We are back in our comfort zone...

Travel to Logan Via Draper

When you have 2 incidents like we have had the previous 3 days with our tire blowouts, you begin to anticipate another one. We limped from Beaver, UT to Draper, UT - a total of about 175 miles. We only went 50 MPH the whole way and even though it took us almost 4 hours, we averaged over 11 MPG which is a new record for gas mileage. We made it into Draper and stopped at the Doubletree Dealership there and wasted our time. We never heard of an RV dealership that sold name brand RV's not performing any tire or wheel work in their service department. Anyway, they sent us over to the Les Schwab Tire store about a mile away. Draper is a very nice town outside of Salt Lake City and I snapped this shot on the street between the dealership and Les Schwab:

I had made phone calls to both the dealership and Les Schwab the night before, but it was my understanding that they would deliver the tires to the dealership, not knowing they had no capability to do the work. Anyway, we had 4 new tires put on the fifth wheel and $1200 later we headed out for Logan, UT. We are using the new, mismatched tire that we bought in Cedar City as the spare.

It was only about 75 miles to Logan and we arrived at Traveland at 4:15 PM. It is a nice site as you can see below:

We decided to take a short drive through this college town (Utah State is located here) to see the sights. It is another beautiful part of Utah and we came across the Logan Temple of the Mormon Church and it was a building that could be seen from all over town, sitting on top of a hill:

It was a beautiful drive most of the way, and it is too bad that we had the tire problems along the way. We have concluded, with agreement from the tire expert at Les Schwab, that the problem was a result of old tires. He suggested that RV tires be replaced every 3-4 years, and ours were 4 1/2 years old. At any rate, we are equipped with brand new tires and can crank it up again on the highways.

Our drive today will be 188 miles. We hope to arrive early this afternoon to allow some time for set-up in our site where we will be for the next 4 months. It should be another beautiful drive through some nice country again today...

On a Bad Streak

It was close to our scheduled departure time of 9 AM when we finally left Las Vegas. The trip up I-15 was a fairly easy drive and we even enjoyed the beautiful mountains through the section of I-15 in the far northwest corner of AZ:

Yes, that's the view of the rear of the fifth wheel that Josie enjoys while we travel.

It was going smoothly until we reached the town of Cedar City in Utah. That's when it happened - again! Boom! Another tire exploded and I caught the tread flying everywhere in my side view mirror. This time it was the rear tire on the opposite side from the first one:

Here we are now, without a spare. We once again called AAA and they promptly sent out a truck. Unfortunately, there were no matching tires anywhere in Cedar City after calling all the tire stores in town. We found a close match at one of the stores, so we drove the Jeep to the store, while the AAA mechanic stayed in his truck, and we purchased a tire to put on the wheel of the blown tire from Saturday. We returned to the site on I-15 where the rig was sitting, and the mechanic did the replacement:

It's just a good thing that the tire was on the curb side as this area on the freeway was under construction and there was no room on the highway side as a result of construction barrels and heavy traffic.

It is now a mystery why all of a sudden our tires are starting to go. Forget the theory that the first one was a result of weakened tread as a result of the previous repair. There was nothing wrong with the tire that blew yesterday. The only thing we can figure is that the tires are 4 1/2 years old and are beginning to break down from age. That means we have to replace the other tires before they also blow. We have a place identified just outside of Salt Lake that we are planning to stop on the way to Logan, UT today, which is our final destination. We hope we can get the tire situation corrected as this is not fun. It also is not cheap!

We have a fairly decent site here at Camperland in Beaver, UT:

but we are not planning to stay long enough to enjoy the campground or anything else. We are preoccupied with the tire problems and hope we can find a place - somewhere, anywhere - that carries RV tires. It is unbelievable that even the RV dealers don't carry these kind of tires. The damage to our rig from these blowouts is yet another story and we don't look forward to having those problems fixed down the road. As mentioned yesterday, our problem free travel days over the last 4 years have come come to a screeching halt. We're thankful that we are OK and that we don't schedule long distances to travel each day...

Tire Search and Enjoying Down Time

We started early yesterday trying to locate a replacement tire for our fifth wheel. I didn't realize there were so many choices for that particular size and we went to 3 or 4 tire locations, including Camping World, to find the same tire. All of the places we went had a tire the same size, but wasn't a matching Goodyear with the same tread. So, after spending all morning looking unsuccessfully for the right replacement, we decided to wait until we reach the Salt Lake City area where there is another Doubletree Dealer and they can match the tire precisely. It makes us a little nervous traveling today and some part of tomorrow without a spare, but it really boiled down to doing the right thing by waiting for an exact replacement.

The afternoon was spent lounging by the pool and this Resort has a pool area that ranks right up there with the good hotels in Vegas:

and this final shot that shows the pool and a huge condominium complex behind it:

Of course, that's Josie taking it all in on the right. We heard that the condominium building was mostly empty, which was obvious to us as we noticed there weren't any people outside on those balconies. They lowered prices to rock bottom in order to fill them, but the economy here just doesn't support even the low pricing, whatever that is.

There is no way we could ever come to Vegas without taking in a casino. We always had some success at Circus Circus, so we went there at around 5 PM. The place has changed alot, including their usually loose slot machines. We guessed that the economy has caused them to "tweak" the slots to the point where the payouts have been reduced. We didn't play very long before our stake dried up. We took advantage of all the points we had accumulated over the years on our Circus Circus Club Card and had a free buffet dinner with some of those points. Who knows when we will get back here to play again. It was back home again by 9 PM.

Our plan is to leave here no later than 9 AM and head to Beaver, UT where we will spend the night tonight. It is a very simple campground but it provides a good stop after traveling 230 miles today, which is about what we like to do in one day. We should get there in the afternoon around 2 or 3 PM, so here's hoping we get there without any problems...

Eventful Trip to Vegas

We were anxious to hit the road again so we got started around 8:30 yesterday. The trip went fine - traveling through Riverside and on past Victorville on I-15. Suddenly, about 15 miles south of Barstow on I-15, I heard a loud "pop", almost like an explosion, and sure enough, a tire blew. In 4 years of traveling we have never had a problem on the road before this, so I guess we were due. The tire that blew was the same tire that went flat in Happy Trails in AZ in January while we were there during our training class for Holiday Retirement. The tread must have been weakened by that repair back then and the whole tire just gave out:

There was some damage done by the tread as it fell off the tire. The trim piece on the wheel well was broken and there are dents and tread marks on the whole rear of the lower panel on the fifth wheel. There was also a trace of hydraulic fluid, as you can see, where the tread hit the landing gear and caused a small leak in the line. It could have been worse.

The problems we had with the Good Sam Road Service back in January for the repair of this tire resulted in our switching to AAA service. We always had AAA but when we hit the road they didn't offer RV coverage and they have since added it. We were glad we made the change back to AAA. They sent out a great mechanic and within a half hour in this remote location on the desert highway. He Maneuvered the spare out from under the coach chassis and had the spare tire on in no time:

Actually, it took a while to get the spare out from underneath the fifth wheel as it seemed that it had to be released from inside the rig. We moved our sofa out from the rear wall and started to take up the carpet to get to a release point and discovered that there was plywood on the floor that would cover any spare tire access. We stopped that effort, placed the sofa back in its place and the mechanic cut away the holding clamp to release the spare - after I signed a waiver of damages to the spare tire holding device. It amazed all of us that there weren't any instructions in all of the fifth wheel documentation about releasing the spare tire. Oh, well.

We were on our way again after a delay of about 1 1/2 hours - not too bad from start to finish. It was good fortune that this happened on a wide stretch of the highway and there was plenty of room to perform the work.

Our delay cost us some valuable exploring time as we arrived at our site at 3:30 PM in Vegas. It is a great campground, just off Exit 33 of I-15 which makes for an easy-off and easy-on for our trip. We decided to stay an extra night here and just enjoy the Resort. Also, I researched a replacement tire for our spare and the best deal is at the local Walmart, just down the road. I will have that task completed this morning.

Our site is great:

and the extra day will be welcomed...

End of Time in Menifee

Everything is in its proper place now for the trip north. The last of our packing and organizing of the fifth wheel was done yesterday. I took the car to the car wash for a thorough cleaning and also the truck. It is the first time in the last 3 years that the back seat of the truck has been in its normal down position. I have been carrying boxes of files and other "junk" there ever since we left AZ in 2009. The fifth wheel and truck are at their lightest weight since we started our journey. Maybe it will improve the gas mileage.

There wasn't much of anything else done yesterday as we are getting back into the mode of not rushing to get things done because we have to head back to work. Josie spoke with one of our friends at Arcadia Place yesterday and she gave us some interesting, and shocking, news. The Regional Director, Randy, has been removed from his job. We don't think our leaving had anything to do with it but he has been under fire for some time over his handling of the sales in our region. It could just be a coincidence that he is now gone, two days after our departure. Of course, we resigned, and we don't know the circumstances under which he left.

We hope to get a fairly early start this morning to drive the 252 miles to our stop in Las Vegas tonight. It is the Oasis RV Resort which looks like a neat place to stay - for $28 per night with our (half off) Passport America pass. If we like it, we may extend one more day since we have some time to work with. What a nice feeling again - taking our time to go someplace, and having some relaxing time when we get there...

Extending One More Day

It was early in the morning when we decided to extend our stay here at Wilderness Lakes one more day. I went to the Ranger station and extended to Saturday, and also canceled our storage spot here at the Preserve. We get a refund of $43 for leaving the storage before a full month is up which helps a little for gas.

Our goal yesterday was to sort through all the boxes and stuff we brought to the fifth wheel to determine what we might need for the next 4-5 months. The rest was going back to our local storage unit in Vista. It went smoothly and we decided to take it back to the storage unit late yesterday afternoon. We packed up the truck and headed out to Vista one more time. We drove past Arcadia Place on the way there and back, to really say our final farewells.

Most of what will not be used for the next several months is out of the Fifth wheel, including all of our Christmas decorations. We feel that we will be back to clear out this storage space following our time in Jackson Hole, and have it transported to Surprise, AZ to join our other stored goods. The fifth wheel is probably lighter now than it has been since we started out in 2009. Maybe it will help with gas mileage. We hope so.

Today will be spent just organizing everything that we brought from the apartment that will travel with us. It shouldn't take too much time which will allow us to relax a bit before heading out tomorrow AM. We even talked about going to the pool for awhile today. It is much warmer here than in Vista - 95 vs low 70's. It's just nice to know we don't have to rush back to our marathon jobs at Arcadia Place.

It's another beautiful day and we are planning to take full advantage of it - we will be ready to go tomorrow...

Farewell Arcadia Place

Everything went according to plan yesterday. Actually, we finished ahead of schedule. The truck was picked up at 8 AM and I met the helpers at the U-Haul store at that time. They drove the truck while I followed them back to our apartment. The total loading of the furniture, boxes, etc., was completed by 9:30. It was great having these helpers as we would have taken more than twice the time.

They drove the truck, again with me following, to the storage facility which was only about a mile away. They had everything unloaded and the truck returned by 10:30. The total cost for the helpers was only $90. Well worth the cost. The truck rental was only $42 and we got a $50 credit at the storage facility for using the local U-Haul store. Not bad.

All that was left was for us to pack up the truck and the Jeep with the rest of the stuff that was being brought back to the fifth wheel. We took a break and sat outside our apartment for the last time. These are final shots while sitting on our patio:

We saw a few of the residents while packing up and announced our departure to them. Of course. they were totally surprised and we felt sorry that we couldn't talk to more of them. They will be missed.

We were packed up and out of the community by 2:30. We are now set up at Wilderness Lakes in Menifee and today will be spent putting the fifth wheel back in order for the foreseeable future. The plan is to stay here today and leave tomorrow for Las Vegas for one night, Beaver, UT for one night, Logan, UT for one night, and arriving at The Virginian in Jackson Hole on Monday. We may extend here for one more day which would have us arriving in Jackson on Tuesday. By the way, the town is named Jackson, but lies in the Jackson Hole Valley which is why the names are used interchangeably. Our physical address while there will be Jackson Hole.

We're off and running for our summer in Jackson Hole and are looking forward to spending some quality time with some nice folks in that beautiful part of the country...

Move Out Day Ahead

Once we decided to leave, it was time to pack and set the schedule. We researched truck rental and storage facilities in Vista and decided on the U-Haul down the street and the storage facility, North Melrose Self Storage about a mile away. We went to each and scheduled a vehicle and a space for today. We also called a couple local, private movers, and they are scheduled to meet us at the truck rental location this morning at 8 AM and follow us home to load up the truck. There are a few heavier pieces, so we didn't want to have to move those ourselves. There will be at least 2 men helping and they only charge $15 per hour each for their help.

It was home again and we started packing boxes and getting everything ready. We didn't realize we had moved into this apartment so permanently. When we thought about it, we made several trips to the fifth wheel while it was stored in the local facility here in Vista and brought lots and lots of stuff to the apartment. Plus, we bought some furniture and some extra clothing to wear on the job. It took the whole day to pack everything and get ready.

The apartment now is divided into 2 areas. One for storage stuff and one for trailer stuff. We think we are about ready. We expect the move to the storage area to be completed by mid day. If we can stick to that schedule, we should be able to pack the rest of our things in the 2 vehicles and head out to Menifee this afternoon, where we have reservations for a space for the next 2 nights. We contacted our new employer in Jackson Hole, and she said we could come in any time. She has a few hours of training scheduled for us on Monday, Memorial Day, the 28th, so we would like to arrive sometime around Wednesday or Thursday to give us a few days to acclimate.

I've started to plan the drive to WY. I got as far as the first 2 nights where we will stay in Vegas the first night, and Beaver, UT on the second night. I expect to spend the third night somewhere in northeastern UT or in southwestern WY. We'll know for sure tonight.

We both feel a sense of relief that we are making this change and are only sorry for one thing - we didn't say goodbye to our residents that are the most important thing to us. We have made some very close friendships with some of them and we will probably stay in touch with those to find out what is going on here after we leave. The timeframe between making the decision and getting on the road to WY just didn't allow enough time.

It is the start of another chapter in our lives on the road, and we are looking forward to all the new experiences and getting back to our comfort zone...

Off to Jackson Hole Wyoming

We sat around the apartment all morning yesterday trying to decide what direction to take. It has been taking too long to put together the transfer to Temecula and we were watching in our emails all the bad information about prospects that was being entered into our leads system. While discussing all the negative activity, our long hours working, the tension that is growing among the management team and the direction the company is taking - we decided to follow our hearts and pitch this thing once and for all and go to Jackson, WY. It was a wonderful experience, but we would have caused more physical and, more importantly, more emotional damage to ourselves by staying around.

A target of noon yesterday was set to hear something from our Regional Director on the transfer to Temecula. No news came, so we drafted an email resigning from Holiday Retirement and told him that we planned to vacate the apartment by Saturday, May 19. I placed an ad on Craigslist for the TV we purchased in January that we didn't want to keep in storage. Then, we decided to take a trip to the casino while waiting to hear about our resignation. It was a fruitful trip as Josie won a jackpot that enabled us to play for a few hours and leave with more money than we had when we arrived.

There were several calls about the TV and that was sold by 9 PM last night. Craigslist is amazing. We heard from the RD about our resignation and he was upset. He asked us to vacate the apartment by 5 PM on Thursday. Wow! He went from a totally supportive and accommodating person to a jerk in just one afternoon. Of course, we will comply. Our challenge now is to get it all done by Thursday, instead of Saturday.

We will get a local storage facility to use for our household goods until after we leave WY at the end of September. Our plan now is to swing by here at that time and pick up everything and move it to our storage unit in AZ when we have more time, since our start date in Jackson is Memorial Day, the 28th of this month. We will have everything moved into storage no later than Thursday, and go to Menifee to get everything ready for the trip to Jackson that will begin on Friday the 18th.

The place we will be working in Jackson is the The Virginian, which is a place we stayed while taking a side trip through the Tetons when working in Cody 2 years ago. We will be working the front desk and working only 40 hours per week. We will work 3 days from 7 AM to 3 PM, and 2 days from 3 PM to 11 PM. There will be no ecalls, no 14 hour days in the office and no 92 hour work weeks. The money is pretty good - almost what we made at Happy Jack our first year which allowed us to save some money.

We are sorry we didn't complete our targeted time frame here, but we should get COBRA insurance for Josie which will last until she turns 65 and can get Medicare. We are looking forward to getting back to our wonderful lifestyle on the road...

Relaxed Mother's Day

There wasn't anything planned for Mother's Day except to drive somewhere and have a nice dinner out at a nice restaurant. The problem was that we were so tired, Josie didn't want to go out anywhere, so we spent the whole day around the apartment. The pending change in our job location has taken alot of the desire out of us to go anyplace until everything is finalized. We have the offer to transfer to Temecula, but we are still deciding if we want to stay with the company, or move on to our more relaxed lifestyle.

We haven't totally closed the door yet on the Jackson, WY opportunity which still has our attention. Even though we outwardly rejected it to stay here a month or so ago, we haven't notified them that we weren't coming and we are running out of time to let them know. We kept that job in our hip pocket in case we decided to leave here earlier than planned. Of course, there have been other opportunities available, but that one has the most appeal.

The long hours are wearing on us but we still haven't taken advantage of the health plan yet, even though Josie is now eligible. That, plus making the extra cash, has been the overriding factor so far. If we decide to take the transfer and remain with the company, our targeted date to leave would be the end of August. All of the logic says we should stay, but emotionally we are ready to go. We hope to get closer to a final decision today...

News on The Job Front

Our 2nd long, solo day, was mostly filled with the usual community tasks. We did receive an email from our Regional Director informing us that there were no current openings in any of the 4 Phoenix area communities. He offered to transfer us to the community in Temecula, CA, Chateau at Harveston. This is probably the only community in our region that we would want to transfer to, so we are seriously looking at it. It is only about 10 minutes from Menifee where our trailer is located and would be terrific for our off days. We drove through Temecula a few years ago when we were working at the Blu-In campground in Borrego Springs and always liked the town. We drove by the community a couple weeks ago and posted a photo of the outside of the building which is one of the more beautiful in the Holiday Retirement portfolio. We asked our RD a couple questions - like what is the time frame, our roles there, etc. - and will wait for his response before deciding for sure. The other option we are considering is leaving the company now, but we haven't yet achieved our goals for working here. We'll see what the next step is.

There was an episode with one of our prospective residents though, that has us leaning toward leaving the company. It seems that our Sales Leader sent an airline ticket to a prospect that lives in Renton, WA, to come down and spend a 3 day visit with us to be near her son who lives near here and consider moving here from WA. She arrived late yesterday afternoon and we got her all set up in her guest apartment and she and her son had supper with all of us in the dining room. About 8:15 last night, as we were preparing to leave the office, she called to ask about how her front door lock worked because she wanted to make sure it was locked for the night. Josie told her how it worked, and she was fine. Then, at about 9:15 PM she called again, while we were home, telling Josie that she was having an anxiety attack and didn't want to stay here and that she was calling her son to pick her up and take her to his home for the night. Josie went upstairs to her apartment and sat with her, talking about her concerns, until 11 PM last night. The net of the conversation was that she didn't know how we got her name, she didn't want to be here, and she will never move here away from her friends. Her son arrived and took her away. That's the kind of tactics that the company uses to get people to move here and, frankly, we don't like it and don't believe in it. The company wasted the money on a ticket to fly somebody here that isn't even a qualified prospect. We have a hard decision to make.

We're glad we have the next 2 days off. It's nice to have a Mother's day to celebrate away from a flower shop. We will enjoy the day somehow and have a nice dinner someplace to celebrate.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY !!!

Pins and Needles

We have been sitting on pins and needles waiting to hear from one of the Regional Managers on a possible transfer. I got so anxious yesterday afternoon that I sent another email to our own RD asking if he had any update for us. He answered that we should be patient, that he is working on it. The other problem from our standpoint is that with each day that passes that we get closer to the busy season starting on Memorial weekend, most of the really good workamping jobs will be taken. We have heard from a couple of places that sound really good, but we are in no position right now to entertain a commitment to them. One was on the water at the Fidalgo Bay Resort in Anacortes, WA, where they are looking for Resort Managers. Another was in Mesa, AZ where they are looking for campground Hosts. There is no shortage of opportunities in the workamping world - at present, but this is where the real money is for now.

It was a typical day except for a Memorial Service that was held by one of our departing residents in memory of his wife.

Pat Maloney (on the right, facing the audience), his son and his wife's sister and her son, conducted a celebration of life at 2 PM for Pat's wife Marga who died suddenly a week ago. You may remember that story where she was in the hospital for an internal infection and she died from a fatal reaction to an anesthetic. Pat is going to move today to another community in CO that is closer to the rest of the family. Sad story.

We also had a group entertaining during a happy hour program we had scheduled at 3 PM. Their music "stunk" according to most residents and from what we could hear. Sometimes that happens when we contract with a different group to perform for us. Win some, lose some.

It's the final day for our work week today - yeah! It will be very busy with a couple of special events we have scheduled and a couple tours with new prospects that are scheduled. We just take it one day at a time and look forward to our days off, starting at 7 AM tomorrow...

Solo Time

First of all, we found out who the Regional Director was for the Phoenix area - Phil Snyder. I sent an email to him yesterday afternoon explaining that our RD will be contacting him to discuss the possibility of a transfer there. There has been no response to that email yet, but these people all have their plates full of more important duties so I'm not surprised. We will just have to be patient and try to make it happen. We really don't want any part of LA, so I think we have agreed that if it doesn't work out for a transfer to Phoenix, we will probably leave the company and go back to the more relaxed lifestyle.

The situation here is deteriorating  more each day. The Community Sales Leader, Lydia, was fired while we were off Sunday and Monday and our Maintenance Manager, Gary, gave his 2 week notice while we were away. They were both good people in our eyes and the residents are all upset over those moves. They will be even more upset when they discover we are leaving as they all tell us, regularly, that they like us better than any of the other managers because we care more about them and are more sincere. That will be the main thing we will miss - the friendships we have gained with the residents. The other managers mean nothing to us and that's primarily because they are so much into themselves that they are difficult to get close to. We hope to have some progress made today on our desired transfer.

Our two long days are today and tomorrow and even though we will be solo, we would rather work this way without the other managers around. We had an ecall this morning at 5:45 AM - false alarm - where a resident heard commotion coming from another apartment down the hall. We didn't hear anything, so that ended that call. Knock on wood, we haven't had a real ecall emergency for a couple weeks now.

The last thing to be mentioned was that the COO visit - scheduled for yesterday - was cancelled. We really don't know what was behind that, but it is a good thing. I guess the meeting we had on Tuesday was enough for everybody that visited from the Region and maybe they were the ones that cancelled the visit. We're just glad that we didn't have that circus to deal with...

No Word Yet

We had hoped to know something sometime yesterday on what our Regional Director, Randy, had found out for us about the transfer we requested on Tuesday. He was tied up most of the day preparing for the regional conference call with all of the communities which took place between 2 PM and almost 4 PM. We were disappointed that we didn't hear anything, but not totally surprised.

Josie and I were very uncomfortable working around the other managers yesterday during our overlap hours between 11 AM and our quitting time yesterday which wasn't until almost 4 PM as a result of the long conference call. It was made worse since there was a leak found in the wall between our office and the managers apartment that resulted in plumbers working during the entire conference call repairing the pipes. The noise was unbelievable, not to mention that it made for a total of 8 people in that small office during the call. Our heads are just not into doing our work with all of these distractions. We hope the transfer can be resolved asap.

As mentioned yesterday, we would not be excited about moving to the community in La Mirada, which is near Knotts Berry Farm and Whittier, CA. It is in LA no matter how you look at it, and that is not high on our list of places to live. We're hoping that there will be an opening in one of the 4 Phoenix area communities so that we can stay with the company - unless Randy has a better option within this region.

We go back to work at 11 AM this morning and that starts our long stretch of on-duty hours until Sunday at 7 AM. We will not go to Menifee this weekend as a result of all the activity at work and our need to be ready to get things together if we need to move soon. Our fingers are crossed that it will all work out for the best...

The Straw

We knew that the Regional Team was scheduled in yesterday for a day of meetings in preparation for the big corporate visit on Thursday. One of the main areas of discussion in the meetings was what is called a "Weekly Tracker" where sales activities are mapped out with individual responsibilities for each member of the management team in the community, including operations functions. It is a detailed description of who is assigned to various tasks and indicates to the Regional Team all of the division of responsibilities for handling leads, making calls, responsibilities for operations such as payroll, maintenance, Accounts Payable, Petty Cash, etc. The "Tracker" was prepared by Charlie and was done while we were off on Sunday and Monday. It was a shocker for Josie and I and also the Regional Team to see that we (Josie and I) were not shown as the primary responsible party for tasks that we always perform and performed well. The Regional Team proceeded to dissect the "Tracker" and insert our names where they should have appeared in the beginning. Charlie and Terri were chastised for not preparing the document properly and it actually served the purpose of putting the new couple in their place as they obviously had convinced Charlie and Terri that they were ready to take on more responsibility than they could handle. It was the final straw for Josie and I.

We had been seeing a change in the attitudes of Charlie and Terri since they placed the new couple on their same schedules several weeks ago. The communications between us has been strained which has added to our frustration and pressure. We had decided before the meetings even started that we wanted to chat with Randy, our Regional Director, sometime before he left yesterday. We had the meeting at around 4:30 PM and we requested a transfer to another community. Randy totally understood and said he didn't want to lose us and told us we were an essential part of the community.

The discussion then turned to where we might want to go. He wants to keep us in his Region and suggested a community in La Mirada called The Palms. He said there was a management team there that wants to move south and could be a good situation for both of us. We also talked about transferring to one of the communities in the Phoenix area. We have talked about spending more time in that area to finally clean out our storage and to plan for our long term retirement. We could also have access to our regular Doctors which is important now that Josie has her health insurance. Working for the company there would allow us to accomplish that goal and to continue with the company benefits. We aren't too excited about transferring to a community in the LA area, so Randy is going to talk with the Regional Director that handles AZ.

This will all be sorted out rather quickly, and we expect to hear something today about the next step...

Marching Through May

It was another nice day at Menifee yesterday and we spent the day just about the same way as we did on Sunday. We are establishing a fairly set routine for our days off as far as getting away. We paid for a second month of storage at the Wilderness Lakes Preserve and left a little early to beat the work traffic in the afternoon. If it weren't that I had an appointment this morning with the Audiologist, we would have probably stayed overnight and come home this morning, although we still needed to get some things done around the apartment.

We talked about staying close to home next week as there are still some leftover chores we need to get done. An example is the shredding which still isn't completed and we need to get rid of those boxes asap. Even though we are pretty much convinced we will be staying until at least August, we want to be prepared to move on in the event the plan changes. It's like riding a roller coaster from day to day. There are times when we really enjoy everything about the job, and there are those times that we wish we could just pack up and leave. We seem to be having more of the latter, so that's why we want to be ready.

Today begins a few days of tense moments around the office. This is the week that the COO is scheduled to visit and there will be Regional Managers all over the place for the next couple days to make sure he has a smooth visit. It is another reminder of how the corporate game is played. Once this gig is over, we will put the corporate game away forever. Bring back the nice, friendly, sociable and fun workamping environment...

Local Stuff

The majority of our day was spent doing what we came to do - relax outside and read the newspaper and our books. The only other activity was to go to Sams Club, about 6 miles down the road in Murrieta, to restock our bottled water supply. On the way there, we passed a Souplantation and, of course, we had to stop and have our lunch there. The total was about 3 hours out of our day and we were back to the rig again for the rest of the day.

One of the things we do while away from our jobs is to check on the company emails to keep up on what's happening. We are having a visit next Thursday at our Community by the COO (Chief Operating Officer) of the company. There are a couple Regional Managers and Directors coming in on Tuesday as an advanced party to check everything to make sure the visit is a positive one. So, when we return tomorrow afternoon, we will most likely be involved in whatever tasks are required to be completed so that the visit is a successful one. Maybe the COO just wants to get out of the wet northwest (OR) to visit an area that has nice weather.

There are times that we wonder if we can even make it to our new target timeframe of late August for leaving here. The hours more than anything else are dragging us down. When you add the intense sales pressure on top of that, it makes the weeks seem like months, and the months seem like years. Don't be surprised if someday we announce a new gameplan for the near future...

Our Big Event

The weekend's big event - Cinco de Mayo Fiesta - was held yesterday and it was a huge success. The weather cooperated - high in the low 70's - and the residents had a grand time. It started at 12:30 PM and we took lots of pictures.

The setup was done early with some rented tables and chairs:

 
and the courtyard gazebo was all decorated and ready to go with the food service. Our staff was well prepared to do the dinner service:

That's Mark, Tom, Gorge (our Chef) and Victor. They are a great team and prepare all the meals for the resdients. Our menu was all Mexican with taco's and salads and all the trimmings. The residents that could walk with no problem began forming the food line right on time:

and most of them sat outside to eat:

and some ate inside where we had to get their food and bring inside where we had more tables ready:

Following the meal, we had dancers scheduled to perform for our entertainment and everybody was lined up along the wall outside waiting for the show to start:

and the dancers didn't disappoint:

Following all these activities was the traditional attempt to knock down the pinata and get all the goodies inside:

It was fun watching a large selection of residents attempt to break it open. There were probably 5 or 6 residents that attempted to accomplish the goal, starting with Yolanda, our active 94 year old dyno:

and ending with Fred, one of the strongest residents who knocked it down with just a couple "heavy" swings:

Cheri, our Activity Director and the person responsible for putting the whole event together, emptied the contents onto the floor of the gazebo and everybody dug in:

It was a tremendous success.

Josie and I spent the whole time helping with the food service and making sure everything was done and helping the residents any way we could. The Sales Leader and Charlie were entertaining our special guests that were here to get a taste of the "Holiday Touch" and try to get contracts. None were signed yesterday, but a couple of folks are definite move-ins in the not too distant future.

Our week finally came to a close and we now have 2 full days off. We are preparing to leave for Menifee and go to our fifth wheel for the 2 days which is already set up and waiting. Right now we plan to return early - tomorrow afternoon - to get some things done around the apartment. In addition to that, I have an appointment with the Audiologist on Tuesday morning so I need to be here for that. The off days just don't come soon enough, or last long enough...

Cinco de Mayo Events

The most significant event yesterday was our (Virgin) Margarita Hour that was held at 4 PM. It was the first of 3 events that we have scheduled to celebrate the Cinco de Mayo weekend. We have the big event scheduled today at 12:30 - Cinco de Mayo Festival. There will be a BBQ outside with lots of Mexican food and entertainment. All of these events are designed to bring in prospective residents but always end up being just another event for our residents. We had no new faces yesterday, and as far as we can tell, there have only been about 5 or 6 RSVP's from non-residents that are planning to attend today's event.

The extra hour that we were called in to spend yesterday was pretty much a waste of time, as we thought it would be. First of all, we stood around for much of that hour waiting for Terri and Charlie to get enough free time to explain the presence of the individual that was going to spend 30 days in our community from the home office sales staff. We met with him later in the day and he is a carbon copy of all the other sales managers in the company - go for the throat type sales pressure to get people to sign. He used one example during our conversation of the kind of pressure that should be used: "keep calling them until they return a call. Just because they ignore your calls doesn't mean they aren't interested." Translated, he thinks someone has to threaten to sue you for harassment in order to stop calling. I guess I'm getting too old to believe that high pressure sales beats out relationship building.

Our final day of the work week is today and it isn't any too soon. We are taking care of business and will decide how much longer we want to endure this unpleasant micro-management by the company. If it weren't for the satisfaction we get from helping the residents and watching our relationships build with them, we would have left a long time ago. It appears more and more than our initial goal of a year or two was overly optimistic. We  are now shooting for an end sometime around the end of August which gives us a chance to save some money and leave this pressure while we still have our sanity...

Packed Full Week

Working as "floaters" in other Communities is nice because we get to see how other locations do certain things. The downside is that it is difficult to coordinate the work schedules for the couples that are involved. This week, for example, we are working 6 days as a result of having to fill in at El Cajon for managers that are off on the opposite days managers have off at Arcadia. Our work week runs from Sunday through Saturday and the only full day we have had off this week is Wednesday. Not only that, we will have put in 5 nights of on-duty time for ecalls. It's been a tough week.

We were asked to come in an hour earlier yesterday to talk about an individual that has arrived at our community from the home office in OR to work for a month here at Arcadia. His name is Gary Rossi and he is a Strategic Sales Leader that is here to help out with the sales function. It wasn't worth having us work an extra hour.

There are 2 big events that we have to host these next 2 days. The first one is a Margarita Happy Hour today at 4 PM, and the second is tomorrow at 12:30 PM - a Cinco De Mayo festival where we will have Mexican food and entertainment outside in our courtyard. The beat goes on and there seems to be special activities scheduled for every weekend which is what has to be done to get people in to visit.

There is good news on the benefits front. Our health insurance has kicked in (May 1) and that is a major goal accomplished. Josie has coverage now until she turns 65 with the Blue Cross/Blue Shield coverage plus 18 months of COBRA if and when we leave here. We figured that even if we left now, the COBRA would be enough to cover the health insurance gap until she turns that magical age for Medicare. Of course we would have to pay for that coverage, but it would be a lot less than private insurance. The objective now is to get appointments scheduled with Doctors so she can get new prescriptions and get a good physical exam. We both took the vision and dental insurance which was a no brainer for just a few dollars a month.

It's off to work again for our 5th day this week - one more to go...

Single Day Off

We traveled the almost 50 miles from El Cajon back to Arcadia Place in Vista to swap the Jeep for the truck, changed out a few items, drove the  39 miles to Menifee and we were at the campground and all set up by around 9:30 AM yesterday. Our luck was still with us as far as getting a nice site that backs up to the canal:

and the geese came in right away to look for handouts:

The whole day was cloudy and at times, drizzly. The marine air was blowing in from the Pacific and that's what happens during those times.

We decided to take a short drive late in the afternoon to see the Community that is located close by in Temecula - The Chateau at Harveston:

Temecula has always been one of our favorite towns in this area, and even though we didn't go inside to view this Community, we decided it would be nice to be transferred here someday. It is in a very nice part of town and close to the I-215 Freeway - and only 15 minutes from our campground.

Since we were so close to one of the - Casinos - we decided to take a chance and try the Pechanga Casino one more time. The last, and only time, we were here we had no success at all. It hasn't changed. We went through our small stake quickly and left with the conclusion of never returning to this Casino. The first indication of any Casino as to whether it is a good one or not, is the size of the crowd that plays there. This Casino, neither time we were there, had many people playing.

We had a call from Terri, our manager at Arcadia, asking us to come in an hour earlier today since there was a Regional Sales person there and she wanted to make sure we had a chance to talk with her and Charlie about him before they left today at 3 PM, our scheduled time to start work today. Our departure from here today will probably be around noon so that we have plenty of time to get ready for work. The good news is that our rig can stay on this site the rest of the week until we return again on Sunday morning. It's for sure, we are looking forward to that time...