One of the things we hope to accomplish while we are on this adventure is to find a place where we would like to finally retire and spend the rest of our lives. We got into a discussion in the office about that subject yesterday - remember, there are lots of discussions during the day in the office. The people that make up our staff are from all over the country so we get different perspectives from each of them. The couple that is from Massachusetts/Minnesota are going to look hard at Oregon. The couple from California is looking hard at staying in California. Of course, they own a home that is in a small town called Trona, which is in the desert near Death Valley. We are still looking and, so far, just think that it would be nice to have a split retirement. As of now, we would favor summers in the Northwest somewhere, and the winters in the Phoenix area. We may not have the option though of splitting our retirement, depending on our health. California is rapidly going down the proverbial toilet as it continues to struggle with providing services as a result of this economy, so we feel that is out for us. Hopefully, we still have a lot of discovering to do before we need to make that decision.
Along those lines, we have been looking at future job opportunities both for summer and winter locations. There are so many opportunities available for summers that it is difficult to decide where to go. Originally, we had planned to stay here through the summer, but we are rethinking that as we continue to see just about everything there is to see in this area. The problem again is for the winter season as most of the campgrounds close in the cooler climates and it makes for more people looking in a smaller, warmer area for the jobs. We'll keep everybody posted on those developments.
Today begins our 3 day play period - yeah! The sun is out - again - and we will try to go somewhere that we can enjoy the sunshine. Later...
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Just Another Day
It has been a typical, dead week here at the park. It is really a good thing that the owners don't need to fill the park in order to pay the staff. Once again, there are only about 3 short term customers here that have checked in over the last two days and will stay for only a couple days. We had four staffers in the office most of the day yesterday, doing very little outside of having conversation among themselves. I will say though, that it is suppose to get very busy once the season begins in April/May and will last through the summer. There are more staff members scheduled to arrive in April, so we don't know how or where they will fit in.
We have seen the deer family each of the last two days. They come and go and really like the area around our rig. I'm waiting to see some horns though, as they all appear to be "does" at this point. Deer will generally spend their entire lives in about a 4 square mile area so these deer should always be safe from hunting pressure which explains why they aren't so skittish around humans. They very rarely run off when people are around although we have seen them run when one of the golf carts gets close. Of course, the golf carts are all gas powered and make a very loud noise. The nearest "legal" hunting area is many miles from here.
Today is our final work day for this stretch in the schedule and then we have 3 days off. Hopefully, we can go to some interesting places. Until tomorrow...
We have seen the deer family each of the last two days. They come and go and really like the area around our rig. I'm waiting to see some horns though, as they all appear to be "does" at this point. Deer will generally spend their entire lives in about a 4 square mile area so these deer should always be safe from hunting pressure which explains why they aren't so skittish around humans. They very rarely run off when people are around although we have seen them run when one of the golf carts gets close. Of course, the golf carts are all gas powered and make a very loud noise. The nearest "legal" hunting area is many miles from here.
Today is our final work day for this stretch in the schedule and then we have 3 days off. Hopefully, we can go to some interesting places. Until tomorrow...
Friday, March 5, 2010
Drying Out
It's nice to see the sun again. The rain stopped yesterday morning and we have actually had sunshine. We did get a dusting of snow but it was gone by mid morning yesterday. The other thing that is very different about the weather here is that we don't get much wind at all. Compared to the Coachella Valley in the Palm Springs area, we hardly get any. The most wind we've had since we've been here was one gust on February 4th that was 19 MPH. Since then, the highest gusts have been in single digits except for a couple of days where we reached 10 or 11. It's nice to be able to keep the awnings out.
It was a quiet day at work yesterday. The owners, Bill and Pat, are gone for the week. They went to the L.A. area to visit their daughter and that makes for an even more quiet time at the office. We have 2 more work days and then we can play again for another 3 days. Because it is so quiet in the office, it allows us more time to talk to the other staffers about neat places to go and things to do on our days off. We are getting closer to the time when we can go to Yosemite. If it would just stop raining (snowing in the higher elevations) we could plan a nice trip there. The same goes with Tahoe. Those places aren't so far away that we couldn't do them in a day's trip when the weather cooperates.
That's about it for today...
It was a quiet day at work yesterday. The owners, Bill and Pat, are gone for the week. They went to the L.A. area to visit their daughter and that makes for an even more quiet time at the office. We have 2 more work days and then we can play again for another 3 days. Because it is so quiet in the office, it allows us more time to talk to the other staffers about neat places to go and things to do on our days off. We are getting closer to the time when we can go to Yosemite. If it would just stop raining (snowing in the higher elevations) we could plan a nice trip there. The same goes with Tahoe. Those places aren't so far away that we couldn't do them in a day's trip when the weather cooperates.
That's about it for today...
Thursday, March 4, 2010
And Now Some Snow
It rained off and on most of the day yesterday (.76" total) but at about 4 PM we looked out and saw this:
They were the largest snowflakes we've ever seen. They were all at least 2" and were coming down like we were going to get totally covered in a very short time. Fortunately, the already wet ground was absorbing most of them when they hit the ground. Our temperature was at 34 degrees at that time and it only went down to 33 all night. That's still cold, but we only got a dusting of snow on the ground and with the sun out today (so far), it will probably all be gone by the end of the day. Already for March we have recorded precipitation in 3 out 4 of the days. Enough, already!
We are not excited about going back to work today. We start at 9 AM so that means we close tonight at 6 PM. At least we only have 3 days before we get more time off. Yesterday was one of the few days that we spent at home for the entire day. Josie reorganized her jewelry box and I spent most of the day watching westerns on the Westerns Channel. It was a nice, relaxing day. We are also about caught up on the shows we missed and copied as a result of the Olympics. We are now beginning to get immersed in the new Idol season, and so far, we're not impressed with too many of the contestants. We're sure a favorite will rise to the occasion though. Later...
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Angels Camp
The day was wet again. There was a total of .53" of rain yesterday and made for a very dreary day. Josie needed some hair stuff so we went into town and stopped at Walmart and we decided to take a trip to Angels Camp, which is a nice town we went through on the way to the Sutter Gold Mine a week or so ago. This is one of the typical California Gold Rush towns that are scattered throughout this area and is another great place to visit. We stopped back at the fifth wheel to pick up the camera, just in case. We couldn't find Josie's small camera after looking everywhere in the fifth wheel, so we concluded that it still must be somewhere in the Jeep. It turns out that it was in the pocket of a jacket she left in the car and it was there the whole time we were at the bottom of the hill yesterday at Italian Bar, when we thought we didn't have one. Sheesh!
We arrived at Angels Camp at about 1 PM and walked around the whole downtown. There are several nice antique stores, restaurants and specialty shops. We stopped at a small cafe, Angels Cafe, and had some lunch - French Dip sandwiches - that was excellent and fairly cheap ($20 total). Of course, it was raining the whole time as you can see from this shot:
We arrived at Angels Camp at about 1 PM and walked around the whole downtown. There are several nice antique stores, restaurants and specialty shops. We stopped at a small cafe, Angels Cafe, and had some lunch - French Dip sandwiches - that was excellent and fairly cheap ($20 total). Of course, it was raining the whole time as you can see from this shot:
There was a movie theater in town (below) and it was showing Avatar, which is a movie we were wanting to see, so what better time than a rainy afternoon to go to a movie.
It was one of the very few theaters near us that was showing this film in its 3D format, so we went. What a great film. Even though it was almost 3 hours long, it didn't seem like it.
All in all, it was a fun day, even with the rain. The clouds are still here this morning, so we aren't sure what plans to make for today. Whatever we do, it will be more fun than going to work...
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Some Follow Up
It was a beautiful day yesterday and even though we wanted to stay home and get some things done, we found a way to get out in the sunshine. Josie did some baking in the AM (brownies), and we decided to go to Safeway in town to get some things and drop off one of Josie's prescriptions at Walmart. On the way home, Josie suggested driving down Italian Bar Rd to where the folks would have gone with their motor home on Saturday. You recall the circus that showed up on Saturday and dropped off a utility trailer and proceeded to go down this long dirt road to camp in order to pan for gold.
Italian Bar Rd is the road our campground is on and it continues for about 5 miles before the pavement ends. It then turns into a dirt road that is another 5 miles long and goes through many switchbacks, down the side of a hill that drops a total of about 1000 feet in that 5 miles. There were potholes all the way down and many tight turns with jagged rocks sticking out and, in some spots, barely enough room to drive while you stare straight down over the cliff. We finally reached the bottom and were totally amazed. There is a campground there, with no hookups of course, and it sits right on this raging river that was probably 30' wide. There were old buildings that were actually standing here during the gold rush days in 1850. We connected with a guy named Gary who is the caretaker and lives there year round. He told us, and a sign verifies it, that there were 3,000 workers here in 1850 and they pulled out a total of $10 million in gold from this river and the surrounding area. Gold was selling for $21 per ounce back then so you can imagine how much gold that represents. Gary indicated that there is still gold taken from here almost every day.
The property is owned by the Lost Dutchman Mining Association (LDMA), and there were small trailers there that were in storage waiting for members to come for the summer season. There were also some tenters there and, you guessed it, the 40' motor home that was in our campground - amazing! Of course, we were totally unprepared for this as we left the camera at home thinking we were only going to the store.
We will definitely return with our camera on another nice day. That is, if I can convince Josie that she will not end up going over the cliff on the way. It was a white knuckle trip for sure. We can't imagine how that motor home made it down and it will be a small miracle if it makes it back up. It will make for some amazing photos.
The day has started out with some light showers today so I guess our nice weather is once again on hold. Until tomorrow...
Italian Bar Rd is the road our campground is on and it continues for about 5 miles before the pavement ends. It then turns into a dirt road that is another 5 miles long and goes through many switchbacks, down the side of a hill that drops a total of about 1000 feet in that 5 miles. There were potholes all the way down and many tight turns with jagged rocks sticking out and, in some spots, barely enough room to drive while you stare straight down over the cliff. We finally reached the bottom and were totally amazed. There is a campground there, with no hookups of course, and it sits right on this raging river that was probably 30' wide. There were old buildings that were actually standing here during the gold rush days in 1850. We connected with a guy named Gary who is the caretaker and lives there year round. He told us, and a sign verifies it, that there were 3,000 workers here in 1850 and they pulled out a total of $10 million in gold from this river and the surrounding area. Gold was selling for $21 per ounce back then so you can imagine how much gold that represents. Gary indicated that there is still gold taken from here almost every day.
The property is owned by the Lost Dutchman Mining Association (LDMA), and there were small trailers there that were in storage waiting for members to come for the summer season. There were also some tenters there and, you guessed it, the 40' motor home that was in our campground - amazing! Of course, we were totally unprepared for this as we left the camera at home thinking we were only going to the store.
We will definitely return with our camera on another nice day. That is, if I can convince Josie that she will not end up going over the cliff on the way. It was a white knuckle trip for sure. We can't imagine how that motor home made it down and it will be a small miracle if it makes it back up. It will make for some amazing photos.
The day has started out with some light showers today so I guess our nice weather is once again on hold. Until tomorrow...
Monday, March 1, 2010
Busy Ending to Week
Sundays are usually very slow days, even when there are lots of campers around because everybody leaves to go home. Not so yesterday. We had the permanent people coming in to pay their rent for March and then there was the "gold digging" family. It started with two fellas coming in to ask about long term rates. At first they said they just had a motor home and a trailer. They left and came back later. When they showed up again, they had a motor home, utility trailer that was 30' long, a pickup truck with camper, wives, about ten kids and three dogs. As soon as they arrived in the park the kids all got out of their vehicles, along with the dogs, and they were all running around the campground while the men tried to decide what to do. Thankfully, they decided to just leave the utility trailer in our storage and go to the spot where they are going to pan for gold and set up camp there. Whew! The worst part of the whole scene is that there is no way the motor home will be able to get back to where they plan to go. You need a 4-wheel drive vehicle to get to that spot. Oh, Well. They never came back yesterday.
The sun is out this morning for the second consecutive day. There are some things we need to get down around the fifth wheel this morning so any plan to go somewhere will be delayed a little bit. It just feels good to sit around and relax for awhile. Josie also has some baking she wants to do so we may just spend the first day off at home. We'll see. The schedule is set up so we are off 3 days, work 3 days and have another 3 days off until we get to the next 5 day stretch of work. It works out to 8 days working every 2 week pay period.
TV will be a little different now with the Olympics being over. We have copied all the regular shows we normally watch so we will catch up on watching those. Enjoy your day everybody...
The sun is out this morning for the second consecutive day. There are some things we need to get down around the fifth wheel this morning so any plan to go somewhere will be delayed a little bit. It just feels good to sit around and relax for awhile. Josie also has some baking she wants to do so we may just spend the first day off at home. We'll see. The schedule is set up so we are off 3 days, work 3 days and have another 3 days off until we get to the next 5 day stretch of work. It works out to 8 days working every 2 week pay period.
TV will be a little different now with the Olympics being over. We have copied all the regular shows we normally watch so we will catch up on watching those. Enjoy your day everybody...
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