Sunday, December 2, 2012

RAIN, WIND, RAIN!

WOW!!  What a Storm we had last night!  Harsh Winds and Downpours of Rain!  It was SO Loud on the rooftop of our 5er... there was no sleeping.  For the most part, I love rain on the roof... but that's when it is Rain DROPS not Rain BUCKETS.  Now we have beautiful blue sky... the Calm after the Storm.

We had our first game night in the clubhouse on Friday night.  We didnt have alot of people show up, there were only 7 of us, but it was a fun time of Right-Left-Center... and after a meal of home cooked Stew that Ann made for all of us.


Our 2 days a week work suits us just fine... for now anyway.  There are alot of areas to explore and play within a short distance of here, so we look forward to some more of those day or overnight trips.
Even with the stormy weather we had for all of our 5 days off this week, we haven't felt bored.

I decorated the wheelhouse for Christmas.

 We looked several places for a tabletop Christmas tree, but all the table top trees around here would hit our roof if we put it on a table.  So I settled for a Poinsetta. 

We had a much better selection of Christmas trees in Southern California and in Texas.




We both enjoy our work. 
Jeff gets a lot of variety, and has no trouble staying busy...



For me... not so much variety, really. 

(except for the variety of people I encounter... it takes all kinds!)










Now that we have some blue sky above... we are on our way out the door for a walk!

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Thanksgiving Holiday Getaway

We hadn't spent a holiday with family for a few years, so we thought this was a good opportunity to do that, since we are parked just 150 miles away this year. 

Thanksgiving at Mom and Dads...

Jonathon was able to join us, but we missed having Jacob with us.  He had intention of coming, but it just didnt happen.





After dinner, and before Pie, we went to one of my Cousins homee to see everyone.  Unfortunately, I didnt think to get the camera out once inside.  But Cousin Glen and Lesa were on their way out when we arrived, so we did manage to get a picture with Glen and Lesa, before they took off.



As usual, we enjoyed some game playing while we were there.  Skip-bo is usually the choice.

We helped out with a few things too. 
                    We hung Christmas lights...

We rearranged the storage area of the garage...     so we could store my bike.                                                                How nice of Mom and Dad to share their garage.
Now we are back at our Redding California home for a few more months. 
Its a beautiful day!  Brilliant Sunshine and 70 degrees! 
 So we will take our bicycles to the trails at the Sundial Bridge.
 
Happy Holidays, everyone!

Monday, November 19, 2012

Two Month Update!

Really?... Two Months since my last update?
That is almost shameful!

So where do I start?  at 2 months ago?  or do I start at now?
what have we been doing the past 2 months??

At my last post, we were getting ready to leave Jasper Point at Prineville Reservoir, in Central Oregon.  But I was playing "catch-up" at that point... so I didnt even say anything about our stay at Jasper Point.  So its settled.  I will start there!
It was a short stay... only 9 days.  But we enjoyed all of our 9 days. 

We enjoyed our job... of doing our North Shore Patrol, and campground duties of selling firewood and Ice. 

We also enjoyed some fun family time.

Jake came out on his birthday, and we celebrated with grilled T-bone steaks, and Chocolate Birthday Cake!










The grandaughters came with parents and friends to celebrate Journey's 10th birthday!










Jeff got suckered, by a mob of 9 and 10 year old girls, into some late night Harley rides.  The little girl gang were all friends that Journey brought for her birthday weekend.

BTW... That's MY bike they got the rides on.







After our short stint at Prineville, we moved to Valley of the Rogue SP in Rogue River, Oregon for 10 days. 

While there we celebrated another birthday.  This one was my Dad's 85th.

Happy 85th Birthday, Dad!





On September 20th, we moved our wheel house to an RV Park in Redding, California, where we were scheduled to take on an assistant manager position for 6 months.
We settled into a site... but not without some difficulty.  We wanted a back-in site, but the pull-thru sites in front of the back-in sites were full, so we didnt have enough room to maneuver.  Actually, Jeff can get into anywhere... and he did... but we werent happy with how we were positioned.  So Jeff moved us into a pull-thru site for the night, then we had a fresh new day to get it all figured out the next day.

We took 3 back-in sites.  Our 5er is in the middle one, then we have a table and motorcycles on one side, and our truck on the other side.

 Our first 3 weeks here... we worked our 2 days a week, then made the 180 mile trek back to Grants Pass, to work on our house. 

Our tenants had moved out, and we had some cleaning and projects to do. 


We stayed at the house on our king-size air mattress, enjoyed our hot tub, and it even got cool enough to enjoy a fire in the wood stove.

We cleaned and repaired and painted... for 3 weeks.  Then we found new renters! 
So the projects had to stop... and we turned the house over, once again.



Before we left Southern Oregon, at the end of our third week, the timing was right for us to share in another birthday celebration... this one was for my Mom! 









Happy 83rd Birthday,
Mom!
  










Once finished with the trips back to Oregon, we were free to relax and play on our 5 days off.  We decided to take advantage of the still good weather, and take a Harley trip to Reno, Nevada.


Along the way, we had a surprise encounter...

It was strange... I had told Jeff that I needed to pee.  He thought there was a rest area coming up.  We turned a corner, and I saw a motorhome. 

My immediate thought was how convenient it is to pull over with an RV.  Then as we began to pass, it looked familiar.  A motorhome, a pickup with a golf cart in the back... "Hey!  thats... thats... Dale... Dale and Sally!"

We did a quick u-turn and had a reunion!  How fun is wheel-life!  You never know where you will meet up with traveling friends!

Our Reno trip was a fun get-away.  The most enjoyable day was a mountain road ride and tour of Virginia City.


We took a route home that took us through Carson City, which we
didn't see much of... 

but we saw alot of hwy 395 back to Reno, when we got stuck in traffic for at least 1/2 hour. 

We sat there for a bit, and chatted with a guy in the car next to us.  But when the guy said, "if I were on a motorcycle, I would ride up the side"... we said, "well, back up a little, and we will do just that".  We rode up the side as far as we could... until construction did away with any side to the highway.

So we stopped again. 

We chatted with other wandering drivers.

We made some phone calls... and  we waited...

Back "Home"...

When we left for our Reno getaway, the other park hosts (or
managers) were having issues with the owners (and everyone else) and they were saying that they were quitting.  A big reason for our leaving for a few days was to get away from their constant drama. 



When we arrived back to our Redding RV Park home, we were curious to see what had changed with their decision to quit.  We were taken back a bit by the "welcome" we got.  What we were told was that they had worked things out with the owners, but now the problem was with us.  We let them know that we couldnt work with them and we would be leaving.  But after some conversation with the owners, the decision was to let the other hosts/managers go, and keep us. 

We were relieved by their decision.  Even though this would mean that we would need to work 7 days a week until they found someone else... it was worth it, to not have to find somewhere else to go at last notice.

So... for 3 weeks, we worked 7 days a week.  But they have hired a couple that we met in Southern California early this year.  So now we are back to our 2 days a week.  We really enjoyed the work, and now that Winter is upon us in Northern California...

We may just wish we were working more days. 

     Hopefully we find  something to do!  




We leave tomorrow morning for a trip to Southern Oregon to have Thanksgiving with family. 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
 
 


Monday, September 10, 2012

Good-Bye Smith Rock


NEWS ALERT: I am a Slacker! Not only has it been 2 months since I last posted... This blog post was started 9 days ago!


September 2nd

Yesterday... After 10 weeks at Smith Rock SP, our time was up... we had to relinquish our post as Park Hosts.  The September host had come in the night before, and he was just waiting for us to move out!  So we did... we moved 35 miles to Jasper Point campground at Prineville Reservoir SP.  This is the place we were at last September and October, and didn't want to leave.  We have resumed our post here as Host/North Shore Patrol... BUT only for 12 days! 

We have accepted a "job" offer at an RV Park in Redding, Calif.  We had been looking for some place to go for the Winter months, and at the time of this offer, we had 4 other offers as well.  But because of distance (only 150 miles from my parents and our house... and only 350 from where we are now) the price of fuel, and the present uncertainty of America as we have known it, we think this is the smartest move for us right now.  Besides... we get Wi-fi and Cable TV (we let our DirectTV go) AND they pay us!  We could use some extra income right now.

It's been so long since I have posted to our blog... I'd better share a little about our time there.
Here are some of the highlights:

On the day of my last post... we had a surprise visit from a blog follower.  Lori, with Luci, live nearby in Redmond.  It's always fun to meet fellow bloggers.  Unfortunately, she was leaving town for a couple months, so we were unable to plan another get-together.
 
We enjoyed a few get-togethers with fellow hosts.
This was our July group of hosts...
Sally and Dale (left) Barry & Joyce (right) 
 
We Painted...
 
 
We Stained...
 
We even got some help from Jake (Jeff's son) to finish it up.
 
We walked the trails....
 
We hiked the trail at Steelhead Falls one day...
 
We picked up grandaughter, Raven, on the motorcycles and went for a ride, and then to lunch...
 
 
 
Friend, Ginny, rode her Harley up from Grants Pass to spend a few days with us.  So one afternoon we checked out a few of the area's 11 brewery's.
 
We enjoyed several get-together's with family...
 
 
Grandaughter, Journey, stayed with us a few days. What a joy she is!

She forced us to make faces for the picture...

Cousin Chuck with girlfriend Christine, road their sporty bikes over for a visit...
and we all met Sister Bonnie for lunch.


We even got Dizzy for a couple days again...

Finally in August, one host couple came in with Dogs! Until then, nobody had dogs. So I was happy to meet Charlie and Bandit. We had some fun times with Al and Sandy too.

Madras had its annual Airshow (before this,we didnt even know they had an airport!)
so we made it a family event with Raven and Jake.

It was definitely a small town Airshow... this may have been the highlight!

We had one last Harrah with Hosts, Al & Sandy and Fred.
Fred's friend, Phil, was visiting from N.C. and Scott, the park manager, joined us.

I'm sure I could find more to say and show of our time at Smith Rock, but it has taken me 9 days to do this much!! NOW we are getting ready to leave Jasper Point!

Thanks for checking in... whoever you are!
 One of our blog followers even sent us an email yesterday to check on us...
It's nice to know someone out there is remembering us... Thanks Dwayne!
 


Sunday, July 8, 2012

Smith Rock SP

Lovin' our time here at Smith Rock...

Taking in the smells and scenes along the roads of Central Oregon from the seat of a motorcycle.




A visit to Painted Hills... not Painted Canyon or Painted Rocks, both to which we've been, but... Painted Hills.


A stop at the Crooked River Canyon. 
 (this is the same river canyon that is out our back door... just several miles down stream.)


A surprise visit to a dear friend from a long time ago...


Cove Palisades SP is just 20 miles from Smith Rock SP, and hosting there is Dave and Heather with Pug, Dizzy.  If you followed our blog when we hosted at Carl Washburne SP last Summer, you may remember Dave and Heather... but you should definitely remember DIZZY!  We doggy-sat Dizzy on several occasions while there.  And I was in need of a DIZZY fix!  So we made an unplanned visit to their site and found them home.  It was great to see them again and Dizzy remembered us!



But we don't have to go anywhere to enjoy each day. 

Back at "home"... we enjoy the wildlife


We watch Rock Climbers from our back yard




We shared in a birthday get-together with our neighbor hosts...
Dale celebrated his 76th birthday last week.


 Our job isnt even that bad...

That's not all... but it must be all for now.  Time for bed!

Take Care all of you!