Visit over

Bill and Lesle left today to go back to Trinidad for most of the summer.  We had a good time together last night.  Lesle and I drove to Wolf Creek Ski Lodge to use their WiFi, but it was intermittent at best, so we drove to the library in South Fork.

Later I made lasagna and with Lesle’s all encompassing salad, we had a good meal…Bill and I enjoyed a couple swigs of brandy…and we talked the rest of the evening about our plans for the rest of the year.

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I’m reading Debbie Macomber’s Hannah’s List and it is very good. About a widower who is given a letter from his wife a year after her death, with the names of three women she wants him to consider to be his new wife.

I had to give up reading The Ender Series as I was getting lost in all the technical sci fi concepts…just couldn’t follow the plot line anymore. This is the first sci fi books I’ve ever read. The author, Orson Scott Card, has a brilliant mind and original sci fi concepts, but it is beyond me.

I’ve also gotten into the Twilight Series. Several of my friends recommended the books, but I was hesitant. I never, never thought I’d read about vampires as the concept doesn’t interest me at all.  But my friends said it is different from other vampire books and I should try it.  I was pleasantly surprised as the story line is intriguing and holds my interest.  I’m not one to read “coming of age” books, which this series begins with, but I’ll see it through, I think. 

I continue knitting Christmas gifts for our girls at night watching TV and read during the day.  The weather has been pretty nice the last couple of days so I’ll be sitting outside under the awning and reading or knitting…my most favorite place to be.

Hopefully, we will get in more campers for the holiday weekend.  With four of our campgrounds closing for two weeks at different times during the summer for renovations, we need to capitalize on every opportunity to bring in campers and have them stay as long as possible, especially the locals from the surrounding towns. 

Time to go outside and walk the campground so I’ll close for today.  See you tomorrow.

Remember, you are loved.

Creede, Colorado

Yesterday Bill and Lesle arrived at our campground after attending the Escapees Colorado Chapter 2 Spring Rally in Montrose.  It sure was good to see them again.

Rich and Terri also came over so since we all belong to Escapee Boomers group, we had a “micro rang”.  We served some of the Tidball’s seafood poppers…oh, so good…and Bill and I indulged in sipping E.J. VSOP brandy.

Here’s Bill catching a ride as Jim pulled up.

The drive up had awesome scenery.

We all drove to Creede, Colorado, about 30 miles east of South Fork to eat pizza at OMI (Old Miner’s Inn).  We started off with Rocky Mountain Oysters; and as they say on the menu “we don’t served them on the half shell folks”. Jim and I are particularly fond of them and OMI is one of the few places we have found them. Much laughter ensued, including Bill sucking on a lime which made him look like he had green teeth.

We took a group shot for posterity-

 

After dinner we looked around a bit at the shops and  the unique architecture of the buildings in this old mining town.

 

 

 

Creede is a bevy of art galleries and curio shops. They have different specialty weekends to bring in tourists. This weekend it is “The Taste of Creede” with the local restaurants selling bits of their cooking in stalls in the main street. Other venues they have  is a Chocolate Festival, Salsa Contest, 1890 Days with mine drilling exhibitions, Mushroom Foray, Crusin’ Car Show, Rock, Mineral and Fossil Show, and Woodcarvers’ Rendezvous to name a few. It’s a cute town with lots of character and fun to roam around in.

The town is very small and almost all the houses are 100 years old or more.

  

 

 

 

 

 

We drove home full to the gills only to find that six more campers had come in to the campground while we were gone.  We were elated!!! In a campground with only 12 sites filling seven sites in one day is very good.  Maybe we’ll have a good turnout for the Memorial Day Weekend.

Remember, you are loved!

Park Creek Campground

Here are some photos of our campground here in South Fork, Colorado, about 9 miles from the top of Wolf Creek Pass.

The last two photos are of our small crew for four other campgrounds.  We have a dinner every other Sunday to socialize and compare notes.

Compare the above photos taken a couple days ago with what we woke up to this morning.  The other shots are of our drive into town this morning.

Snow was unexpected and freaky.  But that’s spring time in the Rockies…you never know what the weather will be one hour to the next. 

Remember you are loved.

Skyping

The other night we “skyped” Lesle and Bill while they were attending the Escapees Chapter 2 rally in Montrose, Colorado.

Because we are opening our campgrounds this week we were unable to attend the rally, so “skyping” was the next best thing.  Lesle walked around the tables during the evening meal and we got to see who were there. 

The rally is a success with about 22 rigs attending.  That’s 44 people and a good turn out.  The next rally will be in September after the Escapade in Goshen, Indiana.  Again, we won’t be able to attend as we are leaving for South Dakota as soon as possible after we close our campgrounds September 6th.  We have to be in Campbellsville, Kentucky, around October 3-8th, as we start working for amazon.com October 10th.

We’ve been talking with one of our camphost couples about working at amazon.com and yesterday they called the recruiter and got hired. So Diana and Kelly will also be joining us in Campbellsville in October.  That’s three couples we’ve recruited, and two other couples who worked in Coffeyville, KS that are going to Campbellsville this year, so we will have quite a contingent of friends there. 

That will be nice for celebrating Thanksgiving together and 3 of us couples will travel to Somerdale, Alabama together for Christmas at the Escapee Rainbow RV park there.  Then we are planning on wintering in southern Texas and Mardi Gras at Betty’s RV Park in Abbeville, Louisiana.  Well, that’s the plan anyway….you know how it is (as for most fulltime RVers)….all our plans  are written in Jell-O!

Gumbo Dinner

While traveling through Louisiana winter 2008 I bought some “Louisiana” brand Cajun food mixes – gumbo, shrimp Creole, and Cajun etouffee’.

 

The other night it was cold and overcast so I thought a hot, spicy meal was in order. I picked the Cajun Gumbo Mix, which is really just the dehydrated roux, spices and broth.  But taking 45 minutes to properly brown the roux is a pain in the “you know what” so not having to do that step is a big plus. 

I sautéed onions, celery, carrots, and green peppers; browned up some pieces of chicken thighs, let it simmer for a bit then added frozen okra, some large shrimp and a bit of Tabasco. Served it over a bowl of rice.  Well, boys and girls, that was one of the finest meals I’ve ever had.  I have to hand it to the makers of the Louisiana brand of mixes….it was mighty fine.  Take a peek……

You add 2 quarts of water to the mix, so it makes a goodly some.  Jim and I ate and ate and we still have enough for lunch today.

A lot of people from Texas and Oklahoma summer here in South Fork and the local grocery store cares a lot of regional foods and brands from Texas.  Luckily, Louisiana brand mixes are some of the items they carry, so I can make this gumbo again.  I can’t wait to try out the other two mixes I have.

Remember, you are loved.

All moved in!!!

We moved from Upper Beaver Campground to Park Creek Campground yesterday, got set up, stapled up the signs and we were opened for business.  Happily we had an overnight customer last night so we are making money for the company, American Land & Leisure.

Jim is getting aggravated trying to set up the TV satellite trying to aim it between the pine trees.  I stay out of his way….it may be days, folks.

Good news, Jim passed his water certification test. Yippeeeeeee!!!  First try and he made it!!!  We are both very happy.  That means next year we don’t have to come back to Colorado in April for him to attend class and take the test again, and freeze our tusses off.  We can stay in Louisiana till late April or early May.

Sadly we don’t get any bars on our aircard at Park Creek even with our little antenna.  I can get two bars on the phones with the antenna, but nothing with the aircard.  So I drive 12 miles to South Fork Campground (which Rich and Terri manages) and get online when I do laundry here; or we will drive to Wolf Creek Ski Lodge about 3 miles away and use their WiFi.  Can’t justify buying a Wilson Trucker’s Antenna or a booster antenna for 3 months use a year.

We talked to one of our camphosts about working at amazon.com and they called, got interviewed and were hired.  So they will be going to Campbellsville also.  We will have quite a contingent there as I have counted up seven couples we know who will be working at Campbellsville this year.  Should be a fun time on those days off, don’t you think?  They still need more workers at Campbellsville, if any of you are interested.  They pay $9.90/hour for days and $10.50/hour for nights. You can work a 20 or 40 hour week and any overtime you want.  Overtime is not mandatory at Campbellsville. They also pay for your full hook-up campsite.  It’s very hard physical work, but for a few months work you gather up a lot of money to use for the rest of the winter.  Any one else want to join us in Campbellsville, Kentucky, and work for amazon.com for the holiday peak season?

I’ll take some photos to share with you later in the week.  Oops, got to go…doing laundry has taken me three hours and I need to get back to the campground and clean them pit toilets!

Remember, you are loved!!!!

Interesting Story

 

Our friend, Susie Smeal, posted a very interesting story on her blog about Doris Eaton-Travis, the last Ziegfeld Follies dancer, who died recently.  I encourage you to check it out as Susie has a personal connection with her and it’s a good read.

http://dasusmusings.blogspot.com/2010/05/doris-eaton-travis.html

Remember, you are loved.

Snow and Dust Storms

The other day when we drove from Alamosa back to South Fork we encountered a heck of a dust storm.  The farmers are getting their fields ready to plant potatoes, so some of this is soil being swept into the air.

Here are the photos I took the other day when we got snowed on.

We continue to have a rip-roaring time with our friends, Rich and Terri. They came over for dinner and we laughed so hard until we were silly!  Love these guys and are happy they will be traveling with us this winter.

Time to fill the water reservoir in the composting toilets and get them working.  Also I have a bunch of paperwork to sort through and file.  So you have a good day and we’ll see you here again soon.

Remember, you are loved.

Snowed again

I am REALLY getting tired of the wind and getting snowed on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  We’ve been in the wind since Arizona and it is really getting tiring.  We woke up this morning to snow on the ground and the temperature inside the rig was 42 degrees.  Ten degrees lower and the water in my denture cup would have frozen.  As it was I had to put the Fixodent denture cream on the furnace register to warm up enough to use!!!

We had a pre-season meeting with the Forest Service this morning.  It was very productive and we got some concerns resolved.  Lunch was at Baldo’s again…yippee for me.

Hopefully we will have a couple of quiet days so Jim can go fishing for a while before we open up for the season and get busy.  There is a creek running along side our campground at Park Creek, so we’re thinking of getting a fly pole and fish right there on site.  That will be neat to walk 25 feet out of our rig and be able to fish!

We are with Rich and Terri right now as we get a strong signal here compared to Upper Beaver CG; plus we get to visit.  We always laugh so much when we are with them.  Have to leave just to rest our stomach laugh muscles and our face from smiling so much.

Time to go back up the mountain.  I’m going to make a pizza for dinner.  What are you going to have to eat tonight?

Remember, you are loved.

Catch up

We are not getting very good reception with our aircard, so haven’t been able to get online to post to our blog the last few days.

Today we came to Alamosa to bring in water samples to be tested, so I’m at the public library (where I use to work) and the aircard is working great here. 

Sunday Jim and I “treated” three of the well with Clorox and let them sit for 24 hours and then yesterday we drew samples to be tested for bacteria at a lab in Alamosa. I should have taken pictures but I didn’t.  These wells use hand pumps to pump out the water and Jim had to pump each at least 75 times before we could take a sample….no easy task.  Next month I’ll remember to take photos of the procedure as it is kind of an unusual thing we do.

Here are a couple of photos of the view out our back window overlooking Beaver Creek.

It’s very pretty up here, quiet and tranquil.  Things are just beginning to green up as we are at about 8500 feet and it still is pretty cold up here in the mornings.

When we were driving up to South Fork we were stopped by cowboys stopping traffic for cattle to cross the highway to another pasture.  Pretty neat.

Jim just came in with his application to be reinstated in the local Elks lodge.  We want to take advantage of Elk campgrounds as we travel, as so many of our RV friends tell us it is a good savings.

I finally finished up getting all our snail mail address changed to our South Dakota mail forwarding service – Americas Mailbox – so that is a relief.  Next is the decision to actually change our domicile.

We’ve been enjoying the company of our long time friends, Rich and Terri Deacon.  Jim has known Rich for a long time as Jim delivered bread to Safeway where Rich worked, some 30 years ago. They are now the managers of the South Fork Campground.  We camphosted together in 2008 and have spent many, many nights talking and laughing together. They are SKPs and live in a toy hauler as they enjoy motorcycling. Rich is a funny, funny guy and Terri laughs a lot so they are easy to be around. They keep us smiling!  We have talked with them about our plans to work for amazon.com again, but in Campbellsville, Kentucky, this fall.  So they decided to follow us.  They sent in their paperwork, got a phone interview and were hired yesterday.  So that will be four couples we will know in Campbellsville…Rita and Jerry, Larry and Betty, Jim and Linda, and Rich and Terri.  That sounds like a party in the making!!!

Tomorrow Jim and Rich are going to go get the big batteries from storage and set them in place in the two composting public restrooms we take care of.  Our first camphosts arrive tomorrow from Texas to get acclimated to the high altitude for a week before they start to work.  Our other couple will be in May 21st.  But their campground won’t be opening till mid June when the snow will finally be melted. That campground (Tucker Ponds) is at 9300 feet.

Well, Jim just came back to pick me up so I best close for now.  Posting to this blog will be a bit “hit and miss” but please do check back often as I will blog as much as possible…maybe I’ll convince Jim to get us a booster for our USB 727 aircard….do you think?

Remember, you are loved.