Newest South Dakotans

Last Tuesday Rich and Terri took off on a fast trip to South Dakota to become legal residents.  Last month when Rich received his Colorado renewal notice for his 2010 toy hauler he bought last year, he nearly fainted…..it was for $1,100…..for one vehicle!!!

When he told us about the notice we encouraged him to contact Americas-Mailbox in South Dakota and see what he would pay in South Dakota.  Ahaaaaa, instead of paying $1,100 in Colorado he would only pay $120 in South Dakota.  Well, it doesn’t take a rocket scientists to figure out what Rich and Terri did ---- they sent in their paperwork to become South Dakotans.  They received their plates and then made plans to drive to South Dakota to get their drivers’ licenses….the only thing you can’t do through the mail…you mush appear in person once every five years.

So Tuesday they drove straight through from here to Rapid City, SD, in one day…some 11 hours!!!! They spent the night, which is required, produced their social security card and passport for proof of identification, took a simple eye test and walked out with their new drivers’ licenses.

They played tourists the rest of day by going to     Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Keystone and Custer’s  State Park…..yes, all in one day!  While at Mt. Rushmore they even bought new wedding rings, with the Black Hills Gold design.  Aren’t they pretty?  Jim and I are thinking of getting some for ourselves when we go up there in a couple of weeks.

So, congratulations Rich and Terri on becoming the latest South Dakotans…..we’ll be following you in that endeavor in a couple of weeks.

Remember, you are loved.

Family Comes To Visit

Driving back to the mountains after the movie last Saturday, I  found our daughter, Beth, had arrived from Santa Fe for a couple days of camping with her traveling companion, Victor. 

We laughed so hard because I must have taken 12 photos trying to get a photo with Victor’s eyes OPENED and it never happened. 

  

Sunday Jim made Beth’s favorite meal, his famous biscuits and gravy!  You STILL can’t see Victor’s pretty eyes!

 

 

 

Later in the afternoon, here comes Jim’s two brothers, Ron and Don. They have a cabin nearby and came to spend the weekend.

Beth hadn’t seen her uncles in a number of years, so it was a really nice “coincident” that they came to visit us while she was here to visit.

Beth loves to camp and she and Victor really enjoyed having a camp fire that evening. Life is always better when shared with family!

Remember, you are loved.

Girls’ Day Out

Finally found a day where my two busy girlfriends could gather together with me for a little “girl talk”. That day was last Saturday when I drove into Alamosa and met with my two buds Lory Sanchez, who has her own computer repair company and my computer guru, and Salai Taylor, Library Manager of Southern Peaks Public Library in Alamosa.

We met at Chili’s for lunch and some serious “catching up” talk.

We lingered over lunch to share our plans and enjoyed each other’s company.  Then we went to see the movie “East Pray Love” with Julia Roberts.

Now I read the book earlier this summer and I was very pleased how the book was translated to the big screen.  So much of the dialog was verbatim from the book and the acting was very, very good.  We all enjoyed it.

Remember, you are loved.

Zappos.com part 2, Rockies and South Dakota

Received my shoes 25 hours after ordering them.  I was very, very impressed.  Overnight delivery up here in the mountain (or even in Alamosa, for that matter) usually takes 2 or even 3 days as we are some 170 miles from the nearest major airport – in Pueblo.

I had seen an interview with Tony Hsieh (pronounced Shay) on a TV show a while back and mentioned to zappos.com rep how much I admired his business philosophy and how he treated his employees as well as his care of his customers.  Brooke, the rep, said that Tony had just written a book called “Delivering Happiness” and offered to send me a copy also with overnight shipment.  I accepted the offer and finished reading the book this morning – took me two days. 

I can honestly say it is one of the most inspiring books I have ever, ever read!!!!!!!!!!!!  I would highly recommend this book to anybody as it is truly life changing if taken to heart. His Core Values to running a business, or your life, is very good. Having a goal of striving for and bringing happiness to your customers, employees, vendors and investors and in the end wanting to change the world through trust, caring and being a little weird is refreshing!

I want to see zappos.com continue to grow and succeed so I will be checking with them first for my online purchasing needs.  They are now a wholly owned subsidiary of amazon.com as of July, 2009, so it’s all in the family now, so to speak.

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For those of you who have followed this blog for a while – remember back in March when I wrote about going to Spring Training (click on that link to see the blog post) in Tucson and the rookie pitcher named Matt Reynolds that we had met and spent some time with, who was trying out with the Colorado Rockies baseball team? (Man, that was a long sentence!).

Well, last night we were watching the Rockies play ball in Los Angeles and all of a sudden they were talking about the departure of outfielder Brad Hawp (pronounced Hop) and “bringing up” a new pitcher named Matt Reynolds!  Boy, were we surprised! 

They then showed a short interview they had with him that afternoon and commented on what a nice fellow he was.  I felt like a proud mother myself…Matt had made it to the major league.  He pitched to two Dodgers in the eighth inning and struck them both out…good first showing. We are so anxious to see him play again.

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Went to the bank the company uses to buy cashier checks to pay for our South Dakota license plates and were told they don’t take cash.  I think it is that stupid Homeland Security stuff that they have to have a paper trail for any cashier checks….for $24.15 for gosh sakes????

Anyway that necessitated a trip down to Del Norte where our bank has a branch office and we were able to use a check to purchase our cashier checks.  Then back to South Fork to visit Rich and Terri and use their campgrounds copier to copy all the necessary paperwork to get the plates.  We celebrated sending off the packet by having a hamburger and fries at the Malt Shoppe – whose sign says they are opened “till Dark 30” … cute, huh?

So we’re all done being Colorado residents except for the shouting….or maybe except for the driver’s licenses, which we’ll get around Sept 14th.  Our buddies, Rich and Terri, are leaving Tuesday to take a fast 3 day trip up and back to Rapid City, South Dakota, to get their driver’s licenses….they already have their plates.

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Our daughter, Beth, (the one on the right---that’s our other daughter, Christine, on the left) is coming up to visit us from Santa Fe tomorrow (did I tell you she broke her engagement? well now you know she did).  So Jim went over to Big Meadows Reservoir to fish for some rainbow trout to feed her tomorrow. Jim will have to make her some biscuits and gravy for breakfast Sunday as it is her favorite!  We’ll make a trip to Santa Fe before we leave the area to see Christine, our grands and great-grands, as it will be next April before we see them again.

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Well, that’s enough babbling for today, folks! Thanks for sticking around to read it all.

Remember, you are loved and buy from zappos.com!

zappos.com

A few weeks ago I saw a story about the CEO of zappos.com and really liked what I saw about Tony Hsieh, his business philosophy, how the company treats their employees, his emphasis on customer care and the zany way he runs the business. In fact as part of his ten Codes of Conduct is #3 - Create Fun and A Little Weirdness.  I love that!!!!!  Plus I like their TV ads, which are actual recorded customer service calls displayed as animated puppets….very clever.

So when I decided to buy a new pair of sneakers yesterday to wear at amazon.com’s fulfillment center, I went to zappos.com .  I couldn’t find Easy Spirit Girlpowers shoes that Carolyn Trout had turned me on to last year, so I called zappos.com customer service to see if they still carried them.

I bought these Girlpowers last year and they worked out great, so I wanted to buy another pair.

Unfortunately, zappos.com doesn’t carry these any more.  Their customers service rep, Brook, suggested Easy Spirit Getupandgo, which Carolyn Trout also recommended last year.

Unlike most internet stores, zappos.com ships everything free of charge, so the price you see is the total price.  I really like that. In my conversation with Brook she mentioned that the night before the company had their annual vendor party and how much fun they all had and how good the company was to their employees.  She said Tony is as nice as he appeared on the interview I had seen and that he was a very humble person. 

Anyway, it was a very good buying experience and I would highly recommend them to all of you.  I definitely will buy from zappos.com again.

Remember, you are loved.

This, That and Everything

We had our camphosts over for lunch yesterday.  I made a pasta bake with sausage that came out good.  Then Pat Skroch and her husband, Bill, came over to visit.  They are thinking of “snowbirding” and came over to get some advice on rigs to buy and answer some RVing questions.  We always enjoy talking to folks about RVing and to “pass it forward” as so many folks helped us when we started out.

I finished the sleep cap for our friend Barbara Bakke who is going through a year of chemo for breast cancer.  Last week after her first chemo her hair started to come out in clumps, so she gave her traveling companion Joel a haircut and he shaved her head.  She called and asked if the cap was almost ready as her head was getting cold when she slept. It hugs around your ears and stays put while you sleep.  I made one for myself, even.  So here is what it looks like

I went to Alamosa last week and stopped and saw my girlfriend, Naomi, in the nursing home.  I took a photo of her that came out pretty good.  She look really good for being almost 95.  Her mind is still sharp and she reads books daily.

I got a kick out of her as during our visit she gave me the latest issue of Redbook. I noticed on the cover that one of the articles was titled “28 Ways to Better Sex”.  Naomi commented,  “I’m not sure you’ll want to read this issue, though, because there’s a lot of articles about sex in it this time. But I read them all because I like to stay current on the latest stuff. But I have to admit they talked about some things I didn’t know about or understood”. 

Oh, I had to stop myself from laughing out loud…. being 95 years old I am sure there are some “new things” she didn’t know anything about!

Oh, look at the cute single person, enclosed scooter I saw on the street in Monte Vista while driving home.  Kinda cute!!!

I got up at 5:30 this morning and awoke to a beautiful sunrise.  I had Jim run outside and take some photos.

 

 

 

 

 

Only three more weeks till we close the campgrounds!!! Then we’ll take a day to clean up the fire pits, take down signs, store uniforms and then leave South Fork on Wednesday, Sept 7th and go to Alamosa for a couple of days.  We want to visit our daughters and grands in Santa Fe for a day or so and then head up to South Dakota then on to Kentucky.

I finished up reading the knitting mystery series book Skeins of the Crime by Maggie Sefton.  Now I have the two Sisterhood series books to read, Game Over and Cross Roads, by Fern Michaels.

What books are you all reading?

Well, the laundry is done so it is best I get going on home.  It’s really cloudy today with the prediction of 70% chance of rain…..good day to sit inside and read.

Remember, you are loved!!!

Highway Springs Campground

This is the campground we are staying at while Park Creek Campground is being renovated. We moved here last Sunday, just one day after it reopened after being renovated.

This campground we unfondly called the “armpit campground”, as it was so unattractive. The sites weren’t defined, most of them didn’t have tables and the make shift fire pits were just a circle of rocks.  Now look at what we have.

New tables and fire pits	This one overlooks Hwy 160
Looking down on a site	What a view this site has
Nice stands of Aspens	Here we have Ponderosa Pines
Folks’ engraving	And declarations of love
Up to top loop	Down to lower loop
Views from lower loop	Gorgeous scenery
Lower campsite	Lots of space between sites
Best view in the park	Look at the view these campers have
Here’s our site	Pretty nice

We actually had one camper this week say that Highway Springs is now their favorite campground! That is saying a lot from where it was before the renovations.

We’ll only be here for a few more days as Park Creek CG will be ready next Tuesday to open it up, so then we’ll move back over there as it is a busier campground. I’ll miss my great aircard and cell phone reception here, but we need to be where the action is.

Remember, you are loved.

Conversation

Not much to talk about today, but I don’t like to go too many days without posting to our blog.

I sure do like being here in Highway Springs Campground because we have much better reception on our cell phones and on the aircard.  This morning I actually had three bars on the aircard!!! Boy, is that enjoyable. All the websites download so much faster. I told Jim after the two weeks is up to complete the renovations on Park Creek, we may just decide to stay here and not move back there!!!

The view is very nice here also.  Here is a photo of my breakfast yesterday and the view I had sitting outside to enjoy it.

This last winter many of our friends were stopping off at Elk’s Lodge Campgrounds at low costs. Jim use to be an Elk, so when we got back to Alamosa Jim got reinstated into his lodge. Subsequently I ordered the four volume complete set of Elkdom Travel Guides and they arrived yesterday.

Jim and I had fun perusing the different guides to see which of their campgrounds would fit into the routes we plan to take this fall.  We were happy to find we’ll be able to use several of them in our travels. We found that there was a really nice one in Rapid City, SD where we will be going in September to become legal residents of that state.  They even have a full service restaurant at the campground.

Today we are meeting with camphosts from another district who want to work during the winter and we are going to talk to them about working at amazon.com    We are looking forward to going to Campbellsville, Kentucky, this year to work.  There they went from having 50 workampers last year to employing 600 workampers this year in just the Kentucky location alone! They are employing 400-500 workampers in Kansas and 100 in Fernley, NV also.

Oh, what’s a workamper you ask? It’s a trademarked word by Workampers News, which is a magazine put out every two months, describing folks who live in their RV and work on the road. The magazine lists work available by state. But we all use the word as a generic description of what we do.  Otherwise, we are called seasonal camp workers by amazon.com

Jim and I are looking forward to seeing returning co-workers who are going to work in Kentucky this year.  We sure will miss our dear friends, Bill and Lesle, who will be returning to Coffeyville, Kansas. But there will be 8 couples we know going to Kentucky, so we have a built-in social network already.

The Campbellsville, KY area will provide us with new sightseeing opportunities with Bowling Green, Louisville, Lexington and Nashville all within easy driving distances.  There is a Bourbon Trail I want to do going to eight bourbon distilleries and Jim wants to do the Barbecue Trail, as you all know how Jim likes to bbq.

I’ve begun to do exercises daily to strengthen my core and upper back muscles as those are the ones we use the most at amazon.com.  Too bad there isn’t any exercise to get in shape for being on our feet 10-12 hours a day without sitting down, except for breaks and lunch.  I am walking, but not for any length of time.

Yesterday I received an email from the campground we will be staying at in Campbellsville giving us our site number. Sure is nice that amazon.com pays for our full hookup campsites besides giving us $10.50 per hour for working nights.  We can bank quite a bit of money that carries us through the winter months of traveling. 

There’s a lot of talk going on the Workerampers News discussion forum about amazon.com requiring proof of education – high school diploma or transcript. With us older workers who have been out of high school for some 50 years, and being fulltime RVers, trying to FIND your diploma can be a challenge.  But it is a requirement of all amazon.com employees, so we have to comply. 

Amazon.com really likes having us “seasonal camp workers” because of our old-fashioned work ethics…we come to work every day, we don’t steal, we’re not on drugs…well, not on THOSE kind of drugs anyway…and we give them a honest day’s worth of work.  Their productive rate increase with us there. So it is a win-win situation for all concerned. Each year they have expanded the program and increased the number of us that they employ. We’re hoping they will put the seasonal camp workers in the Goodyear, Arizona, sometime because of the winter weather. 

Well, Jim is off to “swishing toilets” and I am going to do some paperwork, so we’re off for today.  I’ll take some photos of this campground today and post them tomorrow, so come on back and check them out.

Remember, you are loved.

Jim’s Four-Wheel Trip to Ouray

He had a great time with his brothers and friends during their trip “over the mountain and through the woods” to Ouray.

It rained pretty hard on their way from Lake City as you can see by the following photos.  But the flowers were in full bloom and Jim got some great photos of the beds of flowers.

He had a good time and enjoyed himself …. same time next year.

Remember, you are loved.