THE LAST DAY

I have procrastinated enough about posting on our blog.  I can't tell you why I will do almost anything else, even vacuum, before I will sit down and write on this damn blog.  I've wracked my brain to try and figure it out.  Is it the technology that I have to utilize in order to post with photos etc. or is it my perfectionism that makes writing anything creative a massive undertaking?  I think the answer is "YES" and "YES".  So in order to alleviate the problem I promised myself that I would get back to regular, timely posting before I turned 60!  Now, I have a lot to say about turning sixty but that can wait.  After all, I will be 60 for a whole year, right?    What, the year is up already???  No, no, it doesn't go by that fast!

Well, this is my last day to be 59 years old. Hell, this is my last day to be fifty-anything! So in my perverse way of thinking, I am rewarding myself for my birthday by doing the one thing that weighs on my mind all the time, the one thing that is so distasteful to me that I would rather exercise than sit down and write. (And all of you that know me know how much I hate to exercise) In this way, tomorrow when I wake up I will have the satisfaction of knowing that I actually posted to our blog and the heat is off for a while.

To illustrate my point regarding my technological  challenges, the pic above appeared magically where I had intended to insert a recent photo of  us.  Instead, while I was "browsing" my pictures to find a suitable one I came across this one and just wanted to have a better look at it. (ya know, almost sixty year old eyes can't see "thumbnails")  Little did I know that when I clicked to enlarge it I also inserted it in this post.  Even canceling did no good so rather than obsess any further I decided to go on and continue with the rest of the images I really wanted in here.  Oh, by the way, the caption on the above should read, "Bob on Dahlonega Square, Dahlonega, Ga, circa. 2008!" 

Bob on July 4th, 2011!

Trace and Patty on our motorcycle trip that started going to Indian Rock but wound up going to several gas stations and bike shops to keep my harley and Bob's running.  Lots of gremlins hit our bikes on this particular day along with some downpouring rain and a lot of swearing on our part.  All of our buddies were just fine with it, calm, cool and collected.  "That's what riding with a group is all about" they said but still embarassing to Bob and I!

Trace and Steve, Shawn and Patty

Boat trip on the Fulton Chain of Lakes, Old Forge, New York

Steve and Trace, Michelle and Ted and Bob in the background

TIDBITS ON LIFE IN TEXAS

Our time here is drawing to a close.  The six months have gone by incredibly fast as we knew they would!  We are heading for Arkansas to conduct some business, maintain the RV, car, truck and Harleys and if we can still afford it, head for the Adirondacks of New York.  We have a summer gig there and are looking forward to seeing Bob's Aunt Charm and Uncle George and his late brother Warren's daughters.  In preparing for our trip, we've been watching the weather up that way and it is COLD there.  We are used to temps in the 80's here in Texas so we will be pulling out the woolies from storage before we head north.  On the way, we will stop in Cleveland, Ohio, to see Bob's daughter Alex and granddaughter Taylor. 

I've been saving some photos to post from our roaming the Hill Country.  We feel so fortunate to have been able to explore this area of the United States and look forward to coming back next winter as there is plenty we didn't get to see!
The first two photos are looking down at our campground from about a mile away.  You can see the modernization from primitive to RV sites has not been done yet.  It is so beautiful and has been a wonderful place to live.  We've been using it as our walking track and are up to 2 miles a day.  (The boats  you see are not part of our park)

Picnic table shelters in our campground

Three of our closest friends came for dinner and we had to put Lucie in the RV!

Famous Luckenbach, Texas, behind the old Post Office where the only thing that gets canceled nowadays are the musical acts! 

The ATM in Luckenbach where you can get your "dirty" money and you may need it after paying for the beer!  They are proud of their beer, $3.50 for domestic, $4.50 imported.

You can tell this butterfly was in Texas.  That is my watch sitting next to it, not my ring!

And then there is Bob, a man who wears many hats!

 

WINTER IN TEXAS

This has been the warmest winter either of us has ever spent!  We feel so fortunate to be able to choose where to spend the next season!  We have been riding the harleys whenever we can and exploring the area.  More about that later.

We spent New Year's Eve with our partners, Don and Mary.  First, we sat around the campfire telling lies and stories!    Between the two of us, Mary and I made enough food to feed the neighboring town!  They taught us how to play "Pegs and Jokers" and we taught them how to play "Up and Down the River".  There was a little imbibing going on with the eating and playing and we all stayed awake long enough to watch the "ball" usher in the New Year in Times Square.

Lucie has playmates here as Don and Mary have two adorable four-legged kids, Max and Mindy.  They are brother and sister and are very good about putting up with Lucie's energetic craziness.  We are able to let the dogs run around our campers since we are not open (still) and they have a great time.  They are really going to freak when we have to leash them and curtail their freedom.

So life here in the Hill Country is GOOD!  We are very grateful to have partners that are so compatible with us.  This would be a miserable situation if we didn't like the people we work with especially since we don't see many others to talk to!  As you can see, Don is the proverbial kidder.  He said he was going to dress for our celebration and he did!

The update on the ongoing renovations to the campground is not good.  Permits are stalling the work and we hope the electric company will be coming in this work to start placing poles.  We are only two months away from leaving here and it doesn't look like we will see the park in its modern state until we come back in September for our option year.

HELLO TEXAS

We arrived in Canyon Lake, Texas a few days early and we camped at Potter's Creek Campground. It is the only one on the lake that is open all year until our campground's modernization is complete. We met our co-gate attendants who were also camping there. Nicer people you'll never meet (yeah, you, Don and Mary) and they have two dogs for Lucie to play with! We all attended orientation and then came to our campground, Cranes Mill, to get settled in.

Our sites were terribly overgrown with Cedar trees that had grown up around the rigs that had been in place for 10 years. Bob and Don had to become lumberjacks in order to get our fifth wheels in here! And Mary and I hauled the limbs off.

The park is not open now and hasn't been for over a year. They are changing from primitive camping to sites for RVs with water and electric. Stimulus money is being spent to do this and we are hoping that we will open sometime before our contract ends in March, 2011! In the meantime, we sit in the gatehouse, watch TV, read a book, work on our computers (as I am doing now!) or visit with Mary and Don. It is much easier to work the long days here than it was when we started in Georgia. We are used to the 4 days on, 4 days off schedule which really takes some time to adjust to.

The Hill Country of Texas is just as beautiful as they say it is. The sky is so BIG here! And you can see for miles and miles. Or at least thats the way it feels. Canyon Lake is very different than the lakes in Arkansas and Georgia. Since the terrain is rolling hills, most of the shoreline here is a gentle slope. Due to the limestone, it wasn't until recent years that people starting building around the lake. By that time, the Corps of Engineers prohibited any private docks so the view around the lake is clean and unfettered. The only structures at the water's edge are a few marinas, fishing piers and several boat ramps.

The wild life here is abundant. We have about 35-40 deer in our park, some bucks with 6-8 points! The deer are plentiful everywhere in this area and that is no exaggeration. When driving through subdivisions, deer are in the yards. Some are even laying down, like it's their place.This makes for some cautious motorcycle riding for sure.

We have seen many scorpions but they are very tiny. Maybe an inch or two long and reddish brown in color. Tarantulas seem to be out and about around 6-7 PM, at least that is when we've seen them! Big, hairy and scary looking but Mary looked them up and found that they just have a bad rep, they aren't aggressive like some would have you think. I just hope the tarantulas read the same book Mary did!

MOVING ON!

Well, we are winding up our contract with the Corps of Engineers here in Georgia. Our campground closes the day after Labor Day which is tomorrow. Wednesday we have "debriefing" and a picnic put on by our ranger. We have worked for Linda for the last 2 years, either in a volunteer capacity or as a contractor. We have certainly enjoyed being here, spending a lot of time with our families, but it is time to move on.

Our next gig is in Texas, between San Antonio and New Braunfels. We were awarded the contract for Crane's Mill Campground on Canyon Lake, another Corps of Engineers project. We were delighted to get this position as we have discovered finding workamper jobs in warm weather places in the winter is a bit harder than summer jobs. There are a lot of workampers wanting the same thing and a lot fewer jobs to be had! Next time I will start looking in April for the following winter.

Our contract in Texas is for six months, October through March, 2011. We are sooooooo looking forward to being able to ride our Harleys this winter. Georgia's last 2 winters have been way too cold for riding and this summer was very hot. We did get some riding in but not as much as we would like!

We have long term friends in the Austin and Dallas areas. We look forward to spending time with each of them! We will be in a new area of the country with lots of stuff to explore. While we have spent a few vacations in San Antonio, we have just scratched the surface of things to see and do there. And we have never seen the Riverwalk at Christmas which I've heard is very beautiful. Then there is the "hill country" part of Texas with great riding roads. So we are very excited about our next adventure!

We will be heading to Bella Vista to do the doctor/dentist appointments and we hope to be set up in Texas by the 25th of September and be running the park by the 1st of October! Stay tuned for updates as they become available.......

Workamping This Summer

We are starting our 3rd month of running a campground for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Our park is small, 24 sites and for that we are grateful!

After 5 days of classroom training, Bob and I were put to the test on April 30th, the opening day for Clark Creek North Campground on Lake Allatoona in north Georgia. Our schedule is 4 days on duty, 4 days off. The gatehouse is open and manned (or woman'd) from 7 AM - 10:30 PM. During our first 4 days on, we both stayed in the gatehouse unless one of us was making a round of the park. We soon discovered this was not the way to work it. So we have fine tuned our job sharing, taking 3 hour shifts gives each of us some downtime to clean house or do laundry (Dev) or to take a nap (Bob). Just kidding, Bob usually does the laundry!

As the season progresses and we get busier we may have to spend more time together in the "Box" as I like to call it but so far it is working well for us. We keep in touch with walkie/talkies and either of us can be called into service at a moments notice.

Most of our campers have been very nice and we haven't had any major problems. One night we did get a knock on our door at 11:30 to let someone out of the gate. Not many people have the nerve to ask us to open the gate after hours but if they do we must let them out.

One evening I was in the gatehouse helping someone at the front window and out of the corner of my eye I saw a car zooming past the gatehouse. It wasn't a vehicle I recognized so I sent Bob out to find it and see if they were "legal". As it turned out, he found the car and discovered they were visiting some campers. He explained to the gal that she is supposed to stop at the gatehouse and get a visitor's pass for $4. She told him that she had stopped and I wouldn't look her way so she went on. He sent her up to me to register. When she got to me she threw the $4 at me and said "that Ranger is a jerk" and I proceeded to tell her that he is not a Ranger and that the jerk is my husband! She didn't get the humor in it at all!

Well, I am sure we will have many more stories to tell! Right now I am working on getting my new camera to download some pics to the computer so I can add them to our blog. Its funny, I just got the hang of doing it with the old one and now I have to relearn the process all over again.

On our days off we try to ride the Harleys as much as possible. We went to Dahlonega, about 90 minutes from here. It is an old gold mining town in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Very quaint town square where we had lunch and did some shopping.

Friends from back home in Bentonville, Jim and Rita visited us for a few days. It was great seeing them and getting to show off the area. We went to see an exhibit of collector's cars at the High Musuem in Atlanta. We all really enjoyed it but Jim being the car buff that he is had a great time. They were pieces of art and I hope to have pics posted shortly.