HELLO, HELLO, HELLO

It's hard to know where to begin!  My last post was over five months ago and little did I know it would be my last for a while.  The problem was our internet connection in the Adirondacks being almost nonexistent!  My aircard was very unreliable and dial-up speed was the best it could do there.  But I must tell you, we had the BEST summer ever!  We fell in love with the Adirondacks all over again.  Bob and I had forgotten just how majestic the forests and lakes are up there.  There is quite alot to see and do and we only scratched the surface.

The other component of this lifestyle is the workamping.  Until Kayuta Lake Campground we had been involved with the US Army Corps of Engineers only.  This was our first private campground and so we were a bit apprehensive as to how we would like it.  Well, any misgivings we might have had completely disappearred as the summer advanced.  Mike and Karin welcomed us in a big way as did the "seasonals", a friendly camping community which we are now a part of! 

Bob was a part of the "crack" maintenance staff and I joined the office/general store/snack bar/coffeehouse group!  I really had wanted to work outside for the benefit of exercize plus the sheer joy of being able to work outside!! But when it rained every day from April 28 through June 20th, I got over it real quick.  Once the rain quit, the temps were dee-lite-ful.  Most of the days the highs were below 85 degrees and the lows in the 50-60 degree range.  Great sleeping without the A/C.

One of the aspects of Kayuta Lake Campground that we love is the "seasonal community".   There are 165 sites and 89 of them are campers who lease a specific site from May through October 15.  (Thus, the name "seasonal")  You can form friendships with people this way, a part of the fulltimer's life that is missing when you are on the road.

Well, I could go on and on about Kayuta Lake Campground, how beautiful it is, how much fun it is to camp there and to even work there but I am beginning to sound like a commercial!  Suffice it to say that I will be writing a lot more about KLC (with pictures) in the coming weeks.  I have a lot to catch you up on and I will fill you in on it all!

BTW, you can see our beautiful park's website  kayutalakecampground.com

Wondering where we are now??????  If you were paying attention last winter, you might know.  It was in the blog. (but how pompous am I to think that anyone might care enough to remember??? Except for my Mom!  Or to think that people are reading this at all???  Except for Mom)

Former train depot, Forestport, NY

"H10" Our site at KLC !

Bald Mountain, Old Forge, NY

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!

 

ROAD TRIP TO THE COAST

We are really enjoying the RV full-timer's lifestyle now! Recently, we were on our way to Dallas to look at an item for the Harleys. Planned to stay over night and headed out early in the morning. Just before we got on I-35 Northbound, Bob made a call and found that what we wanted was not in stock. No reason to go to Dallas now and since its not one of our favorite places Bob said lets head south on I-35. I looked at a map and noticed we weren't that far away from the shore (about 3 hours) and something printed in a small box near Corpus Christi caught my eye. " 24 Hour Ferry Service-free" I thought sounded intriguing so we headed that way, knowing nothing about where we were going! We hadn't done a spur of the moment road trip in many years, something we did frequently back in the day!

On our way down, we passed miles and miles of windmills for as far as the eye could see. Quite an impressive sight which doesn't show as well in the photo.

The ferry service links the mainland with Port Aransas, Texas. Only way to get over there is the ferry or to come through Corpus and travel through Padre Island, Mustang Island, etc and it takes about an hour or longer to go that way. I questioned why they haven't built a bridge across since it is such a short distance (about a 3 minute ride once you pull away from the dock) and I was told that the ferry is a tradition and that there is not enough land on the Port side to build the approaches for the bridge. Its hard to estimate distance on water but I would say it couldn't be more than a half mile across!

We discovered you can drive your vehicle on the beach, right up to the water's edge if you want to. What a treat that was. We drove for miles along the coast and saw some beautiful scenery. They even have a campground on the beach or you can just pull your rig up wherever you choose and camp for the night. The usual regulations at beaches back east don't apply here! They are very liberal and allow dogs on leashes and campfires at night. It was quite a sight to see the full moon come up over the water on a mostly deserted beach with a few campfires here and there.

We found a place to stay with a deck overlooking the sand dunes and beach and were so taken with the place that we stayed for 3 days! The sunrise was awesome and even Lucie knew we were experiencing something special. She decided to go in the water and body surf. What a riot! She was so energized by it all that she ran in circles, around and around, as far as her leash would allow. She spent many minutes studying the birds, trying to figure out how she could sneak up on them.

We found a bar (I know you all are surprised) named the Salty Dog. One of our favorite bars in Lake of the Ozarks, Mo. had the same name so we thought we would try this one. It was such a upscale pub that they even allowed dogs to come in so Lucie visited her first (and probably only) bar. Of course, we had to wait outside until she came out! ARR, ARR, ARR!

This kind of trip is exactly the reason we chose to go on the road!

And since I cannot, for the life of me figure out how to place images where I want them on my blog, I will publish the rest of the pix on a separate post. Hey, if anyone out there is reading this and knows how to incorporate the images within the text, please let me know!

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!

Clark Creek North Campground

These are our views from our RV, overlooking Lake Allatoona.

The end of our summer is almost here and we are winding down. Our contract with the Corps is over Setember 8th and we will be heading home to Arkansas. We are not quite sure where we will go for the fall/winter but we have another month or so to make that decision. We would like to be in our new digs by October 1st wherever that might be! This life takes some adjusting to but it is worth it.

Right now the park is verrrrry slow! We only have one site occupied but that is all due to change.
Labor Day is just around the corner, 2 weeks away, and that should bring a lot of campers to our park. It will be fun to see some of our "regulars" come back so we can say goodbye.

What's Next in 2010!!!

We have decided to take our first "paying" job since being on the road. Until now, we have been "volunteers" for the Corps of Engineers at Lake Allatoona in Georgia. Volunteers get their site for free in exchange for various duties such as surveillance for closed campgrounds or opening and closing gates for boat ramps and Day Use Areas. Campground "hosts" are required to bid on these jobs and if your bid is accepted you become contractors for the government. This entails a lot of rigmarole since it is the government you are dealing with!

We have started the process of getting our Dun and Bradstreet number as we are considered a business now. After you receive your D&B number, you are ready to register with CCR.gov. All of the information you provide D&B must be exactly how you register with CCR, down to the last dot or dash. I was very careful when talking to the D&B rep, going so far as to spell out our street address. I said "Oak Hills Dr." and he asked me to spell it. I did! "O-A-K- new word H-I-L-L-S Dr." Imagine my surprise when I pulled up our account and our address read "Oak New Word Hills Dr." I was laughing so hard I couldn't tell Bob what was so funny. Talk about doing your job on automatic pilot! Duh!

Well, if we can get all the "stuff" done, pass our background checks and get bonded, we have the positions of campground hosts for Clark Creek North Campground. We chose this park as it is small, only 24 sites. (Some parks have 200 sites) We are just getting our feet wet so we wanted to make it easy on ourselves. We have another couple who will share the duties, 4 days on and 4 days off. The gatehouse must be manned (or woman'ed) from 7 AM to 10;30 PM. The reservation system as well as the check-in process is all computerized which should make it easier. And how hard can it be to register 24 sites? We have camped at some of the other big campgrounds here on the lake and those "hosts" work their tails off! They are so busy they have 4 huge lanes for RVs to line up while waiting to register. We don't want the pressure! Hey, I'm looking forward to the days we are full and I can put my feet up and relax. (If our ranger, Linda, is reading this, I'm only kidding)
We are required to make rounds to ensure all the rules and regulations are being followed and actually have some clout if things are not as they should be. Stay tuned for updates on how it goes.

It may be that we will decide this is not for us but we have to give it a try! The contract is only 4 months, May thru Labor Day, and I figure we can do anything for 4 months. We will be back in Arkansas in March to see the doctors, dentists, etc. and then head back here for training. So we know where and what we will be doing through September 8th, 2010 but after that who knows where our travels will take us?? That is the beauty of this life.