Sadness

Last week my mother went to the hospital, she was 88. We drove to Des Moines last Tuesday and visited with her. My sister Colleen and brother Larry were there also. We visited with the doctors and asked that mom be transferred back to Centerville, IA, where she was living in a facility managed by our sister Tara. Bottom line she went back to Centerville and enjoyed seeing her friends for a couple days. We left South Dakota to be close to her but mom passed away yesterday at 3:04 pm while we were on the road.
Her funeral will be Friday at 10 am.
We will miss her but with her medical issues we know she isn't going to suffer anymore and she is with our dad.
Sarah and I will spend the rest of the summer in WI, IA and NE. before heading to AZ for the winter.

Another week at Sheridan Lakes

All we do up here is work, well at least that’s all Sarah does. I don’t know if I really explained our duties here. Sarah is on the janitorial staff, well there are two of them on the staff, this is Sharon and Sarah. As you can see they are prepared to clean 68 outhouses in the various locations around the forest. These ladies work hard and deserve all the compliments they get on the cleanliness of the outhouses.

Now I work as a camp host while it isn’t a very demanding job from a physical labor stand point it is demanding from a time stand point. I have to be in the campground seven days a week except for Tues & Thurs from 8 am to 8 pm. This is bad but then add to that no internet access and I thought I would go nuts the first couple of weeks. Now I do get into town on Thursday and get on the internet, the Slate Creek Café has free Wi-Fi and I go there for breakfast and do my internet access. We have a beautiful view of the lake and our camp loop is generally one of the quietest loops in the park.

Ok, so what have we been up to.

Tuesday, June 18, 2012

We left the campground early and headed for Wind Cave National Park to tour the Wind Cave. I am writing this at the camper so I have no internet but you can Google Wind Cave National Park and read all about it. This cave has more than ten miles of passages explored and most of that was done by a young man named Alvin McDonald, he was sixteen when he started his explorations and spent the next four years of his young life exploring the cave. He died of the  plague, I believe, at the age of twenty. In the thirties the Conservation Core came in and put in lighting and cement paths and stairs so ordinary folks could see this fantastic cave. This formation is called the box something because it resembles the way a cardboard box is made, the honey comb type of structure. Ninety-five percent of this type of formation in the world in found in this cave, five percent is found in England and no other cave in the world has this particular formation. Here are a few other pictures from the cave.

As you can see some of the passages were rather narrow. The guide kept saying don’t touch the walls. I hate say this but it didn’t matter if I went straight at it or turned sideways, I TOUCHED THE WALLS. There were a total of 450 steps we had to navigate. I asked the guide if they were all up and he said no. Boy was I relieved, I didn’t know how they would extricate me from the tunnels.

The pictures don’t do justice to the color of the walls and ceiling, it was a great trip.

The rest of the week was work. We did go out to eat on the 21st with Mark & Sharon. We went to the Alpine Inn in Hill City. You have your choice of steak or steak, it was good. We ate there the first time we came up to see Mark & Sharon.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

We headed for the South Dakota Air & Space Museum located at commercial entrance to Ellsworth AFB. I was disappointed in that they didn’t have very many displays but what they had were interesting. We took a tour of the airbase and the missile site that was used for training purposes. At the height of the cold war, for you young folds that is the period of time when the American and Russia were nuclear powers, there were fifty minuteman missiles sites in South Dakota. These were unmanned sites and were controlled by a central command center. Each center controlled ten missiles, these centers were strategically located throughout the area. When the cold war ended and the nuclear treaties signed the US was allowed to keep two missile sites, that I know of, one of them being here in SD out by the Badlands, the other by Tucson, AZ.

Human’s are interesting beings. Last Saturday night the campground was filling up and we were down to one camp site left. A car pulls up and asks if we have any camp sites left and we say we have one. We show them the location of the site on the map, knowing it is the last available site in the campground and they want to go look at the site, knowing if someone comes in while they are “looking” at the site we will be obligated to rent the site to the requestor. It is interesting how people react to situations and what is available to them.

As you know if you saw my previous post, we have a forest fire going on across the lake. Sheridan Lake has group camping, a marina and a beach on the north side of the lake. Unfortunately these are located on the north side of the lake and this is where the fire is raging. As of today they are saying it is contained to about 350 acres so it isn’t a big fire but it has closed the lake to boating of any kind and we’ll see what it will do to the camping reservations we have for this weekend. Here are a few pictures I took today of the fire.

The helicopter dropping the bucket for more water.

We are safe on the south side of the lake, this fire would have to escalate substantially to get to us, so we aren’t worry about it.

Friday, June 29, 2012

The Forest Service opened the north side of our campground and opened the lake to boating again. We have had a few cancellations, I don’t believe they were due to the fire though. I did have a couple of campers leave today who were booked through till Monday, their reason was they couldn’t get out on the lake. They left before we found out the lake was open again.

July 4th week should be interesting, we are preparing for a busy week, no one has a day off, we are on call to help where ever needed.

 

Almost half way through our gig here.

Dreams Do Come True

Forest Fire–Black Hills National Forest–Sheridan Lakes

Breaking News:

We have a fire raging on the other side of our lake, it began Thursday with some young people having a fire a popular swimming hole and it got away from them. It has covered 175 acres or more and the fire caused the closure of our north beach area and marina along with the campgrounds on that side of the lake. Here are some pictures of it, mostly smoke but it is my first forest fire.

If this picture could be made bigger you would see flames just above the shoreline.To the far right is the dam and a place called Dakota Point, it is a favorite fishing spot and it has a rocky cliff where the young people like to go and jump from the cliffs into the water. This is where the fire began and it has spread.

These were taken from our south boat ramp, the lake has been closed to boaters so the helicopter can dip the bucket it has beneath it into the water and then dump the water on the fire. I wasn’t able to get pictures of the helicopter because it wasn’t flying when we were taking these pictures.

We are hopeing the fire will be contained and extinguished by this weekend but we don’t know.

More in my next blog, plus I will catch on the other things we have done.

Dreams Do Come True

Sheridan Lake (Cont’d) June 11, 2012

Here are some pictures of the campground and our site:

This our camp site taken from the lake.

Part of the lake from our camp site.

The shore line by our camper.

The road in the camp loop, as you can see we have lots of trees.

You have to look close to see the horns on my buffalo hat.

Custer park buffalo herd with little ones.

More buffalo

Sarah feeding a friend in Custer park. These donkeys will eat right out of your hand and they will eat anything.

Sarah and Sharon feeding the donkeys. The brown one wouldn’t let Sarah out of his sight and he ate a whole bag of carrots.

Suzanne & Brad Abernathy on their visit to our place.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

My day off and the day I go to town to get on the internet. I went to the Slate Café, I can use their free wifi, I also had breakfast. I spent all morning there and left a bit after twelve. I picked up our mail and some groceries and went home. I spent the rest of the day reading. I have read five books since we have been here. I love to read so this is quite a treat for me, but if it wasn’t for the fact I don’t have internet I doubt I would have read that many books.

Friday, June 8, 2012

This is the day I work in the booth with Louie, another camp host, we work two until dark. It never fails though we have several folks come in after we close the booth. I always try to get to the campground before dark, trying to park one this rigs in the dark is no fun.

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Worked the morning shift at the booth and didn’t have much to do. It seems to me the number of campers is lite but I have no history to base this on. The paper had an article in it the other day stating how the state campgrounds are having a record year for camping so far, so I don’t understand why we aren’t full on the weekends. Oh well, that is above my pay grade so I am not going to worry about it.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Today was a day of cleaning campsites after the campers left. Mark and Sharon came over for dinner. We fixed some tenderloin tips in the crockpot with onion, carrots, celery and potatoes. It was great, Sarah made brownies and we had those for desert with ice cream.

Monday, June 11, 2012

Today was my turn at the beach, nine to four with time off for lunch. I police up the area first thing when I get there and then sit around waiting for customers. I had two customers all day, it was cloudy, 65 and windy so I didn’t expect much business. This is where I get a lot of reading done.

Sheridan Lake, (Cont’d)

( I am in town today, Thursday,  and am going to post this. I promise I will try to get some pictures on here next week)

 

Thursday May 31, 2012

I made my way into Rapid City today. I had Sharon get some keys for me for the camper and they did not work. So I decided to take the time to drive in and get keys that would work. As you all know having keys made is an act of faith, usually you don’t have the door or object with you to try them as soon as they are made so you take them home and if they work great, if not you have to make the trip all over again. Our trip here is 25 miles one way so I was hoping the keys worked, they did. I also took time to go to Wal-Mart, the retirees Mecca, and pick up a few things, then it was over to Sam’s Club to get fuel in the truck.

I took my router and usbstick with me so I could sit in the truck and get on the internet. It didn’t dawn on me to go to McDonald’s or park in a hotel parking lot and use the free Wi-Fi but I was able to get all of my tasks done before the computer ran out of juice.

This afternoon Brad & Suzanne Abernathy came out to see us, they are working at Mt Rushmore this summer. We worked with them last winter in AZ. They are a lot of fun and being younger than us, have a lot more energy, they are working 40 hours a week. We went to dinner at Desperado’s in Hill City, I believe Brad said they were listed as the 3rd or 4th best place to eat in Hill City, I don’t remember the exact place they took. The food was very good and the portions were generous, it was $$ to $$$ on the price range. If you like bread pudding it was delicious.

Friday June 1, 2012

Nothing but work today, I worked the 2 till closing shift, which isn’t bad most of the time we are busy which helps make the time go by faster. We don’t have many reservations for this weekend which seemed not right, so when people coming in for a campsite said the internet reservation company listed our campground as full I knew why we did not have many reservations. There is nothing we can do here at the park because we have no electricity in the booth. I’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Saturday June 2, 2012

I worked the 9 till 2 shift today. We are still getting comments about the campground being full from those who tried to get a site online. I told the manager and he said that has happened before. Evidently what happens, as I was told, reservations have to be made a minimum of four days before the date you want to reserve your site and if you are less than four days the system says the campground is full. At least I know the reason now.

We had dinner at our place with Mark & Sharon, chicken, coleslaw and ice cream. We sat out at the picnic table, overlooking the lake, it was marvelous. Later Sarah and I walked the loop and registered two sites who had come in after the booth was closed. We had a brief thunder storm come through and it was all quiet after that. Before the rain I was sitting outside watching some campers down the hill from us. They have a little one, looks to be less than two, and he was trying to get his leg over a log, it was fun watching him and remembering when the kids were that age.

Sunday June 3, 2012

Today is cleaning day. After the campers leave we go around and clean the campsite for the next campers. Jim Larson, he lives in the campground all year, cleans the fire pits and the sites also, but he has a lot to do on Sunday’s so I want to help as much as I can, it doesn’t take too long and I kind of enjoy it.

We had a surprise today Howard & Linda Payne, www.rv-dreams.com, came to visit this afternoon, I have written about them before, they were a big part of helping us go full time. We had a great visit. Sarah and Linda began talking about beads and one thing lead to the other and Linda said she will find a bead store in Rapid City and let Sarah know on Monday where it is.

Monday June 4, 2012

I worked the beach area today and was somewhat busy but still was able to read a lot of my book. It got up to 90 today and I was ok until afternoon when I couldn’t find any shade to sit in out of the sun. I got hot and a bit burned but not bad. Linda found a bead store so we are going to meet there tomorrow.

Tuesday June 5, 2012

We left for Rapid City about ten, I wanted to go to the UPS store to deposit our pay checks. We have USAA bank and they do not have physical locations but they have an arrangement with UPS stores to deposit checks for their customers. I can deposit that way or with my mobile phone, I love the service. After depositing the checks it was off to find the bead store. I wasn’t difficult to find, when we got there Howard and I decided we would wait for the ladies in the coffee shop around the corner. I’ll have to remember this place for future visits, they have Wi-Fi, Sarah already says we are going to come into the bead store every couple of weeks.

The ladies got done at the bead store and came to find us and we went to a bread café, like Panera, but a local company and we had lunch. It was great. After lunch we parted ways with hugs and well wishes. It was great to get with Howard & Linda, I hope it isn’t two years between our next visit.

Wednesday June 6, 2012

I worked the main booth today, not much going on so I almost finished my book. I did finish it when I got home.  Now we have rain coming but it is something we need, it is very dry here so it is a welcome relief.

Sheridan Hills Lake Campground, Hill City, SD

(We are in Hill City doing laundry so I am going to post what I have written, this will be the only times I get on the internet so postings will be sparse)

I am going through withdrawals, I have no internet service at the camper and can’t get it. So I am going to have to wait until I can go into town each week to get on line. Last Tuesday when the realization of all this hit me I was not a happy camper, even though I knew coming into this gig it was a very real possibility I would not be able to get on line at the campground. So I will post my blog as I get the chance. I will date them so I have a chronological order to them.

Friday, May 11, 2010

We left Omaha area on Wed, 5/9. and spent the night at the R & R Campground, Mitchell, SD. We have stayed here before, it is a Passport American park but at this time of the year the office isn’t officially opened and you can stay for $15 per night. We met Amy, Clancy, and Clancy’s folks at a Mexican restaurant for dinner. Maverick graduated from preschool and we were celebrating. We will see them again Memorial weekend.

We arrived at Sheridan Hills Lake Campground located five miles west of Hill City. Louis, one of the other workampers, took us to our site in the Chipper loop campground. We have twenty five sites to look after, with an additional twelve on busy weekends. Our site is situated in the middle of the loop, we have full hookups and a nice view of the lake.

We got set up and the rig is the most level I have ever been able to make it. It took us about an hour to get everything set up and the way we wanted it. Now I was aware of the following but I am going through withdrawals anyway. We had no cell phone, TV, or internet upon arrival. I put the dish up and let it search for about twenty minutes but I knew it wasn’t going to latch onto a signal, the trees were to numerous and there was no opening for it and since it is attached to the roof I can’t move it just anywhere. So I was stuck or so I thought.

We went to Mark & Sharon’s for dinner, they are are friends who are workamping here and Sarah is working with Sharon this summer. They had gone to the Verizon store in Rapid City and got a device called Home Phone Connect, which is a cell phone device with more power I am told, and they had telephone service even though their cell phones don’t work. So Mark and I brought it down to our camper and plugged it in and it worked. Sharon had also picked up a MiFi unit and it didn’t work. Riddle me this, What works in an area where cell phone and Wi-Fi units don't work?, a wireless cell phone device with more power, or so I am told. We took the MiFi unit back to Verizon and I got the Home Phone Connect device, I also upgraded my Wi-Fi usbstick to 4G and saved $10 on those charges plus I cut back our minutes to 700 saving $20 per month which is the exact cost of the Connect device, but it has unlimited calling on it and it works everywhere. So our phone bill won’t change any but we will have phone service even where the cell phone doesn’t work.

So now I have the TV and internet to work on. Well, today I was told a Direct TV guy was at one of the other workampers site so I got hold of him and he came down and I ended up getting a dish, which he screwed to a tree stump, and we now have satellite TV. We have the same channels we had with the roof dish but no HD, I believe I can handle that.

So that leaves me with the internet. I am thinking this phone device is basically a phone line so why couldn’t I get to the internet with a dial up vendor. I don’t know if it is possible but I am going to see what I can do. Until I have internet access at the camper I am going to have to go to town once a week and use a local café or have my router in the truck to access the internet. I know I will use my router when I do financial business but otherwise I will use the free Wi-Fi wherever it is available.

This place is absolutely beautiful, as some friends of ours would say, it has the IT factor.

 

Saturday, May 19, 2010

We have been on the job now for one week and it is not to bad. Well Tuesday and Wednesday were not what I wanted but I got through them.

Monday, we had oreientation where we learned the do’s and the don’ts in the campground. During the winter the Forest Service runs this park, I guess the others in the area are closed, and there is one person who stays here through the winter and collects the camper fees etc. Then when the summer season starts, which was yesterday, Forest Recreation Management takes over for the summer, we work for FRM. We met all the other workampers and I won’t remember all of their names but there are twenty or so couples working here.

Tuesday, Sarah began her job with Sharon of spring cleaning 60 outhouses located in their area of responsibility and I guess some of them were very gross. I had to clean the 36 campsites I am responsible for, this entailed raking the pine needles and cones from around and under the picnic tables. I had to make sure there was no garbage in the fire pits and rake the pine needles away from them also. It has been very dry here with the fire warnings in the moderate to high range depending where you are in the area.

Wednesday was more of the same from Tuesday but I did manage to get all my campsites taken care of and looking good. Each day I would quit about three and sit and read until Sarah got home, then it was Marguarita time.

Thursday since I had my campsites ready I went into town to get a couple things, checked out south beach day use area, I will be manning the fee booth for this area on Mondays, and then spent some time in the main booth learning what to do. After lunch I drained the water heater and tried to clean it out and since it doesn’t have an anode rod in it there was not much of anything it it. I did put a new plug in it with plumbers tape on it because it was leaking. I bought a Flow-Rite system for my batteries to keep them filled. I have two batteries and to get to the back one I have to disconnect the front one, take it out and then pull the back one forward to check the water level. So I pulled the front one and checked the water in the back one and it was low so I filled it and the front one also. I may have a time of it getting the Flow-Rite system to fit because of the cable positions, one cable is two short so I will have to try and find a longer one but I hope I can get it to work.

Friday I spent more time in the main booth going over some of the processes and I went down to south beach to visit the workamper there. His name is Sherman, I am no good at remember last names and sometimes first names, anyway he is there by himself and I thought I would go visit for a short time. He had one customer already and while I was there two more showed up. It was not a busy day for him.

I came home and spent the rest of the day in the camper. Last night I had two campers with resevations who had not checked in yet so we do that at the campsite. I got one registered about seven last night and the other this morning. I had another vehicle pull in with four guys in it and they wanted to stay but thought the rate was ten dollars, the winter rate, I told them it was twenty-four dollars, they didn’t have the money and I told them they would have to leave, they did but I believe they came back after I went to bed and left before I could get to them this morning because the campsite they used had garbage in the fire ring. I doubt that will be the only time we have someone do that. We had another couple come in around nine-thirty, I got them registered and they are all set up for the weekend.

So my first day as a camp host went ok, next weekend is Memorial weekend and my camp loop is sold out so we will see what happens over that weekend.

Until later, Dreams Do Come True.

West Omaha KOA

Our time here is about over, we leave Weds for Hill City, SD and our summer job at Sheridan Lake Campgrounds. However, in the mean time let me catch you up on our time here.

We left Griff’s RV Park on a nice day, I really don’t like breaking camp in the rain or even after it rains because of the mud etc. but this time, the weather was dry and we had a pleasant trip to Gretna, NE and our campsite at the KOA. Since it isn’t far from Des Moines to Omaha, the trip was short and we arrived right after lunch. KOA parks are a bit more expensive than your state parks but as I have stated before when you weigh in the coast of fuel and travel time to see the kids the costs are about the same. We like this park and the owners, Eric & Carrol Murray, go out of their way to accommodate your needs, great people.

On Sunday the 29^th, we took the camper to the Excel Service Center in Smith Center, KS. We have had the washer leaking almost since we got it and no one seemed to know what was causing it. Therefore, I wanted it taken out and see if we could see where it was leaking. When the techs got the washer out and set it up on the service center floor it became quickly apparent the leak was from a hose connector not tight enough, something that could not be seen without taking the washer out of the camper. So now, we have a leak free washer but I still find myself looking for water in the tray under the washer. I even learned to fix some items I know I will need to fix or adjust in the future.

We had another great experience at the service center. Jack, Ralph and all the techs there are great; they do a very good job. Thank you all.

We were in Smith Center Monday only and got back to Omaha on Tuesday and since then we have had one severe storm warning after another, of course, they are all at night. But we have muddle through them and are beginning our processes to depart here on Weds.

Last night we went over to John & Cindi Cline’s home for dinner. They have a beautiful home. We had a great time. Cindi is every bit the cook John kept telling us about in AZ. We hope they can make it to SD this summer, if not we will see them in AZ this winter.

Dreams Do Come True