Hidden Valley RV Resort, Milton, WI

We have been here over a week now and I do like this campground. I don’t care what they call it this is still a campground. I guess resort in the name comes from the fact they have a pool, Frisbee golf, baseball field, skateboard area and a couple of volleyball courts along with a nice play area for the kids, and they can charge a higher price for the sites. All in all even though we don’t use all the amenities I still enjoy the park. The people are friendly, they have seasonal units here, and we just plain enjoy it.

Last Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday we got to see Mason play baseball. It was great, he reminds me of his dad when he first started playing organized ball. Mason has some talent and if he applies himself will be better than Robert was. He is already hitting as well as or better than his dad did at this age. It will be fun to see him play next year and see the improvement he makes.

Tonight we get to see Madyson dance. She has dance and gymnastics on Tuesday night, I am looking forward to this.

Last Wednesday I cleaned my brother Larry’s Ford Ranger, he is letting us use it until September, we are very thankful for that. The truck was dirty, but we managed to get it looking respectable. Thursday I cleaned the front of the camper and after letting it sit all of the week before in the 100 degree heat in Burlington, the bugs were baked on but my DWG Dri Wash n’ Guard made short work of them. Then on Thursday I tackled the front of the F550, talk about a challenge, I hadn’t cleaned it since April, something I will not do again. It took me several hours to get it back to the way I wanted it. Now everything looks good and we are relaxing.

We are here until the ninth then it is off to the CORE park at Coralville, IA. We will be there about a week, then on to Crossroads RV Park, Mt. Pleasant, IA to visit with Dave & Shari Frantz good friends we have know for quite some time and finally to Griff’s RV Park in Altoona, IA, a favorite park, to stay until Oct 1. We will do our doctor appts etc. before heading south to Mesa, AZ for the winter.

So for now that is it remember, Dreams Do Come True.

Leaving Sheridan Lake

With my mother in the hospital we left Sheridan Lake on Sunday the 15th and headed for Honey Creek State Park at Lake Rathbun, IA, with a stop at Mitchell, SD to visit with Clancy & Amy and the kids. I had hoped to make it to Centerville to see mom again but it wasn’t to be, she passed away about an hour before we arrived at the campground. She wasn’t in any pain and died peacefully, I know she is with dad now and has completed her journey. We will all miss her but the memories are there to sustain us.
We stayed with my brother Larry and his wife Kathy, THANK YOU, for putting up with me for such a long time, we were there six days, I can be a difficult person at times, so again thank you. The visitation and funeral were well attended, I saw a lot of people I haven’t see for forty years or more. It is interesting how this seems to be the norm for weddings and funerals. You see people you haven’t seen for a lot of years and you catch up but at the same time you know you most likely won’t see them again for years. Life is that way, we meet someone who we enjoy visiting with over a day or years and then we are pulled apart by any number of circumstances and we go for years without seeing them and a situation arises which allows us to renew our friendship. So it was this time for me, a sad occasion brought on the joy of seeing long ago friends.
Burlington HS administration was very gracious in letting us park the camper and truck in one of their parking lots for our stay in Burlington. It worked our great because my brother lives a half a block from the HS so I was able to check on the camper daily.
We headed out last Monday, the 23rd, for Hidden Valley RV Resort in Milton, WI. This is a nice campground, more money than what we want to spend, but it is the best in the area. There was one closer to the kids but they were more expensive and not as accommodating and as nice. So we are here until August 9, then to Mt. Pleasant, IA, Coralville, IA, ending on August 19th at Griff’s RV Park for a month or more.
So the circle of life ends for mom and continues for the rest of us. We will continue on this journey through life with the knowledge that our time will come to a full circle also at some future point in time.

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.