OHMYGOSH…Oct. 21, 2010

Just a short post.  We are now and have been in Coffeyville, Kansas, for a little over a week.  We are among 600 or so workampers who have come to southeastern Kansas to work the Christmas peak season for Amazon.com…this is our third year to do this.  We will go for our meet and greet on Sunday afternoon and then actually start working on Monday with an all day orientation.  We have worked the night shift the past 2 years but won’t get our assignments until Monday.

Anyway, we are staying at an older mobile home park, Buckeye MHP,  that has opened up to us RVers.  We are in the back of the park with 9 other rigs and we still have room for 3 more rigs in our area.  There are probably 12 other RVers scattered among some of the mobile homes that remain.  The owners are super nice as is the lady that works in the on site office for them.  They are putting in bathrooms and a laundry room that will be super nice for the RVers that don’t have laundry facilities in their rigs.  This is a picture of our space. 

The biggest plus for me, besides seeing friends, is the fact that they have 2 ponds on the premises…yippee!  I found a bait shop where I was able to buy minnows (my bait of choice) and have been fishing the past 3 afternoons.  I was not even getting a bite for 2 days but yesterday was rewarded for my patience…see my bass Mark!   

Then a short time later my friend, Natalie, hauled in this monster.   

Her catch was soon followed by my last catch of the day…mmm, perhaps not a trophy fish.  Whoops, forgot to take of picture of the 3 inch monster.

The weather has been absolutely beautiful…warm fall days with cool nights…just doesn’t get much better plus we are only 60 miles from Tulsa, OK where we can get a Whataburger hamburger, 50 miles from great barbecue brisket in Joplin, MO and only 3 miles from some of the best Mexican food we have ever had…El Pueblito right here in Coffeyville.  We are also within a short distance of several casinos. Life is good.

Moving on.

Backtracking A Bit October 4, 2010

I am going to be jumping around a bit trying to get caught up on some of the things we have done and places we have been. 

When we left Hill City, SD we travelled to Pierre, the capital of South Dakota.  We learned early on that Pierre is pronounced “Pier” and not “P-air”…hope you understand that.  We stopped at a rest area on our way and saw the folks below.  Sorry it is such a bad picture but I had to take it through the screen because I did not want them to know that I was taking their picture.  I have never seen anyone with their laundry hung out to dry at a rest area before.  I thought it was okay to post this picture since you can’t identify the people.

We stayed at a really nice city park in Fort Pierre which is just across the river from Pierre.  We had full hookups with 50 amps for $10.00 a night.  We stayed 2 nights and we were right on the Bad River.  They probably have about 15 spaces.  Would definitely stay there again.

At this location, Lewis and Clark made the first contact with the Teton Sioux.

This is the covered pavilion located at the park.

The leaves were starting to show their brilliant fall colors as we made our way into Minnesota.  We are starting to stay at small city parks when possible.  As we are totally self contained we don’t need hookups for at least several days.   

Moving On…

Minnesota Sept. 30, 2010

Well, I am skipping over some things I want to blog about that happened earlier but wanted to get this done while it is fresh on my mind.

We arrived in Wadena, MN yesterday.  We are here because Bob has a brother and sister-in-law, John and Jan, that live not far from here and Bob is seeing a dentist in Staples, where they live.

Wadena is a small town of around 5,000 people.  It has a cute downtown area…which we will visit in the next few days.  There is a community college here and they had a tornado that came through in June doing quite a bit of damage to the residential area.

I left the motorhome early this morning because a farmer’s market was advertised to start at 7:00 am at the train depot…well, the farmer’s were still asleep I guess as there was no one there.  I snapped this on the way.

We wanted to see the headwaters of the Mississippi River so we headed north today, driving through several small towns before arriving at Lake Itasca about 2 hours away.  We stopped at two city parks that offer RV parking. 

We went to Bemidji first and stopped to see the Paul Bunyan statue with his blue ox, Babe.   

Here’s Bob signing the visitor register at the Welcome Center…he had to borrow Paul’s pencil.

There is a lot of sculpture on the streets of Bemidji…this fish was stolen several years ago and the paper publicized the theft and the fact that the piece was worth $10,000 (yeah right).  The thief returned the piece and they have kept it in the Welcome Center since.  It is constructed out of old tools.

I got to see my first cranberry bush or tree or whatever.

Chicago has it cows and Bemidji has it beavers.

Bemidji is also know for its woolen mill called…are you ready…are you sure…The Bemidji Woolen Mill!  It was much smaller than I expected…it would have been neat to see all the ladies at work…where the heck were they?

They had a great store…but not much there for people that spend less than a month in cold weather. Interesting.

Finally we arrive at Lake Itasca.  They have had so much rain that the water was really up.  When we were here in 1991 or 1992 you could literally walk across the Mississippi.  It was just lovely today as we were here around 5:00 and there were only a few other visitors.  Hard to believe that the might Mississippi starts right here.  We have now visited the headwaters of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers.

I had to put a toe in…hey Lorraine North I know you would have.

The portion of water in the background is Lake Itasca and the water in the foreground is the start of the Mississippi. 

It was a special moment for Bob also…he has his phone glued to his ear!

And a good time was had by all.

Moving on.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

The last 2 days have flown by…that’s because they were our days off.  We seem to stay on the road the whole time running everywhere but not getting much done.

We will be closing our campground on Sept. 13 but Bob and I are going to stay in the area for another week to 10 days so we have been checking out all of the campgrounds in the area.  I told Bob we had to have internet even if we can’t get one where our AT&T cell phones work.

The weather is starting to turn cooler…we are turning our small heaters on each morning when we get up and today it was jeans and sweatshirts…yippee…my kind of weather.  They tell me they have had snow as early as the middle of September up here.

We spent some time some time in Custer State Park yesterday.  We ran into some burros, mules, donkeys…we are not sure which.  They had no problem going right up to the cars.  Unfortunately some people were feeding them…right in front of the signs that said not to feed the animals…go figure.

This little guy was all legs and he was kicking up a storm.

    

We saw a few prairie dogs but were once again disappointed in the number of animals we saw throughout the park.                    

Today we took Buddy and Cissy to the beauty shop in Custer where they had a spa day.  We then met Dave and Betty in Keystone to ride the tram up the side of the hill.  We had tried to do this once before but it was raining buckets by the time we got there and they were closed.  Today they were closed again…the sign said they would be open for Labor Day.  It’s just not meant to be.  So, we had lunch at the local DQ and got to have a nice visit.

Right across the street from the DQ we saw this sign about the Alfred Hitchcock movie.

Another view of part of Keystone.

This evening we met Larry and Rosalie, friends that we had worked with at Adventureland in 2005, at the Alpine Inn in Hill City for dinner.  Also joining us were Rod and Marsha Schultz. Rod and Marsha are one of the couples that run the campground office at the Tiffin service center in Red Bay, AL.  Rod and Marsha invited Joe and Jan Dabney of Houston, TX to join us.  They have an Allegro Bus made by Tiffin.  A pleasure to meet such nice people and find out they know other Tiffin owners that we too know.  Small world.  The food was great as was the company.  Unfortunately I didn’t not have my camera on the right setting.

It’s back to work tomorrow…getting ready for the Labor Day weekend crowd we are expecting.

Moving on.

Sunday, August 15, 2010 The Black Hills of South Dakota

We are still working at Sheridan Lake Campground near Hill City, SD.  We have 4 weeks left and counting.  This has been a very quiet weekend for us…we only had 12 of our 39 spaces occupied…the other 3 loops were pretty full.  Sunday is always nice because most of the campers are leaving…I think we will only have 3 spaces with campers tonight unless someone else comes in.  The weather turned quite cool yesterday…high was 65 degrees.  It is supposed to start warming today and we should be back to about 80 degrees within a few days.  We had to turn one of our small heaters on early this morning but it looks like it is going to be a beautiful day.  We are working the beach/day use area as we do 5 days a week.  There are a few people fishing across the lake from where I am sitting…that is a free parking area right next to the highway.  This is the view I get from the booth.  Sheridan Lake is 385 acres…this is just a small part.

I really wish I could just pick up my rod and reel and walk the few feet down to the lake but don’t think our employer would like that.  Because of the cool weather we probably will have very little activity…we normally sell around 50 parking passes on a good day…yesterday we sold 4.  I can’t being to tell you how many books we have read in the last few weeks.

Last Tuesday, one of our days off, we drove over to Custer which is less than 15 miles from here.  As previously mentioned, the Sturgis, SD motorcycle rally is in full swing and there are bikers everywhere.  This is downtown Custer which is probably about 80 miles from Sturgis.

Sorry, I was snapping these thru the windshield as we drove thru…I am wondering where this guy put the crutch when he was riding.

We had dinner at the Blue Bell Lodge in Custer State Park.  It was built in the 1920s by an executive with Bell Telephone.  It is a beautiful location.  

Sorry I did not take any pictures of the interior of the restaurant.  The setting was lovely…the food was so-so.  We are having trouble finding really good food in this area…but it is just as well as we don’t have much time to eat out.  Hard to believe I am cooking almost every day.  It can’t last forever.

Moving on.

From The Black Hills of South Dakota

The following was written about 2 weeks ago…I just have not had the internet time to get it posted until today, 8-9-10.  Sorry, vm.

We continue to enjoy mostly great weather in The Black Hills…we have had thunderstorms the last few days and nights and even some hail yesterday but nothing bad.  We have had a few days in the 90s but then we get some rain and it cools things off.  Where we are near Hill City the temps are about 10 degrees cooler than in Rapid City…Rapid, as the locals refer to it, is about 30 miles north of us.

We took yesterday to do some sightseeing with our friends Betty and Dave.  We took a short drive to Keystone before going on to Mount Rushmore.  In Keystone there is a museum dedicated to Gutzon Borglum…the man that began the Mount Rushmore project.  As we entered, there was a man working that was giving information to the people in front of us.  I really was not looking at him but when I heard his voice I looked up and told Betty that I knew him and I knew she did too.  It was Bob Griffiths and he recognized us also.  After watching the movie about Borglum we went into the gift shop where Bob’s wife, Eddy, was working.  I had asked Bob not to tell her that we were there.  What a surprise for all of us.  My Bob, Betty and I worked with Bob and Eddy at Adventureland in Iowa in 2005 in the retail department.  We are running into so many people that we know! Here we are, Bob and Eddy, Dave and Betty and Bob and I.  We have made plans to get together in a couple of weeks for dinner in Keystone.

Then we went on to Mount Rushmore.  Bob and I had been there once before several years ago but having been to the Borglum museum we got so much more out of it this time.

And you know, you just can’t get away from those Texans…these guys are from Austin…could you guess?  We had talked to an Aggie while lunching in Keystone.

Talk about a small world, while in Keystone we got a phone call…yes, my phone actually rang…from Chuck and Lorraine North.  Chuck and Lorraine were one of the couples that were part of the Alaska group last summer and we had not seen them since.  They are in Rapid City for a few days so we were able to have dinner together last night.  We always seem to work food into whatever we do. 

It was so good to seem them…wish we had more time to visit with them but we are hampered by that darn work thing.

Today we just hung around the park until it was time to come into Rapid City for Bob’s appointment with the oral surgeon to have 2 teeth removed.  He is having that done as I write. 

Here in South Dakota

Okay, so the job in Cody, Wyoming did not work out for us.  Betty and Dave were going to work for the Black Hills National Forest near Hill City, SD and told us about an opening just a couple of days after we gave our notice in Wyoming.  So long story short…I know, you can’t believe it…we applied, got accepted and arrived on June 14 to work at Sheridan Lake.

It is a beautiful area and we are hosting one of the loops in the campground with 39 spaces plus we work everyday at one of the day use areas that has fishing, picnicking and a small beach area.  I figure we are putting in about 10 hours a day total with 2 days off.  I don’t mind the day use area at all but I am not fond of being the police force in our loop.  Most people are very nice but you always have a couple that want to buck the system.  These are campsites with no utilities at all.  Fortunately we have full hookups at our site except for the fact we have no phone reception, no internet and we just got Directv a couple of days ago.  We have to drive into Hill City, about 6 miles away, to make a phone call.

Last Monday Bob and I and Betty and Dave rode the 1880 Train from Hill City to Keystone, SD.  I have no idea how far it is in miles but the ride is only one hour and it goes really slow.  Bob and I have done several of these types of trains before but I have to say this was the most pleasant.  The train going from Williams, AZ to the Grand Canyon was so slow we threatened to walk back.

When we reached Keystone we went into the gift shop and a woman walked up and called me by name.  What a small world…it was Rosalie and Larry…another couple we worked with at Adventureland and had not seen since 2005 or 2006…I can’t remember which.  How funny is that.  They are staying about a mile down the road from our campground and they work for the 1880 train but this was one of their days off.  They had friends visiting so we all got a picture together. 

That’s Larry hiding behind Rosalie on the far left.  Way to go Betty with the hat…cowgirl up!

Here are a few pictures taken from the train and in Keystone.    This house was almost hidden from view.

This is the Lazy 2, Crazy 2 ranch.

Betty was trying to mimic the way this dear old lady was shaking.

The next day we had to take Little Buddy, our Yorkie, to Sturgis for an appointment with an orthopedic specialist.  Sturgis is where the huge motorcycle rally is held every year in South Dakota.  It is a lovely little town that swells to thousands and thousands for the rally.  This tree was at the florist shop…someone had carved it with a chainsaw I suppose.

Back to the train ride…it was enjoyable but been there, done that.  Keystone is pretty much a typical tourist town.  There are places everywhere selling Black Hills gold jewelry…the problem is that none of the gold comes out of the Black Hills anymore.  The area is really lovely though.

Moving on.