Bit by Bit June 25, 2010

While still in Cody, we were in touch with an old friend that some of you will remember from our first year at Adventureland, Betty Bowers.  It seems that she and her husband Dave were working on the other side of Yellowstone Park in West Yellowstone.  We made plans to meet them in the park for lunch.  It was so good to see Betty again and meet Dave.

When we met Betty, she was a single lady that was workamping and traveling on her own.  We have had so many laughs about the famous car she bought while we were in Iowa.  She was traveling in a class C camper with no other transportation.  She decided that she really needed a car so she found one for about $350.00.  It was something to see but she only needed it for her stay of several months and thought she would sell it when she got ready to leave Iowa.  I think this was the car that kept taking…I know Don and Alex spent a good bit of time keeping it running for her.  More later about Betty and Dave.

I never tire of Yellowstone in it’s winter attire.  Even though it was the end of May when we got together with them in the park winter still had a hold in the eastern portion.  

This is my favorite…Yellowstone Lake starting to thaw.

On our way back we came across a female moose and her calf…the calf was in the bushes so I did not get a good shot of it.

I must warn you that the next shots can be disturbing.  We saw this bison being moved down the highway.  I am not sure it it was dead or just tranquilized but this was outside the park boundary.  I certainly have never seen anything like it before.   Sorry about that but I warned you didn’t I?

Moving on.

Surprise, Surprise June 19, 2010

Well, a lot has happened since our last posting.  Our job in Cody, WY. just did not work out for us.  There was such a high level of stress that the morning after I left work at 1:30 am (I should have gotten off at 11:30 PM) we decided to give our 2 week notice.  We loved Cody and most of the other workampers and our boss but it was just not the job for us.  Our employer was so nice and asked it we would consider another position but we were over it by then.  So, we worked our 2 week notice and left there on the 10th of June. 

Just a couple of days after we gave notice, we were told of a position with the company that manages the campgrounds for the US Forest Service near Hill City, S.D.  We applied and were told they had already filled that position but there was a volunteer position open that involved 20 hours of work a week for your site.  That sounded great so we accepted and told them we could start on June 14.  Well, before we even got to the job, we were notified that a paid position had become available.  So here we are at Sheridan Lake in the Black Hill National Forest near Hill City, South Dakota.

We are the Hosts for one of the loops in the campground…that would be Smokey loop.  We also work at the day use area that they call the south beach.  Our days starts with Bob driving through our loop inspecting our 39 camp sites around 8:00 am.  At 9:00 we meet the other hosts and our area manager at the main entrance booth for our morning meeting which usually lasts anywhere from 3 minutes to 30.  We then proceed to the day use area which is at the lake itself and has a small beach.  We sell parking passes to anyone entering this area for swimming, fishing, boating or just picknicing. We spend a lot of time sitting and reading.  It is a beautiful area and we can watch people fishing.

We close up shop at 5:00 pm and return to the campground which is only a short distance away.  We drive through our loop just to be sure everything looks okay.  Then we have some free time until the main booth closes at 8:00 pm.  We make another round about 8:30 pm and again at 10:00 pm.  Between rounds we may have people coming over to buy firewood or as happened tonight some campers wanted to plug into our electrical outlet to blow up a couple of air mattresses.  This campground has no hookups (water, electric or sewer) except for the host sites.  They don’t even have a dump station here. We have 5 loops within the campground so you can see it is a fairly large area.  Then we have the south beach area (which we cover) and the north beach area on the other side of the lake.  The north beach area also has 5 group camp sites.

Now for the real corker…WE HAVE NO CELL PHONE SERVICE, NO TELEVISION RECEPTION AND NO INTERNET!!!!!!  Bob says it’s a good thing because we don’t have time to watch television anyway.  We have to drive 6 miles into Hill City for cell service and to use the wifi at the library. I am slowly getting used to it.  We have no idea what is happening in the real world.  We will be off on Monday and Tuesday and plan to go into Rapid City which is only about 25 miles from here.  There is NO fast food in Hill City.  We went in to eat at a Mexican restaurant one night and they wanted $6.95 for chips and salsa…we passed on that and should have passed on everything.  I am cooking often!  I hear they have a Safeway grocery store in Rapid City…I am so excited.

It’s late and we get up fairly early, especially for me, so more later.

Moving on.