'25/#42 Changes In Latitude....

 As predicted the last day in Michigan was cold and busy but everything got done and we were ready to roll southward. Monday morning we left St Ignace and over the next six days we made stops in Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas before arriving at our destination in the Rio Grande Valley. 

Our latitude change from traveling 2000 miles south changed everything. Now the temperatures are hovering around 90 degrees. A big change from the highs in the 50's that we left in Michigan. First thing, after turning on the A/C,was to pack away our cold weather coats and dig out shorts that were forgotten about since I can't remember when. We are at the same park we worked at several years ago so we alerted friends that we were in town. The RV is set up for sitting still for a week before we hit the road again.

We are in the Valley to take care of some things that are better done here and across the border. I have also decided to put new tires on the RV. The tires currently on the RV are not wearing as well as other brands I have used in the past and I prefer to err on the side of caution. That's a lot of vehicle going down the road and and it is everything we own, not to mention our personal safety. 

Once all the errands are done and we have decompressed from all the travel we will continue on our adventure. The next destination is Florida. We have family and friends that we have missed all summer and it sounds like we were missed also. 

We were glad to hear that everyone made out well during the hurricane. It was on our minds and we were worried until we heard that everyone was OK. I think we need to see it with our own eyes and give and get hugs to confirm the good news. 

It is time for dinner so we can get to bed early. The to-do list won't do itself so I will sign off now from our home in Pharr Texas because....

Home is where we park it,

Frank and Mary

'25/#41 Tick Tock

 The last time I blogged we had two days off and four more to work. Now we have two days to work and then we will have the Upper Peninsula in our rear view mirror. Our check list is done and as always every time we check something off we find some thing to add. It's usually just little things that we overlooked or something new we should have added to the original list but it still needs to be done. 

The weather has turned the corner towards winter with highs only about 50 degrees and lows in the upper 30's and just plummeting from there. We are looking forward to temperatures a little bit warmer as we trek south. The heat we have in the RV works well but we still have to go outside. Brrrrrrr!

Today should be an easy day at work but tomorrow is another story. Sunday is the last day of the season here at the KOA. The last guest will be leaving or kicked out and the final steps to winterize and close everything will be completed. Early Monday morning the wheels will be rolling and the next stage of our adventure will begin.

The next blog will probably be from the road, so I will sign off for the last time from our home in St Ignace Michigan because.....

Home is where we park it,

Frank and Mary

'25/#40 And The Countdown Begins

 One week from today we will be on the road again. Lots of "places to go, people to see, and things to do" are in our future and we need to set our priorities and get through the list as well as we can. Yes we are headed back to Florida but will take a circuitous route. That seems to be the theme of our adventures this summer.

We have two days off and then four more days of work and then we depart Northern Michigan. This last week of work is going to be busy getting the campground shut down for the winter. Everything needs to be stowed and prepped for the freezing temperatures so the park can open smoothly in the spring. Four days of busy, busy, busy.

Our two days off we will be getting the rig road ready for our departure. Again things need to be stowed and prepped for travel so we will have smooth traveling over the next couple of weeks. During this time we we will also be making our reservations at RV parks on our route south. We have already done the research to find the parks that are still open this time of year. When we left Maine a few years back we couldn't find open campgrounds along our east coast route until we hit North Carolina. Lesson learned!

We will also try to spend some quality personal time with the few workers that are still here before we say goodbye. Once again we have made friends that I am sure we will keep in touch with. But right now I am starting my third cup of coffee and it is time to wake Mary so we can get started on our "to-do" list. 

The countdown has begun and time will run out soon here, in our home in St Ignace Michigan because.....

Home is where we park it,

Frank and Mary

'24/#39 Moving Day

 No, we aren't leaving Michigan yet. As workcampers we get our RV site free therefore the site is not a premium one that will produce more revenue during the season. Our site was a water and electric site which means no sewer hook-up. To get rid of our waste water we used a pump and an auxiliary tank to take our black and grey water to a dump station and dispose of it. It wasn't a big deal but once a week it took about an hour of our time. We did do it on the clock so we were getting paid to get rid of our poop!

Now that the season is winding down more sites have become available and we have moved to a full hook-up sit with sewer. This will give me the opportunity to back flush all the waste water tanks and have them clean and ready when we hit the road. We are also closer to the office so our commute to work is three minutes instead of five.

In addition to taking care of our tanks we are starting to stow things away so when "D" day arrives we will be ready. "D" is for departure. The next two weeks will be spent shutting things down in the campground and trying to stay warm. This mornings temperature was about 30 degrees and the high will not reach the 50's. 

Gotta get ready for work so I will sign off now from our home in St Ignace because......

Home is where we park it, 

FRank and Mary

'24/#38 Time For Introspection

 It has been almost two months since my last blog. This summer is just one of those periods of time when the excitement of travel wanes. In the last blog I mentioned that coming back might have been a mistake because of our "one and done" rule of not going back to the same place twice. Looking back ( introspection...wink, wink) it turns out we may have been wrong. This summer has not turned out as bad as it seemed.

The disappointment we were feeling turned out to be caused by one particular couple that was working here. They were the type that tries to make everyone around them look bad so they look better than they actualy are. This created dischord an animosity amongst the workcamping group. As the only returning workcampers we were in a unique position to compare and share our experiences of last season to this year. Most of the people here realized that things could and should be better if we all just did our jobs and didn't interfere with anyone else. Eventualy the managers (first year managers at that) were able to get everyone to just work and ignore the disruptive personalities. 

Shortly thereafter the offending couple left and everyone was getting along and doing their jobs. We became a good social working group which is the goal of most workcamping crews. We work together, we live together, we have to get along together. Since things have gotten better and we have become closer with the new managers we have decided that we may come back for a third season!

YES! Three time is definitely a break from only visiting the same place more than once. If you follow us at all you know that this year was different from any of our past adventures. It turns out that sometimes hum-drum can work. We have been able to pad our nest egg a little since we did most of our exploring in this area last year and the new managers want us back in a new capacity. The new jobs will be easier for us old folks and we will be able to help them bring some of the good things that were done this year over into the next.

Well back to hum-drum or what we now call comfortable. The season is winding down and it's nice to watch the nest egg grow in anticipation of our next adventure. So I will sign off now, with a promise to start blogging more, from our home in Michigan because.....

Home is where we park it,

Frank and Mary

'24/#37 Time Marches On

 Well it has been two and a half weeks since we got to the U.P. We have settled in and started working. Everyone here is new from last year except Fred who is the one and only local on staff and it was good to see him. Schedules are different with the new managers so we had to find a system of our own that fit in with the rest of the crew.

Now that we are in our "zone" at work some things have become apparent. First of we shouldn't have broken our rule of "one and done". Coming back to the same job makes it feel like a long term commitment or even a career. The novelty of a new job, in a new place, and with new people is gone and we just drop into that rut called the rat race. It just isn't fun. It isn't terrible, but not knowing what is going to happen next is better than the hum-drum of again and again and again. This is something Mary and I have come to look forward to in our nomadic lifestyle. The not knowing is exciting and afterwards, good bad or indifferent, we have a story to tell around the campfire.

The second thing we have learned is that we are getting older. Hell, I'm just old! We can't do the work we did in the past and will have to look at workcamping jobs differently in the future. We will be looking at jobs that are less strenuous that will probably have less compensation. We will be good as long as our accomodations are covered and maybe even a little cash to go with it. We shall see.

We have our days off now and we will take it easy just hanging around the campground. There are some chores that need to be done and an old work friend is supposed to be in the area. We hope to get together with them and spend a little time.

It feels like breakfast time so I will sign off and start cooking here in our home in the Upper Peninsula because.....

Home is where we park it,

Frank and Mary

'24/#36 Let's Recap

 We are now settled in our home in Michigan and are looking forward to not traveling every couple of days. I can now sit down and recap the whirlwind of the last four months.

We started this trip with RV work done on the trailer and now after almost 10 thousand miles I can say that the suspension upgrade was worth every penny. Let's just say that it is easier to drive and making it much less stressful and fatiguing. We caught up with friends in Missouri, saw the eclipse in Arkansas, picked up our mail in north Texas, said a sad goodbye to a dear friend in south Texas, and a happy hello to another while making some new friends. It was then on to New Mexico to the White Sands, Arizona and Antelope Canyon, Utah and more old friends, and Idaho for some falls and Evel Knievel's Snake River jump site. That was the first month!

It was time to slow down a little. Next on the hit parade we saw Crater Lake in Oregon and on to a little off the beaten path campground just to chill for a week. Now that we were rested it was off to Washington State via Columbia River Gorge, Olympic National Park and Pikes Place Market in Seattle. After all this travel west it was eastward bound to Great Falls Montana and more quality time with a friend from the past. A little relaxing and preping the RV for the main event of the summer.

We headed north to hook-up with the RV tour we had booked to see the Calgary Stampede, Banff, and Glacier/Waterton Peace Park also known as Canada's Waterton Park and Glacier National Park in the U.S. Then it was back to Great Falls to unwind and make plans for the rest of the summer.

That led to the race east toward Michigan. We stopped in Sturgis SD for a night while the city was preparing for their annual bike rally and a stop in Mitchell SD with our third trip to the Corn Palace. Sounds a little hokie and it is but we like it. A few more nights on the road and here we are in St Ignace Michigan. 

There are new people at the park this year and they seem just as nice as the last group. We are looking forward to getting into a little routine working and still seeing some of the Upper Peninsula that we missed last year. As I've said before we will also put a little cash back in the savings account for future adventures.

I will sign off from our home, for a while, here in the U.P. because.....

Home is where we park it,

Frank and Mary