Category Archives: Work Camping

May25

Hitchhikers Are a Blessing

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I left my temporary campground around 10:30 in the morning. I hadn’t made it even a mile out of the gate when I saw two people standing on the opposite side of the road. I thought they were just waiting to cross, but then I saw they had their thumbs out.

What?

I stopped next to them. A guy and a gal were standing there. Both were probably in their 20s (the guy a little older than the gal, perhaps), and both looked outdoorsy and totally wholesome.

My driver’s side window doesn’t roll down, so I had to talk to them through the little triangle window.

I asked if they were ok.

The gal began explaining that they worked at a camp and the battery in their car was dead. They seemed to be going the way I was going. I said I didn’t have much room, but I’d try to squeeze them in. I said I had to unlock the door and was about to climb out of the driver’s seat when I realized I was stopped in the middle of the road. I saw a turn-out ahead, so I said I’d pull off the road up there, and we could figure it out.

When I opened the side door, my stove and the tub with my cookware, and a random hat came spilling out. I’d forgotten to strap my tubs together, and things had shifted and fallen. The tub with the cookware only latches on one side (the latch on the other side broke off and has disappeared in the van vortex), so knives and forks fell halfway out the door. I’m sure the hitchhiking couple were wondering about my sanity (or at least my packing skills), but I guess they figured dealing with me was better than being stranded.

As I repacked and shifted my belongings to make room for them to sit on the floor (with my bicycle and the folding table I had just tossed in and not actually put away), they explained their situation more clearly.

They were working at a camp for kids, not at a campground as I’d assumed. They’d discovered the battery in their car (which was actually a small truck) was dead moments after co-workers had driven away.

They wanted me to bring them to where the people they worked with were, but I offered to give them a ride to their vehicle and give them a jump start. The gal was like, Oh no. We couldn’t ask you to do that. It’s three miles down a dirt road. I asked if she thought the van wouldn’t make it, and she said she thought the van could easily make it. The guy added that it was a really nice dirt road.

I realized they didn’t want to inconvenience me, but I didn’t have to be anywhere at any certain time. Heaven knows I owe a lot of hitchhike Karma and a lot of jump start Karma. I told them I would be happy to drive them to their vehicle and give them a jump start. Once they realized I was really glad to help them, they seemed really glad to accept.

They climbed in the back of the van and sat among my belongings, and I climbed into the driver’s seat and opened the curtains between the front and the back. That’s when I realized what a stereotype I am. I was driving this big ol’ conversion van, and (I’m not kidding!) burning incense and listening to the Grateful Dead. (I was not wearing a long hippie skirt, only because I was wearing my work uniform, which, perhaps gave me a bit of respectability.)

The drive to their camp (not campground) was down a road I’d passed several times in the last three weeks. I would have never taken the van on that road without knowing something about it. (It’s kind of sketchy to take the van down a dirt road in the mountains without having some idea of the condition of the road. I absolutely do not want to get stuck somewhere.)

The view was gorgeous! A couple of times I shouted Wow! A couple of times I stopped the van so I could get a good look at the trees and the mountains and the sky. I think my passengers were a bit amused by my outbursts.

They told me that at the end of the road, if one hikes about three miles, one arrives at the ruins of a fire lookout tower that burned down (is that irony?) and a cool rock formation. It sounds awesome, and I would like to go, although I’m not much of a hiker (and understand arithmetic sufficiently to know that 3 miles there means a 6 miles round trip). Maybe when my friend comes to visit we can go together.

The jump start of their truck was anticlimactic. Once the cables were connected and I started the van, their truck vroomed to life. There were hugs and thanks and we parted ways.

Their misfortune was my lucky day because I got to meet a couple of cool folks, see a gorgeous view, and learn about a cool place to visit.

May24

People Are Nasty

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I finally moved from the campground where I’ve been acting as camp host to my very-own-for-the-summer campground.

I’d been told to leave my supplies and tools at the temporary campground, so I arrived at my campground with no broom and no shovel and no garbage bags. I couldn’t sweep the restrooms, and I couldn’t clean the fire rings. I needed to work at least a couple more hours, so I set out to pick up micro trash.

I spent over an hour and a half removing bits of trash from the ground. The campground only has ten campsites, so I wasn’t dealing with a very big area. The trash seemed older here: the metal bottle caps were rusty and the plastic ones were squished into the dirt. This year is the first time this campground has had a host, so I guess no one’s picked up micro trash in a long time. Maybe it’s never been done.

After I combed the campground for stray paper, plastic, metal, and glass, I walked the half-mile dirt road that leads from the campground to the highway. I walked with my plastic grocery store bag and picked up trash all the way to the highway and all the way back. The road was cleaner than the campground. I found an empty Corona bottle, a few bottle caps, a bag that once held candy, and some tiny bits of this and that.

The grossest thing I found all day? A condom.

At the back edge of site 4, where the campsite has almost turned into the forest, I found an unwrapped, unrolled condom on the ground. I’m going to assume it had been used. I grabbed a good size piece of loose plastic out of my makeshift trash bag and touched the condom with the plastic and not my fingers.

Let me say, I applaud the use of condoms. I advocate for the use of condoms. I’m glad someone was wise enough and mature enough to use that condom. But for goodness sake, once that condom did its job, why was it not put into a trashcan?

To be fair, the condom looked as if it had been lying on the ground for quiet a while, and the campground only officially opened a few days ago. Maybe there are no trashcans in the campground in the off season. But if ever there were something packed in that needed to be packed out, it was this condom.

This is just the sort of thing which will eventually give Woodsy Owl a heart attack.

Give a hoot! Don’t throw your used condom on the ground, ya idiot!

May23

Does a Bear Shit in the Campground?

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I took this photo on the afternoon of May 18, on the same side of the campground where I saw the bear prints. I think it’s bear shit, but I can’t find an exactly matching picture on Google images. Can anyone confirm or deny?

I should have put something for size comparison in the photo. I didn’t think about size comparison until just now. In any case, it was a pretty big pile. And it’s obviously not from a horse or a cow. What animal could it be from other than a bear?

May19

Cleaning Fire Rings and Picking Up Trash

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The last couple of days, I have been cleaning fire rings and picking up trash. I don’t mind either of these chores.

Cleaning fire rings is physical in an I’m toughening up sort of way, but not in an I’m going to die sort of way. I do not like physical activities that make me think of death. Also, I can clean the fire rings at my own pace. I would like it less if I had to hurry.

Picking up trash is ok too, especially since I started thinking of it as going on a hike with a trash bag. Actually picking up trash is kind of fun. I feel like I’m on an Easter egg hunt, but instead of finding yummy treats, I’m finding…trash. At least picking up trash puts my OCD tendencies (thanks, Mom) to good use.

I’ve been picking up what is called micro trash or pocket trash. This is the little stuff. Sure, I’ve found a couple of rusty metal cans (which, were I in New Mexico, I’d be compelled to whip into what The Lady of the House and I refer to as Tetanus Art); a plastic grocery store sack; six empty, new-looking Keystone Light cans; and some ripped up newspaper, but mostly I’m picking up small stuff.

Here’s a list of what I have been finding (most to least)

metal bottle caps (most are from beer bottles; Corona seems to be the brand of choice around here)

plastic lids from individual size water bottles

other small bits of plastic ranging from unidentifiable to the covers that come on small propane bottles

broken glass in various sizes (some of it melted in campfires)

the type of thin plastic that wraps everything from granola bars to cigarettes to candy to toothpicks

those flat plastic things that close bread bags

bits of metal ranging from aluminum cans melted in a campfire to old school pop tops that come completely off a soda or beer can

bits of paper

tiny round plastic bb’s in a variety of colors

bandaids (ewwwwww, gross!)

cigarette butts (surprisingly few, most of them in fire rings)

bits of Styrofoam

shredded fibers from tarps

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Here’s a photo I took of a sample of the trash I found. There’s no glass in this sample because I didn’t want to put glass in my pocket for a later photo shoot.

I did find some treasures while picking up trash. The best is the race care, but the googly eye is cool too. I also found the quarter and the two pennies shown here. After I took this photo, I found another quarter and a dime.

I did find some treasures while picking up trash. The best is the race car, but the googly eye is cool too. I also found the quarter and the two pennies shown here. After I took this photo, I found another quarter and a dime.

I don’t understand how so many metal bottle caps and plastic caps from water bottles get on the ground. Are people purposely dropping them? Do these folks have living rooms knee deep in bottle caps because they can’t ever be bothered to throw the caps in the trash? Or is it because they are on vacation and so relaxed that they can’t throw away the bottle caps? Ok, so maybe someone is sitting down and they don’t want to stand up to walk over to their trash bag, but couldn’t they just hold the cap until they stand up later?

The thing that really gets me about the trash on the ground is that there are trash cans all over this campground. I’ve been to campgrounds before (usually free ones) where there are no trash cans. Folks are supposed to pack out what they packed in. Not everyone wants to do that, so people try to burn their trash. Or, with the thought that it will be easier for whomever cleans the campground to pick up trash all in one spot, people will leave their trash in the fire rings. I would understand what was happening if there were no trash cans around here, but that’s not the case.

I guess I should think of it as job security for me, but it irks me to think of people littering in such a beautiful place.

I know I’m probably preaching to the choir here, but folks, put your trash in trash cans! If you are out somewhere with no trash cans, pack out what you packed in. And if you want to be a true good citizen, pick up other people’s trash too. Woodsy Owl will thank you.

 

May17

Update: It Snowed Again

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Wednesday (May 13) was my day off, so I headed to Babylon (population 55,000). In one shopping area there is a Stuff-Mart, a grocery store, a Denny’s, a Taco Bell, a Starbucks, an Office Depot, and a bunch of small stores. Directly across the street is a Target, a McDonald’s, a Panera, a Dollar Tree, a Big 5 Sporting Goods, a Kohl’s, a Little Caesar’s, one of those mega pet stores (can’t remember the name), an Auto Zone, a couple of restaurants, and several other shopping possibilities. Just down the road is a movie theater, a gym, a Burger King, a Goodwill, a laudromat, another grocery store, a couple of gas stations, a donut shop, and many other small stores. Pretty much anything I wanted to buy was available in a couple of blocks. (Except Shoe Goo. I couldn’t find any Shoe Goo.)

On Wednesday I did a bunch of shopping, then made a bunch of phone calls, then hunkered down with the internet at Panera for several hours. At an appropriate hour, I drove over to the Stuff-Mart and settled down for the night. I got up at 5:30 on Thursday, and headed over to the laundromat. While I was waiting for it to open, I went to the donut shop in the same row of the strip mall and got myself a giant, greasy, delicious apple fritter.

Laundry done, I went back to Panera for a couple more hours of internet. After that I filled up the gas tank, did a quick stop at the Goodwill, and got on the road.

I got back to the campground ten minutes before the snow. I’d been hearing there was a storm coming, so I purposefully left Babylon early. I didn’t want to get caught in the snow.

About twenty minutes after the snow started, the ground was covered and the tree limbs were dusted.The temperature dropped pretty fast too. I fired up Mr. Buddy and spent the afternoon putting away my clean laundry and reading.

When I woke up Friday (May 15), there was still snow everywhere, and the fog had set in. The sun tried to peek out a couple of times, but never made it through the fog. The whole day was grey and cold and snowy.

My supervisor came by pretty early in the morning. She told me I didn’t have to work in such nasty weather. I was glad she said that because I really didn’t want to leave the van. I did go out in the morning and make my rounds, but I was glad I had paperwork I could do inside, next to the heater.

My supervisor also told me that I would report to my own campground on Tuesday. I am excited to get there and settle in.

Around three o’clock, I decided to go out and sweep the restrooms. I was starting to feel like a pretzel after being folded up on myself in the van all day.

The fog was really spooky. It made me feel really nervous. Maybe I’d feel differently if I were from London or San Francisco, but I’ve never lived with fog, so it makes me antsy.

I’d swept the two women’s restrooms near the front of the campground and was walking around the side of the building to sweep the men’s rooms. I looked across the little concrete porch in front of the doors and saw a…creature. I was so surprised, I screamed. I didn’t know if the creature was a bear or an Ewok. It was actually a dog. A big dog. A big grey dog with a big fluffy head. He was friendly and wanted to play, so I was embarrassed that I’d screamed. Part of the reason I was startled was because I didn’t know where he’d come from. I didn’t realize any people were in the campground.

The dog’s person walked up about then. She and her guy had just pulled in about ten minutes before, she said, although they already had their tent up. I asked about the dog, and she said he was husky and his father was part timber wolf. He looked a lot like a wolf.

Then the woman told me that she and her guy live about 25 miles from the campground, and they’d decided to come camping because it was their anniversary. If It were my anniversary, I would not want to spend the night in a tent in the fog and the cold. On my anniversary, I’d want to spend the night in a big comfy bed in a warm room. I guess people are different.

The dog was running around, wanting to play, chasing the golf cart as I drove it. He was totally wet, from running through the fog and the wet grass. So not only were the couple spending their anniversary in a tent in the cold and the fog, they were sharing that tent with a big wet dog. Not what I would want to do on my anniversary. Not one bit.

Saturday was not as cold, all the snow melted, the fog dissipated, and the sun came out. I spent most of my work day cleaning fire rings and picking up small trash from campsites. It was good to be outside in the sunshine.

And I’m happy I bought four bottles of propane at Stuff-Mart.

May11

Kids and Bears

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I was walking towards the restrooms when I saw what looked like a medium-size bus pull in. I figured some folks had converted it into their traveling vehicle, but was a little miffed when they drove past my wave.

After I finished my…business…in the restroom, I hopped in the golf cart and drove over to see what the folks were up to.

A man and two little boys (twins, I think) were outside the bus when I pulled up. I said good morning and asked the man if they planned to camp. He said no, they’d hoped to camp in the area the night before, but hadn’t made it far enough. He said he just wanted to get some water and check the motor, that they’d probably be gone in about an hour. I told him they should make themselves at home, but before I left, I asked him if his RV was a converted city bus. He said it had been the shuttle bus at a VA complex (he called it a “putt-putt bus”). He’d bought it at auction for $5,000, and it only had 4,500 miles on it.

The boys (who were probably about six years old) were running around and came up and told me hi. The dad told me one was named for the mountains, (Cody, as in Cody, Wyoming) and the other was named for the ocean (Kai).

This is the little buildings with restrooms I was cleaning when the boys asked me if I wanted to see the bear tracks. The tracks were in the snow visible on the left of this photo
The tracks were right there, in the snow.

I went about my chores dusting and sweeping restrooms, starting in the front and working my way back. As I was just starting on the restrooms right across from where the bus/RV was parked, Cody and Kai ran up to me.

We found bear tracks, one of them told me.

That’s cool, I said. Did you see any bear poop? I thought a mention of poop would get me at least a giggle, but these kids were serious. No, they had not seen any bear poop. They had not seen the bear either, just the tracks.

Then they asked if I wanted to see the bear tracks.

Yes! I said. (I was on my best work behavior, and I did not use any expletives to express my excitement.)

I thought we were going to make some big trek back into the trees, but they took me right around the corner, next to the little building housing the restrooms.

The tracks were right there, in the snow.

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The snow had melted by the time I got this photo, so the print on the left isn’t as perfect as when I first saw it.

There were two prints. They looked just like the prints one sees on those charts of wild animal tracks. They were so perfect; at first I thought maybe those kids were fucking with me. Did they have some sort of bear print outline toy in the bus/RV? Had they made the bear prints in the snow? But I didn’t get the feeling they were trying to mess with me.

The prints went that way, one of the boys told me, as he pointed off to the left.

Where do you think the bear was going? I asked.

One boy shook his head, as if he had no idea, but his brother piped in with He was looking for people to eat!

I didn’t like the sound of that, as I was the only people in that campground the night before. If that bear had been looking for people to eat, that bear had been looking for me.

Do you think bears just go around killing people? I asked, and they both solemnly said yes. I told them bears would only hurt people if they felt threatened, and one of the boys asked what “threatened” meant.

As I was explaining what might happen if one scared a bear, one of the boys asked, What about a wolverine? Then one of them pointed out a chipmunk, and they both took off after it.

Here's my footprint next to the bear print, for comparison.

Here’s my footprint next to the bear print, for comparison.

I swept two restrooms, all the while wishing I had my camera to take a photo of the bear tracks. I wasn’t sure how long it would take for the snow to melt, so I jumped in the golf cart, zoomed to the van, grabbed my camera, zoomed back to the tracks, and got a few photos.

When the dad walked over to the restroom area to get water from the nearby spigot, I told him his boys had shown me the bear tracks. He said he thought it was just a small bear, and I said I wanted to see one from a distance, not too close. He told me a bear had once jumped on him.

I looked at him like he was crazy, and said, What did you do?

He said, I froze!

He told me that when he was 11 or 12, he tried to hand feed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to a bear. He said he’d grown up in the mountains and had never been taught to fear wild animals. So he tried to feed a sandwich to a bear and the bear jumped him.

Was the whole family fucking with me?

The Bear Tracker website says,

Black bears are the smallest American bears, and the most common. They are the only bears found in the wild in California. Although the grizzly bear is the state mammal, it has been extinct in California since 1922.

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All photos taken by me.
May10

Hey Everybody! It Snowed!

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This isn’t exactly what I was expecting when I signed on for summer work in California, but in the mountains, summer comes late.

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I’d heard earlier in the week that a storm was supposed to roll in Thursday (May 7) afternoon. Thursday was my day off, and I headed down the road to the Lodge to eat some food and use the internet. I left the campground around 11:45, and it was chilly, but the sun was out.

I watched the weather change all afternoon through the Lodge’s large windows and sent friends email weather updates. First the sky got cloudy, and there were snow flurries. Then the sun came out, and there were snow flurries. Then the flurries stopped. The sun came and went, as did the snow. Sometimes the flakes were big and fat and poured from the sky. Sometimes the flakes were tiny and came down in sheets. Sometimes wind blew the snow around. In any case, the snow didn’t seem to be sticking.

I left the Lodge around 6pm and headed to my campground. I was surprised to see a frosting of snow covering the ground, rocks, and logs. The road was clear, but everything else looked as if it had been dusted with powdered sugar.

Back at my campground, I did a drive-through in my van, just to make sure no one was camped out in a tent. The campground was empty.

I’d left my folding chair and a table outside, both of which had quite a bit of snow on them. As I knocked off the snow, I heard thunder in the distance, which scared me. No, I wasn’t scared by the surprise of a loud noise. I was worried about what it might mean to hear thunder while it was snowing. (I guess it doesn’t mean the end of the world; a local told me thunder and snow happen together frequently up here.) At that point, I climbed in the van and fired up my Mr. Buddy heater and worked on staying warm.

Over the next hour or so, until it got too dark to see out of my windows, I watched the snow change. When I got in the van, the snow had begun to fall again, in the form of little pellets of ice. They fell harder until I could hear them hit the roof of the van. The next time I looked out, the snow had changed to big, silent flakes; later, ice pellets fell again. At one point, I looked out the window and saw fog rolling in. I literally saw the fog moving. When I got into bed, I didn’t hear ice pellets hitting my roof, but there must have been more silent snow in the night, because the trees and the ground had a fluffy white coating when I woke up the next morning (Friday, May 8).

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Trees with a fluffy white coating.

After drinking the tea I made with hot water I’d put in my Stanley bottle the night before and getting dressed in the warmth from Mr. Buddy, I swept the snow from the golf cart and took it out for a spin around the campground. The ponderosa pines sure looked pretty with snow dusting their branches! Most of the water spigots were frozen, but I found two with water still flowing.

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Snow on the roof of the storage shed.

The snow looks perfect on the roof of one of the new yurts.

The snow looks perfect on the roof of one of the new yurts.

Around 8:15, I was back at my camp making breakfast when the sun peeked out of the grey sky. The sun always encourages me, so I was glad to see it.

Between 8:30 and 9:00, my boss stopped by to see how I was doing. She told me the campground closest to where I will spend most of my summer had gotten a lot of snow.

By 9:15 I could see a patch of blue sky above the trees, and by 9:20 the sun was lighting up the snowy trees and restoring my faith that I’d get through the cold snap.

At 10:15, the heat of the sun on the wet earth and logs caused steam (or maybe it was fog) to rise up. It looked like the storm had passed, and I got to work sweeping restrooms and cleaning fire pits.

These are the logs I saw steam (fog?) rising from.

These are the logs I saw steam (fog?) rising from.

While I was working, the sky turned grey and the sun disappeared. There weren’t clouds so much as uniform greyness of sky. I started to see fog engulfing the tops of trees; the fog crept lower and lower. By the time my boss checked on me on her way back through in the mid-afternoon, I felt as if I were standing in a cloud. I could see what was around me, but everything in the (not very far away) distance was wrapped in white mystery.

This photo gives a vague idea of what the fog looked/felt like.

This photo gives a vague idea of what the fog looked/felt like.

Little ice pellets were falling from the sky when the boss found me cleaning the fire ring on site 16.

You don’t have to work in this, you know, she told me.

I’m not offended by this snow, I answered.

She said she was offended by it and left after I promised her I’d be done outside as soon as I finished with the fire ring.

The rest of the day was cold, foggy, wet, and muddy. I did my paperwork in the office/garage, but it was too cold to hang out there as I had planned. (The office/garage has electricity, so I can use my laptop there without running its battery down.) I spent most of the evening in the van, huddled next to Mr. Buddy, reading Eva Luna by Isabel Allende.

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I took all of the photos shown in this post.

May6

Update on the California Adventure

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On Sunday, April 26, I arrived at the campground where I’d been told to report. Within a couple of hours, I met the boss and was told there was no training the next day. She seemed unsure as to why I’d been told to arrive a week before my training, although she said she could put me to work. (On the voicemail I have saved, the woman who works in the office said she’d just talked to the boss who said I should be at a specific campground for training on the 27th.) No one has explained why I was told to arrive a week early. The boss was certainly not expecting me.

On Monday, April 27, my van wouldn’t start. I flagged down an elderly man who was hard of hearing, and he used my cables to jump start the van. I drove into town (where I was headed anyway) and proceeded directly to the Car Quest auto parts store. Thankfully, I had a small monetary cushion, because I used that money to pay for a new battery.

The battery in the van when I bought it had been doing weird shit for months. I’ve had to have it jumped six times since I bought the van last July—six times the battery was dead for no obvious reason. When I started the van, it kind of stuttered before starting, and it often died when I tried to back up immediately after starting it. I had it checked out at a Car Quest in Southern New Mexico—they charged it for eight hours, then checked it and said it was fine. But I decided I can’t be having a dead battery out in the woods, so I bit the bullet and bought a new battery. Now the van starts right up, no stuttering, and no dying when backing up. Am I glad I had to spend my money cushion on a new battery? No. Am I glad to have a new battery? Yes.

I spent small parts of Tuesday and Thursday filling out paperwork and getting some training for the job (from the women who gave me the message to show up early). I also spent a couple afternoons that week at the Burger King in town (WiFi, an electrical outlet, and free refills on sodas) writing and mostly catching up on email. I explored a pioneer cemetery and the local history museum.

On Friday I was finally taken out to the campground to work temporarily. The camp hosts of my temporary campground had not arrived yet. I don’t know why. However, the company was having yurts built in the campground, to they wanted a staff person around to keep an eye on materials and supplies after the builders go home. They decided I would be the staff person on duty. Since I’d be at the campground anyway, they decided to open it to campers two weeks early.

The campground is much bigger than the one I’ll be working at for the rest of the summer. This first one has 32 sites, plus five or six large group camping spots, compared to just ten sites at my campground. I’ll be parking on one of those sites, so I’ll actually only be responsible for nine camping spots once I’m out there. Although I’m only expected/allowed to work five hours a day here, the first couple of days kicked my ass. Just the walking was wearing me out. At night, all I could do was eat dinner and read a bit before falling asleep early. On the first two nights, I was in bed before it was dark out. When I woke up in the morning, I did not feel recovered. It was very depressing, and I wanted to give up.

On Sunday, I was given a golf cart, and that helped a lot. At first I was scared of the golf cart, but when I told the guy who delivered it that I’d never driven one before, he told me it was just like driving a car. And then I realized, yes, I drive a giant van, I should be able to drive a golf cart. And you know what? I can drive it! (And it’s fun!)

In van driving news, I am able to back into my campground host site. Granted, it’s a pretty big area, and I don’t have to be in one strict spot (like between lines or on an asphalt slab), but backing in is a HUGE step for me. I’m learning!

I did see my campground on the way to the temporary spot, and I love it! It’s so cute! It’s ½ mile off the main road down a dirt road, and there are lots of trees and a meadow. I can’t wait to be there.

I’ve had mixed feelings about being out here.

On the one hand, the landscape is absolutely stunning, and the wildlife is incredible. There are mountains, a river, and tall trees. There are many ponderosa pines where I am stay and they are soooo tall. I saw four deer (two mammas and two youngsters, I think) in the campground the other morning around 6:30 when I was making my rounds. That afternoon, I saw the biggest chipmunk I’ve ever laid eyes on—it was the Arnold Schwarzenegger of chipmunks. One day I saw a blue jay so blue I gasped. One night as it was getting dark, I heard a sound I thought was the panting of a dog or maybe a bear about to attack, but it turned out to be the sound of the flapping wings of two low-flying birds.

On the other hand, I’ve had moments of intense loneliness. I feel very far away from the people I love. When I see co-workers, it’s not for very long, and I haven’t found any common ground with any of them yet. Anyone who knows me won’t be surprised to hear that my favorite prat of the job is welcoming campers and talking to them while I’m filling out their paperwork. I hope I’m not coming across as desperate for human companionship, although I do feel a bit that way.

It’s been cold hour here at night; the temperature starts dropping around 4:30 in the afternoon (or 16:30, for those of us currently using military time). Once I’m snuggled in bed, I’m warm, but 12+ hours in bed gets uncomfortable, and it’s difficult for me to get out of bed in the morning when it’s cold. Fortunately, I don’t have to be out and about at any particular time, although they do want us to a “sweep and hang” (sweep restroom floors and make sure there’s enough toilet paper) early in the morning. I do have my propane heater, but it’s still packed away. I think I’ll get it out so it’s easier to get a blast of hot air to get me going in the mornings.

I’m also bummed out because every time I drive on the tightly curving mountain roads #1 all my neatly stacked plastic crates tumble all over the back of the van (but it’s easy enough to put everything away again) and #2 I get car sick. I suffered a lot from motion sickness as a kid, but as an adult in a moving vehicle, as long as I don’t look at the floor (like to tie my shoe) or turn around to talk to someone in the backseat, I’m fine. And I’ve never before gotten even a twinge of motion sickness while driving. But these roads are something else. I’ve driven on curvy, twisty mountain roads in Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, and New Mexico, but none of those places compare to the sheer number of miles made up of tight curves I’ve been experiencing.

In the last week, I’ve thought many times about quitting and going back to New Mexico, but I realized that while New Mexico would familiar, it wouldn’t necessarily be better. I’d still be dog dead tired at the end of the day. I’d be hot instead of cold, and also windblown and dusty. I’d still be lonely a lot, because when I’m working I don’t do much socializing because I’m tired and concentrating on making money. So running away to New Mexico doesn’t actually seem to be an answer.

I just finished reading a book of first-person accounts of single women homesteaders in Montana in the early days of the 20th century called Montana Women Homesteaders: A Field of One’s Own, edited by Sarah Carter. I am finding inspiration in those tough, determined foremothers. Many of them lived alone in tiny shacks, with no electricity, often with no water on their property, sometimes with no neighbors for miles and no transportation. They depended on their neighbors, but they depended primarily on themselves. The loneliness was intense, the labor backbreaking, the weather destructive. Often the crops didn’t grow, the garden didn’t grow, and they had to work additional jobs for survival. One woman mentioned hurried to do her own chores on her claim each morning so she could walk six miles (and later six mile home!) in order to earn cash doing laundry for other people.

I’ve got so much more than those women did. Surely I can be as strong.

Apr2

One Step Closer

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On Monday I received a welcome packet from the company I’m hoping to work for this summer as a camp host.

That’s a step in the right direction.

The welcome packet includes a lot of information about workers’ compensation rights so I’ll know what to do if I get hurt on the job. (I beseech the Universe to keep me safe and not to let me get hurt on the job. Angel friends, please protect me and keep me from getting hurt on the job. I will pay attention to what I’m doing and be careful, because getting hurt on the job could really wreck my plans.)

There’s also a W-4 to fill out, as well as a uniform order form on which I have to ‘fess up the measurements of my neck, sleeve length, hips, chest, waist, and inseam length. (I’ll just say here that I am NOT looking forward to wearing a uniform for this job. The uniform will be a shirt–probably short sleeve and probably with a collar–and pants, both probably hot nasty polyester and ill-fitting.) There’s also a release authorization in the packet. By signing it, I am apparently authorizing release of my information for a background check. (I’m pretty sure I’ve already signed and returned one of these.) Then there’s a “Notice/Disclosure of Intent to Obtain Consumer Report and/or Investigative Consumer Report.”

I suppose if they don’t like my credit report (and my credit report is not a pretty thing), they could still decide not to hire me. I just hope that if they decide not to hire me, they make that decision before I travel to BFE California. (Does anyone not know that “BFE” means “Bum Fuck Egypt”?)

I have started announcing to people that I plan to work in California this summer. I was trying to wait until I knew definitively, positively, for sure, but I decided this welcome packet was a good enough sign to start making announcements. If it ends up not working out, I’ll just tell people the job fell through at the last minute, which will be the truth.

Feb16

Being a Camp Host

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Have you ever been to a campground with a camp host? The camp host might come around and make sure camping fees are paid. Camp hosts can answer questions and sometimes sell firewood.

Until recently I thought camp hosts were typically older couples. I thought people working as camp hosts had to live in big, fancy RVs with full hookups. I thought the only thing camp hosts received in exchange for their hosting was a place to park their big, fancy RVs. I recently learned that the beliefs I had about camp hosting are not always true.

Sometimes camp hosts are older couples, but younger people and single people and single younger people work as camp hosts too. Some camp host jobs require a couple, but the two people in the couple don’t necessarily have to be romantically involved. The two people in the couple might be required to share a living space, but they could be buddies or best friends or a parent and adult child. My understanding is that some jobs are too big for one person, but there’s only one allocated spot for the hosts’ living space, so the “couple” shares the living space and each does his/her portion of the job.

It turns out that not all camp hosts live in big, fancy RVs with full hookups. The RVs of some camp hosts are not so big and fancy, and some have no hookups. Even van dwellers can be camp hosts! In fact, sometimes it is difficult to find people to work at campgrounds with no or only partial hookups. RVers who have all the bells and whistles tend to want to use them, so RVers with sewage/water/electric capabilities usually want to work at campgrounds where they can hook everything up. So it sometimes helps folks get a job if they have no need or desire for water/sewage/electric hookups.

At some campgrounds, camp hosts only get “paid” with a free spot to park their RV. That can be a pretty good deal if the camp host doesn’t have to work many hours a day and if s/he already has an income. (I could not meet my needs if I were not receiving monetary compensation of some amount.) However, in other camp host positions, workers receive a free spot to live, as well as an hourly wage.

I have applied for a camp host job with a company that runs campsites on federal land and is responsible for hiring all staff needed. Each campground provides a spot for the camp host(s) to park his/her/their rig, AND pays state minimum wage for every hour worked.

Of course, I have not yet worked as a camp host, so I can’t tell you all about it. Bob Wells has worked as a camp host (for four summers, I think), so if you want to read about his experiences, go to his blog at http://www.cheaprvliving.com/workamping/ and read his story. (On the Workamping page, scroll about a third of the way down to “What is the job like?”)

Hopefully I will get my own camp host job this summer, and then I’ll be able to share my experiences.