There is no question we are back in Iowa. The daytime temperatures have see-sawed between cool damp rainy 50’s and warm sunny lower 70’s. The wind still has a bite, and I start my outdoor workday in about 4 layers from the waist up. Someday's, I am still in all four layers when I come home, other days I am carrying a pile of clothes from the car and down to my High Viz work T- shirt.
Everyone who will occupy Volunteer Village has arrived. In a couple of weeks we will host our season opener happy hour to bring all the new people and the returning people together and have a chance to get to know each other better.
I have started getting my publishing calendar for the newsletters filled in with topics that will get me started for the season. At a certain point my ongoing weekly project will start to generate its own momentum and instead of trying to come up with topics for articles it will be a matter of choosing which things to write about.
I answer the question, “What is it like?” occasionally. Answer? “It can be very nostalgic, if you return to places regularly.”
I love time spent on a mower. Next to gardening work, it is my favorite
form of park volunteer work. This summer
the volunteers will be taking on some more of the mowing. At the beginning of
the season when mowing contracts are still being finalized and the weather is
uncooperative, as it often is during spring in the Midwest, the initial spring
mowfest falls under “Other Duties as Assigned” for the natural resource
volunteers. In between rain showers I
have spent some time on a commercial mower getting campgrounds and day use
areas groomed for the opening season that arrived last weekend and is sold out
here at Saylorville.
The ranger tasked two of us with mowing the very campground where Champ and I camped regularly before we started our new lifestyle three years ago. I was mowing at Prairie Flower and found myself mowing the campsites in Honeysuckle Loop where we spent many weekends over the years. All of a sudden, I realized I was mowing the campsite where we had an all-night fire side conversation about the fantasy of living in our camper and being one of the volunteers we encountered when we were camping. I got a little choked up remembering that night as I mowed and realizing just 12 years later, we are living that pipe dream we spent all night talking about when we still had a daughter living at home. As I mowed each site, I remembered times when we were in that site. Triple birthday celebrations for me and my two sisters whose birthdays are within a month of mine. Mother's Day breakfasts. A terrible storm one weekend that sunk our boat and the neighboring camper who put our awning in and picked up our lawn chairs while we were dragging our sunken boat out of the lake after straight line winds drove it underwater seconds after I abandoned it along the shoreline realizing it would sink with me and my daughter in it as we awaited our turn to load. I mowed around a good-sized Maple tree, remembering a weekend early in our marriage when we were camping in the site next to it and witnessed some college kids strip the green limbs off the tree for ‘firewood’. We called the Ranger and watched as they were removed from the campsite. The tree survived and is now a 20’ tall Maple showing no signs of the trauma is suffered as a young tree 15 years ago.
I realized the place, while it is a nice campground lives in my heart because of the experiences and the people I remember from these sites. I started thinking about other places we've been. The ones I remember the best are the places where we met new people. I remember great detail about those places. Without the human connection my memory of places we've been is vague. I thought ahead to the winter we have planned in Texas this next season. As Champ and I talked that night about my trip down memory lane we both realized we will go south to get away from the cold northern climate each winter season. But our choices are now being driven more by who we will see in the places rather than the places themselves. We return to Texas next winter. Yes, it will be warm and the park where we will work camp for our site will be nice. The true draw though is who we will see while in Texas. People we will visit along the way between Des Moines and the southern border. People we met this past winter who will end up in Texas near us for at least some of the time, and of course the people we already know who call south Texas home. We have plans to visit other states that we haven’t traveled to yet. The reason they are officially on our radar now is the people we know who will be there to welcome us and show off their home state to us. New places are fun and interesting, new people make them special and memorable.
Until Next Time…
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