Day 132 / 233 It's Been A Day

Saylorville Lake 92 Degrees Sun-- Humidity What else is new

I had another post prepared today, but the day took a few turns that I didn’t anticipate, and I am sitting here at the end of a very difficult day writing about something totally different. The cool part is tomorrow is already done!

“What’s it like?” Today is kind of a best/ worst day. I am in the grips of menopausal mood swings to the extreme today and everything I encounter is making me crazy, really. When you live full-time you are kind of on the ragged edge technology wise. The power went out in this part of the world this morning. I literally had my finger on the button to pulverize my disgusting looking, yet tasty smoothie for breakfast when everything went dead. No problem I thought. I went outside, and the breaker was not tripped. A quick look outside at everyone coming out of their campers scratching their heads told me it was an outage. No worries, I own a motorhome now! Not so fast. The damned thing wouldn’t start. Fuel delivery issues apparently, by the time Champ identified the part that needed to be ordered a couple hours later (of course) the power was back on. Cool! The generator is broke now too along with our AC that is still waiting on a motor. It will be very, very hot in here very fast in this weather. At least we're in the shade, unlike some of our neighbors.  I left for work early to escape the issues here and walked into a fire storm of annoying activity that nearly did me in today. Did I mention my menopausal mood issues today? Yes, they are making me borderline psychotic at work too. I really needed a quite day at work I got just the opposite.

Here’s where the best part comes in. Through social media an acquaintance of mine from school and I connected. She started doing the full time RV thing last year and a mutual friend hooked us up on Facebook to share our experiences. I can’t help but visualize a Venn diagram when I think of how I knew Rhonda in school. We moved in different social circles a grade apart I am older. We had enough mutual friends that those circles intersected occasionally.

[caption id="attachment_1024" align="alignright" width="225"] Rhonda, the ray of sunshine in my day today![/caption]

Fast forward a few decades and we grew into very like-minded adults whose lives ultimately resulted in this full-time RV lifestyle. She was going to be in town today and I knew she would be there when I got home. After my crappy day I was looking forward to seeing her and talking about whatever came up. It was a delightful afternoon! I do love that this lifestyle sends you down paths not only to meet new people, but also, to reconnect. It’s like a new / old friend. Very cool! I have no doubt that this is the beginning of a new friendship that was germinated some 40 years ago but has lain dormant somewhere between our very different paths waiting for its time to grow. How’s that for deep?

Back to the shitty part of the day. As we were sitting outside in the shade visiting, I notice the water pump was engaging every few seconds. I looked at Champ and he quietly, almost terrified looking said, “it’s broke too.”  I knew I was shooting flames through my menopausal eyes and emitting a ton of negative energy because he looked like he wanted to run, far away and very fast. I’ve heard about pumps going bad due to non-use when you are on full hookups all the time. We use ours on the road and turn it on occasionally. Apparently, the people who owned it the 12 years prior to us didn’t know about that or didn’t care because the regular use the past week has done in a seal or diaphragm or something that is causing it to lose pressure and groan every 10 seconds or so. Not good for someone who has trouble staying asleep and is… did I mention having a very bad day and ready to commit menopausal murder or at least property damage.

I ponder if menopause and full-time RV living are compatible. Maybe it is recommended that women navigate that part of their life before trying this. My rational mind says, tomorrow all this stuff will roll off me. We’ll order a new water pump, fix the generator so it will run next time we need it. The sun will come up and life will sail along. I am trying really hard not to maim my husband as he sits casually 12 feet away with no estrogen, watching TV and knowing he will fix the crap that broke today. He won’t make eye contact with me, little wonder why. This day in this life has been weird and frustrating and very joyous all at once. Way too many emotions for me to process tonight. I’ll write about the receding water tomorrow and hope the devil that is ‘the change’ is back in the bottle tomorrow.

[caption id="attachment_1023" align="alignleft" width="225"] Orange, kale, other grees, berries , chia seed and brazil nuts. Pre-smoothing form just add coconut milk and hit the button for a glass of green goo.[/caption]

When I get up my blender full of stuff will be in the fridge and I’ll decide then whether to blend it up and drink it or throw it out and start over. It may look pretty nasty by then.

Until tomorrow…

 

Day 131 / 234 Top Pet Peeves of Seasoned Campers

Saylorville Lake Sunny- Humid – 91 Degrees

I have a few pet peeves around the campground that I speak out unapologetically about. Campgrounds can be a little like foreign countries. The seasoned campers know the local etiquette, whereas the rookies or the ones who only go a couple of times a year or are maybe in a rental RV trying it out for the first time, often commit a few blunders that drive us diehards crazy. Being in Acorn Valley this past week and for the next several weeks has reminded me how annoying these indiscretions are.  Here are a few things that make us cringe and grit our teeth.

1. Dogs that aren’t trained. No one seems to train their dog anymore. They leave them home in kennels for 10 hours a day while they go to work and then bring them to the campground on the weekends and expect them to know how to act around all the unfamiliar smells and sounds. I like dogs it’s not their fault they don’t know how to act. Owners, listen up. Yelling at your dog all day does not constitute training and we are more annoyed by your constant bitching at your dog than we are the dog itself. I know every dogs name in this campground this week. Not because I’ve been introduced when I walked by and stop to scratch it on the head, but because their owner yells it every 10 seconds when it barks at something. When I am out walking, it is not even close to cute when your dog lunges to the end of its retractable leash to dive at my leg or worse yet, lick me.


2. Slow down! This is a campground road not a county highway. There are people walking, kids riding bikes and people trying to enjoy the peacefulness. Driving through the campground like you are driving to the grocery store is dangerous. Period! Don’t do it.


3. Leaving your stuff in the shower house. I encountered this over the winter while pulling shower house duty in Texas and am confronted again this week using the public shower house here in Acorn Valley. The campground bathroom is used by more than you. Don’t leave your disgusting bar of soap in the soap tray. I don’t have a place to set mine. Don’t leave your shower bag on the bench in the stall. I am dismayed at people who leave their towel in there to dry. Don’t think for a moment that these are all innocently forgotten. The same bag will be there every day till a given camper pulls out, revealing the offender. Please, take your stuff back to your camper.


4. If an area is closed, deal with it. Don’t complain to the park people that you didn’t get to do all you wanted to when you came. Just because a trail is not completely submerged or blocked, doesn’t mean there isn’t hazard. It could also be closed because they are trying to protect the area from you! There may be a new planting, or a wildlife issue. Perhaps the eagles are building a new nest and need to be left alone for a while as they settle into their new home. There may be rabid raccoons running around that they are working to catch. Maybe there is an active crime scene. Things happen out in the wilderness all the time. The rangers know more about their park than anyone else. If an area is closed its for your safety. Get over yourself and stay out. Don’t be stupid.


5. Hummingbird Feeders. This isn’t necessarily a camping thing, but it is a real hot button with me. Hummingbirds are pollinators. If you want to attract them plant the flowers that they like to pollinate. It’s that easy. Sugar water molds in about 24 hours. Plus, their little bodies don’t like high fructose corn syrup any more than ours. The biggest killer of hummingbirds is hummingbird feeders. They should be taken off the market. Same goes for grape jelly to attract Orioles. It’s terrible for them. Stick and orange on a stick or throw some berries out for them.

Don’t get me wrong, I love most things about campgrounds. The smell of campfires and the sound of families and friends gathered around laughing and talking. Kids riding their bikes and playing with no concern about anything but having a good time. Campgrounds are my one of my favorite places to be. Be part of the good things, don’t be the a-hole.

Until tomorrow…

 

Day 128 / 237 Dam Duty

Saylorville Lake – Sunny – 78 Degrees

I’m spending the next two Friday’s 2pm – 8pm with my Volunteer buddy Don, sitting at the closed gate at the road across the dam and turning away people who are trying to get to the spillway to see the water rush out. It’s a steady stream of traffic, despite the local news channels doing daily reports about the closure. This is how we are earning our site these days. The emphasis is now on public safety and traffic control.

I’ve said repeatedly that one of the coolest parts of being resident volunteers at various parks is access.  I am on the short list of people who are allowed to drive across the dam road and take the picture of the spillway opened full bore. It was a real eye opener.

Our site at Volunteer village is turning into an island. I went over this morning and took a couple of pictures. As I stood on the edge of my pad looking at the water, a fish jumped in the area where my little garden was. Don’t see that everyday in volunteer village!

We got moved and I managed to get the newsletters out on time, barely. Not my best work but it got done.  My biggest challenge right now is to try to find something interesting to write about as the flood story gets stale.

Enjoy the pictures.

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Day 126 / 239 Independence Day

Saylorville Lake - Hazy Sunshine 94 degrees

It’s Independence Day! The made-up birthday for the United States. Everyone is a patriot today. The campgrounds are buzzing with activity and the boat ramps are closed due to the fact that the reservoir is doing what it was designed to do; hold back water and protect Des Moines and Polk City from worse flooding than they are already having.

In this world we live in today it is easy to get lost in the caustic politics, relentless newsfeed topics decrying one or the other of the political parties and incessant blame on whose fault it is that our ‘American Dream’ is in jeopardy. I have to admit I’m not very optimistic about the future of this country as I have known it, my first 53 years, but all things change and change hurts. Stay with me for a minute… Yes, I despise our current president but more than that I have felt for years that the root cause of our inability to deliver ‘liberty and justice for all’ lies in our two party, tribalistic system. The Great American Experiment is a failure. Not because it was a bad idea, but because human nature is inherently selfish and greedy. In the caveman days it was a simple matter of survival of the fittest. Power has always corrupted once good people and money is at the root of all that is evil about our government. That aside I feel very lucky to be a natural citizen of this country.  I have travelled in developing countries and countries ruled by martial law and in spite of all that is wrong today we are very lucky to live here.

This full-time vagabond lifestyle we live these days would not even be a pipe dream in many countries. We take our RV, collect our retirement income via direct deposit, pay what bills we have online and go about our business without any thought that our government may impede our will to travel and explore. No papers required to cross state lines. Our credit cards work where ever we swipe them and the world turns.

We live in a relatively safe society, really, we do. At least we don’t have to worry about a mortar sailing through our dining room window in the middle of breakfast, or our kids being rounded up by a martial government to force them into a life of soldier hood for the current regime. As women we can marry whom ever we want. We really do have it good in the United States of America.

The best part of celebrating our freedom is the reminder, that if we hate our government we can say as much without going to jail. And we as citizens have the ultimate power, OUR VOTE! We get to decide who holds office. Vote intelligently, get involved and above all thank your lucky starts that you are an American.

Happy Independence Day!

 

Until tomorrow…

Day 125 / 240 Other Duties As Assigned

Saylorville Lake Sunshine – 93 Degrees

When people ask me what we like most about the work we do, our initial response usually leans toward our preference for variety. Let’s just say we are getting our wish this summer.

The Natural Resources team that Champ is a part of has switched their mission from resource and wildlife management to public safety and flood monitoring for the next few weeks. As the lake continues to rise and comes ever closer to the magic elevation of 890 feet above sea level, when it will breach the emergency spillway, the water encroaches on new areas each day. Many sections of the 13 miles of bike trail that run through the parks are underwater. All of the boat ramps are closed and now some of the day use areas are being flooded. The campgrounds are built high on the ridges around the lake and will not flood. They are sold out for the holiday week as mother nature has her way with the area.

I stopped by Volunteer Village this morning to take a picture and ran into Champ and Will. They are tasked today with going around to all the areas that have been barricaded to be sure the barricades are still up and haven’t been removed by visitors who don’t seem to understand their purpose. It was strange to look at our village, normally bustling with activity, sit there vacant, yet still dry. Just before I left the Electricians arrived to begin the process of taking the panels and breakers out of the electrical supply that feeds the area. The water is at the edge of our little neighborhood and will begin flooding that area over the next couple of days.

[gallery ids="1001,1000,1003,984,1002"]

The road that goes across the dam will be closed today and part of our jobs will be to take shifts standing at the barricades to explain to people why they can’t go over the dam and see that they know the alternative route to get around the lake. So many roads are closed it is confusing, even for someone like me, who grew up here.

People surprise me in these situations in two ways. First, we see all the time how people step up and help each other during disasters.  Second, the uglier side of human nature is that people are also very curious about disaster areas. Everyone wants to be able to say they were there and saw it first hand and brag about who was closer. We humans love a good tragedy. Being on the back side of this situation has been interesting. It’s amazing the danger people place themselves in just to get a good look. Closed gates and barricades mean nothing to some people. There is an unbelievable amount of activity at the lake monitoring and trying to keep everyone safe while they enjoy the areas that are open. I watched a family the other day playing in the debris ridden flood water line near the village. They had parked at the closed gate and walked around it. They were letting a small child run around in the shallow water on the road completely unaware that the ditch was there and is about 3’ deep. The kid trotted right off the road and went underwater. This kind of thing really brings out the stupid in people. With drownings happening every week in Iowa one would think people would give this situation more respect, they don’t.  Anyone who has worked in public safety will understand. We are getting schooled in it. I will even be doing some shifts at the dam on my days off here at the store. July will be a busy month.

Until tomorrow…

Day 124 / 242 Evacuation Day at Saylorville

Saylorville Lake Sunshine – 90 Degrees

I realized today, I’m about a third of the way through my year-long project of posting daily (mostly).  I remember thinking when I started this “who knows what the year will bring?”   The weather has been full of surprises all over the country this year.

As I sit here in our new site that will be home for the next several weeks I can’t help but feel grateful. First and formost we are in the midst of devastating flooding all around us and we have not been injured or had any property damage. A local radio personality lost his life Saturday night in the torrential flash flooding that occurred in Des Moines. 10” of rain in a couple of hours caught everyone off guard. The family I work for suffered substantial property damage due to the deluge of rain overwhelming the storm sewer system in their neighborhood. I have not seen damage like this since 1993 when the entire Midwest flooded. The 500-year flood they called it. The Corps watches the lake level and emergency spillway closely and we all hope for the best. So far, the water is going out the Dam Outlet at maximum capacity of 22,000 CFS. The problem is it is coming in the north end at 33,000 CFS so the lake continues to rise steadily. They predict it will crest on the 8^th now.

We work for an amazing Corps of Engineers project. The staff bent over backwards to find us all sites in the campgrounds that will accommodate our length and power needs. We won’t have the luxury of full hook ups till we go back to the village later this summer, but that is a small inconvenience considering the situation we are all in. Then there is the family I work for. There is a reason I have stayed friends with Jeff all these years. His whole family are some of the best people I know. With all they had going on themselves my co-workers and the Kirschbaum’s made it possible for me to take today off so we could get moved. My daughter loaned us her pickup this morning to haul all my summer container garden our deck and patio furniture to the new site. When we move around in the winter we don’t have but a fraction of the outdoor stuff that we do in the summer when we are in one place April to October. This move was much more involved than our normal routine.

I’m thankful for the volunteer community that we are a part of at Saylorville. Everyone is keeping a great sense of humor about our predicament and pitching in to help each other where ever we can. We are all scattered about in a campground on the west side of the lake but still kind of together.

We have a beautiful, shaded site that backs up to the woods and looks out over a big ravine. In our 17 years together, we have never spent time in this campground. Mostly because it is on the side of the lake with no boat ramps to speak of and we come here to boat. It will be a nice opportunity to experience Saylorville from the other side of the lake with different views, different birds inhabiting the timber behind us no sun beating down on the big windows each afternoon, I am thrilled to be here. The only thing that could make it better is FHU’s.

I have to drive by Sandpiper, where the village is,  each morning on my way into work, so I will stop and check out the situation. They wanted us out before the water invades, which will be soon, so they can get over there and take the guts out of all the electric boxes and remove the big power supply before it gets inundated with nasty, river water and debris.

I’ll talk tomorrow about how Champ’s job will change for the foreseeable future. In the midst of all this I still need to get two newsletters ready by Wednesday so here are some pictures from our evacuation day and I’ll sign off with my usual.

Until tomorrow…

[gallery ids="994,993,992,991,997"]

 

Day 123 / 242

Saylorville Lake – Rainy 72 degrees

We received 7.5” of rain overnight at Saylorville. Not the answer we were looking for from mother nature. Ankeny, the city adjacent to the lake area and where I work got 10”.  The weather reporters all forecasted rain for us but no one saw that coming.

Evacuation prep is underway, and we will likely move tomorrow unless the rangers change the plan. The difficulty is we are in the midst of the biggest camping week in Iowa’s summer season. 4^th of July week. As they figure out sites for us to move to we wait for our assignment and pack up our patios.

I dug up the tomatoes, squash and peppers that were growing in the ground and put them in the huge pots I used last year, when I did my entire vegetable garden in containers. So much for getting a site with raised beds! I have talked to many people this morning who have suffered property loss in this deluge.

The rangers came around last evening getting length and power requirements for all of us as they figure out site assignments for everyone. It’s going to suck a little not being on full hook-ups for several weeks, but we will all adapt as full-timers must. Our jobs here at the lake are pretty predictable from now till October. Flood recovery will be the theme for Champ's team. We are no strangers to flooding, having spent most of our lives in Iowa we know what awaits when the water recedes.

As annoying as the weather is being this year, I just look to each day and be glad the power is on, we are both healthy and working for a park that values their volunteers and will take good care of us as we ride this out with them. This little adventure is just part of the package.

Here are the pictures for the day.

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Until tomorrow...