Grandkids and Gardening

I woke up this morning to the sound of my five-year-old granddaughter's voice asking Grandpa to tickle her. I have not been that content that early in the morning in a long time. The world has gone mad, but there are some things that remind me what is important.

We are still in the staging lane waiting for things to open back up so we can get on with our summer routine. Most campgrounds in our area are closed as we wait for the park, we work for, to reopen. We spend each day assessing a very fluid Plan B to get us through this transition time.

The whole country is struggling to feel normal. Graduation and Wedding Season has been unceremoniously (no pun intended) swept to the curb and everyone reaches as far as they can to try to grasp something each day that makes them feel grounded.

For me it is gardening and grandkids. My mind has been in a swirl like most full time RV’ers trying to focus as best they can right now. We all feel like an old grocery store bag snagged in a tree whipping in the wind not knowing where we will end up. I stay in contact with others around the country who are living the same nightmare my husband and I are. Gradually we are all getting to a place where we are starting to bring our new reality to fruition and finding our grounding point. We are constructing our contingency plans and hoping our old normal will reemerge soon.

I went to my friends place yesterday and helped her with some spring yard work. Aside from the fact that she is one of my dearest friends, she also lives in the woods, so I had the birds and timber sounds serenading me as I cleaned flower beds and spread mulch around perennials that are starting to poke their heads up. My soul was the most content it has been in weeks. Later that afternoon, as I scrubbed the dirt out from under my fingernails, one of our grandkids arrived to spend the night. Their parents and us agreed we have all been disconnected enough to warrant an overnight visit. A much-needed break for the kids who have been sequestered for 6 weeks with her and a dream come true for us just like a lot of grandparents in the times we live in. We had a great night outside in the mild weather riding bikes, taking walks, and letting her take pictures with her new kid camera. The Polaroid has made a comeback in the form of a youth camera. Who’d have thunk it?

It is amazing to witness the growth the young grandkids achieve in the 5 months we are absent in the winter. Suddenly, they can tie their own shoes or read a book to me instead of the other way around.

In the upside-down world of the full time workcamper the past 48 hours has been just what the doctor ordered for this one.

Until next time…

Waiting in Limbo

The world of fulltime workcampers has been turned on its head the past few weeks. I have resisted talking about COVID-19 on the blog, mostly because I am so sick of hearing about it every time, I take a breath. But the reality is that this current issue has wreaked havoc on the entire sub-culture of full time RV volunteers.

In a mere thirty days we have gone from looking forward to moving from our winter jobs to our summer assignments, to being in a state of limbo, that is not only inconvenient but could well be dangerous for some. I never dreamed I would own a face mask to wear in public, let alone, learn to sew my own. But, making them has become a way to fill my time. Material under the bed that I thought would eventually become a quilted tote bag is turning into masks.

Campgrounds, parks and amusement parks sit idle all over the country. The work campers who make up a large part of the peak season work force are in limbo, not being allowed to come on site, while in many cases, not being allowed to stay in their winter locations for various reasons.  Instead we are in the very few private parks that are open and those arrangements are often temporary. In our case we have accommodations at one of only three private parks that are still open in central Iowa. That will end on May 11^th. The decisions from the Corps of Engineers come out weekly and are pushing their targeted opening date back with each update.  They won’t let us onsite until they open to the public, even though we are often onsite as much as a month before the recreation season begins to do the pre-season work to prepare the park.  Even the Rangers are working from home to keep interaction to a minimum. These are turbulent times for us all. All we can do is wait.

I have talked to work camping friends who are in the same situation all over the country. Some are literally homeless, moving from place to place and even boondocking in some cases. States have varying levels of restrictions on movement and access to parks. Iowa is restricted but not completely inaccessible like some of the areas in the Northeast.

We are glad to be back in Iowa despite the challenges we are facing. We spend our days semi-isolated from friends and family and know how lucky we are to have two close family members with rural property that will welcome us during our time of limbo between the time we have to leave this park and the eventual date that we can finally start our work at Saylorville Lake.  In a way we are looking forward to staying at our sons for a few weeks just to have the opportunity to spend time with him and the grandkids from that part of the state. It will be a little inconvenient without full hook ups, but we will manage, and hope to make some good memories during our time there.

We stay in contact with those we know around the country and encourage each other as we all navigate these difficult times. I have realized just how tight knit the work camping community is even with hundreds of miles separating us. We know some better than others, but the common bond of the lifestyle is strong and there is a genuine caring for each other.

No one has been untouched by our current events. RV’ers or not.  I have friends and family with small businesses, who are struggling to operate and stay in the black. Entire families are unemployed, and still others are forced to work in situations that place them and their families at risk every day. The world seems to be barely functioning. A new normal is on the horizon and I don’t think anyone will slide into it seamlessly. All we can do is support each other, wash our hands and stay in as much as possible till this all blows over.

The Iowa weather is about to play a cruel April prank and plunge us into late February like temps for the next week.  Social distancing will be easy in the nasty weather. Champ and I will spend it watching the entire Star Wars catalog borrowed from our daughter. Sadly, neither one of us has seen any of the movies since Return of the Jedi. By the time the weather straightens out I should know what a Sith is and what all the weird action figures in the grandkids’ bedrooms are called.

Until Next Time…

What A Long Strange Trip It's Been

Jerry Garcia's lyric has been in my head this entire trip.

We left Mercedes on Friday with a heightened vigilance that anything can happen on the road, knowing this trip would be different.  We had 1,250 miles ahead of us, some very uncertain times and the knowledge that if we headed down the road and changed our minds, coming back to Llano was not an option.  The park has been basically locked down the past 2 weeks. Only residents and those delivering essential services are aloud in. No new check ins aloud.  I spent the past two weeks telling people checking out that they absolutely were not aloud to check back in if they left. A couple of people headed down the road and had trouble and wanted to come back and could not, due to ‘shelter in place’ orders to protect the parks 55+ population dynamic.

The morning started with a headache that we have seen happen to others and even helped others overcome. One of our two 22’ slides refused to come in. Champ spent an hour and a half working on it and did rig it so it would come in and there it has stayed the entire trip. We have purchased 6 RV’s over the years and my big requirement has always been that it must be inhabitable with the slides in, just in case. If you can cook, poop and sleep the floor plan satisfies my basic requirements.  Of course, if you know me that is just the first step in a long list of things that must satisfy me when picking out a rig. But I digress.

We are on our last leg to Des Moines this morning. The trip has been very different and eerie in a sense. Campgrounds and RV parks are open but with no contact procedures in place when we arrive. The weather was bad the first two days. We left oppressively humid mid 90’s weather and drove into a cold front that resulted in heavy rain and plunged temperatures into the lower 40’s.  The coldest weather we had experienced all winter.

The most noticeable and eeriest factor was the utter lack of traffic in the Interstates. The most we saw was going through San Antonio at rush hour on Friday afternoon. Normally it would have been stop and go through the city, but we didn’t even slow down.  Traffic was plentiful but moving along at speed limit. When we travelled through Waco and Ft. Worth on Saturday, we felt like we were in a post-apocalyptic movie. We have been in Waco on Saturday in the past and it is normally busy with Baylor University folks and tourists heading the Magnolia Markets or maybe the Texas Ranger Museum in the shadow of I-35. Not this Saturday. Ft. Worth was even more desolate. We also noticed the absence of law enforcement. No speed traps, no DOT Inspectors ruining a trucker’s day with a spot inspection and portable scales. We were well into Kansas before we saw our first State Trooper on the road. Interstate LED signs that normally remind us to wear our seatbelts and announce how many people have died in accidents this year, now tell us to wash our hands and avoid contact with each other. Traveling through the cities, it is strange to see the sprawling retail complexes, along the interstate frontage road deserted.  It's like being in a Stephen King novel.

Approaching Oklahoma City

Deserted Flyovers in Ft. Worth

Our normal view the entire trip

Even stranger is seeing people gloved and masked at the truck stops. No one is talking to each other. Suspicious glances are about all the communication that is going on in public. Society is so raw and scared these days. A sad situation indeed.

We met up with friends in a Casino RV park in southern OK on Saturday night and again were stricken by the fact that there were only about 20 sites occupied in a park that can accommodate over 400. We sat outside around our portable propane fire pit and talked about our last two days. We parted ways the next morning on different routes and time frames that will ultimately bring us to the same destination early this week.

Yesterday I started to feel normal and the anxiety of travelling began to fade. It was my day to drive. I watched the roadsides change. Poplars, Northern Red Buds and Pear trees blooming replaced the Cacti and gnarly Live Oaks. We saw our first Casey’s General Store and knew we were almost home. After checking into our site in a state park, backed up to a river oxbow, I really started to feel like my old self again. We collected firewood, and I listened to the Cardinals and Robins in the timber. Gone are the calls of the Great Kiskadee and the Red Crowned Parrots. Annie and I watched a Hairy Wood drumming away at the tree next to our site and the sound of a freight train in the distance, reminded me I was back home in the Midwest. After an early dinner sat by the fire talking about how strange trip this has been. 

Annie birdwatching with me

We slept soundly knowing we are almost home. Three days ago, 1,250 miles seemed like a million. This morning we are less than 300. Iowa will greet us today with 70-degree weather but the same weird vibe of no contact. The kids and grandkids will be near but so very far away still until they feel comfortable with contact. Champ and I are practically sterile with three weeks of very minimal contact under our belt.

The Rio Grande Valley is just beginning to see cases of COVID-19. With only 38 cases, they imposed shelter in place orders two weeks ago.  Iowa’s cases are growing exponentially and nearing 1,000 cases. We struggled with the decision of whether to go home or hunker down. The deciding factor ended up being that cases were starting to ramp up were we were, so we had nothing to lose by being home. It is better for me since my health insurance is non-existent outside of Iowa. If I get sick, I need to be In-Network as they say. It is a risk I take each winter when we leave, but this is a game changer. We know we are heading to a place with more cases per capita but we will be home and there’s a lot to be said for that. We have been in regular text and phone contact with other RV friends. Some have already made it to Iowa, others are still waiting things out. There is a mutual comfort in knowing we are keeping tabs on each other. The full-time RV life is inherently a little uncertain, but this is different. On the upside, gas is the cheapest we have ever pumped into the motorhome.

Tonight, I will be sitting in my lawn chair at Griff’s RV Park a stone’s throw from our daughter’s house.  I know we are healthy and what we have or have not encountered the past weeks. We do not know the details of who our loved ones have been in contact with as many are still working each day. It is like a musty, damp gym towel hanging over our homecoming. We dream of the day later this spring when Saylorville will open once again and site number 7 in Volunteer Village will be home. I long for my summer days on the mower, or with Judy in the Butterfly Gardens. I long for the sound of my grandkids voices as they snuggle up against me on the couch after a busy day playing outside. The world needs a big dose of normalcy. I hope it comes soon.

Until Next Time…

One Last Walk

We are looking toward our trip home with a strange mix of excitement and trepidation this year. As the Coronavirus numbers increase and news about the subject perforates every nook and cranny of our lives, I took yesterday morning and spent a couple of hours walking the trails in the State Park next door just to disconnect for a while. I walked alone but did run into a couple others searching for the same peace along the way. We exchanged small talk briefly but the vibe hung heavy in the air that we were out there searching for solitude not company.  

Creek through Estero Llano Grande State Park

Texas morning sky

I went armed with my binoculars and camera, just as I do any other nature trail walk but I was not searching all that hard for anything. Mostly, I was just happy to be in the woods and enjoying the absence of synthetic sounds. I did see a Green Heron up close and took a couple of pictures. For some reason I stood for a long time looking at a Verdin nest that showed evidence in the downy feathers left around the entry hole that the Verdins’ were done using it. I’m not sure why it intrigued me so much. Maybe it is because like the birds we are preparing to take flight and leave our winter nest, ourselves.

Verdin Nest

Green Heron at the creek bridge

For Mature Audiences Only

Jeruselum Thorn Tree Blooming

We have packed up our site and are relaxing this afternoon. With any luck the trip will be uneventful. We are both taking a deep breath as we have no idea what will lie ahead in Iowa for the summer. Those who have left ahead of us have been in contact and told us things were business as usual on the road. Except for the contactless procedures in place when checking into the campground. They report truck traffic is heavy, probably hauling toilet paper and bottled water and car traffic is down. We are leaving an area that is currently experiencing relatively few cases and headed into an area that is on a steep increase each day, but it is home and we have to get back sooner rather than later we decided. Iowa is not in nearly as bad a shape as other places around the country, but it is a serious situation.  All we know for sure is that we will not pull into our normal summer spot and spend a joy-filled day seeing the kids and grandkids. All the surprises when we just kind of show up at work places and school yards and tears of joy as we hold grandkids and hug our adult kids will have to wait. Arrival will be anti-climatic to say the least. Uncertainty is the only constant for most everyone these days.

Until Next Time…

Trapped in Paradise

A little over a week ago I was looking toward our lift off date of April 4^th with a good deal of optimism that the current national crisis will have peaked and be on the downhill side of the hysteria by the time we leave. This morning I am not feeling as confident about that.

Northern Mockingbirds fight over mates. Black Bellied Whistling Ducks are suddenly inhabiting the tops of the towering palm trees around my RV. Red Winged Blackbirds are dwindling in numbers as are the American Pelicans who have graced the surface of the Resaca on the other side of the levee at the end of my street where I take my morning walks. They are making their way back to Iowa. Saylorville Lake our summer basecamp will soon be alive with their calls and presence. Spring is in the air and I am jealous of the bird’s blissful ignorance of our human problems.

The park is emptying out quickly with those who still have brick and mortar homes to return to after a winter of snowbird frolic. Many like us are still here trying to come up with a game plan based on shaky, quickly changing data. This is a scenario no one has ever really developed a backup plan for since, nothing like this has happened in our lifetime. The nation is paralyzed in fear and uncertainty. Campgrounds, like the one we work at every summer are closed for the foreseeable future with no firm opening date on the calendar. There are a couple of RV parks designed for full timers around the area we call home, but they are so far unable to accommodate our fluid timeframe. Today, I am hoping the RV park near our kids where we have a tentative reservation through the third week of April will get a cancellation so we can stay there until our job calls us to work. If not, we will be forced to stay put for several more weeks.

Even without the uncertainty of a place to stay, protocol dictates a quarantine period when we arrive back home to avoid the risk of carrying the virus, unwittingly or asymptomatically from the RGV to Iowa.  Most who left ahead of us have made it to their destination safely and are self quarentining. Others are flying by the seat of their pants in limbo between here and their next assignment.  We joke about being houseless, but this is different and a little unsettling to say the least.

We will assess our situation later this week and try to make a good decision based on imperfect data. It will kill us and some of our loved ones at home, emotionally to stay here beyond the 4^th, but it may indeed be the wise thing to do. I was talking to my son yesterday and he said, “Mom, make your decision based on facts and not your emotions.”  WOW! The reality that my sweet little boy is now a 35-year-old man with a family hit me like a boulder.  I wonder if he shuddered when he heard himself say it to me and think. “Oh God, I just sounded like Mom”. 

In the meantime, I’ll sit on my patio in deep south Texas and watch the season change, watch videos of grandkids, look at pictures of past family gatherings, and dream of when we are home and all this nonsense is behind us and evolved into a story to be told around the campfire ten years from now.

Until Next Time….                                      

Insecurities

In the back of all full time RV’ers mind lurks a quiet insecurity. It is a double-edged sword living this life. The freedom of not being tied to a piece of property or the burden of an empty house to maintain is liberating.  This week out of nowhere, I found myself longing for that kind of stability with all its burdens for the first time since we started this adventure nearly 4 years ago. We talked about it one evening and as we talked about the reality of going back to our old life, the weird feelings I had earlier in the day faded quickly, and I realized how normal this life is to me and my feelings of insecurity acutally led to a validation that this life is indeed what I am supposed to be doing. 

There is a certain insecurity in heading to a new job in a new area. Not knowing if we will like the work or if our employer will fulfill their end of the contract as stated. A natural disaster can displace a work camper and sometimes end an assignment leaving us in limbo.  In our first four seasons at this we have dealt with that dynamic three times. A Hurricane nearly nixed our winter job two years ago. Major flooding in Iowa displaced many of the workcampers twice that season, but the park was able to keep us onsite in other areas that were not flooded. We know people who have been displaced by wildfires in the west as well.  Things always worked out.  When a tornado is in the area, we certainly feel insecure, not being able to get underground.  All those things are short-lived, and options are always available to those who are willing to be flexible.

These insecurities are relatively easy to keep tamped down given the fact that assignments are easy to find, and campgrounds are everywhere you look these days. We take a lot for granted on the road. It never occurs to us that when we need something from the store on the road that the store may not have it in stock. It certainly never occurs to us that we won’t be able to find a place to stay on our route or be able to buy gas for the rig whenever we want to.

That all changed this past week. Panic is gripping the entire country. No one has been untouched by the impact of the latest virus. Fear and insecurity are the monster under everyone’s bed lately and no one can stop obsessing about it. The situation we are in today makes the 1,300- mile journey home seem like light years.

My rational mind feels confidant that we will drive away from the Rio Grande Valley in two weeks and get home without any issues. We have decided to caravan with friends here who are headed to the same destination. There is no plan, just a shaky faith that gas stations will have plenty of fuel for us and we will find a safe place to boondock the two nights that we will stop. Our original plan to take six days and visit friends and relatives on the way home is off the table. The name of the game is drive-sleep-drive-sleep and drive one more time. Our job at the Corps Park that we are going into our fourth season with is on hold indefinitely.

The only thing we know for sure today is that we have a reservation at home at a full-service RV park that we have patronized in the past through the third week of April. After that we hope to be able to get our summer season underway at Saylorville. If not, we will have to implement a yet to be determined Plan B.

We keep in touch with others who left before us and are encountering closed areas. I am grateful that we will not be on the road for two more weeks. I am grateful that I have a resourceful, mechanical, reliable husband to travel with. I can’t imagine the feeling of heading out into this strange new world on a solo journey. My thoughts are with those who are making the trip north this week. I work four more shifts at the RV Office and will keep myself sane completing the normal pre-flight checklist. One of the unknowns that is nagging at me most is whether I can buy paper plates to use on the road and restock my toilet paper supply before we leave. But, then no one knows when the illusive TP will reappear on the shelf at the store.

Until next time…

The Exodus

I have joked off and on that if all hell breaks loose, we won’t worry, we are in a motorhome and we’ll just moved out of the way of the chaos. We are in that reality around the country now. The problem is we can't escape this situation like a flood or wildfire or some other natural disaster. The enitre country is shrouded in it. 

This week has been a game changer in the work camping world. I sit here writing, trying to process my thoughts about the situation we are in right now. We have been in parks in the past, that have had extenuating circumstances that impacted the work we were doing for the park. In those situations, we were assured by the park management that they recognized our commitment to the job, the distance we travelled to be there and were not asked to leave. In time the situation settled down and it was back to business as usual. We felt appreciated and welcome despite the difficult circumstances for the park and the work campers.

The Corona Virus Panic arrives in Llano Grande

We are enjoying a zero COVID-19 environment in the Rio Grande Valley, so far. In the past 24 hours we have gone from feeling relatively insulated from the situation to being fully impacted by the threat that is still only academic and speculative in this region. Yesterday, the corporate office followed the trend of other parks in the valley and closed all public areas in the park and cancelled all events for the foreseeable future. What does that mean to workcampers you ask?  Well, if your job involves working in the restaurant, bar, golf course or any other Activities Office function, you were told yesterday that your job had ended and given till the end of the week to either, find work in another department, leave or pay full price for your site for the remainder of your contracted stay. Hmmm.  Champ and I are lucky, in that the office is open so I still have a job, and maintenance is an essential service that continues to operate. Other work campers are not so lucky. The park is completely focused on the all mighty dollar. If you don’t work, you don’t stay. Never mind the season long commitment and hard work. Never mind our next destination may still be buried in snow and ice or the job doesn’t start. Never mind that we contracted to work until March 31^st and contracted to have our site till April 4^th.  Some are facing summer jobs being delayed since the parks have been closed for now. The security of being self-contained is fraying a bit for some with the uncertainty of when and where their next move or job will be. Work campers here are all feeling different levels of anxiety and uncertainty this week. The one common feeling among us here is the feeling that we are not appreciated and are basically in the way and now a burden to the parks bottom line. Not a good feeling. Having worked for only one private park, we don’t know if this is an attitude common among private parks or if it is the attitude of this particular management team. I do know, several people who were planning to return are making other plans for next winter as a result of the abrasive treatment  received from the Volunteer Coordinator as this situation developed. Champ and I have been treated well so far and working hard not to get caught up in the drama.  However, It is hard to watch our co-workers be treated like they couldn’t be less disposable.  

Graham at the IT help desk with over 40 modems turned in by early departees. 

The office is busy with people, many of them Canadians, who have been summoned home by their insurance companies and fears they will not be let back into their home country. Others are leaving to go home and help kids who still have jobs to go to with schools and daycares closed. Some are just panicked and need to be somewhere familiar, so they feel more secure. We had two scheduled check outs yesterday yet processed over 40. 

I watch the updates at home, try to sift the bullshit and rumors from the facts. I go work my hours in the office and smile while people vent their anxiety. I come home and sit it in the lawn chair and decompress.  We visit with the neighbors and are planning communal dinners and get togethers, like the old days when we went camping with our group.  The 90-degree heat has returned and the pools are closed, that really stinks. But, these are the times we live in today. We have it relatively good here compared to many others around the country and for that we are thankful.

I watch the panicked snowbirds fly out of here two to four weeks early and think to myself, it’s like going out in the middle of a blizzard, instead of waiting for the storm to pass and the roads to be plowed. I believe deep in my heart that by early April, when we are set to take flight ourselves that the worst will be over and the dust will be settled. In the mean time, rumors swirl, grocery store shelves are empty for unexplained reasons and a tough situation is revealing the best and the worst of people.

Until next time…