CuRVWander

With our co-hosts leaving before the last week of September and the closing of the campground before then end of October making it impractical to bring in new volunteers, we are going it alone for awhile.  Starting at 6:30 in the morning, taking a mid-day break and then finishing up at 10:30pm seven days a week is making for some long days.  But we only have to do this until the middle of October and then it is off to the east.  A 3,000 mile jaunt from northern Arizona to the southeast coast of Georgia. We barely leave the campground now, save a trip to Lindbergh Hill two or three times a week to dump ashes.  Then there is the occasional trip to the lodge deli for a take-out pizza.  There has not been much time for sight seeing or getting the camera out but there were a couple of opportunistic occasions where the phone camera sufficed. All summer long we have had 4 mule deer bucks hanging out together and making rounds through the campground.  As w...

Two posts back I mentioned that we were going to take advantage of the last few days of our co-hosts being around and use our days off to go for a long weekend on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.  Last year we got over to Flagstaff for an overnight trip and, among other things, we day-tripped out to the South Rim.  We got a taste of what it was like with most of our time being spent at the extreme east end of the park, Desert View. But there is much more to see and this year we are taking a three day weekend with almost the whole time dedicated to the South Rim.  Cyndee spent a couple of weeks trying to wrangle us a hotel room that was available on our days off, convenient to the South Rim and affordable.  Turns out that was a tall order.  First, finding any room that was available for two nights in a row was tough.  And if you got anywhere near, less than an hour away from the park entrance, the prices jumped well above $200/night.  I've paid that...

Okay, in my last post I said that the volunteer job of camp hosting had become monotonous and that there was not much new or different worth writing about.  But just when we thought we had seen everything, somebody shows us different. It is not unusual to see motor coaches that have been built from the shells of busses.  In fact, these bus conversions are some of the most expensive, luxurious coaches on the road.  Sometimes costing several million dollars.  Of course there are more economical versions and in some cases an individual will salvage an old school bus and refashion it into an RV.  They will replace or cover over the windows with interior walls and cabinets, the rows of seats are jettisoned with a galley, bath and living quarters in their place.  The familiar yellow and black exterior of the school bus is painted over to reflect the personality of the occupants.  We have seen everything from modern commercial graphics, like a factory RV pa...

There has been almost an eight week lapse in our postings.  Up until about the end of September it was a choice not to write.  There simply was nothing but the same old thing; check campers in, check campers out, clean fire pits.  Same ol', same ol'.  After almost five months of camp hosting at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon there is not a lot of fresh things to write about the volunteer work.  But now, near the end of September, our co-hosts, Gary and Jo are about to wrap up their six weeks at the North Rim.  We have been working out strategies for getting his rig out of the half of the camp host site he is in.  They are in the position we were in last year.  They too have a relatively long fifth wheel trailer.  This is the camp host site configuration.  Two rigs in a large, flat-bottom 'U' shape driveway.  This photo is last year.  This year we are parked where the white RV is and our co-hosts are parked where we are...