CuRVWander

My last post back in early May signed off with us hopeful that we had seen the last of the mean people.  Memorial weekend had been a marked improvement in the clientele and it had been a very pleasant three day holiday to work.  Alas, it did not last.  School let out and wave after wave of campers that said; "we live just down the road" showed up.  There truly were some gems in that bunch and we looked forward to seeing them but the mean and nasty crowd returned in force.  Unfortunately the Corps of Engineers do not have any regulations against being a prick so we just had to deal with it. That being said, I am going to turn my writing attention to the more positive experiences and the oddities.  Although there are a couple of high drama moments that have played out over the summer that are worth mentioning.  That will be in following posts. May - June 2017 We continue to get settled in even though it has been weeks since arriving.  The work...

We are in our seventh 4-day shift (with four days off between shifts) and settling into a routine.  Both of us are wondering what we have gotten ourselves into.  We are feeling the full effect of 15.5 hour days in the gatehouse with no option for either of us to leave the park at any time during the four days on duty.  It pretty much takes the entire four days off to do everything that needs to be done so that you can be on duty for the next four days.  We are working on streamlining this operation so that we can have some fun-time on our days off. When we took this campground everyone that had been around for awhile told us how lucky we were to get such a "good" campground.  Lots of families they said, nice people they said, rarely any problems they said.  Let us tell you, it was anything but for our first six shifts.  People were rude, mean-spirited, obnoxious, cheaters and swindlers.  The parade of society's ills seemed endless and we were on...

We've been getting to know our new campground and its residents, which right now is just us and some critters.  We have about 10 more days before the park opens to the public and it is quiet and serene in here behind locked gates.  The campground has 75 improved campsites but there are only 72 that are available to campers.  The closed-to-the-public campsites are the ones used to house contractors for the campground and day use area that is adjacent to the campground. As one would expect, we have a large number of squirrels making these thick woods their home.  But we have spotted one squirrel in particular that is distinctly identifiable.  He, or maybe it is a she, almost has no tail. With it being so easy to identify, we have named it.  Stumpy is a frequent visitor to the cast-off area under the bird feeders.  And it looks like he needs to be, in addition to a highly abbreviated tale he is one skinny squirrel. This is a lake campground and a...

It is done.  We have moved from Cooper's Furnace Day Use Area (as volunteer gate attendants) to Victoria Campground (as contractor park attendants).  It will be a couple of weeks before the campground is open to the public so we are just cooling our jets until our five day training session starts next week. This campground is operated by two sets of hosts.  Our co-hosts are a really nice couple that live in a town west of the campground, almost all the way over to the place where we spent the winter in Carrollton, GA.  They will be living in their motor home in the campground while on duty and driving home (about an hour away) on their days off.  This will be their 8th year as park attendants at this campground so we will have some good, solid experience to draw on as we get through our first few days on duty and learn the routine. The host's campsites are on either side of the entrance to the campground, flanking the gatehouse.  They are marked as A an...

While enjoying our time at Cooper's Furnace Day Use Area our volunteer coordinator's job has changed and now she is the contract liaison for all the campgrounds on Lake Allatoona.  Every since her job change she has been after us to bid on jobs that have come open due to medical issues (most of us campground hosts are old folks and unfortunately medical issues are common).  From our interview for the day use area job she knew that we had been trained in the use of the national reservation system and she was seeing an opportunity to get someone that would need minimal training at this late stage in the process. We gave in and agreed to place a bid but that meant creating a company, registering the company with Dunn & Bradstreet and cross-registering with the Department of Defense (which is who the Corps of Engineers report to).  The red tape was horrific and took weeks to get certified but we got it done.  In the end we spent a chunk of money to meet everybody's...

A couple of months have expired since the last post.  Christmas and New Year were spent driving the 1.5 hour trip to the kids house many, many times.  I'm afraid to even calculate all the diesel we burned.  One of the trips was to stay for several days and baby/dog/house sit.  We had a blast doing that. But now it is near the end of February and we are moving to our volunteer position at Cooper's Furnace Day Use Area.  Generally speaking, we are moving from Carollton, GA to Cartersville, GA, right at about an hour's drive.  The back roads that we have been using to get to the kids' house are not going to work for moving the rig.  They are just too small and draped over with low hanging tree branches.  We'll have to take the dreaded I-20/I-285/I-75 route.  These roads are always choked with traffic even on a good day and lately there have not been many good days because of heavy construction. The job at Cooper's Furnace Day Use Area is set...

Finally!  A spot has come open in the full hook-up section of Little Talapoosa Park.  It is the Monday after Thanksgiving weekend and we have been given the green light to vacate our equestrian site and occupy a paved site with power, water and yes, sewer! Now the challenge is to get packed, hitched and moved while on crutches.  But it has been nine weeks since the break and John is about to be released for using a walking cast.  He's already been driving left footed for the last month.  We won't be as fast as usual but we'll get it done. Our new digs for the next several weeks. Little Talapoosa Park is a very nice park with groomed walking/biking trails, some even paved, and our new campsite fits right in.  It is spacious and level with a view out our rear picture window looking into a mixed woods of conifers and hardwoods.  While the site is mostly clear of trees directly above and to our forward position, there are a couple of trees off to t...

Weeks have gone by since the last posting.  Halloween has come and gone and the days are cooler and there is a faint tinge of color in the leaves.  It is close enough to Thanksgiving to start thinking about the holiday meal shopping list.  Time to scout out where we can get a smoked turkey. Still on crutches but the good thing is that John's arms and shoulders are getting buff.  Getting out and doing things is a little easier now that some stamina has been built up.  Orthopedist visits have been positive in that everything seems to be healing correctly and that no surgery will be required.  Whew! Yet we still wait.  Wait for the healing process and wait for a an RV site to become available so that we can move out of the equestrian loop and into the full hook up loop.  We've been told by a gate attendant that after Thanksgiving it was looking promising for some of the long-term contractors to be moving on.  We'll keep our fingers crossed. ...

It is October the 10th (2016) and 11 days since I (John) broke my foot.  Thank goodness for comfortable recliner chairs in our RV.  They are an upgrade/present we gave ourselves back in the spring.  There is no way that the factory installed recliners would have tolerated my eighteen hours a day of being leaned back with my leg elevated on a mound of blankets and pillows. Regardless of how comfortable my recliner is, that is a lot of time on one's backside and I am getting a little stir-crazy.  Cyndee was needing to go grocery shopping and I was determined to get out and go with her.  I can manage the crutches getting to and from Big Gulp (our truck) but I am going to make use of the electric carts once we get to Walmart.  The inside of that place is just too many square feet for me to walk on my hands. It is a bright, beautiful, fall day as we exit Little Talapoosa Park and point Big Gulp in the direction of our destination in Carrollton, GA, about 5 m...

It took five days after John broke his heel to get into to see the orthopedic surgeon.  But it turned out to be worth the wait.  In the those days of waiting with the foot elevated and confined in a half-cast the heel bone settled into a good position. Another set of full X-rays by the orthopedist showed that the heel bone was intact, completely broke off but intact.  And it had moved itself into perfect position to heal naturally without having to be screwed together.  The orthopedist said I was one of the lucky few that this happens to as well over 90% of these fractures require the placement of multiple screws to pull the heel into proper alignment.  I'll take my luck and run with it. Not having to have surgery was the end of the good luck.  I was still going to have to wear a cast and absolutely put no weight on my foot for a minimum of 10 weeks.  Being on crutches for almost 3 months doesn't exactly fit in the plans of an active fulltimer, but...

We got ourselves packed up and moved from Chattahoochee Bend State Park in Newnan, GA to Little Talapoosa Park in Carrollton, GA.  The drive took less time than it did to break camp and then set up again at the new spot.  We are in place just one day before we will be very busy with the movers while the kids are doing a double closing down in the middle of Atlanta. Our campsite in the equestrian section is very large and despite being nothing but dirt and a little gravel, it is pretty nice.  It is spacious and widely spaced from the campsites on either side of us.  It did require a number of boards under our rear jacks to get things leveled out as there was a front to back slope on the whole site.  They removed a huge number of trees to build the equestrian sites so we have a clear shot at the satellites.  We'll have to get after the locating of a septic pumping service, aka honey wagon, since there is no sewer or dump station. Back to helping the kids....

Our trip from Alabama to Georgia today (about Sept. 21, 2016) maps out to be right at 4 hours.  We have picked a campground that takes campers by the month.  We are anticipating that we will be around for awhile helping the kids with the move to their new house.  Once they get settled in then we will head out on the I-95 corridor for some Fall leaf-peeping and then return again for the Holidays. We turn onto the road that leads to our campground and are greeted by large signs saying; "Low Area, Prone to Sudden Flooding".  We move ahead thinking that perhaps the campground is built on elevated ground but were shocked to find that it was even in a lower spot than than the warning signs.  We pulled into the campground and found no obvious office and after sitting in the entrance for some time, were not greeted by anyone either.  We did our own drive-thru and saw that this campground was not suitable for our purposes and that it was time to execute plan B. ...

Our kids have firm closing dates for the house they selling and the one they are buying.  We are needing to get ourselves to Georgia so we can help them out on moving day.  So today we are going to cut our distance in half between where we are and our destination in Georgia.  This will land us in Cottondale, Alabama for the night.  No sight-seeing to do but we will probably sample the local fare instead of cooking for ourselves. We've been sampling the local fare a lot lately and it is taking its toll.  Shirts are tight, pants won't button.  We're going to have to get our eating back on plan or it won't be long before nothing but sweatpants will fit. We are coming up on the end of September and it is still hot.  Luckily our campground for tonight ( Sunset Travel Park ) is another one with good power.  Both A/Cs are going full blast trying to keep things cool.  This summer has been one for the books, everywhere we have been all summer long...

On our outbound journey from Georgia in June (2016) we skipped our planned stop in New Orleans for some tours of historical interest because of all the mechanical issues we had associated with two blow-outs on the trailer.  The days spent on getting repairs done ate up our time we had planned for New Orleans not to mention our desire to "play".  Our destination for today gives us the opportunity to make up for this a little bit.  We are going to call Vicksburg, Mississippi home for the next couple of nights. We didn't plan it but it is working out that to get to today's destination it fits perfectly within our four hour per day driving window.  We have another private campground picked out because of its convenient location to things we want to do.  Magnolia RV Park Resort will be home for the next couple nights. And a favorite thing for John is that we get to cross a Mississippi River bridge today.  Not so much for Cyndee.  Essentially all bridges...

Two days of driving and we are still in the state of  Texas.  Okay, so we only drive four hours a day, but in eight hours of driving you can cross most states and then some.  And we are not even close to crossing the wide part of the state.  That would be El Paso to Orange, Tx on I-10 at a little over 12 hours in perfect traffic through San Antonio and Houston,,, not likely. It's September the seventeenth 2016 and our goal for the day is Texarkana.  Literally, as far as you can go on TX-82 and still be in Texas.  Since we were going to end our day in a little more populated area we searched for a park last night and have called ahead to be sure there is space available.  We'll be staying at Shady Pines RV Park on the southwest side of Texarkana.  It will be our first privately owned campground since Bartlesville, Ok back in mid July. We were pleasantly surprised upon our arrival at Shady Pines.  The park appeared to be almost new a...