Blog Update – July 10, 2007

More Lake Wobegone – opps-I mean Lake Kachess stories. Sorry about the long lapses in updates but we have been VERY busy with both work and visitors.

We had a big upheaval last week which was caused by our area managers. Our unit managers, Marvin & Laraine, are wonderful and all of our Lake Kachess staff get along well, work hard and do a good job. Then our area managers, Donna and Ken, show up and start nit-picking everything, never recognizing that a good job is being done here, and they lean all over Marvin & Laraine. Several times Marvin & Laraine have been very, very close to just quitting and leaving after Ken & Donna were here yelling at them and interfering in everything. Elaine and I told Ken & Donna that if Marvin & Laraine left or were fired, then we were leaving too. The other 6 hosts here agreed. On the 4^th of July, we were absolutely slammed in our day use areas by picnicking families and in the boat launch area by boaters. Everyone worked really hard all day long and handled everything. Ken & Donna came over and weren’t happy with a few things and decided to fire Marvin & Laraine. They were going to tell them last Friday. But when we all got wind of it, threatened to have a mass walkout, and started calling and e-mailing the Thousand Trails office in Federal Way, they jumped on Ken & Donna and told them to handle the problem. After lots of meetings with everyone, things are now stabilized, and we are all staying on the job (for now).

Too bad all this was going on when my sister, Marsha was visiting, and also during the second week of my granddaughter, Paige’s, visit. Both have been delightful and cooperative house guests and we hope they had a good time here. The good thing is that the weather has been fabulous – so warm even that it is possible to swim in the lake. Paige & Marsha went kayaking with Frank yesterday, Marsha has done some fly fishing in nearby streams, and we have been able to drive them to local tourist places such as Leavenworth on our day off. Leavenworth is a town with buildings like a Bavarian village and is very charming. It is located in an area with lots of fruit trees and other crops as well as beautiful rivers. It was 101 degrees the day we were there! We were glad to get back to our campground which had temps in the 80’s. Marsha and Paige have seen deer, snowshoe hares, chipmunks, squirrels and lots of birds, even though the campground is busier. Yesterday, we drove to Seattle and had several hours and wonderful temperatures to visit Pikes Place Market and the waterfront. The views across Puget Sound were fabulous and we could see the snow capped mountains over on the Olympic Peninsula. Then we took them to the airport, where Paige’s flight left on time but Marsha’s was delayed by about 6 hours!! Avoid United Airlines if at all possible. Marsha has flown on it 4 times in the last 3 weeks and three of the four flights had delays of over 3 hours.

Two friends of Frank’s, Joe & Robb from Canada, were here for a week and we had so much fun with them on walks, at happy hours, and they served a delightful dinner. It seemed like we were laughing the whole time they were here.

Here is a campground story, typical of what hosts have to deal with. At 10:15 the other night 2 campers knocked on our door to tell us there were very noisy young campers next to them. We went over and found 3 young men with a huge campfire going. They had pulled big logs out of the forest (illegal) and had not registered or paid (illegal), and had their radio going loudly (illegal after 10PM). Elaine told them to turn off the radio and get a bucket of water and douse the fire. We suggested they go to the dispersed camping area outside our campground where they could party all night with their friends and camping is free. I escorted them to the entry gate and gave them directions and off they went. They were in the boat launch area the next day with their jet skis and they thanked us for telling them where to go. The other campers were also very happy because these guys had left. Hopefully, all of our incidents will end this well.

Last weekend was another very busy time at the campground, plus we had a Sunday afternoon visit from my step-brother, Richard and his wife Carol. They live about 40 miles from the campground, at Fall City, near Snoqualmie Falls. After they did a short hike, we had a clam linguine dinner by the campfire in the late afternoon. It was great to see them again, and we were glad they could come while Marsha was here. The warm, sunny weather continues and it is great to be here (provided the labor problems continue to be resolved). I will try to attach a few pictures below but since my internet connection is iffy, even with this new air card, I don’t know if I will be successful.