8/26/07

Hello Again Blog Readers,

Happily, this report is being posted from Sekiu, WA, out on the Olympic Peninsula, where the RoVing Rods are having their annual salmon fishing event. We were able to join them on Friday afternoon. On the way here, we had our RV recall work done in Tacoma, and spent the night at the Escapees park in Chimicum. Some RV friends of ours, Ann Howells and David Brown, rent a lot nearby in Port Hadlock and we had a delightful Happy Hour and wine tasting there with them. Laurie Brown and Odel King were also there and we had an enjoyable time on a sunny and glorious day, made even more awesome by the views over the water. David and Ann rent a house near Capetown, South Africa every winter, and we were happy to get some travel information from them in the hope that we can still travel there this coming winter.

Friday we drove from Chimicum to Sekiu and joined the RoVing Rods at Olsen’s Resort and RV Park. It was great to see everyone again and hear that they had been catching quite a few salmon. Elaine went out the next morning with Doc and Ron and they caught 7 salmon. We brined them after they were filleted, and smoked them and canned them today. Unfortunately, today when they went out fishing, it was pretty rough on the water, with big swells, and they only caught 2 fish. Hopefully, things will pick up tomorrow. We have been having delicious potluck meals and Happy Hours too.

We are finding that we have a great appreciation for our freedom, now that we have quit our job. The job requirements weren’t that bad, and the people we worked with were very nice, but the hard part was just that we had to stay there all the time. Generally the campers were pretty nice, and the campground itself was very beautiful, with tall trees and a large, beautiful lake. Too bad the weather wasn’t better this summer. It was hardly ever warm enough to wear shorts or even think about going out on the lake. We only got out kayaking a few times, and even though we eventually got our inflatable boat set up, we never did get it out on the lake because of the cold and rainy weather.

I am going to put a few pictures below that I haven’t been able to post until now because of the lousy air card signal we had before. Now we have a good one; same with our cell phone. So call if you want to and this time you will actually reach us.

8/16/07

Sorry it has been so long since we have updated this blog. The word busy wouldn’t even begin to describe what life has been like here. The frustrating part is that we are working about twice as many hours as we are getting paid for. When we took this job we thought that we would have some time to go fishing, kayaking, etc. on the lake here during our own time. That has NOT been happening! Also, the weather has been fairly cool and overcast quite a bit of the time, and when we do have a nice day, the place is crammed with campers and day use people.

The good part is that we have been having lots of visits with family and good friends. Pat & Linda Jenkins arrived on August 3 and Mike and Marilyn Harrison came the next day. Joe and Carla Calwell arrived soon after and we were glad to have them considering that they were having axle problems with their 5^th wheel and left it to be repaired in Boise. They were willing to stay in a tent just to be here with all of us! Luckily, the camp hosts have the use of an A-frame cabin in the area so they were able to sleep there. We all enjoyed the lake one day and spent another day exploring Roslyn, Salmon la Sac, and eating at the Mexican place in Cle Elum. Everyone tried our inflatable kayaks on one of the only sunny days we had. There were lots of happy hours and group meals and everyone had a wonderful time.

Another great visit was from my brother Jerry, and his wife Diann. They flew to Seattle and rented a car and drove out here on Tuesday. We convinced them to stay in our new RV while we tried out the A-frame bedroom. Carla and Joe, we don’t know how you ever managed in that bed!! There was a dinner for all the camp hosts while they were here and we were glad that they could join us.

There has been a lot of wacko things going on here, as usual. A few weeks ago, someone used an acetylene torch to cut into the cast iron deposit boxes for the camper’s pay envelopes. When Elaine went to get into the box and found the lock cut off, the box was still hot! So she called on the radio and Marvin immediately checked the boat launch box and that had been hit by the robbers too. But all the other camp loop boxes were still intact. Our pay box is not located near our rig or any of the campsites which might be why they hit ours and not the others. The dumb part is that they did this on a Wednesday, probably our slowest day and the day the boxes would have the least money.

A few days ago, Jim, the camp host at Crystal Springs, our loop that is located about 6 miles from here, across the freeway, had a problem with some campers. When he tried to get them to pay the amount that they were supposed to, they ganged up on him and then they called Donna and Ken, our area managers. They are the ones that have been causing problems here the whole summer. Donna knows these campers from past years and decided to take their side. She called Jim and started yelling at him, so he said that he was paying for that phone and didn’t have to listen to her yelling at him on it at ten o’clock at night, and he hung up on her. She called up Laraine and told her to go over and fire him and have him out of there by noon the next day. Of course, all of us that are left here are upset by this whole deal and Elaine has been really pushing for us to just quit. She says we don’t owe any loyalty to an outfit that supports managers like this. So next week we are going to quit. We have friends coming on Tuesday and Wednesday and on Thursday we are out of here. After having an appointment at the Chevy place in Tacoma on Thursday, we will drive up to Seiku to join the RoVing Rods for the annual salmon fishing event. So we are busy packing and getting organized to make our escape.

Sunday there will be a big farewell dinner for all the camp hosts here. It will be sad to leave all our new good friends. I am feeling guilty for leaving all of them to handle everything during the last few weeks of the season.

We have some pictures of our visitors but I don’t know whether our air car will allow me to post them at this time. If not, I will do it when I have a stronger signal.

7/24/07

Hello again Blog Readers:

Now that we have escaped from the campground for two days and are visiting our friends Kathy & Sally in Coeur d’Alene, ID, we have the use of their wireless internet and I can update this blog at record speed. Hooray! The main problem we have had lately is that the air card we got from Verizon only 50 days ago has already gone bad and after we jumped through all their hoops, they sent us another one. Of course, they don’t deliver to a campground so we had to wait until our days off to pick it up at the Radio Shack in Cle Elum. That meant we had no internet or e-mail access for a week. Now I have to see if the new one works.

Luckily, there is no big news to report of the same nature as the tree disaster of the last blog update. Yesterday, the loggers started to harvest the fallen trees in the campground and they were also going to take out about 15 of the ones that were still standing that seemed questionable. Our area managers want to reopen Thetis Loop, but those of us that work there think it is too dangerous. We will have to see what happens next.

Mostly what has been happening since our last update is that we have been working harder and longer because the warmer weather caused us to have a lot more campers, and we have been having visitors, with many more expected during August.

Jeanne and Rodger, 2 of our neighbors from Park Sierra, were visiting us this past weekend, and will return next weekend, along with Rodger’s son Marty and his daughter. It was great to see them and Marty brought out a great meal for all of us on Saturday.

In the more stories from Lake Kachess category, we have several incidents from this past weekend. On Sunday we walked over to one of our loops, Mineral Creek, only to find that one of the barricades used to close off Thetis Loop had been moved across this loop instead. The other barricade was totally missing and has yet to be found. So Thetis, which is supposed to be closed because of the danger of falling trees, was totally open! All done by some prankster in the middle of the night. The other incident was that this is the first weekend that we have been getting “stiffed” by people with regard to firewood sales. We keep bundles of firewood in front of our rig and there is a pay box where they are supposed to insert $6 for each bundle they take. Someone took 3 bundles and paid nothing, and the next guy took 1 bundle and paid $2. So much for the honesty of campers. A story on the good side of campers is that one of our older couples who is camping with us for several weeks, drove home to North Bend for the day and brought us back a container of raspberries from their garden. That was really nice. Of course, it happened during the time when we are having ripe huckleberries and blueberries all over the campground, so we possibly weren’t as appreciative as we would have been another time. We had huckleberry cobbler for dessert three times over the weekend, and we have brought enough here with us to Idaho to do it again for Kathy and Sally. Yummy!

One problem has been that Elaine has severely pull the rhomboid muscle in her back on the left side and has been in a lot of pain from it. We even drove to Redmond to the urgent care to find out what was causing it, and that was their diagnosis. So we haven't been kayaking or fishing and she has been taking pain killers and icing it. Hopefully, she will be better soon. The biggest problem is that we are getting older, and it is a bummer when these things happen as a result.

There are some pictures below that I have been unable to blog at other times.

1. Mary and Elaine in camp host uniforms
2. Mary and Elaine at Cooper Lake
3. Chipmunk eating like our campers!
4. Mary, Marsha, step-brother Richard, & his wife Carol
5. Mary & Marsha – the twins, on her recent visit with us.
   
6. Elaine & Frank – one of the other hosts.

7/18/07

I have been meaning to update this blog for quite some time now but would you believe it, our air card developed a major problem and we have been unable to connect for about a week or so. Now that we have convinced Verizon to send us another one, we are reduced to driving 26 miles to Cle Elum to the Radio Shack/coffee place where they have a WiFi connection. Good – that means I can download some of the pictures I have been wanting to put here for you.

The big news is that last Friday we had a major freak wind storm go through our campground. A camper came running down to get us yelling about trees landing on campers and injuries. We hustled down there and found that at least 8 huge hemlock trees fell over in Thetis Loop, which had only been open for 2 weeks. One tree landed directly on a tent trailer, one on a tent, and one on a car. (see pictures below) There were 4 trees down on the loop road which prevented anyone from evacuating. Thank goodness there were no injuries because we could not have managed to get an ambulance in there until Marvin cut up 2 of the smaller trees, and then the fire department arrived with their huge chain saws and cut up the larger ones. Everyone was very upset about all the danger and quite a few people left the other loops as well. We had no trees down in our 2 loops, but the Gale Creek Loop had 2 trees down (on the road, of course), and Box Canyon had one down. Right after the wind did all this, a thunderstorm hit too, so we were working in the pouring rain. The entire campground was closed down until things settled down, at about 2 in the afternoon. The amazing thing is that because this happened on a Friday, the entire campground was full of campers again by 6 PM!

Things have been very busy for us because we have full campsites every weekend now, the day use areas are very busy every weekend too, and we have lots more campers during the week too. We continue to have many visitors. Sunday, Elaine’s friend Linda Lightfoot, whom she has known since kindergarten, and her partner, Greta, drove out and brought us a delicious dinner. Monday Handlebar Jim and Yolanda, from the Boomers, arrived. Jeanne and Rodger, from Park Sierra, will be here Friday. Another Boomer called us a few minutes ago and the call was cut off, but I suppose they will be coming soon too. Our close friends, Mike & Marilyn, Joe & Carla, and Pat & Linda will all be arriving Aug. 5. Next week we are going to visit Kathy & Sally at their place in Coeur D’Alene, ID and then Aug. 13 they are going to visit us. It is great to see everyone!

Yesterday Frank (our friend who is the host at Gale Creek Loop), joined us and we drove to all the other Thousand Trails campgrounds in the Cle Elum area to see them. Then we drove to Wenatchee where we got haircuts and did some shopping. It was good to get away from the campground for a while.

The blueberries and huckleberries are getting ripe all over the campground, so now we need to find time to pick some of them. It was lucky that the weather was so good while my twin, Marsha was visiting us because now we are having another rainy week. At least it is warmer than it was during rainy June, and we do have periods of sun. We are doing well and will try to do another update as soon as our new air card arrives.

I can’t find some of the pictures I wanted to download for you, such as the ones of me and my twin, and also some of my granddaughter, so I will download those next time. Please see the damage pictures below.

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.

6/25/07

Hey-finally we’re back on the blog with more stories from Lake Kachess! Have been so busy and been trying to find time to write and post some pictures but it isn’t easy with the schedule we have been keeping. The good part is that it hasn’t just been work that is keeping us hopping. We have been having lots of visitors and we love it. Also, we have managed to go and visit several friends on our days off and enjoyed seeing them and their beautiful homes and surroundings very much.

In our last blog update we mentioned that we were going to visit Jim & Diane Fisher-Baker. They were camp hosts here for 3 years and we got lots of good tips from them during our time together. They have recently purchased a very nice manufactured home in a gated community overlooking Lake Chelan so we were able to drive up there in our car and stay in their spare bedroom. Their home is lovely and so is the view and the weather there – much warmer and drier than here. We enjoyed 2 days of yakking and walks in the area, great meals prepared by both of them, and a nice lunch out at Blueberrry Hill Restaurant. On the way home we did some much needed shopping in Wenatchee, the largest town in the area.

When we got back from that visit, we had an e-mail from Terry & Vicki Webb, a Boomer couple we met last January at Quartzsite. They wanted to come to our campground with 2 rigs of people from their Unitarian church. So we reserved them 3 spots in our loop and had three days of visiting with them at Happy Hours. Their friends were delightful, we so enjoyed getting to know Terry and Vicki better, and we hope all three couples come back again since they all have homes in the Seattle area.

Next we were very pleasantly surprised when our young friends Anja and Ole and their dog, Moritz, appeared at our campground. We met them in Mexico about 10 years ago and have had several visits with them since then but not for about 5 years. They live in the Los Angeles area and work in the film industry. They were on their way to a wedding in Seattle and came early to see us. What fun, with lots more yakking, Happy Hours, and shared meals for 2 days.

On our next day off, we went with Frank, one of the other camp hosts here, to visit his friends Chuck and Jerry who have a small farm in Enumclaw. They have done wonders with the property, which has a fabulous view of Mount Rainier. Since it was a sunny, beautiful day, we had an awesome view of the mountain. We were also able to enjoy a delicious lunch in their garden in the sunshine-hooray! They raise a few chickens and turkeys, as well as a pheasant and a few baby turkeys, plus three horses. After serving us a feast for lunch, Jerry took us to do some exploring and shopping in nearby towns. They sent us home with dozens of fresh eggs-yum.

The day after that trip, we were very pleasantly surprised by a phone call from our old friends Lee & Susie Blattner, that they were heading our way. Luckily we have a campsite fairly near our rig with a long parking slot for their rig and car. They stayed three nights and there was, of course, more gabbing and eating. They were here through part of the weekend and we are always busy checking in campers and doing other chores, so we were glad they understood about our time restrictions.

They left early on Saturday, and several hours later, our friends Joe Jackaway and Karen Blue arrived. Joe traveled with us down to the Panama Canal and back in 2004 and we haven’t seen him since. Blue has been his traveling companion ever since we introduced them on that trip. She was a high school friend of mine whom I hadn’t seen in 40 years. She wrote a book about women reinventing their lives by moving to Mexico and when I read that book, I got her current e-mail address and arranged for our Panama group to visit her in Ajijic, near Lake Chapala and Guadalajara. She and Joe hit it off and the rest is history. It was fabulous to see them again and catch up on all their news. They could only stay until Sunday, but we managed to have a great dinner together around a blazing campfire and a nice breakfast the next day before they left.

Since we have been complaining about the weather, we need to admit that we finally had about 4 days of nicer weather last week. The sunshine rejuvenated us and recharged the batteries on the rig as well as our own! Unfortunately, after all the wet and then the warmth, it also brought a big mosquito infestation. They were here for about 5 days and smoky fires were encouraged to keep them away! Today we noticed that they are pretty much gone, but perhaps that is because we had a huge rainstorm starting yesterday and continuing all night and the temps today were cold again, with snow returning to the slopes above the lake.

Despite the changeable weather, we have been having more and more campers. Last weekend the campgrounds were all full again, the first time this has happened since Memorial Day weekend. I’m sure we will be having lots of campers over the week of the 4^th of July too.

Tomorrow we drive to SeaTac to pick up Adrianna (Paige), my 16 year old granddaughter, who will be staying with us for 13 days. I’m sure we will be getting out the kayaks, going for bike rides, and hopefully getting in some fishing while she is here.

I am posting some pictures below of the people mentioned in this episode. I have some great ones of Chuck & Jerry and the super shot of Mount Rainier from their place, but I am having trouble keeping my internet connection so I will try to post those next time.

6/10/07 Another rainy Sunday here at Lake Kachess!! It is getting tiresome and we are hoping for warmer weather soon. Since we have been having rain off and on for the last 8 days, we have had very few campers, which has been kind of nice as we can then get a few backlogged tasks done. Last Tuesday we went in to Cle Elum on our day off, which is a decently sized town about 25 miles east of here. We wanted to arrange for a Radio Shack guy to come out to help us get hooked up to satellite TV using a remote dish, since all the trees here prevent reception using our roof-mounted Motosat. He can't come until this Wednesday. Cle Elum is a nice little town and we enjoyed being there. We had lunch at the Mexican restaurant called El Caporal and it was delicious. We also hung out at the coffee place in the Radio Shack store because they have great flavored coffees and fast wireless internet.
Tomorrow we are driving to Lake Chelan to stay overnight with our friends Jim and Diane Fisher-Baker. They were the ones who worked here 3 summers in a row and they hooked us up for this job. Now they have bought a small place at Lake Chelan for the summers, but will still be RVing the rest of the time. We are anxious to see them and discuss things about the job! Also, it is usually warmer and drier there so we are hoping for better weather. Next weekend should be very busy here as we are already getting lots of reserved sites for Father's Day.
I've got to go because tonight we are having a staff potluck at the A-frame cabin we can use. Movie night will follow. It beats sitting in the cold and rainy evening here by ourselves.

6/1/07 For the past week we have been at Lake Kachess campground, having sunny days and being very busy. This situation of being employed 30 hours a week really cuts into our free time! But what a beautiful place this is, with trees everywhere and a large, gorgeous lake. Because of all the rain and snow this past winter, the lake is the highest it has been for about 30 years. In fact, as we drove here, we passed many areas where there was still snow on the ground. We have seen deer, chipmunks, squirrels, and lots of birds.
When we first arrived here, we expected that we would be camp hosts at a loop called Thetis, which is right on the lake. Because this is a small loop, we would also be responsible for working in the entry booth to collect day use fees on Fri, Sat, and Sunday. Well, because of downed trees and other damage, Thetis loop is not open and there is no projected date for it to open. It all depends on the Forest Service and when they get all the clean up done and the sites ready. One of the other loops, Beargrass Flat, was without a host, because they hadn’t arrived yet, so we parked there and worked that loop, and also the booth. Last Wednesday we had to move because those hosts were arriving and we were in their spot. So we moved to site 55 and hated it. It was too surrounded with trees for us to have any solar, we couldn’t get level, and it wasn’t very private. The very next day Ron & Charmaine, the camp hosts on 2 of the other loops, Mineral Creek and Lodge Creek, quit. They had worked here last year on a different loop and were not happy with the manager this year and with the way some things were handled over the very busy Memorial Day weekend. So we were again moved, this time to their spot and we are now working both of those loops and have an occasional stint in the front booth and at the boat ramp. This weekend will probably be fairly quiet, which suits us fine because we are still in the learning phase of this new job. The other camp hosts are very nice people and we are also getting along well with the manager, Laraine, and her husband, Marvin, the maintenance man. There have been a couple of meetings and also a social evening together last night. One of the nicest hosts is a guy named Frank, from Yuma, who handles Gale Creek loop and the picnic area all by himself. I have taken a few pictures around the campground and I will try to attach them at the end of this.
One of the problems here was no internet access, so on our first day off we went into Issaquah, and purchased an air card. Now we have access but it is slow. We also have limited phone access because we have a low signal unless we are attached to our trucker’s antenna. This means we can’t have the phone with us when we leave the rig. So we leave the phone off and just return calls if people leave messages. Today we tried to tune in our satellite TV and are unable to do it at this site because of the location of trees around our site. So on our next day off, we will probably have to go into town again and purchase a portable dish and long cable that we can put in a clearing to get a satellite signal. It is looking like we will be spending all our earnings on items to make our stay here more comfortable!
Another problem we had was another leak in the hose going into the water heater, a problem Pat Jenkins helped Elaine with when we were in Quartzsite in January. This time Elaine got a better hose and appropriate fittings and installed it and our leak is fixed. Isn’t she a marvel?! Actually, I have been wanting to tell a story about what a marvel she really is, so I will do it now.
When we were on our way back from Spain and stayed overnight in Madrid, we told the guy at the hotel that we had to leave early in the morning to take the metro back to the airport. He said to just leave the keys in the room. So we did that and when we got down to the entry area of the building, we learned that there was a big deadbolt type arrangement being used at night and we could not get out without a key. So we tried to get back into our room to get the keys, but those doors were locked automatically behind us. We tried knocking, ringing the bell, etc. but couldn’t get anyone to respond. Time was passing and we were going to be late for our flight check-in if we didn’t get out of that hotel very soon!! So Elaine got her Swiss army knife out of her suitcase and used the little screwdriver tool to take off the latching hasp for the deadbolt. We managed to make it to the airport in time thanks to her wonderful mechanical skills. They are also helpful here in the campground, and with our new rig. It would have been priceless to see the looks on their faces when they arrived at their hotel that morning and found their lock all disassembled!
We have been having warm weather, even hot (89 degrees today) but colder, rainy weather is predicted for next week. More stories from Lake Kachess (is this like Lake Wobegone?) in a week or so.