As we are wrapping up our first couple weeks here, we have had our share of fun stuff we have had to address, met more folks and got out a bit more. Without going into gory details, our campground happenings included still cleaning up the aftermath of 4th of July fireworks including sparklers and poppers, even though there are signs everywhere stating fireworks are not allowed in the park. Do you know how hard those little pieces of paper are to pick up with a grabber??? Rick has settled into being the firepit cleaner and I walk the site to pick up trash with my little grabber and grab the tags on the post. Rick loves to drive the gator, so I let him enjoy that task. It is amazing what people throw into the firepit and we recently had a site with mounds of peanut shells all around the firepit. That took some time to clean up and then Rick likes to also rake around the firepit, sometimes making pretty patterns. I think he misses his pattern making when he mowed lawn at the house. We have had some other camper assist issues like loaning out a battery jumper for a dead car battery, keeping an eye out for a lost wedding band, helping a flustered camper who was turned around find her site and a late night missing child search that ended before it began. We even had a site of drunk, singing young men at 3am. Thankfully we were told about that the next morning and not at the time. They did quiet down when another camper mentioned to them that this was quiet time and others were trying to sleep. Knock on wood, we have not had anything worse than that. We also have grateful campers who go out of their way to tell us what a great job we are doing to keep the campground clean and even gourmet smores made for us by a family who Rick helped to repair a bike. We also continue to have plumbing issues throughout the campground. It seems the piping throughout the park is pretty old and is in need of updating which is on the horizon. We met the maintenance person in charge of plumbing that had come by to fix our plugged sinks that we reported when we arrived. Only 4 days, not bad. I was expecting a week or longer. Those issues have seemed to subside, knock on wood. We did hear today at a camp host meeting that there are several improvements coming to the park. Exciting stuff but obviously, they do not happen overnight. As for outings, we got dressed up Tuesday night, the 17th and headed out for my birthday dinner. I am a Beef Wellington fan from way back to my days of bussing tables when I was 15 and I would beg the chef to make me a tiny Wellington on Sat nights after a long night. That usually meant that I would have to devein some shrimp for him, but it was well worth it! We went to the English Inn not far outside the park and dinner was wonderful! We were both soo stuffed walking out and promised that we cannot eat like that again for some time!!! It was a splurge since it was a birthday dinner. We are trying to limit our dining out to cheaper breakfasts or lunches, or not at all! We are really trying to get within a budget that we developed from looking at many other full-timers. We will see how July shapes up and we will share that on this blog as I know there are other full time dreamers that would benefit from the information, just like we did. Plus it keeps us accountable! Our other evening out was to see one of the musicals here at the Northern Theatre in the park. I mentioned in the previous post that we received complimentary tickets for all 3 shows. The first show we went to was Dairy Heirs. A funny, heartwarming musical about life on a farm in WI and coming back home. It was a beautiful evening in an intimate setting and the cast was very talented! After the show we grabbed a pizza and salad at Wild Tomato, which is a Door County favorite, right outside the park. OK, I just realized we have not taken pictures of any of this awesome food. Wow, that is not like us! We will try to rectify that in future posts. We have also had some visitors. Rick’s Army buddy from Germany, who lives north of Green Bay, stopped over with his wife for a delicious dinner creation that Rick just whipped up off the cuff. We then topped if off with a yummy cherry pie, baked with fresh Door County cherries. The next day friends of ours from home stopped by to say HI and see our new home and where we were working. It was good to catch up! We also have some others stopping by in August and topping our time off here in Door County with a big family camp out. Looking forward to it! By far the majority of our camper interaction has been with folks who are curious about our camp host position, our RV and our new lifestyle. We spend quite a bit of time answering questions from other campers about what our plans are, where we are planning to go and how the heck we can do this soo young. Some really entertaining conversations. One of the things we have had to solution for is the dumping of the tanks on the RV. Unfortunately, the host sites only have electric, so we needed to figure out how we would refill the fresh tank and dump the gray and black tanks. For us to pack up the RV and take it down to the dump station would be quite the undertaking, and that would also mean we would have to repark it. NOT! We talked with other camp hosts and they gave us some suggestions on what they do. For filling the fresh water tank, we were able to stretch all of our hoses, 85 ft worth, to the bath house clean up sink. Good deal. Now the crappy part…LOL. To dump the tanks, we have a man hole/sewer cover over by the bath house and Rick would fill up our lucy lu dump dolly and roll it over there and then dump. We picked midday to do this as that is when most of the campers are out and about. The black tank and one gray tank went well but the last gray tank proved to be our first big RV issue. The gray tank gate valve pull, which is a cable, would not release. Rick tried spraying WD-40, pulled off the back access panel to make sure the cable wasn’t binding anywhere, which it wasn’t. He then checked the manuals for info, called and left a message for a contact at the manufacturer, Grand Design. He then went to the Grand Design facebook groups and posted the issue, wondering if others had the issue and how they solved it. One suggestion was to spray PB Blaster, a penetrating oil, on the valve assembly by the pull handle. Rick then let that soak with a ziploc bag over the top. A tech from the manufacturer then called back and confirmed that what he was doing is what a repair tech would do. After a couple hours Rick went back to it and tried to release, hit it with a hammer, which didn’t release and then took two wrenches and twisted and it finally came loose. He then cleaned it off thoroughly and lubed all three valves and after all of that, a lesson learned that lubing the cables will be on the monthly list of maintenance things to do. Amazing how rusty it had gotten after only two weeks! Overall this campground host position has been a wonderful first workamping experience. The campers have been very friendly, it is a quiet and peaceful campground and the weather has been beautiful! We could certainly get used to this! Enjoy some pictures of the park. SHOP AMAZON HERE
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What a way to kick off the camping season but with snow on the ground! Cool and refreshing! But first, let me tell you about the events that led up to us finally getting on the road. We started the weekend with a frenzied rush to put the finishing touches on the house Friday morning. The realtor and the folks taking the pictures and arial footage came at 9am and I was literally vacuuming the last room! Rick was busy getting the RV ready to pull it out of the driveway so it would not be in the pictures. Then the issues started! The photographer started the pictures and he was loving the staging, getting great shots and then he went downstairs. He came back up with a sheepish grin on his face and said, I found a mouse. WHAT??? Dead? No very much alive and I have him trapped in a room. Oh Hell No!! Yes we live in the country and get them from time to time, but have not seen one in well over a year. Seriously??? On the day the house goes on the market??? Off to tell Rick that he needs to catch a mouse. Well he was having issues of his own with the RV. The back hydraulic jacks weren't coming up. With a bit of work and patience, they finally did. Well, then, with the recent snow/ice storm, the 50 amp power cord seemed to be frozen in the snow/ice and was not budging. By now the photographer was outside and standing in the snow waiting for the RV to leave the driveway. One moment please... With alot of elbow grease and chipping away, we were finally able to get it out into the cul de sac and pictures continued. Then the photographer with the drone started her indoor walk thru, which was pretty cool to watch as she went from room to room. By this time the realtor was putting the multi-lock on the front door and asked for the key to put inside. I went to look for a key and since we never enter into the front door, it took a moment to get some keys. Umm, well, when we replaced the front door, we never had it keyed to the other doors so the keys I was trying did not work. Here we go again, a mad search around the house, dodging the drone lady, to find more sets of keys and nothing was working. By then I was ready to sit down and cry. Where are the keys?? How are realtors going to show the house? Come in through the garage? Lovely!! I look back now and laugh at how crazy I must have looked running around and the entire time the realtor was soo calm! I am sure she has seen much worse. By now Rick was back and he tried the keys including the shiny new looking keys on a ring all by themselves. BINGO! They worked. Just took a bit more to push them in since the lock had never been used. Alright then! With drone arial footage done, we finished up with the realtor and set off on down the road to a relaxing weekend of camping. Here is how the house looked after all the snow we got this last week. Would have loved to have a snow-less yard but oh well, she looks pretty in the snow too. We stopped in town for a bite to eat for lunch and a socket to put the anode rod back in the water heater. Then we were on our way. The campground, Ottowa Lake State Park, was only an hour from our house and took the freeways through Milwaukee to get there. Traffic was not bad at all, which made for a stress free drive since this is only the second time camping with the new 5th wheel. We arrived a little after 1pm and was surprised to find out that they were going to be pretty busy for the weekend, even with all the snow on the ground. We checked in and had to fill up with water at the welcome station since they had not turned on the water at the dump station or at the restrooms. While filling up, we met a really nice couple, Allen & Lynn, from Madison, WI who were taking their new to them 5th wheel out for the first time. Rick was more than happy to help them through filling up and getting their water system ready for use. We chated with them and their friends and took tours of each others RV's. Allen was even smart enough to bring a shovel which came in handy for our sites. Once we got to our site, we found that even though it was a sunny site, it was still snow covered. The temperature was in the 40's and it was getting a bit slushy in the gravel drive and pad area. The firepit had a mound of snow in it. Rick did a great job positioning the rig on the first try and the new observation/backup camera really came in handy! We quickly set up and then began the snow removal process since it was starting to melt and making things a bit soupy. As you can see above, we put the mat out in front of the door because that is where we were getting a bit soupy. I scooped out the firepit and Rick got the handy dandy collapsible metal rake out, which did a fine job of combing the snow. LOL However, we wanted it to go away a little faster and he went and borrowed Allen and Lynn's shovel and in no time we had a nice opening around the fire and a path to the truck. At this point it was time to sit back, start a fire, have a cocktail and soak up the sunshine and watch all the other folks pull in for the weekend. It sure is nice to get to the campground early and people watch! There were 2 groups of boy scouts in tents and a couple other tents as well as pop-up campers and other assorted RV's. Friday turned out to be a beautiful day in the high 40's with sunshine and blue skies. Perfect for a camp fire. We ended up grilling some filets and had it with some rice pilaf and boozy sauteed mushrooms, oh and a bottle of wine. Not your average camping fare but it was the first camping night so we did it up special! Saturday we needed to make a run into town to get a couple items we forgot to stock in the RV...like toothpaste! We stumbled upon this little convenience store/gas station and found that they had a whole meat case with fresh meat and salads. Well alrighty then! We got these cheddar burgers for lunch and they were fantastic over the open flame. Now, before you think that all we did was eat all weekend, you are right!!! LOL We did get a couple other things in, but with Saturday not being a sunny, warm day, we stayed close to the campground instead of hiking the trails. We went for a nice scenic ride, took a couple walks around the campground, read and just plain relaxed! After a crazy, busy week of getting the house ready to sell, it felt good not to have to do much of anything if we didn't want to. Saturday night, friends came to visit and Rick cooked another wonderful dinner and we played Left, Right, Center dice games. For those that aren't familiar, it is a dice game played with quarters and dice marked with L, C, R and a black dot. You do exactly what the dice you roll says. So if you roll three L, then you pass three quarters to the person on your left. Well, Saturday night was not my night and I did not win a single game, nor did Rick. Denise and Elwyn left with full bellies and wallets! Sunday we did some more relaxing and made a leisurely "big breakfast" , as we call it when we camp, of cheesy scrambled eggs and hashbrowns and thick sliced bacon over the fire. By Sunday late morning, the sun had come back out and our site was starting to shed more of it's snowy blanket. This is what it looked like when we were about to leave. Hook up, dumping and the drive back went well. We took the RV up to my Dad's to park it while the house is on the market. We also met the folks who were buying our old camper there as well, so that they could come get it. We had stored it for them for the winter inside at my dad's and they were grateful for that since they did not have a storage place lined up. We are now back home and always in "show the home'' mode. I am constantly making sure everything looks just right so we can leave at a moments notice if someone wants to come look at it. We had 5 showings over the weekend and one of those being a second showing. We will see what happens with those, but look forward to more traffic this week. We continue to get things ready as well for the estate sale happening in 3 short weeks. In two weeks, we move the boys to their new location and Rick and I will float between there and the RV. It will be strange to say the least, but we are excited for the next chapter! Search Amazon Here
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