We've Signed On For Some Workamping

Our current location remains:  La Pine, Oregon

Two new "Followers" today....Whoo Hoo!  THANK YOU to La Playa and N&J for joining my group.  I really appreciate the time you give to checking in with our RV adventures.  I hope you enjoy what you read here.

We have signed on for some workamping this summer.  We actually decided to do this before we left Tumwater in March, but I haven't written about it yet.  I figured now was a good time to explain what we will be doing.   Our workamping will not be like that of the "real workampers" I follow on their blogs.  Our work will not involve a free campsite.  Our work will not involve any type of monetary compensation at all.

This is the Expedition Everest roller coast at Walt Disney World.

We have volunteered to babysit with our granddaughters for the summer.  This will enable our daughter and son-in-law to save $1,600 a month on professional daycare.  Stephanie did not ask us to do this.  We saw that she was trying to arrange for a home babysitter and we cancelled any travel plans and offered our services.  She took us up on the offer immediately.  Who wouldn't want to save that amount of money???  In a perfect world we'd be able to pack the "Grands" up with us in the RV and take off on a few adventures for a week or two.  But....Mackenzie is involved in competitive gymnastics and has to go to practice 3 days a week.  That put the brakes on a lengthy trip with Grandma and Papa.  We may still be able to take them out for a 3-day weekend a couple of times.

People on the Everest ride going up the first climb that goes into the mountain.

I enjoy reading the blogs of some of the "real workampers" out there.   I know that Mike and Gerri are enjoying some time working at the FDR State Park in Georgia.  Mike has been cruising around on a giant mower.  And I have really enjoyed learning about Gail and TC and their time at the Hagerstown KOA.  Upstate New York is the summer home for Ken and Nanette.  One thing I've learned from reading their blog is that workamping is a hard job!  Recently I found the blog of Kimberly and Jerry who are working as chefs in Colorado at a dude ranch.  Wow, that is sure interesting stuff to read.  I encourage everyone to check out these blogs if you are interested in workamping.  There are other workampers out there, I know, but these 4 couples are just a random sampling.

Here comes the folks swishing almost straight down towards the end of the scary ride.

Our workamping experience will have us up at 5:30 am. Monday thru Friday.  No time for our usual morning walk before getting ready to go and out the door by 6:45.  We need to be at the kids house before 7:00 each morning.  We'll still try to get over to McDonald's for our English muffin breakfast twice a week and take the girls with us.  The other mornings I'll take our breakfast to their house and we will eat it there.  We will also have to try to get our exercise walking done each day at some point.  We can't shove that aside.

Here I am with the Jungle Book character, Baloo.

Our plan is to take the girls out someplace twice a week.  A park, museum, picnic, hike or something like that.  We don't plan to just sit inside the house staring at the TV all summer!  The other 3 days Mackenzie has practice and we don't want to do heavy physical stuff and wear her out.  Stephanie gets home from work about 3:00 in the afternoon and then we can be excused from our daily job.

Many of you readers may ask, "Why are they doing this?  Aren't they fulltimers traveling the country in their RV?"   The answer is a bit more complex than just the fact that we can save our kids some money on daycare.  That is a factor but not the only one.  You see when our own 2 children were young they had nice grandparents.  Both my parents and Bruce's parents were loving grandparents.  They always gave nice birthday and Christmas gifts each year.  Yippee.  What they never really gave to our kids, however, was the most precious of gifts.  Their time and attention.  I can testify truthfully that not ONE time in our kids young lives did either set of grandparents ask them to come over and stay the night or a weekend.  If we needed to ask that of them for one reason or another, they did it, of course.  But they never extended an invitation just because those were their grandchildren and they wanted to spend time with them.  Sooooo...when we became grandparents we decided that we wanted to share in the lives our the "Grands" not just observe it.  That does mean some personal sacrifice of our own time.  Big deal.  The girls will grow up so fast and we will never be able to regain that time with them.  

These are the only grandchildren we will ever have.  Our son had a daughter that was stillborn in 2003 and he is now divorced and there are no more children in sight.  So we need to love our Zoey and Mackenzie enough to share our time with them.  We are looking forward to it.

In September we will again fly the coop and head south to Pismo Beach, California.  We have reservations at our favorite place...Pismo Coast Village....until the first week in November.  So, at this point we try to blend our own desires for a fulltime RV lifestyle with being there for (and with) our family every few months.  It's working out nicely.

I hope my blog Followers and readers will not leave me during our summer "job".  I'll be posting about our adventures with a lively 5 year old and an almost 9 year old, plus some odd things about our recent trip I haven't had time to get out there.  Seems like there is always something going on with the two of us!

Thanks for listening.

Until next time.....so long for now!