18.10.04-31 camp hosting at South Beach

I missed the camp host orientation on Oct 1st, but this is my 5th time hosting here, so I did not miss/need all the information - but I did miss the introductions - there are 12 total host spots, and it is always fun to regroup with familiar faces and meet the new ones.   

This year I’m staying in a new area of the park - the four space host loop right by the front entrance, (but just off the main road, so it there is not as much traffic as there is in front of the six space host row on the main road into the camping area.

I met my three host neighbors when they stopped by to say hello in my first 24 hours. 

My main assignment is working in the Hospitality Center. 

This is the large solid-walled yurt just inside the park where guests come for firewood, ice, information and yurt registration. 

I was trained by Kathy 

We recognized each other from 2016, but did not really meet that year.  We are well acquainted now though, after a month of cooperation in the hospitality center. 

I volunteered for the last shift: 4-8 PM four days per week. 

I’d work the cash register, stock the firewood carts, pass out yurt keys to incoming guests and chat with guests who came in to get warm, stay dry, or use the internet. 

It was perfect for me because I could maintain my night owl routine.  I’d close up shop at 8 and get home at about 8:30 ( a short 2 minute walking commute), have dinner and start cooking the next day’s food ( for me it  is better to cook at night so I don’t waste the daylight hours in the kitchen but there is always something healthy and delicious to eat).  Then I’d stay up too late, watching movies and knitting until the week hours of the night, then sleep until I woke up naturally the next morning. 

Besides the hospitality center,  when the weather was nice ( which turned out to be more often than any other year I’ve worked here in October) and it was an on duty day, I assigned myself to Scotch Broom “search and destroy” duty.  I really enjoy this work - it is outdoors ( better than cabin/yurt cleaning) and independent ( I choose where I want to work) with lots of variety ( the park is large and I know where the scotch broom problem areas are ). Here I am out in the back tent-only campsite area which is closed this late in the year.  

I was able to completely “sweep” through this and other areas I’ve clear cut in prior years to catch the little straggler plants which are now bigger and still easy to remove as isolated plants rather than a solid patch.

A two hour session of this activity is all my body can handle in one sitting. The end of scotch broom pulling always led to a trip to the burn pile to offload the current haul. 

On my last sunny day of work , after a good rain spell the rangers were burning the pile.  Quite a sight to see! 

After my load had been dumped at the burn pile, I would return home, gather my knitting and food for another four hour session in the hospitality center.

Sounds like work?  Well, it was not ALL work and no play.  The details of off duty play time are coming in the next post.  The on duty time I call better exercise than going to the gym, enjoyable outdoor activity, and fair exchange for the site and the pleasure of living in this beautiful spot for a month.  For an example of the beauty: here is a view of the beautiful wide unpopulated sandy beach

and a sunset equally as beautiful on the Oregon coast as the many I’ve posted from sunny Southern California!