Jan. 4 - 2014 Our first official day of hosting

Today was our first official on-duty shift - this is the weekend we have Saturday duty.  We worked the morning shift - 6:30 - 1:30, but it is not a solid "at your post" type of work.  We start our at 6:30 to make camp check to see if any cars pulled in last night after the rangers went home who need to register and pay for the overnight.  Then back to our site for a couple hours then check in with the park aid in the kiosk and continue to do camp checks for unregistered vehicles and assist when needed in the kiosk

Jan 1 -3, 2014 - Camp Host Training

We started camp host training at South Carlsbad State Beach.  There are three other host couples - two couples work each day, and two are off duty, three days on and four days off each week, with every other Saturday on.  Our days are Sun, Mon and Tues.  

Brooke, the head host ranger encouraged us to work as much as we can this week with the other hosts since each will impart their own knowledge and style - there is a general list of duties, but the registration kiosk is hard to describe in a manual - you just have to be there.  We did a little bit each day Jan 1 - 3 when it was REALLY busy with holiday weekend campers.  FUN!!!

 

Jan 1, 2014 - Happy New Year

Today is our one year anniversary of being full-time RV'ers.  Very cool!  Here is a year in summary of our travel-log for all you faithful readers ( and Mike and me)

We stayed in 47 unique parking spots and returned 32 times to some subset of those spots for a total of 79 moves during 2013.

The place we stayed the most nights (57) was Cape Lookout State Park near Tillamook, OR where we camp hosted for the months of February and May

The place we stayed the most consecutive nights  (32) was Honeyman State Park where we camp hosted for the month of July.

The place we went to most frequently ( 8 unique visits for a total of 26 nights) was Thunder Valley Casino because it is centrally located to our local family, friends and business clients.

We camp hosted at the following facilities:
 Cape Lookout State Park in Tillamook, OR
 Honeyman State Park in Florence, OR
 South Beach State Park in Newport,OR
 New Hogan Lake - US Army Corp of Engineers near Valley Springs, CA
 South Carlsbad State Park in Carlsbad, CA

We purchased a Thousand Trails membership in the fall and visited four different resorts:
  Lake Minden in Nicolaus, CA
  Ponderosa in Lotus, CA
  Las Vegas
  Palm Desert

We forgot to check the beginning mileage, so I'll do it now:  79,598 at the beginning of 2014 - not too bad for a motorhome purchased new by us in the fall of 2000 when we were in pursuit of our goal of visiting all 50 states. 

That year at Christmas time we took our first major trip from Auburn through Austin to visit Mike's sister at Christmas then on to New Orleans.  During that trip we visited 10 states:  Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California.

The farthest we've traveled in the motorhome was in the summer of 2001 when we went to Michigan for Mom and Dad Dempsey's 50th wedding anniversary. That trip we completed our visit of the lower 48 states when we visited West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska for the first time.  Add in repeat states of Michigan, Utah, Nevada Wyoming and California for a total of 13.  I guess we modeled traveling pretty well, since now both Eric and Curt are avid travelers themselves.

Happy Trails!

 

 

Tues. Dec 31, 2013 - Happy New Year's Eve

We spent the last three days learning the ropes of camp hosting at South Carlsbad State Beach.  There is still hosts to learn, but we are getting our bearings. 

After our work was done this evening, we went to Mary's house where we joined the party in progress and ushered out the year 2013.    Here I am still singing New York, New York which Victoria and I just finished at karoke.  Horrible but fun!

One year ago tonight we were at a New Year's Eve party in Lake of the Pines where we met a couple who introduced us to the concept of camp hosting in the Oregon State Park system.  What a good idea that turned out to be.  Now here we are just starting our first adventure in a California state park.

Sat. Dec. 28, 2013 - South Carlsbad State Beach

We left NorCal on Friday morning.  Drove south to our current favorite stopover spot at the top of the Grapevine.  The road was crazy busy all day, but there was plenty of room to part tonight at Frazier Park in a truck stop.  We had an easy drive through LA in the not-too busy Saturday morning traffic and arrived at South Carlsbad State Beach in the mid afternoon.

We checked in to our temporary campsite - complete with a golf cart

 

 

and watched our first sunset of the trip from the park road. 

Nice!

Dec. 26, 2013 - Happy Birthday, Dad, goodbye to family

Today we had the 2nd meal in tow days with Dad and Connie at the Palms, this time to celebrate dad's birthday. 

Then up to Auburn to visit with mom Tomczak - last visit for all before we hit the road for our next chapter.

Merry Christmas 2013

We stayed at Connie's house last night.  Drove to visit with mom Tomczak in the morning, back to Sacramento to have Christmas dinner with Dad at his place,

then off to the movies with Connie to See American Hustle which we all enjoyed.  Thanks, Connie for the comfortable Christmas - first one away from Woodhaven and our kids.