LET THE FUN BEGIN

Tomorrow will mark the first day of work for 2013. We have a very busy summer ahead of us and I am not sure how often I will be able to write but I am going to try. We hear that Oregon is beautiful and we are looking forward to seeing it for ourselves. We have seen some of Oregon but the coast is supposed to be beautiful and we will get to see it ALL……. We are looking forward to seeing it.

For the past few days we have been in Winnemucca, Nevada. This is an interesting little big town. There is a huge mining operation based out of here. It is a gold mine literally! With gold at such a high price I am sure someone is making money hand over fist. In fact across the street from the RV Park we are in, there is a building project where the mining company is creating a village of homes for the workers. The company is Newmont Mining Company. I had never heard of them before stopping here but I guess they are huge. There are parking lots around town that are full of cars every day. It doesn’t appear unemployment is a problem around here.

Last Saturday we heard about a balloon fiesta in town. We always like watching the balloons fly so we headed to the sports complex to take in the festivities. As soon as we arrived we realized this was not an ordinary “fiesta”. There were only 4 balloons total and the announcer sounded like someone out of high school. When the first balloon took off he announced the name of the balloon, the pilot and then stammered….. “Um I don’t remember the sponsor”. HaHaHa In the next 20 minutes all 4 of the balloons were in the air and we were headed back to the motorhome. This sure isn’t Albuquerque!

Each night after dinner when we walk it is always a nice experience. We usually see something that is interesting, beautiful or heartwarming. Tonight for me it was the later! As we walked down the street we passed several little league fields full of kids playing ball. The sight and sound of little league brings back such good memories of when Josh used to play. I remember when the season started it always turned cold! It didn’t matter if the weather had been beautiful the weeks before when practice started it was cold. It is not cold here, that is not what made me think of that but it is just what always comes to mind. The memory of when the kids were young always brings such “heartwarming” thoughts.

ANYONE STILL OUT THERE???

I have neglected my little blog!  I don’t think it’s that I don’t have the time or anything to write about; it’s more I am just not making the time to do it. You know as well as I do there is a difference between having time and making time! I wouldn’t say I have gotten lazy because we are very busy most days. I think it is a matter of priorities! My priorities have shifted and I’m not sure I like the direction they are going! Instead of sitting outside to eat dinner we sit inside and watch TV while we eat dinner, instead of going sightseeing we are working our files for Good Sam preparing for the start of our season on May 1st, instead of looking forward to a new city where we want to go bird watching or stop by a brewery to have a local beer we are planning our route to accommodate getting to our territory for work. This is going to have to change!! Once this becomes a “lifestyle” of normalcy then it is time to stir things up. And trust me I am looking for a HUGE spoon!!! Some unexpected life changes have taken place around us that have given pause to how we have started viewing life. It is time to start having fun again! With unexpected deaths, strokes, cancer diagnosis and the like it brings home the fact that you never know what tomorrow will bring! It has been 7 years since we retired and hit the road in our little “home” on wheels. In those 7 years we have been blessed with 3 beautiful grandchildren and have been to just about every state, but have not spent a lot of time in each, except for a few, like Ohio (where are grandbabies are), Florida and Alaska. Awe……. Alaska, now THAT is one state we want to go back to, and we will someday. Alaska is where our retired lives took a right turn. We met a wonderful couple in Valdez, AK who would eventually introduce us to the life of advertising sales for Good Sam. That was in 2011 and for the last 2 years we have been working for Good Sam during the summer months, first in Minnesota then Washington State and now Oregon. We love the work and meeting all the different RV Park owners is great. Our dream when we retired and started this lifestyle was to zig zag every state until we felt we had seen everything there was to see, well with Good Sam that is what we are doing. The only thing is we are not doing it on a sightseeing trek. But we are getting to see area’s we most likely would never have seen and let me tell you there are some beautiful area’s in this country where the air is clean, the water fresh and people friendly! We are visiting campgrounds across the states, evaluating them and trying to sell advertising for the campground directory that Good Sam publishes. Our job has to be completed by the end of August so it doesn’t leave much time for fun but the job in itself is fun. Will we do this forever? Probably not! If we ever want to fulfill our dream of going back to Alaska we will have to give this up at some point. For now the people we are working for and with are wonderful, so until this isn’t fun anymore or we decide life is passing us by, we are employed again. Presently we are staying in St. George, Utah working our way up north to Oregon. It is that time of year where one day you wear a coat the next you are in shorts.  When we arrived here last Wed. there was a fresh blanket of snow on the mountain tops around us, the temp was in the high 50’s to low 60’s and it was rainy. Today the temperature is going to get up to the mid to high 70’s with an abundance of sunshine. Gotta go out and get my allotment of vitamin D today!! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, full of sunshine and fun things to do! Until next time ~ 'If YOU live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you.' - Winnie the Pooh.