In the Year 2021
The first part of 2021 was getting our medical issues taken care of. Nancy had a neck surgery and a hip surgery. I had my shoulder replaced. She recovered much quicker than I. We started to put feelers out for work camping opportunities. In addition we did a lot of research on weather and seasons. We have a large US map on our wall and we started to list and circle our “bucket list” places.
Usually in the fall, campgrounds start to work on their work camping schedules. We had already gotten a call from Huntington Beach and were initially scheduled for January and February. We received a call in the summer that they were redoing their schedule and using only 1 work camper at Atalaya and not 2, so we lost February but still had January.
Sometime in September we got a message from Fortwelikit in Custer, SD that they were interested in using us for Summer 2022. We had a phone interview and then signed our contracts. We are now committed to SD from May 1, 2022 through September 30, 2022. We will be working 4 hours a day, 3 days one week and 4 the next. This will allow us plenty of time to explore the area. So looking forward to it. So we started to plan our route trying to hit as many items on our “bucket list” as possible.
Right now we are leaving on April 12, 2022 (our 47th wedding anniversary) and going to Lexington, KY, Indianapolis, IN (to see family), Springfield, IL, Dyersville, IA, Sioux Falls, SD, and then on to Custer. After that our plans are fluid but we want to get to Yellowstone and Grand Tetons. Then because of weather, we will head south. Hopefully southwest but we’ll see.
We have good friends that will meet us in Huntington Beach and camp with us for a couple of weeks. Then we had friends that were going to meet us in February but our job was cancelled. So we made reservations and are going to camp with them anyway. We then were planning on going on to Savannah, GA for a few days. Then we got a call from Skidaway Island State Park. They were interested in our possibly working for them. So we have arrangements with them to visit in February and spend 3 weeks giving it a try. If favorable, we can choose some time to work camp there, either late 2022 or 2023.
We also started to calculate weights. We’ve been told that when you travel westward it is best to have extra fuel as some fuel stations are not that close together. When adding equipment and fuel, etc. to the Ram 2500 it was going to be overweight. So we were lucky enough to find a 2021 Ram 3500, single rear wheel with a 50 gallon fuel tank.
You never know when opportunities will arise. Excited to start the retired life.!!!
