Though we’ve been at the park for 5 days now, we just
completed our second day of “work”. I
use the term “work” loosely, as it is so enjoyable; it hardly seems like actual
work! We are signed on here at Devil’s
Lake State Park as “maintenance hosts” which basically means we’re volunteering
for a little more than campground hosts.
We (by “we” I mean Steve) could be doing lawn mowing, weed whacking, use
various pieces of power equipment, fix broken things, etc. Steve is actually the only one who is working
as a maintenance host. I am helping out
with things that campground hosts would be most like to do, though I’m
helping Steve out some also. It’s the best of
both worlds!
Today, the pathways to the 3 different restroom facilities
needed some pruning. You know how things
are in Oregon in the summer. Nothing
grows faster than berry vines! We pruned
back, or up, any vegetation that might be in the way of a camper on his/her way
to the restroom facilities. Nobody wants
those sticky berry vines around their ankles, or scratching their arms. Well, the campers are safe tonight!
It was a lovely day to be working outside. I might say we never had this kind of sunny,
but cool weather last winter at Fort Stevens.
Having not been “summer campers” for the most part, this whole
experience is new for us. I understand
it is to be way too warm back in Hillsboro today, where I know the Oregon Air
Show is going on this weekend. We knew
it would be warmer here today too, but as I told my Mom, our warm 65 degree day
must feel warmer…. as it’s a “moist heat”.
You know how people in the desert heat will say it’s not that hot as “
it’s a dry heat”? Well, here it might be
65, but it feels like 73 or 74. It’s all
relative! Steve and I actually came in
this afternoon because we were feeling a little cool! At 3:00 in the afternoon! Too lovely!
While tooling around in our gas powered golf cart today, a
young woman flagged us down.
It seemed she had set out an ice cream bucket
with some supplements (vitamins), which had disappeared. She wondered if raccoons would perhaps take them? I told her I doubted a raccoon would take
anything he couldn’t eat, and if he did, he wouldn’t have been so neat and tidy
about it! We decided to go ask the other
2 pairs of hosts in case they’d picked it up thinking it was litter. We also thought we could let the ranger at
the registration booth be on the lookout.
By the time we accomplished all that and came back around to find the
lady, she cheerfully thanked us, saying it had been found. She said, “Thank God!”, and I agreed.
It’s those little encounters we have where someone actually
needs our help and we willingly step forward to try to help that makes this job
particularly fun to me. I truly enjoy
helping people. People in those
positions are so grateful and thankful.
I suppose we are receiving our reward in full here, but it isn’t
bad! Heaven will be where we are thanked
for all the things no one knows we’ve done!
That’s how most jobs are: If a
camper found litter around their camp, they would think poorly of the
park. If there was no litter, they
wouldn’t notice and would simply enjoy their camping trip. We both love sweeping up a broken bottle,
knowing that our park comes across as a beautiful, clean park.
Every Wednesday, between 10:30 and noon, we have a tsunami
warning system test. We have a handheld
radio we were told to keep inside the motorhome. It went off for the first time Wednesday, but
we were outside. We heard the sirens go
off in the city. One of our neighbor
campers asked what that was. Imagine how
smart we felt when we actually knew the answer! It's nice to learn some of the "behind the scenes" kinds of things. Looking forward to more of that!
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