December 21, 2004

December 21, 2004

Rainbow's End

DAY 187

 

We certainly are meeting interesting, and sometimes a little odd, people in our travels. We have chatted a number of times since we've arrived here with an elderly gentleman who has lived, and travelled full time, in a regular sized, beat up old van with nothing more than a bed and an ice box in it, for nine years ! Another man Joanne met last night has been living in his motor home for four years since his wife bought it for him, and told him to get out ! Today we met a couple from Japan who are touring the United States in a motor home for a year.

Today was partially cloudy, but very warm. It rained for a few minutes. Our morning started with a failed phone interview. We were to have a phone interview regarding our application to be campground hosts at West Hawk Lake in Manitoba next summer. The cell phone reception was so poor, that we had to reschedule to 3:00 P.M. this afternoon, using a pay phone. I did some maintenance, trimmed my beard, then we decorated our rosemary bush Christmas tree. We had kept four special Christmas ornaments, all of them in the shape of airplanes, and we received two more ornaments as parting gifts from YMCA Of The Ozarks. The ones from YMCA Of The Ozarks will always serve as mementoes of Toby, and his final resting place. Then we wrapped all our Christmas presents. Gifts for each other, for Teddy and Bo, and for the Escapees gift exchange. HA HA HA ... they're all wrapped in the same paper. Full time RV'ers don't have room for multiple rolls of wrapping paper. It was a little silly to wrap our gifts for each other, since we each picked out our own gifts, but we felt we had to have something for each other under the tree on Christmas morning. We went to a communal lunch, but pork was being served, so we left and returned to the trailer for lunch. After lunch, I read a book for awhile, then napped with Teddy and Bo. With my career being in retail, and Canada Post before that, this is the first Christmas season in 25 years for me that is calm and relaxed.

At 3:00 P.M. we walked over to the pay phones for our rescheduled phone interview. We have applied to be the "after hours" camp ground hosts at West Hawk Lake, a Manitoba Provincial Park east of Winnipeg right near the Ontario border. The phone interview lasted half an hour, and was conducted by the Park Rangers from West Hawk Lake, and Falcon Lake, a Manitoba Provincial Park very near West Hawk Lake. The position is from mid-May to mid-September. The Campground Hosts are required to be on-site and available on Friday evening and Saturday evening every weekend, as well as two weeks full time in each of July and August. I think the interview went well, but with bureaucrats, who knows ?

At 4:00 P.M we went to the daily social hour, because there was a meeting afterwards with all the people seated at our Christmas dinner table. Each table seats 10 people. Escapees provides a turkey for each table. The meeting was to plan who brings what else to the table. After the Christmas dinner planning, we sat around and chatted. One of the couples who will be at our table was at Rainbow Plantation in Alabama when we adopted Bo. To some degree, despite an active membership of some 40,000 travellers, the Escapees world seems small. Part of that is because of their motto of "Sharing and Caring", I guess.

We had dinner, and turned on the TV at 7:40 P.M. to watch Amazing Race at 8:00, only to discover that it was on an hour early tonight. DARN ! We missed 2/3 of the episode.

DSK