Rescued From Boredom!

I was lolling about on my bed this afternoon, while talking on the phone with my oldest daughter, Becca, about words--how people use them incorrectly, or pronounce them incorrectly, and how some people use high dollar words when a cheap word would do--in other words, talking about words. The conversation was going somewhere about why in heck anyone would use "consternation'" when "fear" or "panic" would suffice. Yeah, we are word nerds, I guess.

(that's Becca on the left, Emily on the right, with my son, Seth, in the middle)

This whole conversation started because she is preparing for taking the GRE on Saturday, because she is, like, a perpetual student. She had a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Alabama, and went to graduate school at Old Dominion in Norfolk. Now she wants to be a library lady like Parker Posey in Party Girl, so she is going back to school. OK, ok, she wants to get a degree in Library Science, or something like that. She wants to be near books is all I'm saying.

So we were having this great intellectual conversation, with me remembering that when she was four, she, her sister, and I were standing in the kitchen one day. Emily, my youngest, who was three at the time, was putting a on a pretty good temper tantrum. Becca stood there, hands on hips, and said "Emily is certainly being obstinate today." I sort of shook my head in a double take, as she not only pronounced it correctly, she used it correctly in a sentence. At four years old.


Suddenly, there was a knock at the door, which startled me, because I don't know anyone out here in the freaking middle of nowhere in the desert who would come calling without calling me first. And there, at the door, we found our friend, Gaelyn, of Geogypsy fame. She had been to Quartzsite to visit some friends there, and to purchase a new slide in camper for her pick-up truck. She stopped by to show it to us. She was very excited, as I would have been if it had been mine.

We went outside to see it, and climbed in to look at the inside. It is a marvelous bargain that she got for $450! Now she can go camping in the desert, or go anywhere her heart takes her without the worry of where to lay her head at night. What freedom!

We spent the rest of the afternoon talking and laughing. It was so much fun to catch up with her. Fabgrandpa finally started talking about his hunger, and Gaelyn suggested a restaurant out on I-10 about 8 or so miles away. We said our goodbyes to her, and got ready to go. When we got to the restaurant, guesss who was already there! She said she got to thinking that her cupboard was bare in the new camper, so we got to chat a little more at dinner.

It was so much fun today! We made plans to go up to Yarnell and spend the night with her in about 3 weeks. Can't wait to go!

It's Getting To Be That Time Again...

The weather is feeling chill all day, the leaves on the aspens are beginning to turn, and I am cleaning out drawers and closets. That means one thing--that Fall is right around the corner, and FabGrandpa and I will be rolling soon. In just over a month we will be going down the road again.

We won't be going to Georgia this winter, as originally planned. Our next home will be just a short way down the road, to Phoenix, from about mid-October until Christmas. We will be helping our friends, Charlie and Lynn, sell pumpkins and Christmas trees. While we are looking a little bit forward to the new gig, we are mostly looking forward to spending some time with them.

We met Charlie and Lynn when we worked in Virginia two years ago, and feel like we have known them for a lifetime. Last year when we worked in Gettysburg, they did too, at a different place. Whenever we had the same days off, we tried to get together and do things with them.

After the Christmas season is over, we are all going to Brenda, Arizona, to a campground there for three months, maybe longer, and just take a vacation. We have been working either for pay or as volunteers without a break for 8 years. I think it's about time we had a little fun.

Dinner On The Road

Today was very uneventful as far as driving days go, just routine, thank you very much! We got up around 7:30 a.m., made some coffee, put away the coffee maker, rolled in the slide outs, and got on our way. The pic above is on US 58 between I-95 and I-85, leaving Emporia, Virginia. By the way, that Yogi Jellystone Campground there is only 375 yards from a VERY BUSY railroad. Trains all night long. Other than that, it was ok. They had many long pull-through sites with water, electric, and sewer connections.

We stopped for breakfast around 10:30 at Cracker Barrel. I used to love their gravy and biscuits, but could only sit and watch as Jim ate them today. But, let me tell you, their cornbread muffins are really good with bacon and eggs, and a little blackberry jam.


Here we are on I-85 near Rocky Mount, North Carolina. I am a little surprised that the leaves are still so colorful so late in the year. I don't remember them being this pretty last year when we left Urbana, Virginia on November 15 . Hmmm, maybe I am just getting old...NAAAHH!

We got to our destination for today, the fabulous Fleetwood RV Resort at Lowe's Motor Speedway at about 3:00 p.m. Yes, we stayed at this place last year, too, on our way south. It is nothing fancy. It is rather boring looking. But is is right next door to the Lowe's Motor Speedway. Nascar fans probably love this place. But for us, it is just a place to stop for the night.

For dinner tonight, I made a thrown together goulash with things I had hiding in the pantry.

1 large onion, chopped
2 celery ribs, chopped
1/3 lb ground meat
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large can pitted black olives
1 can Progresso Creamy Mushroom Soup
1 tablespoon tapioca flour
Salt and pepper to taste
2 cups gluten free pasta, cooked

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet. Add the onions, celery, and ground meat, cook until meat is browned. Add the olives, sliced if you like, the soup, and the tapioca flour. Stir together well. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve over noodles. Have seconds.

I served this with pear salad. Put a dab of mayonaise in the middle of a pear half, top with grated colby cheese.

Tomorrow we are taking the truck to a Ford dealership for them to check it out before we get back on the road. Jim thinks maybe it needs a new alternator because the batteries are not charging up right. He wanted to wait til we get to our home town to do it, but I said, "What would happen if it went out, and the truck wouldn't start, and we were in the middle of nowhere with no cellphone signal?"

The Land Of Little Grandchildren...

Sarah and Michael at the playground at Granite Hill Campground

A few days ago I promised more about my visit with the FabGrandchildren. I know you all have been chomping at the bit to hear all about it, and I apologize for the delay. I have been either working, sleeping, or goofing off since they left, so I haven’t had time to write.

One of the things I have been doing is playing games at Fandango. My diligence and persistence at these games paid off the day before yesterday because I won two tickets to the movie of my choice for having the all time high score on a word game called Suds (but that is another story).

Ok, where was I? Oh yes, the visit with FabGranddaughther, Sarah and the FabGrandson, Michael. They are the children of my son, Seth, who is in the Air Force. Sarah lives with her mother and stepfather in Seattle, Washington. Michael lives with his dad and stepmother in Washington, D.C.

Sarah flew from Seattle to Washington with a stopover in Cincinnati, Ohio. She said the flight attendants took very good care of her. She got to visit with the pilot in the cockpit before the plane took off. She said she made friends with two grownups who were sitting in the same row with her. This I believe because I do not think she has ever met a stranger!

After a day or two visiting with her dad and brother at their house at Andrews Air Force Base, they all came up to Gettysburg to spend a few days with us.

Michael roasting weiners at the campfire.

Seth brought his tent and other camping gear, but Sarah decided she wanted to sleep inside with me. We folded down the dining table to make it into a bed for her. She was delighted to have her very own “bable” to sleep on. We did all the regular camping things, like making s’mores, roasting marshmallows and wieners on a stick, fishing, and walking around the campground.

On our days off while they were here, we took them all to The Land of Little Horses.

Seth and at The Land of Little Horses

We have seen the signs for it since we got here in March, and every time I mentioned taking the grandchildren there, FabGrandpa harumphed and said, “That is so hokey! No way are they going to like doing something like that.” It costs $12 per person to get in the gate, another $2 for a pony ride, and another $1 for a cup of food to feed to the animals. What you get for your $12-$15 is wonderful! Even FabGrandpa had a good time. They have about 50 miniature horses, regular horses, a camel, llamas, an alpaca, some other exotic mammals, a full grown turkey, goats, peacocks, and I don’t know what all else. They have a show where the animals do tricks. Three horses danced, and another one could add, subtract, and multiply. A dog even played basketball. And Sarah got chosen from the audience to play basketball with him. If you ever go to Gettysburg, you really need to go there. What fun! Ever since we went there, every place we go is "The Land of Little..." whatevers.

We went to a farmers market and let the kids pick out their favorite berries. That night, Sarah helped me make strawberry shortcake for everyone. She put the little sponge cake things in the bowls, spooned on the berries, and tried to squirt the whipped cream out of the can but her little fingers just wouldn’t reach.

Another place we went was called The Round Barn. It is exactly what the name implies, a barn that is round. I have never seen a round barn before. It was a beautiful building in the heart of orchard country in southwestern Pennsylvania.

My daughter in law, Sarah, at the Round Barn

They had animals there too, which was a big hit with the kids. They got to pet a donkey, and saw a baby goat. Oh, and that bump is the mystery boy, Owen, the newest Fab Grandbaby, who will arrive sometime around the end of September.

They stayed with us for three nights and then had to go home. We had arranged to have four days off the next week, so we went down to Washington to spend that time at my son’s house. My daughter, Rebecca, was there, too. She came up from Norfolk for two days.

FabGrandpa, Michael, Sarah, and Aunt Rebecca at Seth's house.

That Monday, we had told the children we were going to take them to the National Zoo, but it was 97 dgrees outside, and they had already seen a ton of animals, so we decided to take the Metro into Washington D.C. and go to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. You know, the one with the dinosaur bones. Both kids loved that display. So did I. I have been to DC twice but had never been to that museum. They also loved the gem and mineral display. Michael collects crystals. There were some on display there that were bigger than he is. Oh, one of the things I did not realize is that all of the Smithsonian buildings and the National Zoo are free.

But out of all these things we did, the thing the kids enjoyed the most and talked about the most was riding on the Metro. It was like magic—both kids sitting perfectly still, silently looking out the window as the train rolled down the track. Every mother, and every FabGrandmother, should have a train!!

The last day I was at my son’s house, the Fabgranddaughter and I spent the afternoon making a scrapbook of all the things we did while she was here. I went to Wal-Mart and had them print out a lot of pictures, and bought some colored paper, sheet protectors, and a glue stick. I glued on tickets, brochures, and pictures, and she wrote about them on each page. It turned out to be a very nice memory book for her to treasure and remember her trip. As if she could forget ME!

p.s. I have a few more pictures I want to post, but my connection is very slow. I will add them tomorrow, I promise!

Night Shift Supervisor

As summer gets closer, and school gets out around the country, more and more people are coming to Gettysburg, and to the campground. I am beginning to feel more like a resident of Gettysburg than a visitor. I can tell our guests where to find a good restaurant and give them directions how to get there. I can tell them how to get to the campground from the major highways, and I can tell them where they can go to see a movie. Jim thinks this is funny, because he thinks I am bad at giving directions, even though we have only gotten lost once in 15 years with me reading the maps.

If anyone out there wonders what it is really like to be a Night Shift Supervisor at a campground, here are a few things that went on at my job over the last week:

A little girl was bitten by a dog. She was with her parents at the shuffleboard court when the owner of the dog came up. All the adults chatted for a minute about the dog, which was a very nice dog. While the adults were chatting, the child was petting the dog. All of a sudden, the dog snapped at her, resulting in a gash on her face that required 12 stitches. Now the different part is that the father was calm, cool, collected. He did not yell and scream at the owner of the dog. He told me later that things happen, he just wished that it had not happened to his little girl. I thought that was amazing, how calm he could be about the whole thing. Most people would be talking about lawyers and suing and such. He just said, “I was standing right there and could not have prevented it myself.”

The second thing that happened was that an older man came in, registered, and drove his motorhome to the site. He came back all huffy and mad as a hornet because our rock on the site had damaged his motorhome. He was demanding to speak to the manger, and guess who was the senior management person on duty? Me, the Night Shift Supervisor. So, while I was thinking to myself that HE was the one driving the thing, I asked him what I could do for him. He said he wanted to be compensated for his loss. I told him that I could not do anything like that and that he would need to speak to the owner, who was not on the property at the moment. Finally got him calmed down and out of the office. Whew! It is at times like that that I do not like being a supervisor.

Next in was a lady (and I use that term loosely) who was shopping in the store with her four year old child. I watched and listened (I was FORCED to listen as she was screaming at the child the whole time) as they walked through the store. The kid was holding two candy bars and a sucker in one hand, and a Kool-Aid drink in a plastic bottle in the other hand. He had the unopened drink in his mouth, chewing on the top of it. The mother was saying, “You need to decide it you want the candy or the drink, hurry up, make a decision, we have to go, decide!” I was thinking to myself, a four year old doesn’t even know what “decide” means! So, I said to her, “You will have to buy the drink because he has had it in his mouth already.” She looked at ME like I was crazy, and said “I KNOW THAT!” and I am thinking, then why are you making this kid think he has a choice about it? She wound buying all that sweet sugary stuff for him. Well, she is the one who has to live with the kid.

A while later, four teenage boys came in to register. They had made a reservation for two campsites next to each other, for a total of 8 people. When I told them the total due they wanted to argue about the amount, because our published rates are $175 for a week. I explained that it is $175 plus 10% tax for two people, and $8 plus 10% tax for each additional person per site. So, for a week on each site, with 4 people per site, that came to $315.70 per site for the week. The boy who had made the reservation claimed he was not told about the extra charges for the additional people, and therefore he should not have to pay it. I asked him how he found out about the campground. He said he saw the webpage on the internet. I told him our rates are published on the internet, and they state the charges for extra people and tax. They were not very happy, and even came back later and wanted a refund of a couple hundred dollars, because they did not think “it was fair for them to be charged when they did not know about it”. What? NO, I did not refund any money to them.

The next day, the four girls arrived. While one of my co-workers was checking them in, I overheard a converstion the girls were having amongst themselves:

1^st girl “Why didn’t we just come up with the guys yesterday?”
2^nd girl “Because Joe did’nt want me to ride up here with him.”

Excuse me, he wants you to sleep with his little teenage self in a tent for six nights, but he does not want you to ride to the campground with him in the same car? And you went for it? Where is your pride, girl? Oh, yeah, that stuff is none of my business.

So, on Monday night, all the work campers met at Linda’s site and shared some gluten-free pasta salad, some cheese, and some wine. Lots of wine.

Workcamping On The Holiday Weekend

My weekend started on Thursday, which is actually my "Monday", because I work in a campground. We had forty checkins on Thursday, which was a slow pace, but the phone rang off the hook with people calling to either verify their reservations or to ask if we had camping spaces available for the weekend. We have been completely booked for this weekend since February. Get your reservations in EARLY if you want to camp on Memorial Day Weekend next year. And when you do make reservations, write down your confirmation number, and the name of the campground where you made them. You would not believe how many people called to ask if we had a reservation for them because they "could not remember if they reserved here or at the other campground in town".

On Friday, my shift started at 2:00 p.m. At the end of the day we had checked in more than 250 campers. Most of the day we did not even try to answer the phone, which was STILL ringing off the hook. On the few times that we did have a second to answer the phone, the question of the day was for directions to the campground. Now, people, why do you wait until the very last minute to figure out how to get where you are going? Did you not look to see where it was before you made your reservation? Do you not know how to google a map? OH, and we still had people wanting to make reservations for the weekend. On Friday. I finally got to clock out and go home at midnight.

By Saturday, everyone who was coming to camp was here, but all their friends started coming in to "visit". So they walk up to the counter and say they need a car pass so they can go in to visit. When they are told there will be a day visitor's fee, they are universally shocked by it. Then they don't know how to spell their friends last name, or better yet, don't even know it, but if I would give them a car pass they can go in and find them. You would be surprized how many people think I am supposed to just let them in to use the campground faciltiies without a charge because they are not staying overnight.

Then we have the loverly children who are camping with us. Little children who can't count money come in to the store, alone, with a fifty dollar bill to buy some candy. They can barely be seen over the counter, they are so small. I wonder sometimes if the parents even know they have that money. Then there was the brother and sister, who looked like they were about eleven and twelve years old. She was waiting in line to pay for something at the front desk. He was standing right beside her, yelling at her at the tops of his lungs, "Come on, Mom says we have to go, NOW!" The whole time he is yelling at her, he is hitting her, on the arm, on the back, on the head. I finally told him he could not fight in the store. He just looked at me like I was from the moon.

Oh, yeah, then there was the little band of teeny bopper girls, who prissed in and proceeded to tell me how "asinine" it was to have the dance indoors instead of outside by the pool, where more people could "just listen to the concert". What? Concert? It was a DJ playing oldies music. I should have asked them if they could spell asinine.

The last one was a little girl about four year old and her brother who looked about five years old. She was laying on the floor by the toys, whining and kicking her feet. He was standing over her, with a toy in his hands, saying, "I can have this, but I don't have enough money for you to get anything." They had strewn toys all over the floor. I went over and started picking them up and putting them back on the shelf, and said to her, "Honey, you can't lay on the floor in here. If you are tired, you have to go back to your camper." She stopped her little fit and sat up, looked at me like I was the crazy one. Then she got up and went outside. Oh, I just LOVE working at the campground.

Happy Campers At Last!

My husband, Jim, and I live full time in a travel trailer and work in campgrounds for a living. We have been doing this for more than six years and really enjoy the work we do.

We subscribe to a magazine called Workamper News (WN). It is a listing of jobs in campgrounds, resorts, marinas, national parks, and other places for people who live in RV’s. We had seen an ad in WN for several years for a campground on a river in Virginia. Their ad offered wages for every hour we worked, a free full hookup site to live on while we worked there, and a completion bonus. To qualify for a completion bonus, you make a commitment to stay a certain length of time on the job, and once you complete your commitment, they pay a bonus equal to 50 cents for each hour that you worked while you were there.

We applied for the job, and went for an in person interview, and were hired for the job in March of last year. We loved working there. In the years that we have done this type of work, that job was the best job we have ever had. We loved the campground, we loved the people we worked with, we loved the people we worked FOR, we loved the people who came there to camp. It was a fun, beautiful place to be. We made an agreement to stay until November 13, 2007, which we did.

While we worked there, I kept a spreadsheet of the hours we worked each pay period, because our bonus was to be calculated based on how many hours we worked. My husand and I used that spreadsheet as a morale booster. Whenever we were tired, or had had a bad day, we would look at the spreadsheet to see how our bonus was adding up. We left on November 15 headed back to Georgia for the winter. We fully expected our bonus to be paid with our last paycheck. It was not.

In December, I called to question when we would receive our bonus. The general manager said he would check on it and call me back. He called me on January 12 to tell me that our bonus would be paid “on the next pay period”. So, we expected to receive it by the end of January.

January 31 came and went with no check received or direct deposit made to our account. I called several times, leaving word each time for the general manager to call me back. No one ever returned the phone calls I made. I was concerned that maybe they had mailed the check and it was lost in the mail. But, we HAD received our W-2 forms from them, so I knew they had the correct address.

I continued to call every so often, always leaving a message for someone to call me, and making sure whoever took the message knew that I was calling because we had not received our bonus check. In March, we were on our way from Georgia to Pennsylvania for our next job, and stopped in Williamsburg so we could visit our daughter and some friends for a few days. We arranged to have dinner with a couple we had made friends with whom we had worked with at the previous job.

Of course, the subject of the bonus came up at dinner. My friend, Lynn, said “You should compare your last paycheck stub with your W-2 form amount.” She did not say why I should, but because she put that little bug in my ear, the first thing I did when we got home was look at the two documents. Yes, the amounts on them WERE different, and the amount of the difference was exactly the amount of the bonus we never received. So, now we not only had not received the bonus, but the employer said we did by showing it on our W-2 form! This fact opened up a whole new problem for me, as I was not going to pay income taxes on money I had never been paid. I was more determined than before to collect that bonus!

The next day, we had breakfast with two other couples we had met while we worked there. I purposely did not want to talk about work with them. I wanted to have a fun, enjoyable breakfast with friends. One of the girls brought up the subject, though, and asked we had ever received our bonus. I said, “No, we have not, but I am not going to give up on this. We worked for that money, and I intend to get it.”

After we got to our new job, I got a Cingular Wireless Aircard so I could have internet access at my travel trailer. I searched the internet for information on employment law in Virginia. At the Virginia Department of Labor website, I found that if you were promised a bonus before you began the work, the employer is legally obligated to pay it. There was a form there for you to fill out and send in, with whatever documentation you had, showing what was owed you, and the state would help you collect the money. I downloaded a copy of the form and saved it on my computer.

However, first, I had to send a demand for payment letter by certified mail. I wrote the letter, and sent it along with a copy of the ad from WN showing a bonus was offered, a copy of our work contract showing a bonus was offered if we stayed until November 13, a copy of our last paycheck stubs, a copy of our W-2 forms, and a copy of my spreadsheet. I advised them in the letter that they had until March 30 to make payment or we would take further action. I received the signature card back from the post office showing that they had indeed received the letter.

After they received the letter, I got a phone call from the general manager. He asked me “So you are saying that your W-2 reflects that we paid the bonus but you never received it?” I said, “Yes, that is correct.” He told me he would forward the letter to the downtown office. I never heard another word from them. On April 5^th, I filled out the forms from the Virginia Department of Labor and mailed them in, along with copies of all my documentation, which now included a copy of the letter and a copy of the green card that I got back from the post office. My husband and I were very hopeful that we would have our money soon.

I got the froms back from the Virginia Department of Labor on April 12^th, with a form attached that said “Your claim for unpaid wages has been received and reviewed. It is being returned for the reason noted below:

"You had a written employment agreement in place with your employer. Although we are unable to assist you, you may have recourse through the courts”. What? I thought the website said they would help us! What a bunch of crap!

Jim and I discussed this some more. I searched the internet some more, looking this time on the IRS website. I was sure there was SOMETHING we could do that would not involve us actually going to Virginia to file a claim in small claims court. After a lot of research, I found some information on the IRS site about what to do if you have received a fradulent W-2 form. So, the next time we had a day off, Jim and went to the IRS Service Center in Frederick, Maryland, which was the closest one to us.

When we arrived at the service center, I showed the clerk all the documentation we had and explained to her that we felt we had received fraudulent W-2 forms from our former employer. She looked over the contents of my folder, listened to my story, and finally agreed with me.

She went into another room and called the place we worked last year. We don’t know exactly what she said to them, but when she returned, she told us we would hear from her if she had any news for us. That was one week ago, today.

Yesterday, I had a message on my cellphone to call George, the manager of the IRS Service Center. The message said “We have some new information that sheds new light on your issue.” When I called him back, he told me that he had our bonus checks in his hand and we could come pick them up!

So, after only 5 and half months, 14 unreturned phone calls, a certified letter, 2 forms with copies of everything sent to the Virginia Department of Labor, and two sixty mile round trips to Frederick to the IRS Service Center, we received our long overdue bonus checks today.

When we arrived at the IRS office, all of the employees there came out to the lobby. They were all smiling, and all of them shook our hands. They said it is not very often in the course of their jobs that they can actually make people happy. They usually have to deal with people who were fleeced out of money by their employer and the person had no documention to back up what they were saying.

The clerk who had handled this for us told me that it was my legwork that helped them help us. She said that if I had not had so much documentation she probably would not have been able to collect the money for us. She said that after talking to us last week they knew that we were honest and were right that our former employer owed us the money. It was so fun to talk to those people. Then we went shopping!