How about a 1 week report?
OK, I've been at this Camp Host assignment for 1 week now. We arrived Monday, Aug 1 and today is Monday, Aug 8.
Is it still Nirvana? My answer is simple.... "Yes!"
There are 42 campsites, all are privative. The host site has full hook-ups. It's been hot. We've had rain. We've had bees and hornets and yellow jackets. There has been a steady flow of campers coming in, and a steady flow going out. Over the week end, the sites were about 75% full. Tonight, (as reserved), there is only 1 camper and the host. It's going to be another very peaceful, very dark, very isolated night.
Doing my rounds yesterday, (my wife and I were walking with our dogs), we saw a deer standing at one of the bath houses. We've seen several dear on the trails around the park, in the valleys, in the forest, and wandering across the road.
I report to the camp office in the morning and drive the "buggy" (it's a Bobcat, all wheel terrain vehicle, with the bed in the back that dumps like a dump truck) ... and pick up the new list of reservations for the day. When driving yesterday, my wife and the 2 doggies were with me, and we rescued a box turtle (with yellow marking on it's back) from the middle of the road.
The Cicadas (I learned what they are finally) are so danged loud at night, it drowns out everything. Even talking to some of the camping guests, they say they've never heard anything like that before (city folks... hum?) and one fellow said, they lulled him to sleep. (remember, these are all tent campers, they hear everything all night long!)
My little girl doggie loves to ride in the Bobcat now. At first she was rather upset over it. Now she runs to it and wants to ride. The little boy doggie adjusted immediately. The noise didn't bother him a bit.
The doggies are perfect camp host dogs. They love the small children and when walking the kids come running up to us, want to pet the dogs, the parents love it that we give the kids time and attention, and our dogs love the attention also.
My wife and I are walking over 5 miles a day, just doing campground duties. I know we could be riding the Bobcat, but we enjoy walking. Oh, it's hilly, for sure. I've lost a little more weight already. We went to Wall Mart in Mount Airy yesterday and I purchased a pair of new blue jeans ... a few sizes smaller!
The moon is just a sliver in the night sky now. The roads are getting harder to walk at night. Last night for our last walk around the campground, (about 9:30), I kept walking off the edge of the asphalt on my side and then my wife would keep walking off the asphalt on her side. We laughed, joked, hugged .... and I even got a kiss in the faint moon light! (now that was nice ... and romantic!)
Sunday I cleaned out 24 firepits as people left through out the day. I ended up walking almost 8 miles, up and down the hills, round and round the 1/2 mile loop of this campground, and went to bed pretty early. It truly was my busiest day so far, but tonight, it's back down to "nill".
This coming Wednesday, I'm going to ride with the closing park ranger and see what all he does to lock this park down at night. From the top of the mountain all the way down to the Yarkin River where they have canoe in campsites. The rangers have back roads they can take, not accessible to the public. The public has to hike their gear in (about a half mile) or come in by canoe. So, I'll have a great opportunity to see parts of this State Park that very few ever get to see! I'm looking so forward to that. I absolutely love being on the "inside track" of things.
I think in just this week, my leg muscles have strengthened enormously, my endurance has skyrocketed, I've lost weight, and I'm eating much better.
As a host, my wife and I are trying to be good ones. We are trying to be everything I always envisioned a host should be. For example: With all the rain, we opened up and dried out some sleeping bags using our Splendide dryer in the camper. We've given folks fire starter packets. We drove some hikers back up to the top of the mountain when they over judged the length and time and direction of the trails leading from the top to the bottom. We gave away our last BBQ fire starter. (thus the reason for the trip to Wall Mart). We even let some folks use our jumper cables because they ran their car battery down.
The park rangers, the office staff, the folks who run the visitor center, all, are so very friendly, helpful, and so full of energy. You can just tell these folks REALLY enjoy doing the job they do! They are so positive, it's almost like they know being able to work in an environment like this is truly a special gift!
Nirvana? Absolutely YES!
Returning back to a Las Vegas, strip mall, commercialized, neon, city light, stack-em-in-short=and=sweet, traffic, noise, confusing, hustle, bustle, concrete jungle some campgrounds and State Parks .... and definately commercialized and private campgrounds ... is going to be a pretty hard thing to do.
I am so blessed to be here!
And here's a photo of my current front yard, and back yard, and side yard, and the neighbors yard, and their neighbors yard! It's fantastic having thousands of acres as your personal playground!
Here's a photo of the "top". This was taken in April 2022 when we stayed at Mayberry Campground in Mount Airy, NC and drove on over to Pilot Mountain State Park and we met with the Park Ranger about solidifying the Host position.
