This workamping thing is ok. We were a bit apprehensive when we accepted the job here at Happy Hollow Camping Resort. We had not done any work in almost three years.  We both retired from second level manager jobs at BellSouth and brought in nice salaries.  Now we had committed to working for a site, some perks and $6.50 an hour.  We also knew that our lifestyle would change a bit, since we wouldn't be able to sleep late everyday and would have a 5 day in a row work schedule to deal with.  Quite a shock to our now used to retirement systems!

However, it has turned out to be a blast.  I work outside most of the time, and Libby works on the inside crew.

I have done some mowing, although not much, the park has a fellow who mows each week.  I also have done electrical repairs, plumbing repairs, some machinery repairs, split and bundled firewood, cleaned campsites,  directed traffic on busy Friday nights, pumped LP gas, gathered up and bagged aluminum cans for recycling (mostly beer cans, this is Wisconsin), worked a little security, helped campers get things set up, backed in and working, watched two ladies set up a tent who didn't have clue, painted some buildings, worked on defective laundry room dryers, rescued a resident who ran out of LP on a cold, rainy day, picked up litter, learned a lot about pool maintenance, been the cop at the pool, etc. etc.  It has really been a lot of fun so far and the summer is streaking by at warp speed.  It is really hard to believe that it is July as I write this.

Libby's duties include telephone reservations, registration and in office reservations, handling store, cafe and fountain purchases, stocking store items, making all sorts of ice cream concoctions, cooking pizzas and other food items, light cleaning and interfacing with campers to make their stay as pleasant as possible. As a former manager at Bellsouth, she never had a situation where she used a credit card machine or a cash register. Nor did her previous experience prepare her for making sundaes, floats, shakes, malts, tornados and slush puppies. It has been an absolute blast taking and making campers ice cream requests. The best part of the job has been the interface with families. We both love people, so this was right up our alley, so to speak. In addition, she has the opportunity to play with a variety of dogs in the park, which is nice as well. She also feels that she would like to work camp again.

For the most part, the campers are just really fun folks.  We have been here about 7 weeks and this last weekend is the first weekend without rain.  It has been really interesting, watching folks deal with the weather.  Last weekend, we had over 2 inches of rain on Friday night.  A bunch of folks from Milwaukee came in, set up their pop ups and tents and then left to go to a motel, returning on Saturday when the weather was a little better.  One couple was set up on a tent site and when Apple Creek, which forms the southern boundary of the campground, overflowed its banks, we had to move them.  They spent the rest of the weekend in a little higher and drier site!

Many of our campers are locals who just come out to spend the weekend away from home, although as we are now in the vacation season, we are seeing more overnighters and folks traveling from place to place who stop here.  The park also sells pool passes to the local residents for use from Sunday afternoon to Friday before the big weekend crowds arrive.  On almost every afternoon,  the pool has a bunch of local kids and adults in it, enjoying their summer.

One of the big events here is the building of a campfire.  Every weekend, we sell many bundles of wood, although many folks bring their own wood to burn.  One of the jobs we have as workampers is to clean the firepits on Sunday afternoon after the weekend groups leave and before someone else checks into that site.  Last Sunday we had about 40 campsites to clean in just a few hours.  It can get rather hectic as the folks check in and again as they leave.

We have met some really interesting folks here and also gained a much better understanding of what it means to be a campground owner.  Some folks, believe it or not, just are not happy. The campsite doesn't have enough grass, it is too near the road, too far from the pool, to close to the playground etc.  We understand these issues, but sometimes there is no solution. Just this week, we had a lady check in who was placed on 5 different sites before she was happy.  This is basically an urban campground. Although we are surrounded by farms and the Mid Vallee Golf Course, we are only about 15 miles out of Green Bay, 10 miles out of De Pere and Appleton.  We have no secluded quiet sites, but some folks don't want to hear that.

The number of campers in the park increases each day. When we first arrived in DePere, it was still pretty cold at night and the leaves were just beginning to appear on some of the trees. Now it is hot and humid.  In the beginning, we had fairly busy weekends but not very many folks during the week except the regulars.  Now the weekdays look like the early weekends and on weekends, the campground is full.  The pace has become hectic and the repairs, frantic calls for assistance and other assorted tasks has become hectic also.

Here are some pictures of the Happy Hollow Camping Resort.

A couple of cyberfriends have arrived to visit with us also. Here is a picture of Jim Kelly who came by to get an internet dish.

The financial end of workamping is working out better than we had hoped.  In addition to making a salary, albeit not a very big one, we are not spending nearly as much money as we do when we are traveling.  Our campsite is free, along with electricity and laundry.  We get propane for cost, although we haven't bought any yet, and we get discounts on store items and food from the grill is half price if we fix it ourselves.  All of this has allowed us to put close to 2k a month back into our cash account.  Our monthly expenses are running close to a thousand dollars less than normal.  We hope to put away about another 3k or more in our cash account before we leave here in September.

One of the expenses we have incurred while here is a new desk for the rig.  We found a local cabinet shop, Country Cabinets in Wrightstown and they custom built a computer, ham radio, storage desk for us.  Even though we had this installed in early July, we wanted to put the pictures of it on the website in this update.  The desk is just great.  John and Bill Fritsch own the business (920-532-4037) and mainly do custom cabinets for homes.   They told us they just love to do projects like ours however and were several hundred to over a thousand dollars less expensive than others we have had quotes from.  The desk cost us less than $800. It has a place for our printer and some other storage for supplies and has an attached bookshelf where we are keeping our DVDs and some software stored.  Next month we will put a photo of the final finished product including the case for my ham radios that is being installed as I type!

One day, we headed up to Door County on the thumb of the peninsula bounded by Green Bay and Lake Michigan.  What a nice summer vacation spot.  We drove up the Green Bay side and came back along Lake Michigan.  We stopped for lunch at NewPort at a cafe that overlooked the ferry terminal for Washington, Island.  We also went to the Wagon Trail campground to visit with the owners.  Our current employers, Dave and Judy Boldt used to workamp there back in the late 90s and told us we just had to stop in and visit with their old employers.  We had a great time visiting with the owners and staff at Wagon Trail. It is a very nice, secluded campground out there between the two bodies of water.  It was about 10 degrees cooler there than it was in DePere.
 

We have not yet made it back to the EAA in Oshkosh, but the big fly in is in late July and we will attend that one day. In August, we need to get back and fly in that biplane before the summer is over!

FLASH--- our good friends the Hammonds have signed a contract for a new home out in California.  Their barely used 2000 Dutch Star (Cat 3126 and Freightliner chassis) is for sale.  Click the hypertext link to see Jim and Patty's motorhome information.  .

Bonus Pic----- our group at Life On Wheels last summer in Moscow, Idaho.  See if you can pick out the couples.  All have been on our website before.   Also, here is a pic of our friend Dave Stribling and a 92 lb Halibut he caught in June in Alaska.

Camping for June   $0
Diesel Fuel for June $0
Lp for June             $0