May 1 - 7, 2010

May 1, 2010, Saturday

Today is the first day of the month and our first day of work this month. We worked today and then have two days off. Looking at our schedule for this month we only have to work twelve days. The new couple Mike & Joann came in earlier than expected so after they’re trained we will be going to our regular work schedule of two working days and four days off. We worked long and hard today which made the day fly by.

May 2, 2010, Sunday

Today was filled with a lot of running around. Went to TGW (the golf warehouse) with another coupon to pick-up more free NIKE golf balls. That makes eight total so far, just by going into the store and handing them a newspaper coupon. Got the car washed for five bucks. We stopped by Arby’s picking up lunch. Did the circuit of stores selling flowers finally buying a couple more hanging baskets to put on our double Sheppard-hook. The yard outside is starting to look real nice. Cut a pie I made (orange pie) giving a couple of pieces to Frank & Sondra; Sheila & Keith and the newbie’s Mike & Joanne. Around 8:30 pm or 9 pm we had a heck of a storm blow in. Weatherman said gust up to 50 to 60 mph. It turned our round table and chairs over. I had to go outside and save our new plants by sticking them under the motor home. Again this was a windy night for us.

May 3, 2010, Monday

Out of bed and out the door to sunshine. All the plants and our stuff outside survived the on-slaughter of the storm. I let Sadie out to take care of business and I picked-up and cleaned up what needed to be taken care of outside. It looks like today is going to be a really nice day weather wise.

May 4, 2010, Tuesday

Today we worked with the new couple. Rhonda was with Joann and I worked with Mike. Mike and I certainly earned our pay today. It took me 13 trips to get all the wood back to the burn pile at the north end of the park. Mike took a chainsaw cutting up limbs that were cut down inside the storage area. I put them in trash can on golf cart transporting them back to north side of park. Our other project today besides the limbs was to fix a sign that has been down for awhile. The sign directs campers to pull their rigs up to a certain point by the office check in. We pulled the poles out of the ground to reset them in concrete. The sign needs to be remounted on a piece of plywood, and then mounted on the poles. We moved a sign stating a 5 mph speed limit and to slow down. There was a lot accomplished today. I’m tired and wore out. Rhonda said she was pooped and just wanted to take it easy. That’s just what we did.

May 5, 2010, Wednesday

Today was a very busy day for Mike and me. We worked on completing the sign, “Campers pull up to here.” We had a false alarm concerning Rocky. It seems he left early to go fishing and Sheila wasn’t aware of it. Although Rocky was missing he did informed Keith, but Keith failed to tell Sheila. Anyway, I tried to open his door to the storage bin he “lives” in with his M/H. I found out I wouldn’t be a very good burglar – I had no luck getting in. Everything turned out okay and we were all relieved after Sheila called Keith and he said Rocky went fishing.

Today was another day when Mike and I really earned our money. We stayed busy doing something all day. We’ve been here almost a month and so far I’m enjoying it very much. At the end of the day Keith stopped by and thanked me for the pie I sent over to them the other night. In fact all three coupes said they enjoyed it very much. It makes me smile and feel good to do something like that. It was another successful day in Wichita.

May 6, 2010, Thursday

Long work day for us today. Rhonda and Joann worked in office and Mike and I worked the outside stuff. Toward end of day, maybe the last three to four hours I worked trying to clear and organize storage bin #6. It’s going to take me a long time to get this done. I believe it will be worth it once I get it completed. We did have a couple arrive today and the gentleman, Jim Campbell asked Rhonda if there was anyone who golfed. She volunteered me which I was happy she did. So we set up a golf date for tomorrow morning. After work we watched our TV show Survivor.

May 7, 2010, Friday

I woke up ready for a full morning of golfing with Jim at a new golf course. Our tee time was 8:45 am. I picked Jim up at 8 am. He loaded his clubs into the back of the car and we headed for McDonalds golf course. Jim is an easy going handsome man probably in his late 50’s. I say easy going because he was so very patient with me on the golf course. He shoots in low 80’s and of course I shoot way above that. He did show me a few things to help me out with my game. We had a really good time and I hope someday to play golf with him again using some of the things he taught me. And the next time I hope to have a better showing on the golf course. I will need to go practice but I feel I can improve my score 5 to 10 shots using what he showed me. When I arrived home Rhonda had to leave and get her haircut and do some errands. While I was golfing, Rhonda fixed a bathroom vent. I appreciated that very much. She took it apart and repaired it, then put it back together.



The other two couples Joann in pink with her husband Mike on her left; Frank & Sondra across the table

John Beddie with USI Park owner Sheila

Later in the evening we had a meeting a rec-hall for the workampers and owners of the park Sheila and Keith. Sheila provided pizza and salad and I made one of Kimmy’s recipes – a chocolate chip cake. So for the meeting we had pizza pie for the main dish and cake for dessert. It was a good meeting. It was fun for all of us and an enjoyable evening for all in attendance.





USI Park owner Keith with Donna Beddie

April 22- 30, 2010

April 22, 2010, Thursday

We did get to stay in bed longer this morning which I was thankful for. The weather today has been pretty bad raining most of the day. We did venture out to Walgreen’s where they were celebrating “Earth Day” by refilling ink cartridges for a dollar a cartridge. We dropped off five. We also stopped at TGW (the golf warehouse) where I had a coupon for two free NIKE golf balls. Which reminds me, I forget to mention that yesterday Rocky the older gentleman from Indiana gave me his old set of golf clubs. I plan on cleaning them up and giving them to one of my grandsons, either Riley or Luke. Today I wanted to get some outside things accomplished but the weather didn’t permit me to do so.

April 23, 2010, Friday

Today the weather was a little better for doing the things outside I wanted to get accomplished. I put out chairs, cleaned out the car and put all three sets of golf clubs in trunk of the car. Next, I then put the wheel covers on the motor home, put the table cloth on our round table and put out our new solar lights. Later in the day we drove to a Mexican restaurant for dinner. It was a good and productive day for us.


April 24, 2010, Saturday

Weather was bad today with rain and wind. This seems to be something we’re going to have to get use to staying here. Kansas has shown us the ability to have some really bad storms. Now I know why the location in the Wizard of Oz was in Kansas. Except for the weather it was a relaxing day for us. Tomorrow we start back to work for three days.

April 25, 2010, Sunday

WOW! – this day went by so fast we even went 40 minutes into our lunch time before we knew it. I cleaned the restrooms and the laundry room early. Rhonda and I planted more flowers today. We are starting to get in a routine and feeling more comfortable each day that we are here. This day was short because of staying busy. And this day was again exhausting. Our trip around the park was nice and Sadie is enjoying her short golf cart trips at the end of the day.

April 26, 2010, Monday

Again our days at work seem like they are going to be very repetitive in nature. I stayed very busy all day until about the last two hours. I had caught up on everything and started looking for things to do. Rhonda’s day sometimes gets frustrating for her because she still has to call Sheila more than she wants to. But I have confidence in her – I think she is doing very well. It was a long and productive day for us. One new item is we subscribed to the Wichita Eagle newspaper for the next 26 weeks. We are receiving the weekend editions (Fri, Sat-Sun) until Oct 27, 2010 for $1.25 per week. This is a pretty good deal considering the Sunday paper has been costing me $2.00 per week since we arrived.

April 27, 2010, Tuesday

This is the last day of our three days working. After today we will be off for three days. I did find out that the other couple (the third couple) will be arriving this weekend (Saturday). They will be in training for a couple of weeks, and then we can all go to a 2 days on - 4 days off schedule. We’re really looking forward to that work schedule.

This was quite a work day. I did all kinds of jobs today, besides my normal chores of cleaning and appearance upkeep around the park. I had a few maintenance chores that came my way. We had a motor home come in that is staying with us for one year. I took them to their designated site after filling up their propane tank.
After they were in their site they called the office asking Rhonda if I could fix the water line at their site. The water spigot didn’t have a handle to turn it off and on. So I went to see what the problem was and sure enough the handle had been broken off during this past winter. It was so bad I had to replace the top and the spigot going down into the water hole shut-off valve. Before I could do that I had to shut off water to 13 sites. So I called Sheila to let her know. Then I informed Rhonda in case anyone called about not having water. I only needed to shut the water off for about 15 minutes. No one called and everyone was happy.
My next project was putting a wheel(s) on a storage gate. Thanks to Keith’s help he let me have two -wheels off an old dolly where I transplanted them to the gate. Now it’s much easier to open and close the storage gate. It was a very physical and exhausting day but one of self satisfaction too.


April 28, 2010, Wednesday

Today we’re off work but that doesn’t mean we weren’t busy. Our first stop was less than a mile from USI south of highway 96 at a roadside flower shop location.
We were shopping for more flowers for around the outside of the motor home.

We then went to a bank to set-up accounts for ourselves. Rhonda did a checking and savings account, while I only opted for a savings. All my earnings from USI will be saved for new tires for the motor home. My guess is they will cost us between $1,800 - $2,400 for six new tires.

We were in need of a lunch so we stopped at a cute little diner called, Jimmie’s Place. It had a retro-setting of the 1950’s. Our waitress had picked the name “Cookie” for her job. It seems the workers can pick a name they want to use while working at this establishment as long as it’s associated with the 50’s. It was a very good meal with good service. I’m sure we will be going back there again.

Then it was on to Lowe’s and Nature Way to look at some flowers. We went back home to let Sadie outside and put our stuff up. Then the wind started kicking up again with 20-40 mph sustained winds with gust up to 55 mph according to the weatherman. It was so bad we had to bring in one of the plants we bought today and put it inside the motor home. We had a busy day and I feel like we accomplished quite a bit. The rest of the evening we relaxed and watched a little TV.

April 29, 2010, Thursday

All night long the motor home was rocking and rolling. I don’t think I have ever been in a location that’s had so much wind. The Panhandle of Texas gets a lot but here in Wichita its murder. We have been here 20 days and I can honestly say all but 3 or 4 days we have had windy days. I’m not just talking a little; I’m talking a hold on to your cowboy hat wind or lose it kind of wind.

Later today we had a dinner date at a nice Mexican restaurant. On our way home we stopped at Target Super Store to buy a small ice-machine. They were sold out so we picked up a rain-check for this item. We made it home just in time to watch the TV show “Survivor.”

April 30, 2010, Friday

I worked around M/H mostly worked on outside and tried to get our satellite back since we lost it because of the wind storm knocking it off-line.

Sheila the owner of the park has WI-FI through Tengo an internet server. She allows her workers to have free WI-FI while working here. So I called Verizon and put our Verizon air-card on hold for the next six months. This gives us a savings of $60 per month allowing us to save $355 over the next six months just in Verizon fees. The only requirement was to pay a $15 fee to suspend it for the next six months. And let me just say the Tengo internet service is great.

April 15- 21, 2010

April 15, 2010, Thursday

Today we planted flowers all around the office area and the entrance to the park. We spent the better part of the day digging, planting and cleaning up. It was a very productive day. This day we didn’t have one LP tank to fill. I was a little disappointing because I was going to start filling tanks today. Maybe I will get the chance tomorrow.




April 16, 2010, Friday

Boy talk about struggling to get out of bed. This morning I crawled out of bed after yesterday’s activities working around the park. My body is really sore. I have aches where I didn’t know I had places. Frank came over early afternoon to let me fill my first LP tank. It was a brand new one so I had to purge excessive air out of the tank. It was pretty easy.

April 17, 2010, Saturday

Today was our first day of working without another couple, if you don’t count the bosses (Sheila & Keith). They were close by to help us if we needed it. Rhonda's job is more mentally challenging than mine. Mine is more physical and just getting into a routine. Rhonda is doing very well on the computer working the program called Campground Master. I’m confident by the end of the summer she will know most of the inn’s and out’s of this program.

My routine is checking for departures, reading any electric meters put on my list, cleaning the restrooms and laundry facilities, filling propane tanks when they come in, empting trash cans, picking-up any litter in the park, keeping up the appearance and maintenance of the golf carts, empting recycle bins, inventory of cleaning supplies for restrooms/laundry/office, empting the coin change machine in laundry room and a few other things that have slipped my mind at the moment. Other-than those few things I don’t have much to do in the park.

So far I’ve filled two LP tanks yesterday and two today. Today’s count would have been higher but Frank filled one up for me while I was planting more flowers in front of the office. It was nice of him to do that for me since, it was his day off. Even Sondra went to the office on her day off to help Rhonda with a problem she had with the computer. That’s just how it is in the RVing world. Keith, Sheila’s husband helped me with a 100 lb tank, a 40 lb tank and a few 20 lb tanks. He explained certain things that are a must when filling up the tanks and he provided me with some helpful hints.

The flowers we have planted and the few still to be planted are really making the office and the park look attractive. During the course of our stay here so far I’ve had the opportunity to meet several of the residents staying here at USI RV Park. None more interesting than a man named “Rocky.” Rocky Reagan is a walking, breathing, historical figure full of stories. He proclaims to be 90 years old and others tell me he’s 88 or 89. No-matter; he is full of history and stories that I can’t wait to sit down with him and let the fountain of information flow out. Another gentleman by the name of John Beddie and his wife Donna are from Kerrville, Texas. We met him our first or second day here. We all were talking in the office and as it so often happens, when you ask where someone is from; you are surprised on how small our country becomes with that little question. It seems they have a house in Kerrville they want to sell. At this point in time Kerrville is a place I’m looking at as a retirement location. In fact that little question of, “Where are you from?” brought out the fact that Rocky was born in the Hoosier State of Indiana right down close to the Ohio River in Hanover, Indiana. Now that makes it even that more exciting to me to interview/talk him.

My day was filled with non-stop work activities all day long. I didn’t take one break which made the day escape from me without even realizing it. Rhonda’s day vanished from her too. At the end of the day we were ready to call it quits and go home to relax. Tomorrow is an off day for us (Sunday).

April 18, 2010, Sunday

The temperature was 48 degrees when I got out of bed at 6:46 am. I turned on the furnace to take the chill off; put two dollars worth of quarters in my pocket for a Sunday paper (Wichita Eagle) and took Sadie outside to conduct her business. We were off to a good start for this day. Today we are off work but that doesn’t mean we won’t be working. We have things to accomplish around the M/H. Rhonda wants to do some deep cleaning and I have a satellite to put up, plus odds and ends outside to finish. Since we started our training we’ll have worked nine out of the last ten days. We certainly have stayed busy.

April 19, 2010, Monday

Today we were pretty much on our own. Sheila was in and out of the office helping Rhonda some and she helped me with a few things around the propane shed. My mailman mentality came out today. I put names of the residents inside the mailboxes for the office staff and talked to Sheila about a pop-up flag to put on mailboxes so residents will know when the mail has arrived. I stayed busy filling seven 20 lb tanks at one time, two additional 20 lb tanks, one 30 lb tank and two motor home tanks today. I do like staying busy but it sure is wearing me out. Guess I’m just not use to working this long and hard. I have until November 1st which will come in no time because of the way time is flying by. We finally finished our work day around 6:15 pm and then did the nightly run in the golf cart checking the park at 8 pm. It again was a good day by working hard and long.

April 20, 2010, Tuesday

Today and tomorrow we are working 9-12 and 5-6. Then we are on-call until 8 pm. I filled two motor homes and two 30 lb tanks with propane today. I cleaned both bathrooms and laundry room. Swept the driveway entrance into the park and in front of the long white storage building. Rhonda continues to learn the computer program for the campground and everyday is becoming more comfortable working with it.

April 21, 2010, Wednesday

It was a short night again because I wanted to stay in bed a lot longer. Today will be a short day in work hours but a long day in commitment having to stay at the campground on-call until 8 pm. I’m physically exhausted. I’m not used to working these long hours or this type of physical work anymore. I hope I can get my body back in shape. I started cleaning the batteries in the golf cart. They had all kind of corrosion on the cables and around the terminals. I cleaned them all up and replaced two cables that were destroyed. I worked the rest of afternoon and evening escorting RV’s to their sites and filling LP tanks. At the end of the night Rhonda and I take the golf cart around the park checking to make sure everything that needs to be locked up or checked on is done. Sadie even gets the opportunity to take a tiny ride around the park. Now we have three days off.