Where, oh where, has my little frog gone...

Phew! What a month this has been....I will never get completely caught up but will try to give you a flavor of all that's gone on. I have over 800 photos taken (most by me but many by my temporary traveling partner, Stu). I still have to go through them, choose the best for uploading, resize & optimize them, upload to SmugMug, then decide which of those I will post in the blog...

So, first I will post a synopsis of the last month. Then as time allows this week I will work on the photos and upload backdated blogs with more detail. Hang in there....I'll get back on schedule soon! LOL!!

As to the workamping, I have survived my first week and am on my own now (although there is always someone to call if I need to). I work in the office four half days a week, two mornings (10-2:30) and two afternoons (2:30-7). When on the morning shift I have bathroom duty but so far it hasn't been all that bad. This is a small campground, 41 sites, and while the first few days were really busy it's slowed down. When there are kids and smaller campers, the bathrooms get used more often. We have procedures to help determine which showers & stalls have been used. If they're clean, we leave them alone.

The computer stuff is easy but was confusing initially. There is a new workamper couple that started the day before I did and between us and the gal that is staying, we have worked up some procedure pages to help us newbies. The owners are wonderful and worry that I'll be bored. They have no problem if I read, play on the computer, sew or whatever when things are slow. What more could you ask for? My schedule stays the same every week...off on Sun, Wed & Thur. Great for planning although my sightseeing will be limited while I catch up on real life stuff. LOL!

Okay, here is a synopsis of what has gone on for the last month:

1. As you already know, I attended the Escapee Escapade in Gillette, WY. I did the Devils Tower HOP, joined the Gillette Elks, attended social hours for the SOLOS, ELKS, DOVES & Full-time Class of 2007. I made friends with a new SOLO, Stu, who was widowed in March. He rides a Harley-Davidson trike so we had that in common as well.
   
2. We took a day trip of riding with a local rider we met on July 4th at the SOLOS Hot Dog Picnic. He was accompanied by a local lady rider and the four of us on three bikes rode from Gillette up to Sheridan, through the Big Horn Mountains, down to Worland and Ten Sleep before hitting Buffalo and going back to Gillette. All day ride - over 400 miles with temps from 50 to over 90. Some great photos of amazing scenery...we even saw MOOSE!
   
3. From Gillette we headed to Reed Point, MT before I took my RV into Pierce RV in Billings, MT for service. From there Stu planned on doing Yellowstone for a couple of days. Rather than my sitting at Pierce waiting for my rig, we decided to leave it there and travel together.
4. Moved Stu's rig to just south of Cameron, WY where we were about 35 miles north of West Yellowstone. Spend two amazing days riding through Yellowstone. It has always been my favorite National Park and it lived up it once again. Such a wide variety of scenery - we rode several loops that I had missed in 2005. We saw eagles, buffalo, elk, coyote, brown bear (assume it was a grizzly according to what I've read) and black bear. Never did see a deer or antelope inside the park but they were outside it on the ride to & from.
5. From Cameron we headed to Anaconda, MT for a couple of days while we attended the 70th National Folk Festival in Butte. A friend that worked for Stu back in Maryland and his wife live in Helena and they brought their camper to the same park. Another friend who had worked for Stu was in one of the featured groups, The Seldom Scene. (They are all retired paramedics/fire fighters). What an unbelievably great time we had...can't wait to blog about it. Plan to attend next year if at all possible.
6. From Anaconda we headed back to Reed Point, MT for the night before picking up my RV at Pierce in Billings. Then we headed north to White Sulphur Springs for my workamp assignment. The park is a Coast to Coast membership park (as well as RPI, AOR, CampClub USA and Passport America) and since Stu was a C2C member, it made sense for him to spend a couple of days before heading east.
7. After we arrived at Conestoga Campground, we had two days before my first shift so we did a little more sightseeing as well as seeing the local area.
   
8. The first trip was to Great Falls where we visited the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center as well as Great Springs State Park and Fish Hatchery. We ate our picnic lunch at the state park....nice shaded picnic area. Nice ride both ways and we got to visit the Harley dealer as well (we had previously visited the one in Billings).
   
9. The second trip was to Bozeman where we visited the Museum of the Rockies. What a treat that was....so much to see, we couldn't do it all. Amazing ride, open range with cattle all over the road and a ton of deer including some well antlered bucks.
10. Stu arranged to stay on a bit more and we took my next two days off to ride over to Helena to visit his friends again. They have a gorgeous house on 20 acres about 15 miles out of town. Great views, wildlife everywhere....had a great time and a nice ride both ways.
11. On Friday Stu left and headed east where his youngest daughter is expecting granddaughter #2. She is due in 2-4 weeks and he hopes to be there.
    
12. I'm busy in my off time reorganizing my storage bins again...moving more weight to the front and starting to clean out more stuff. Yup, was still overweight when I got weighed in Gillette. Once the outside is done I'll tackle the inside once again. I'm hoping to scan a ton of paperwork, back it up on CD/DVD and stop carrying so much of it around.
    

So that's it in a nut shell.....here's a sunset photo I took last week here at the campground.



Till next time - keep on rollin',
Froggi/Donna