Tag: Oregon

Starting the Trip Back to Havasu

Just arrived at the Narrows RV Park in Princeton, Oregon. Don’t look up Princeton – you won’t find it — ha ha. We’re about 25 miles south of Burns. We found it because on our trip TO Oregon, we wanted to visit Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

Narrows RV Park Oregon

They offer 41 30-50 AMP full-hookup sites. It’s a great, out-of-the way spot, ideal for visiting the Refuge, but also for the beauty and solitude of the wide-open spaces of Southeastern Oregon. We’re just staying one night this time. Our charge was $41.77.

Narrows RV Park Oregon

Malheur NWR consists of more than 187,000 acres, a tremendously important source of wildlife habitat. The Refuge represents a crucial stop along the Pacific Flyway as a resting, breeding, and nesting area for hundreds of thousands of birds and other wildlife.

Map of Malheur NWR Oregon

There is a 42-mile self-guided auto tour we enjoyed in June, but we won’t be doing that this time. We’ve positioned ourselves to take a different route back to Boise. The distance and time is about the same, but it will be mostly new roads for us. Even to this day, when we see a new interesting-looking road while we’re out and about, either D.A or I will say, “Wonder where that road goes?”

We’re putting the smoke behind us, but not the summer!

Our summer was not what I suspected, but still outstanding. D.A. did a lot of fishing – although plenty of it was on smoky days when I had little interest leaving the safety of the RV (speaking health-wise). We made three escapes to the coast and agreed on a spot for next summer, the Port of Siuslaw at Florence. The central Oregon coast is spectacular. Now we’ve seen it from the CA border to Walport, which is about 40 miles north of Florence, so next year we’ll explore further north. D.A. is excited to return – he’ll salmon fish in the ocean and learn to catch crab. We got fresh cracked crab at the Krab Kettle, next to the Visitor’s Center in Florence. They were $26 each, and we also bought fresh chowder. Tossed a salad and we had a feast.

Crescent Junction RV Park Oregon

Crescent Junction RV Park was the spot we’ve been looking for – absolutely everything we wanted BUT the smoky conditions started almost as soon as we arrived and continued until just days before we left. We thought about leaving early several times, but our next stop was Boise – and Boise had hot and smoky conditions all summer! We believe the coast is the answer.

Shelter Cove Store Oregon

Keeping our boat at Shelter Cove was super-convenient. D.A. could just get up and go any time the urge hit him, so he had an awesome summer of Kokanee fishing.

For me, it was awesome to have time to learn about YouTube. We have 38 videos up now – which are getting very little attention, but we’ll just keep plodding along. It gets easier. Originally, we just made videos on what we thought people would be interested in, only to find that people weren’t interested. Ha ha – Humbling experience!

Honestly, there are so many people making content similar to ours… So many younger people who are making their living on YouTube. I’ve spent a lot of time watching some of those videos. Many have been doing it for a long time, so though I’ve been watching lots of full-timer RV content over the years, it of course was not with an interest in learning how our we might do it.  But that’s exactly what I’m doing now. We gear our content to folks who are retiring – folks just like us ten years ago. I’m not trying to make a living (thank God), but I want to contribute and create community.

If I ever wanted to create the perfect job for myself, it would be researching on the computer, taking photos and videos. Now the video part is new, but I couldn’t design all that other stuff to be more in line with my interests. I’m finding it a wonderful, fun and enriching way to spend time.

We’ll be back in Boise tomorrow for several weeks and a great reunion we’ve been looking forward to for a long time.

Camp Hosting for Portland General Electric -PGE- at Pelton Park

From High and happy expectations to “how soon can we get outta here?!”

We expected to be camp hosting for Portland General Electric at Pelton Park until September 30, but left at the end of July due to issues mostly beyond our control.

We learned of the opportunities at PGE parks through Workamper, and sent off an email of interest last fall. We were told to register at PGE/Careers as Seasonal Park Attendants. I looked at workamper reviews of working at PGE and they were all positive. Great!

Sometime over that fall-winter stay at Havasu Springs, we had the conversation: “We’re probably not getting any younger. We’re probably not getting any healthier. Are there some things we still want to do?” For D.A. it was peacock bass fishing in the Amazon. For me it was a trip to Costa Rica and also a trip to Alaska. It got us thinking… Why not find out if PGE wanted to help us pay for it?

Sure enough, we were notified about open positions and applied. By the beginning of this year, we were pretty sure we would be offered a camp hosting position. Most of these seasonal jobs pay about $14.50 an hour (which is, as you may know, quite high for the industry). They like couples. The woman works in the office and the man in maintenance, though I think they might be open to other arrangements, and one of the three couples on our team both worked maintenance. Often they pick two couples and a solo.

In spite of our confidence, the obstacles to getting hired by PGE were daunting. They sent us to a local clinic for a drug test and physical. We complied with all instructions and after a long wait were informed they were unable to do all the tests PGE required. Actually they did none of them except the drug test. PGE said they would find another clinic to do the rest of the testing. Lake Havasu City is a town of about 70K, so we were surprised they couldn’t find another clinic nearby. They wanted us to go to Phoenix or Yuma – both more than two hour drives from us. We finally got them to agree to find us a clinic in Las Vegas – which we could visit on our way to Oregon.

During all this, my urine test result came back as inconclusive, so I needed to return to the original lab and take the test again with an audience. Ha! After the process the lab told me PGE was looking for Methadone. Methadone!?! I don’t think so. Needless to say, I passed the second test.

The actual physical turned out to be the most comprehensive I’ve ever had: hearing, eyesight, peeing in a cup, toe touching, squats – you name it. We did it all successfully, but it was a little daunting and the whole time I was thinking, “What could possibly be next?”

On arrival in Oregon at Pelton Park, we were put in a brand new camp host site. It was the first site you would see when you drove into the park, so it seemed a big benefit for PGE. They assured us they were aware it needed a lot of work, that they would level the site and bring a picnic table. Neither happened. The water service had been run from another camp host site and they had placed three hoses inside PVC pipe.  One of the hose connections leaked continuously. It ran down the pipe and eroded the area around the electric pedestal! We brought it to their attention. It was never fixed.  We discovered we had no cell service or wifi. Satellite TV was almost impossible, with no local channels. The worst of all though is we were parked under three huge trees that shed an unbelievable amount of biomass every day. It covered our truck, chairs, awning, screened room and of course RV. We couldn’t help but track it into the RV.

After more than a month in a bad situation, we had a potluck get-together for all the local staff. A long-time PGE employee who is host at a nearby day use area said, “You haven’t seen anything yet. Wait until the sap starts seeping from those trees!”

I told our supervisor we needed to move. NOW! There was another host site in the park, but while much better for us, it took away the advantage of having a second host near the entrance to the park for PGE. We really didn’t care. We moved.

in the meantime, the writing was on the wall but we failed to comprehend it.

I trained and learned the reservation system. The computer was mostly fine, but the wifi speed was dial-up, and the delay in accomplishing a reservation could be disheartening. Also, you could get caught in a loop and some transactions and the system would freeze, so you could do nothing until you shut down and rebooted the computer! The phone was just as bad. We had two lines. The “regular” line for reservations and park business and the other was an “emergency” line for PGE brass and local authorities to contact us.  Many mornings (and throughout the day) when you tried to make a call, the regular line would be dead and you’d have to call its number from the emergency line to restart it!

D.A. had been learning the maintenance duties. He soon noticed a problem with the toilet plumbing – the toilet apertures were so small that when the park was full and there were many people using the toilets, they would clog – maybe 12 times a shift! So, on busy weekends, the crew spent their time driving their Gators between the four bathrooms clearing clogs – no time for any of their other routine duties. We complained, guests complained, but we were told the situation would be considered “off season.” Eventually, management told staff to “do their jobs” and later offered a $25 Amazon Gift Certificate to the crew member who cleared the most clogs! It wasn’t very well received by staff. Nobody applied for the prize.

These issues were compounding daily, with no solutions offered, when our supervisor made a totally inappropriate comment about another crew member. At first I was so mad I couldn’t speak, but eventually took an opportunity to discuss it with him. With one careless and thoughtless statement, I lost all confidence in his abilities and I surely didn’t want to be around someone who thought so little of his staff.

One particularly hot Sunday (Pelton Park is located in Oregon’s high desert east of the Cascades), guests starting arriving at ten in the morning. Check in time was four p.m. We had one guy working, D.A., and he hadn’t even begun cleaning sites by 10 a.m.; he was too busy unclogging toilets! The incoming guests were indignant. They were hot and wanted to unload into their sites before it got hotter. I asked them to return about one p.m., still three hours before actual check-in time. It didn’t matter. They were mad at me, they were mad at D.A., and they were mad at PGE for not having enough staff to accommodate their arrival six hours ahead of schedule. We’re not talking one guest, we’re talking six or eight of them – all furious!

That wasn’t the beginning of the end… It was the end of the end: bad management, woefully inadequate infrastructure, management that never followed through with anything they said, not to mention the significant health hazard presented by all those clogged toilets. We gave notice.

The manager of our supervisor told us there were other staffing opportunities they would like us to consider because they didn’t want to lose us. We said, “No, thank you,” and then we summarized it all – pretty much as I have above. In our remaining days, we never heard another peep out of Corporate.

Would we try it again? The wage is attractive. The reality is not. No. But guess what? The trip to Costa Rica is booked, and from there we go to the Amazon!