We have arrived at Millpond Recreation Area, Oregon.  The long winding narrow two lane road on which our GPS led us was 15 miles of unnecessarily stressful travel.  Somehow the GPS thought they would do us a favor and reroute us on a shortcut.  There is no way to tell this GPS that taking a 17 ton, 43’ motorhome down narrow winding roads where we can only go 10 mph instead of a longer wide road at 40 mph is a better choice.   It looked mild enough at the start.  Ten miles in, we considered turning around as it turned into a heart pausing, edge of the cliff ride, taking twice as long.  We arrived a little shaken but safe and very relieved.

Karen and Steve, the current hosts, gave us the tour while we chatted about Tiffin Motorhomes, Quartzsite AZ, people we knew in common and what we would be doing for the next two months.  John and I will shadow them in the morning to find out what we are expected to do for our stint.  We walked around the park on paved paths, campsites were clean well-kept level sites, the pit toilets, or as the ranger likes to call them “vault” toilets…pits with a porcelain toilet bowl attached, were nicer than what the Scouts had while I was with Josh and Liz at camp.

The swimming “hole” is more of a river blocked up by kid hauled river rocks and maintenance workers efforts to form a relaxing float and swim area complete with picnic tables and shaded by giant trees.

The rustic pavilion has a river rock focal point fireplace, huge beams make up the ceiling and a long counter with a sink and running water.  The floor is cement and they have dozens of nice picnic tables covering the interior.  Bats have found the rafters over the fireplace but the park will encourage them to move to bat homes as soon as they have some built.  I could not imagine that a family reunion or a wedding would want to smell bat guano wafting through the air in such a serene setting.

There are “real” flush toilets near our host site and these are used when the pavilion is rented for weddings, family reunions and such.  Tiled, sinks, mirrors and they look much easier to clean than the “vaults”.  We walked back to their site to carry on our chat.  The evening ended with us following them back over the winding road for dinner at Munchies, the local fast food joint and only real restaurant within 20 miles.  The town closest is Idleyld and is an honest to goodness blink-and-you-will-miss-it town with a combined store/gas station and a tiny post office within a few feet.  Glide is another few miles down with a small grocery/gas/liquor store, a community center, a few small bars and one restaurant, Munchies.  The nearest real grocery is nearly 30 miles away.  Until we move to the host site we have no TV, no computer internet, no motorhome hook-ups and no A T & T phone.

Evening has arrived and it is so quiet you can hear the pine needles drop atop the motorhome roof.   Ahhhh.  To sleep, perchance to dream.

The sun rose, it is a wonderfully cool, peacefully tranquil morning, everything I had hoped this park would be, it seems to be.   I couldn’t have planned things any better had I designed it all myself.  No dust, only a smidge of smoke, peaceful, gorgeous area surrounded by nature, level paths for walking, a refreshing swimming hole, our own private covered site…If there are down sides, they don’t overwhelm the positives.  We do have to clean five campground toilets but the pay is exceptional for what is expected of us.  Drove into the big city of Roseburg for supplies, drank coffee at Starbucks so we could use our computers.  Looked around and found Wal-Mart, Safeway, Big Lots, Fred Meyers, Albertson’s and a fantastic cross between a Whole Foods and Costco/Sam’s called Sherm’s Thunderbird.  We will no longer be able to say “we can’t eat healthy because there are no well stocked grocery stores.”  No, we will have to find another excuse.

I found a place to volunteer a few hours a week in Glide.  They are always looking for people at the Community Center so I’ll be helping out with whatever they need done.  It’s close so I can do my host job, have a little fun and enjoy some social time in the community.

Grilled Reindeer sausage for dinner, relaxed, took a walk around the area then added another blissful night of sleep.  I wear ”Life is Good” shirts to keep the words fresh in my mind just in case circumstances are not “good”.  Now the words actually fit.

Woke early to see how weddings are handled at the Pavilion, drove two miles down our road to Rock Creek Park so Steve and Karen could introduce us to hosts Ray and Karen who live in a 19’ travel camper van for the season.  Not something we could ever do…one of us would end up smothered.

Off to the big city again for last minute supplies.  On the way home we stopped at Colliding Rivers, the local teen spot for cooling off and dare devil dives from the rocks.

Dinner was a meet up with hosts from four other parks in our district at Munchies. Listened to horror stories but it didn’t scare us off.  Thinking we may do this next year for a few months if things go well.

P.S.  Got a picture from Bill and Dorothy, our neighbors in Whitehorse, who went on to Homer Alaska on a bear adventure.  Great shot Dorothy!

Moved into our new site after John dry lubed the jacks in the parking lot this morning.  Stopped the loud grinding noise they gave off every time we put them down.  Our 50 amp hook-up is corroded but maintenance will fix that on Tuesday and we have been able to survive fine with 30 amp.

John and I unpacked chairs, pictures, pretty things and put out everything that has been waiting for us to stay in one place long enough to make LilyPad look more like “home”.   It may only be “home” for two months, but I’ll take anything that is longer than a week, no questions asked, and this place is easy to love.

Our cleaning consists of both bathrooms, the pavilion, the campsites and trash to pick up daily.   The pavilion holds a clean-up deposit so it is usually clean when they leave.  The campsites take about 10 minutes to check and pick up a few wayward pieces of trash and the bathrooms are wipe down counters and sweep for me, clean toilet bowls for John.   We don’t have to do any yard or lawn work and trash cans are only dumped when they are over half full.  Greeting and chatting, keeping the peace and head counts are the norm for the position and nothing either John or I can’t handle.  It’s a bit more work than the last place but the covered site, free laundry room, fantastic huge yard and awesome surrounding park area more than make up for the few extra hours.   Said a pre-good by to Steve and Karen and relaxed into another peaceful nights sleep.

First day of work so we were up early, said good-by to Steve and Karen, stocked up our golf cart and were on our way at 10:00 am.  By noon we were done.  We do have to refill the camp maps  and do a head count around dusk but it is a welcome ride through the peaceful campground in our golf cart.  Life is Good!

Got our work done early again and just before dusk we drove to one of the Steelhead fish spawning area’s to see them jump for food.  There is a young black bear in the area so we talk while we watch the fish jump.

No fishing here as the Steelhead are protected on this part of the river but we saw some orange things scurrying around…yum, crawfish!  No one said you can’t eat those!

Golden Eagles fly around overhead while we drive back to our site.  Dinner, then to bed so we can rise early, get our cleaning done and head to the big city for supplies, more paperwork and fingerprinting.