{"id":2523,"date":"2013-08-01T23:14:03","date_gmt":"2013-08-01T23:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/perrellas.com\/?p=2523"},"modified":"2014-01-26T22:37:10","modified_gmt":"2014-01-26T22:37:10","slug":"july-26-31-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/perrellas.com\/?p=2523","title":{"rendered":"July 26 \u2013 31, 2013, Work Camp Arrival at Millpond Recreation Area Oregon"},"content":{"rendered":"

We have arrived at Millpond Recreation Area, Oregon.\u00a0 The long winding narrow two lane road on which our GPS led us was 15 miles of unnecessarily stressful travel.\u00a0 Somehow the GPS thought they would do us a favor and reroute us on a shortcut.\u00a0 There is no way to tell this GPS that taking a 17 ton, 43\u2019 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.\u00a0\u00a0 It looked mild enough at the start.\u00a0 Ten miles in, we considered turning around as it turned into a heart pausing, edge of the cliff ride, taking twice as long.\u00a0 We arrived a little shaken but safe and very relieved.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>\u00a0\"Umpqua<\/a><\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 John and I will shadow them in the morning to find out what we are expected to do for our stint.\u00a0 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 \u201cvault\u201d toilets\u2026pits with a porcelain toilet bowl attached, were nicer than what the Scouts had while I was with Josh and Liz at camp.<\/p>\n

\"One<\/a><\/p>\n

The swimming \u201chole\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\"Swimming<\/a>\u00a0\"Picnic<\/a>\u00a0\"Kids<\/a><\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 The floor is cement and they have dozens of nice picnic tables covering the interior.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

\"Millpond<\/a><\/p>\n

There are \u201creal\u201d flush toilets near our host site and these are used when the pavilion is rented for weddings, family reunions and such.\u00a0 Tiled, sinks, mirrors and they look much easier to clean than the \u201cvaults\u201d.\u00a0 We walked back to their site to carry on our chat.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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. \u00a0Glide is another few miles down with a small grocery\/gas\/liquor store, a community center, a few small bars and one restaurant, Munchies.\u00a0 The nearest real grocery is nearly 30 miles away.\u00a0 Until we move to the host site we have no TV, no computer internet, no motorhome hook-ups and no A T & T phone.<\/p>\n

Evening has arrived and it is so quiet you can hear the pine needles drop atop the motorhome roof.\u00a0\u00a0 Ahhhh.\u00a0 To sleep, perchance to dream.<\/p>\n

The sun rose, it is a wonderfully cool, peacefully tranquil morning, everything I had hoped this park would be, it seems to be.\u00a0\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t have planned things any better had I designed it all myself.\u00a0 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\u2026If there are down sides, they don\u2019t overwhelm the positives.\u00a0 We do have to clean five campground toilets but the pay is exceptional for what is expected of us.\u00a0 Drove into the big city of Roseburg for supplies, drank coffee at Starbucks so we could use our computers.\u00a0 Looked around and found Wal-Mart, Safeway, Big Lots, Fred Meyers, Albertson\u2019s and a fantastic cross between a Whole Foods and Costco\/Sam\u2019s called Sherm\u2019s Thunderbird.\u00a0 We will no longer be able to say \u201cwe can\u2019t eat healthy because there are no well stocked grocery stores.\u201d\u00a0 No, we will have to find another excuse.<\/p>\n

I found a place to volunteer a few hours a week in Glide.\u00a0 They are always looking for people at the Community Center so I\u2019ll be helping out with whatever they need done.\u00a0 It\u2019s close so I can do my host job, have a little fun and enjoy some social time in the community.<\/p>\n

Grilled Reindeer sausage for dinner, relaxed, took a walk around the area then added another blissful night of sleep.\u00a0 I wear \u201dLife is Good\u201d shirts to keep the words fresh in my mind just in case circumstances are not \u201cgood\u201d.\u00a0 Now the words actually fit.<\/p>\n

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\u2019 travel camper van for the season.\u00a0 Not something we could ever do…one of us would end up smothered.<\/p>\n

\"Millpond<\/a>\u00a0\"Stream<\/a>\u00a0\"Happy<\/a><\/p>\n

Off to the big city again for last minute supplies.\u00a0 On the way home we stopped at Colliding Rivers, the local teen spot for cooling off and dare devil dives from the rocks.<\/p>\n

\"Colliding<\/a><\/p>\n

Dinner was a meet up with hosts from four other parks in our district at Munchies. Listened to horror stories but it didn\u2019t scare us off.\u00a0 Thinking we may do this next year for a few months if things go well.<\/p>\n

P.S.\u00a0 Got a picture from Bill and Dorothy, our neighbors in Whitehorse, who went on to Homer Alaska on a bear adventure.\u00a0 Great shot Dorothy!<\/p>\n

\"Neighbor<\/a><\/p>\n

Moved into our new site after John dry lubed the jacks in the parking lot this morning.\u00a0 Stopped the loud grinding noise they gave off every time we put them down.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

\"Our<\/a>\u00a0\"Our<\/a><\/p>\n

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 \u201chome\u201d.\u00a0 \u00a0It may only be \u201chome\u201d for two months, but I\u2019ll take anything that is longer than a week, no questions asked, and this place is easy to love.<\/p>\n

Our cleaning consists of both bathrooms, the pavilion, the campsites and trash to pick up daily.\u00a0\u00a0 The pavilion holds a clean-up deposit so it is usually clean when they leave.\u00a0 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. \u00a0\u00a0We don\u2019t have to do any yard or lawn work and trash cans are only dumped when they are over half full.\u00a0 Greeting and chatting, keeping the peace and head counts are the norm for the position and nothing either John or I can\u2019t handle.\u00a0 It\u2019s 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. \u00a0\u00a0Said a pre-good by to Steve and Karen and relaxed into another peaceful nights sleep.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 By noon we were done.\u00a0 We do have to refill the camp maps\u00a0 and do a head count around dusk but it is a welcome ride through the peaceful campground in our golf cart.\u00a0 Life is Good!<\/p>\n

Got our work done early again and just before dusk we drove to one of the Steelhead fish spawning area\u2019s to see them jump for food.\u00a0 There is a young black bear in the area so we talk while we watch the fish jump.<\/p>\n

\"Another<\/a>\u00a0\"Steelhead<\/a><\/p>\n

No fishing here as the Steelhead are protected on this part of the river but we saw some orange things scurrying around…yum, crawfish!\u00a0 No one said you can’t eat those!<\/p>\n

\"Crawfish<\/a><\/p>\n

Golden Eagles fly around overhead while we drive back to our site.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

\"Golden<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have arrived at Millpond Recreation Area, Oregon.\u00a0 The long winding narrow two lane road on which our GPS led us was 15 miles of unnecessarily stressful travel.\u00a0 Somehow the GPS thought they would do us a favor and reroute … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lilypad"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/perrellas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/perrellas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/perrellas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/perrellas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/perrellas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2523"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/perrellas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2525,"href":"http:\/\/perrellas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2523\/revisions\/2525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/perrellas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/perrellas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/perrellas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}