Category: Funding Our Adventure

New Year New Domain

January 26, 2015 Jolene MacFadden

With this new year we have finally migrated out website to it’s own domain name. During the transition process we may have lost a little bit of data here and there and for those who have “subscribed to the blog via email” you may have to do it again. We are hoping that this new hosting service account will help our website load a little faster now. We have so many pictures, links, videos, pages and posts now it was really going slow there for a little while. You will have to reset your bookmarks again as well. For those who added our “FEED” to your favorite reading service you may have to mark it again too. We are sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience during this transition.

Now that we have a book published and have been volunteer “Workamping” in Florida state parks for a while we will be writing more about our experiences during that including what events our current park is hosting, our fellow volunteers, history of the places we are working at, maybe some stories about local residence as well. We are still trying to save up enough money to either fix up our old RV or purchase a new one. The going is slow but we are hopeful and went ahead and books volunteer workamping assignments from now until the end of March 2016. We will either have a “Paying” assignment after that or we will be switching over to volunteering at some of Florida’s National Wildlife Refuges. So far, we have the month of November off this year and hope to have at least 4 new parks reserved for us to stay at and report on. Also, with this new hosting account we hope to finally finish up the pages for the 9 Florida State Parks we visited in April of last year.

Only Two Weeks Left At Big Shoals

December 17, 2014 Jolene MacFadden

Only two weeks left at Big Shoals State Park and then we move down the road about 6 miles to Stephen Foster Culture Center State Park for the first 4 months of the new year. It has been so peaceful here. Yes, we get a couple of visitors each day and more of the weekend. We have even gotten a couple of visitors who asked questions or just wanted to talk for a few minutes. The work is not difficult and basically only needs doing a couple days a week. All the other times we just are available for the visitors and to close the gates at night. So if you are thinking about volunteering here we hope you will consider it in the future.

The good is definitely the peace and quiet here. The only bad we could say would be the sewer situation. You will have to buy about 80 feet of sewer hose to dump your black water and you can use a regular garden hose to dump your gray water. It would be nice to have a little storage building to use while we are here. But you can use the volunteer washer/dryer at Stephen Foster State Park for FREE. You will have the use of a Gator to run back and forth along the paved trail between Little Shoals and Big Shoals area as well as to explore the various trails while you are here. It has been nice here.

We are looking forward to transferring to Stephen Foster on January 1st. We know that it will be more work, more people and they don’t have sewers on site for the campground hosts either. We may not come back to Big Shoals as we have so many more places to explore. Nor, will we come back to Stephen Foster after we leave there at the end of April for the same reason.

We hope you and yours have a safe and happy holiday season. See you next year!

Campground Host Experiences, Funding Our Adventure, Holidays in the Parks, RV and Campers, Sights to See, Volunteer At A Florida State Park, Workamping

More Rain Ugg

November 25, 2014 Jolene MacFadden

More Rain…Ugg! It rained a lot before we got here and it is raining more still. We have had a couple of days of freezing weather this past week that, hopefully, killed off most of the mosquitoes. In the past several days, our park ranger, Catherine, just informed us that we have gotten another 4 inches that has soaked into the ground but the forecast for today is for another 2 to 4 inches of the wet stuff. Of course, it will get colder here and the sun will come out just in time for our first Thanksgiving holiday that we will not go home for.

Mom and I have decided just to hang around this quiet, little park, and enjoy the sunshine and cook our turkey breast with a couple of our traditional family side dishes. That means no table filled with desserts that my grandmother has been baking for the last 10 days. This year, most of our family members will be spending Thanksgiving with the in-laws and Christmas at granny’s house. My aunt Sherry, from Denver, will be with my grandmother this Thanksgiving and they plan on a quiet little dinner as well. Of course, we will call everyone to wish them a Happy Thanksgiving and catch on all the latest family gossip.

Our First Press Release

November 14, 2014 Jolene MacFadden

Our first press release has been created and posted on the PRLOG.org website. They offer free press release services for writers, small businesses and anyone else who needs to make an announcement of a new book, service, and even non-profit stuff. They create embed codes to add to your website, tweet it, post to Linkedin…

Read More “Our First Press Release” »

Funding Our Adventure, Our eBook, Volunteer At A Florida State Park, Volunteer at National Parks and Forest, Volunteer in Florida State Forests, Workamping

Happy Day It Is Done

September 30, 2014 Jolene MacFadden

Happy Day, it is done and available online at Amazon. We have been working on our eBook for full-time RVers who would like to volunteer in one of our many Florida parks including the State Parks, State Forests, Florida Wildlife and Water Management Areas as well as our Florida National Parks, Forests and Seashores. We hope you will try our eBook and give it a review on our Amazon page. We even went ahead and created an author page. We hope to use the proceeds from the sales of this eBook to allow us to keep going to various Florida public parks and volunteer.

If our eBook really starts to sell we will be able to donate a portion of the proceeds to various Florida public lands to keep them going, update equipment, maintain facilities and possibly fund more places to be set up for volunteers all year round. So far, we have only been able to volunteer at Florida State Parks but are working on assignments at some of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Management areas, county camping parks and even a couple of the Florida State Forests. They offer a different volunteer experience than the Florida State Parks we have visited and volunteer for so far. These experiences will be great to experience as well as to report to our readers.

Goodbye Woods Ferry Hello Big Shoals

September 6, 2014 Jolene MacFadden

Goodbye Woods Ferry, Hello Big Shoals! Well, we finally made it to our new assignment. We will miss Woods Ferry River Camp with it’s sewer on-site, being able to take long, hot showers and free washer and dryer. We may even miss the river campers who came almost every weekend and some through the week. Big Shoals State Park has a cement pad park host site with electric and water behind the bathroom building and across from the picnic area next to the Suwannee River. The site itself may seem like it was put in backwards but it works. We had to drive in the wrong way around to pull into the park host site. This small park area has a circular, one-way, paved drive and with the RV utility hook-ups on the drivers side it was easier to come in the wrong way than to back into the site. Luckily, through the week, the park doesn’t get a lot of visitors. Since we don’t own a “Blue Boy” we had to purchase about sixty feet of sewer hose to be able to dump our black and gray water tanks. The sewer outlet is right next to the bathroom building on the side along with an outdoor cold shower. Since, it is a “Day Use” only state park when we lock the entrance gates at night there will be no visitors.

Campground Host Experiences, Funding Our Adventure, Our eBook, Volunteer At A Florida State Park, Workamping