Full or Part-Time RVing for Working on the Road
Winter in the north Florida area has roared in like a lion this month. Not only did we have snow in portions of this area earlier this month last night we got down in the teens here at our the county park where we are currently workamping. Most people come to Florida for warmer temperatures and our more than average nice weather when the snow is blowing a blizzard in the northern, central and western states this time of year.
We are taking a little vacation from workamping again this week. We have cleaned all we can here at the park and have to wait until the flood waters have receded enough to do some more and the many miles of trails to dry up some more before the maintenance crew can get out there and chop up all the downed trees. Since the park is still officially closed we haven’t had to open the gate, clean the bathrooms or pick up trash for about 2 weeks now. We have, of course, ridden around picking any trash that we could find, hosed off all the playground equipment and the bathrooms in anticipation of opening. The front of the park is ready but the main areas that most of our visitors like the most (the walking trails and boat ramp) are still in need of work. With the water so close we have had a few close encounters with the local reptiles and watched to turkeys trout and the deer prance around. It’s almost like being back at Adams Tract River Camp (which we heard is also still quite damp).
Cleaning up around your park after any storm can be time-consuming and back-breaking kind of work but all of our public land areas really appreciate the help of their volunteers. Cleaning up after Hurricane Irma is and will continue to be a tough ordeal for any of the volunteer workampers (and park personnel) who can make their way back to whichever park, forest or preserve they were assigned to at the beginning of the month. Most of all of the volunteers were probably asked to vacate the parks prior to the storm happening and we hope that all of them come back as soon as they can. Of course, if the winter volunteers want to come a little early that would probably be nice as well. We can say that one of our favorite Florida state parks we volunteered at is still experiencing some problems and may not be able to accommodate any volunteers yet. Dade Historical Battlefield State Park had quite a few downed trees and a few of them fell on the park hosts sites. Luckily, some of the Missouri State Park Rangers have come down to help cut up all the trees and they may be up and running pretty soon. You should call ahead to make sure you can come back. This is especially true of any of the park down below Ocala and points south.
Getting ready for bad weather is a very popular topic here in Florida this week. With all the problems the poor people in Texas had over the last 2 weeks, we are now in the crosshairs of large storm ourselves. We went the grocery store yesterday just to pick up a few things and maybe go ahead and get some gas for the minivan. There was no gas at our favorite gas station and the others around town have jumped $0.35 a gallon in 4 days. Of course, there was no bottled water left either. We checked at Walmart and Winn-Dixie. Since our illustrious governor declared an early state of emergency the entire state has decided to get their hurricane supplies early. And to top it all off this time of the month our budget does not have room for any unexpected expenses.
Dogs days of summer are upon us. We are still hanging out working in the Alligator Lake Recreation Park here in Lake City, Florida. With all the visitors we have had even on the hottest days here we have been keeping pretty busy with our duties. When we are not driving around on the Gator picking up trash, checking out the trails, cleaning the bathrooms, checking the trash cans and keeping the rental pavilion cleaned between uses we have been keeping busy with creating more handcrafted items, working on my websites, and entertaining my granddaughter during her visits while out of school. We have also had the big air conditioning unit die on us so we have had to replace it with two small window AC units. Thankfully, my brother was in town and able to install them properly. We had also, finally, ran out of propane and he helped me put in one of those “Stay-A-While” propane kits so that we can use the smaller, portable propane tanks you can exchange at our local Walmart. It seems to be working fine. We haven’t tried filling up our onboard tank with it. Instead, we have the smaller tank’s propane going directly into the RV. Don’t forget to keep your onboard tank’s valve off when you use one of these.
We are hoping that fall comes real soon here at Alligator Lake Recreation Park in Lake City, Florida. We have had some nice rain, stormy rain and some downright mean rain over the last couple of months in the North Florida area. In May and the beginning of June, most of the storms would wander all around us and not so much inside the park area where we are currently working/living in our old Class A RV. We still open and close the entrance gates Tuesday through Sunday. Mondays we get to sleep late. Which is really quite nice. A couple of times over the past few months it was raining pretty good when it came time to open and one of the park’s maintenance guys would drive over in his truck and unlock the gate for us. Let me tell you that was really nice as there was a time or two over the last couple of weeks, before my daughter came back, that I was riding around in the rain trying to make sure everyone had left and I could lock us in. That’s okay if I had wanted a shower right about then but that’s life in the workamping world. You just never know what kind of day you will have.
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