Author Archives: Carolyn

Yes, our faithful readers, our blog has come to a close. It’s been a wonderful journey – literally going on down the road and writing about our travels. When we retired and started this dream life, we projected about a ten-year duration of living in an RV and seeing the country.

Thanks to our good health, a reliable and comfortable motor home and all the careful driving and planning (primarily done by Doug) our life has gone smoothly and happily as planned.

As of today, we have covered over 50,000 miles in our motor home and stayed at 327 campgrounds. We towed our car behind us almost all of those miles. We also put many more miles on our reliable CRV (more than 80,000 miles) that took us on roads our large home couldn’t go and provided local transportation for us to groceries, laundry and other errands.

It is now easier to name the states we have not visited on these travels: Kansas – mostly didn’t get there because of weather. Vermont, New Hampshire, Delaware and Rhode Island – always intended to spend time in these states but on our northeastern travels we were often focused on getting to Maine and spending time in Acadia. Louisiana would have been fun but somehow, we got sidetracked. We did spend time there in our pop-up trailer. We never wanted to do the long trek to Alaska, but we look forward to a cruise there some day. Hawaii and its volcanoes and flowers call to me so maybe a trip there is in our future.

That means we visited 42 states!

Over the past ten years, we have had many volunteer opportunities. Most notably we spent seven winter seasons at Kartchner Caverns in southeastern Arizona. We have served in several positions over these years: Gatehouse Attendant, Trailer for Cave Tours, and Portal Attendant. Doug drove the Tram. I did Front Desk, Interpretive Desk and Junior Ranger Programs. Both of us most enjoyed doing the Cave Tours. We also worked on many of the special events held at the park.

In Florida, we spent three months in a mangrove forest at Oleta River State Park. I did gatehouse and Doug was on trash patrol and woodworking.

We had an interesting few months on the Snake River at Ice Harbor Lock and Dam in the Tri-City area of Washington. We ran the Visitor Center/Museum and lived at Charbonneau Army Corps of Engineers Park. We both did tours of the Center as well as the Lock and Dam.

We got back to the Snake River in Idaho where we did interpretive programming at Hells Gate State Park. Our programs were diverse – bats, Smokey Bear, Junior Ranger Scavenger Hunts, Food on Lewis and Clark’s Journey, Crafts from Nature’s Bounty and more.

The Willamette Valley in Oregon captured us a few times – first was a summer at Champoeg State Park overseeing the visitor center and gift shop. Farmer Doug tended the 1860’s Kitchen Garden.

After this coming summer we will have spent two lovely summers at Thompson’s Mills State Park in Shedd, Oregon between Albany and Eugene. The 150-year-old grist mill provided lots of opportunities for us to show visitors how it works and to share its history.

And we even got to do tours of a lighthouse! Cape Meares State Park near Tillamook, Oregon had us living right on the dunes of Cape Lookout Beach and our scenic drive along the coast brought us to the shortest lighthouse in Oregon. Giving about 20 tours a day there was fun, and we learned a new history.

The last few years have seen changes – big changes in the way we travel and the way we budget our travels. Since Covid-19, campgrounds and RV parks are much more crowded, making it necessary to plan far in advance. No longer just drifting down the highway and making a last-minute decision to stop for a night or two.

The costs for the same camping sites have in some cases tripled. Often this means we book at least a week-long stay to save money. We love to see the increased interest in our National and State Parks, but our visits there now include traffic jams, long waits to see the sights, decreased available times and sometimes we can’t get in at all.

We have recently become even more concerned about these national and state treasures. Our friends who volunteer in these parks and the rangers we know there have encountered drastic cuts in staffing which are resulting in curtailed services. We count ourselves lucky to have been able to schedule special things like cave tours, ranger talks and tours, and a myriad of amazing experiences all over the country. As we hear of parks closed several days a week, limited admissions, eliminated interpretive opportunities, we feel bad for the rest of the world who will undoubtedly miss out. So as happy as we are that we were there at the right time, we are distressed to think of future generations who may miss these wonders.

And our last few years have been a bit repetitive. This makes writing a blog about our travels a struggle to keep it fresh and interesting. We have spent the last seven winters volunteering at Kartchner Caverns in southeastern Arizona. While our summers have seemed diverse and fun for us, our travel has been basically the same route from Arizona to some place in the Pacific Northwest. This translates in writing to boring.

We have other reasons to make some life changes. Driving the motorhome is tiring and our travel days are a stressor for Doug and myself. Thanks to Doug’s inscrutable planning, excellent driving skills and his ability to completely focus on the road, we have been safe. As the roads we travel become more crowded, we find it less enjoyable. And we got into this lifestyle to enjoy ourselves!

So, here’s what we’ve done:
This past November, after difficult deliberations on our part, we made a huge decision to “retire” from Kartchner Caverns. It was hard to do this. We love our experiences of introducing that beautiful cave to visitors. Our tours brought us joy and great satisfaction. In our past work life, neither of us found that kind of joy and satisfaction in our jobs. But it was time for us to go on to the next phase of our lives.

We left our beautiful site at Kartchner in Benson, AZ; said goodbye to the cave; and promised our friends there we would continue to socialize with them. A few years ago, we explored the possibility of spending our winters in this same area but in an RV resort. The perfect spot opened up for us just when we needed it.

In November we moved into SKP Saguaro RV Co-op Resort, an Escapees park just on the other side of Benson. We were in a rental site for just a month, and soon we were able to become leaseholders. Our first leased site was a bare gravel lot with wonderful neighbors. And then, just a month after that we were in the right position to change to a lot with a casita with our motor home right next to it.

This casita is the first “sticks and bricks” home we have had in almost 10 years. We have a lifetime lease on this lot, so we have a permanent place to return to whenever we need it. Our casita was one of the first built in this park and it has a wonderful view of the Dragoon Mountains.

We wasted no time to make it our own. It was a flurry of picking out paint, cabinets, a countertop, floors and some simple furnishings. It’s a pretty little place – an open room that has a futon, a modified kitchen area (no ranges allowed), a desk, a dining table and a full bathroom with a decent sized closet. It gives us a little extra space but most exciting of all, we can have company stay with us without crowding into the RV and sharing a bathroom.

We already had plans for this summer, and we are going through with them – a relaxing month in Florence, Oregon and then three months of what might be our last volunteer gig – returning to Thompson’s Mills State Park to give tours of the 150-year-old grist mill.

And we will retrace our route once again at the end of the summer and return to Arizona to our home base. Due to changes happening in South Dakota that affect full time RVers, we are in the process of changing our residence to Arizona. This change adds to our living costs, but it feels like the right way to go.

Life is good in our new park – a very busy, active and friendly place. Since it is a Co-Op, we are all expected to contribute to the workings of the park. And Doug and I got involved right away. Doug is Secretary of the Budget Committee, is a member of the Technology Committee which has him helping members with their devices and he also contributes his time and expertise to the local park TV channel that we all access. I have joined the Welcome Committee – just being friendly and welcoming short-term, first-time visitors about one day a month. And I just took on the role of Co-Chair of the Volunteer Coordinating Committee. I do Qi Gong in the mornings and often spend time with some wonderful women who craft in the afternoons.

There is always something to do here – movie nights, speakers, hiking and walking, dances, music jam sessions and plenty of food and socializing events. We still get to hang out with our Kartchner friends, and we love having family nearby. It’s a full schedule in a happy place. We couldn’t ask for more.
If we find a similar resort in the Oregon area, we might commit to a summer rental there. But travel will be by car or plane. We plan to sell our beautiful Tiffin Class A Diesel Motorhome. We will probably replace it with something stationary on our casita lot. But that’s a decision for the future. For now, it’s just nice to look forward to this next phase of our lives. And we can look back at the memories of our journey around this beautiful country.

If you find yourself looking for an adventure in Southeast Arizona during the winter months, stay with us in our cozy casita. We would love to share this part of the desert and all it has to offer. We aren’t saying good-bye to traveling – just doing it a little differently so that means we may get to your neck of the woods.

Hope to see you as we move through this life – stay safe. Remember life is a journey and “the journey is home.”

We can check off another item on our bucket list. When we first started traveling and RVing, we visited a lighthouse on the Pacific and had a conversation with the State Park volunteers who were giving tours there. We thought that would be an interesting thing for us to do.

Last year, while spending time along the Oregon Coast, we visited state parks to see which ones would be fun for us. Our visit to Cape Meares Lighthouse seemed to be the perfect place. It’s a short lighthouse – only 37 feet tall so that means less stairs to tease our knees. And the history, the story, was one we could get into. So, we met with the Volunteer Supervisor, checked out the potential sites we could be living in, and walked along the beautiful beach. We applied and were accepted and scheduled to work August and September 2024.

We are here – now almost a month into this – and we are enjoying this beachy life. Our campsite is just on the other side of the dunes, so it is a short walk to the beach, and we are not dealing with the usual strong winds because of the dunes sheltering us. The site itself is right next to a busy bathroom/shower house and our neighbors are mostly tent campers in no hook up sites. We weren’t sure how this would work for us. But after experiencing a few campers walking through the back of our campsite to the restroom, we chose to not stress out over it. For those of you non-camping folks, it is considered bad campground etiquette to walk through someone else’s site. Some people get outraged over that. It doesn’t happen as much as we thought it would – so we adjusted our attitude and now we just ignore it. And it has brought us a few good conversations.

In spite of large groups camping near us, there is little to no noise at night. And, all the people walking back and forth on the road just gives us something to watch. We’ve met some great folks – a family from Maryland, two guys in a meticulously renovated VW Wagon, and lots more who make life in this campground pleasant.

The beach – it is huge – the flat sand means low tide goes way, way out. The only shells are sand dollars – mostly in small broken pieces, some with just their crown cracked and then the rare perfect ones that somehow Doug finds. Sometimes we see Dungenous crab shells, an occasional mussel shell, almost no rocks and a sprinkling of seaweed. There are small Moon Jellies and larger more colorful Vilella jellyfish. The best part is during most parts of the day, the sand is deserted. I’ve been out there in the early evenings, and I am ALONE! What a feeling. Like the whole world is just mine!

Our job is giving tours of the lighthouse and running the gift shop. We do overt 20 tours a day – 12 to 15 minutes long – and we take turns. The lighthouse is only open from 11 to 4 with a half hour break at 2 pm for our lunch. The tours can comfortably accommodate up to 8 people at a time. We often have to turn people away. So we have a color system to control the groups which seems to be working just fine. Whichever one of us is not giving tours handles sales and organizing these tours. It is very fast paced. The days whiz by.

It is a long day. We are working Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays and every other Wednesday. We met the other couple who alternate with us, and they were great – very helpful. To be at the lighthouse ready to open the door, we leave our campsite at about 9:30 to pick up our loaner car (the rangers call it Blueberry) and our bank for the day. We also often transport inventory for the gift shop.

It is a slow half hour drive up the coast about 10 miles on the winding road. We do have a convenient parking spot near the lighthouse but we have to unlock two set of bollards to get there.

We keep the lighthouse clean by dusting and sweeping and we restock the merch. We close promptly at 4 pm, count the bank, lock up and drive to the ranger station where we turn in our bank. So far, with a few tiny mishaps, our money has been perfect.

The visitors are thrilled to actually get into the lighthouse. Many lighthouses are in disrepair and are not safe for tours. They seem to enjoy the history and story we tell them while standing in the close quarters of the mechanical room. Our second floor is closed due to some damage. That means we walk up and down only 15 steps – a metal circular staircase.

We have a free washer and dryer for our use in another campground loop. Groceries are a half hour away in Tillamook, so we try to do that just once a week. This week we chose The Tillamook Creamery for lunch – we have already done the factory tour so it was just lunch for us – a perfect wedge salad for me and an excellent grilled cheese for Doug. It was insanely busy there so that may be our only visit this summer.

We are happy here – we both love our long beach walks, either together or separately. The weather starts out overcast in the mornings and often turns sunny. The winds have been relatively mild, and we are not complaining about the cool temperatures – 60s and 70s.

This bucket list item is happily checked off!

Although sometimes it may seem that our whole lives are a vacation, we took most of the month of July to take time off to relax in the pretty Oregon harbor town of Florence.

The marina on the Siuslaw River is quiet most days and then there are the days when it is busy with fishing boats launching. For us the pleasant walk along the marina boardwalk and then along Bay Street is a perfect blend of scenery and window-shopping. The shops along the way hold treasures to gaze at and we have tried a few of the wonderful restaurants. Getting out every day (except one all-day much needed rainy day) and taking this walk two or three times a day gives us some good exercise. And the SPCA Thrift Store at the other end of town provided several new items for our wardrobes.

Florence has activities – Tuesday Farmer’s Market with fresh local produce and a Saturday/Sunday Craft Market. We went to the Bay Street Bash – an old-fashioned block party with a good band, dancing in the street, free ice cream and popcorn and tons of games and crafts.

Our favorite days this year was a visit from our family. Jake drove 7 hours plus to get him, Julie and our three amazing grandchildren to Florence. We ate meals together and ice cream from B.J.’s almost every day. We had a full sunny warm (70’s) day at Heceta Head Beach and we explored the Sea Lion Caves another day. Great and happy memories!

We like Florence for many reasons. One is the weather – when we stayed last June I complained because it was often cold and windy. This July was warmer and still windy but I can’t complain when temperatures elsewhere are extreme highs or there are catastrophic weather events, or the wildfire smoke makes breathing difficult. So now weather in Florence is a plus.

The Oregon Coast is a good place of relief from weather worries. And we don’t worry much about tsunamis.

We like Florence enough to think about it as a potential semi-permanent home – maybe a summer get-away in a condo or retirement community. We are making plans for a stay in the campground next summer and we plan to check out what’s available in housing in the area then.

So, happy August 1^st!  We traveled a few hours up the coast to our next volunteer assignment – Cape Meares Lighthouse and a new adventure for us.