Living in the Shadow of Two Mountains---Temporarily
Yes! It's true! We have temporarily suspended our complete retirement and life of travel and total leisure for a new adventure of "Workamping"!
We began talking well before our last winter trip to Mexico that even though we both enjoy the life of leisure our bodies and minds could use a little more challenge and perhaps some "Workamping" might be to our liking.
There are so many things about this full-time RV lifestyle that many around us are unaware of and the "Workamping" aspect is one of them. Rather than go in to an explanation of what I mean click on the following link to learn a little about it: www.workamper.com/ .
We subscribe to the workamping web-site and throughout the past year have followed up by making application to several workamping situations that fit with our desires and desired locations both for the Summer and the coming Winter.
Here is an explanation of what we have chosen to do for the summer of 2009. We are going to be part of a workamping crew assisting with getting what will be, a 5 star Resort when finished and operational. A link to the resort web-site: www.greatrvresort.com/index.html .
After phone contact and interviews we told Linda and Don, managing host and co-host respectively that we would accept the challenge and would arrive May 1st. We arrived in the area a week or so early and decided to pay the resort a visit to hopefully see what we would be getting ourselves in to and quite frankly if it had not been to our liking we would have graciously declined. On a drive through the resort we had an opportunity to visit with one of the workampers already on site and that gave a tremendous amount of insight in to what this workamping experience would most likely entail. The workamper we talked with had been on site for a couple of weeks and liked what he was doing and the people he was responsible to. We arrived at the resort and were greeted by both Linda and Don late yesterday afternoon. Don drove us through the resort and gave us the choice of several sites as there plan is to locate the workampers strategically throughout the resort so as to also act as ambassadors to the paying RVers. We have been given several days to settle in before being assigned our duties and we are anxious to find out what will be required.
The resort as I mentioned earlier is beautifully layed out and is in various stages of being completed. As an example the pool and spa will not be completed until some time in July. All roads throughout the complex are completed and prepared for blacktopping which is slated to begin next week. There are hired crews working throughout the resort still finishing sites in the back forty and planting trees.
What we understood from the interviews is that we will be required to workamp for 12 hours per week in exchange for our site including water, sewer, and electric. It will be at our discretion to work beyond the 12 hours and anything over 12 hours will be payed at $8.55 per hour. Kathleen and I have agreed that we both will try to do 6 hours per week and then decide individually if we want to earn a little extra. To accomplish those 12 hours we have been told we can do 2 hours per day for three days each if we wish and then have 4 days to play, or add to those 2 hours each on those three days for pay and still have 4 days to play. They seem very accommodating and we are hoping that will remain the case. If not, we do have wheels on our "Tininthewind".
I am cautiously sensitive to some interesting twists to this resort. The resort is not open to the public yet, even though it was slated to open in 2006 and total completion by 2007. I am told that the owner has "bumped heads" with the permit process and those who approve them and thus all aspects of the park have been held up. We haven't met the owner but I am interested to do so.
I am sure I will be writing quite often in future blogs about what we are doing and how we are coping with the new challenges but in the mean time here are a few pictures of our surroundings. I mentioned earlier that we also have an interest in doing something similar for the coming winter of 2009/2010 and am happy to announce that we have made a commitment in the Rio Grand Valley of Texas and very shortly I will blog about those future plans.
We like it so far!!!
