Week Two - Done!

We worked last night and were very tired when we got back to the RV.  I scooped ice cream for an hour and a half when we were hit with two busses at one time.  All it takes is for one tourist to walk through the store with ice cream and everyone on the bus wants one!  Now don't get me wrong.  I love scooping ice cream because everyone has a smile on their face when they take it from me.  It also gets me away from the registers upfront where the tourists are NOT happy when they get their final balance on the items they bought.  

There was an older couple who came in late in the evening.  They were so funny.  They are doing a 6,000 mile driving trip from Florida and back.  When I saw them come in, the wife went to the Bryce Canyon books.  The husband said "go ahead and read that, then we don't have to go there".  I started laughing and the husband came over to tell me how it has been a LONG trip and he was done.  He went on to talk to Wade and the wife came up and said "tomorrow we are going to the N. Rim of the Grand Canyon and I may just push him in".  We had a good laugh and she told me all about their trip.  Later when they were leaving I said "have a great trip to the Grand Canyon and be careful.  The edge of the Canyon can come up pretty quickly.  Stay safe".  The wife winked at me and they left.  Now I'm worried that I will see the husband's name in the newspaper!  Oh boy....

This evening was crazy at the store.  At 9:30 pm we had a French invasion.  I had to go help a man find a hat.  That's a difficult task when I don  t speak any French and they don't speak any English!  We eventually got it right but the French people didn't leave until 10:05.

One of the day supervisors doesn't like me.  I'm not sure what I did to her but I have this feeling that she would love to see me go.  That might be a blessing...

Can't wait for tomorrow!

Productive Morning

I was able to get so much done this morning.  We have to work this afternoon/evening so I wanted to get some business out of the way.

I booked Alyssa's flight into Phoenix for Christmas.  Even though we will be in Lake Havasu City for at that time, it was cheeper to fly her to Phoenix and then have Wade Jr. get her and bring her to Havasu.  I found a very cheep round trip ticket for $199 in/out of Colorado Springs.  We are trying to avoid the problems we had last year.  There was a big snow storm the night before the flight and she had a hard time getting to Denver.  This year will be easier (hopefully).  Also, it was $150 less this year!  It will be good to have the four of us together, even if for a short five days.

I also got my business travel booked.  I am going to DC for a trip in October and needed a hotel room on each end in Vegas for the flights.  Booked my off site parking too.

I feel pretty productive so hopefully that will spill over to work.

Gordo and I went on a long walk and play "throw the ball" for about a half hour.  He was really tuckered out.  I know he misses us when we go to work and I feel bad about that.  I also updated his Gordo Williams Facebook profile page.  New profile pic and cover picture.  If you're not "friends" with Gordo, send a request.  He updates as much as his little old paws let him.

My allergies are kicking my butt today.  I may need to up my medication before I go to work...don't want to dribble into the fudge or ice cream...Yuck!

Will probably blog more later...

Why is it always the French?

My back was so sore at work today.  Standing for eight hours (no sitting allowed in a shift) and then not sleeping well was tough.  We had to go to work this morning but are now off for 24 hours.

There was a run on the jeans department again this morning by Germans.  Wade tried to get a picture of the feeding frenzy but it didn't turn out well.  After they left, it took Wade and I a half an hour to put the shelves back in order!

Later we had a bus of French people come in.  One guy was at the snack bar getting some coffee and snacks but was struggling with our staff due to a language barrier.  Now, we have a little bell you ring when you need help and no one is over there.  This guy couldn't understand how much his food costs so he kept ringing the bell.  Our poor older staff member kept telling him "I am right here".  I figured that she needed some backup so I went over there.  The guy continued to use the bell so I put my hand over it and gave him a look like "if you ring it one more time...".  He stopped....

Today was exceptional because we got our first forwarded mail package!  There was nothing in it that was too exciting but it was nice to get some mail.  I'm now going to put some heat on my back and drink a margarita.  Time to relax until we work again.

Long, tiring day!

I started today with a great workout.  At the gym I did about 30 minutes of cardio and then beat the crap out of some unsuspecting stationary bag.  I hit it so hard, repetitively, that I have a bruise on my hand! I forgot my sparing gloves.  I did feel a bit grumpy this morning but I don't think that helped much.

We headed to work and it was such a quiet night at the store.  Quite boring.  The only interesting thing was that there was Japanese couple who were digging through the rock display to fill a tiny bag.  This wouldn't be a problem normally, but tonight, they spent at least 15-20 minutes digging.  It was odd.

I also helped some Swedish women find jeans.  Now, I'm not a shopper.  I don't really like shopping for clothes.  I go into a store and usually quickly find the closest thing that fits and then I'm out of the door. These women were so picky.  I worked with them for an hour and the woman who came in for jeans never did buy anything.  She kept complaining that they were too "bulky" in the back of the legs and butt.  How do you say "your butt is too flat" in Swedish?  However, her friend bought a pair.

Just found out that Wade Jr. has to move.  The people that he rents his house from told him that they have fallen on hard time and he has to move out (they want to live in the house).  Well, he has a lease until March.  He is going to talk to the legal department at the base tomorrow and she what he needs to do.  I'm thinking that we will be helping him move when we get there at the beginning of November.  Please say a prayer that this all works out.

Good night all...we work early in the morning tomorrow.

The Morning Shift

We worked the morning shift at the store today.  I really like it much better than the evening shift.  The mornings are always busier.  We had four buses and lots of walk in traffic today.

Wade talked to a guy who came in all bandaged up.  His left arm was pulled tight against his chest and his shoulder was immobilized.  Wade asked him what happened.  The guy replied that he was trying to go through an intersection and almost t-boned a tourist turning left in front of him.  He opted to lay the bike down instead of hitting the car.  He tore all the tendons in his shoulder and broke his wrist.  Wade could definitely sympathize with him.  I remember when Wade called me after motorcycle riding and asked me to meet him in the ER.   He had broken his collar bone and dislocated his shoulder.  It was painful to watch the ER doc "pop" it back into place.  I can imagine what it was like to tear all the tendons!

I had a funny thing happen to me in the store today.  This French guy (yes, always the French), kept looking in his bag as he headed to the door.  He would look in the bag and then back at me, then in the bag, then back at me.  So, I asked him if he was missing something.  I thought, maybe, I forgot to put his item in the bag.  He looked in his bag one more time and then he said "I can't find my wife".  Ok, now, I could come up with all kinds of sarcastic things, but I decided to hold my tongue.  Just as I was trying to figure a nice way to say....I don't think I put her in the bag, she came out of the restroom and they left the store.  STRANGE!

So Wade got his new 32 GB SD cards today and is really excited to load them up with video from his new GoPro camera.  If you are interested, my very technologically challenged husband has been posting videos on YouTube and now has his own Channel!  This link should take you to his Channel.  I'm so proud of him!  You may have to copy/paste this into your address bar.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIjbMNoL1ynHDXypBqGZGoA?feature=results_main

Today's wrap-up.

I spend the morning cleaning the RV and doing some laundry for the week.  It felt great to get organized and clean the place.  Gordo had a relaxing morning and even went outside (off leash) for a little while.  Wade forgot about him and came inside.  After a few minutes, I asked where Gordo was, Wade mentioned that he forgot him outside.  We went out to look for Gordo and he was laying in the sun on the door mat.  He didn't go far!

We decided to run some errands around town in the afternoon.  We ate at a little burger place and then visited the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) office to explain that their "road open to all vehicles" map was crap.  Showed them the picture of the Jimmy stuck in a rut and they said that the BLM does not routinely travel these roads or maintain them.  They told Wade that they pull a lot of people out of there.  Hmmm wonder why....  They tell people the roads are open to ALL vehicles and people get in over their heads and get stuck.  Fortunately, we were really prepared.  Most tourists are not!  

Afterward we went over to the "Little Hollywood Museum" (free) and took a walk around their old movie sets.

 This is from the set of "The Outlaw Josey Wales" movie.  There were a couple of odd buildings from movies we had never heard of.  The town of Kanab is called "Little Hollywood" because there have been a lot of western movies filmed in the area.  The museum was ok, but the best part was the two pairs of earrings that I bought for myself.

 Eileen the dork in the tourist pick thingy....

 This was in the little "town" they had built.  I thought it was funny the way that Mail is spelled.

Later in the day we decided to drive to the town of Fredonia in Arizona.  It is only about 10 minutes south of Kanab so I was hoping that we could get groceries for a cheeper price there.  Unfortunately, the only grocery places in the region appear to be in Kanab where the prices are very high.  We drove around town and found this sign....  Pretty much is everything you need...

 

On our way back to Kanab, we decided to stop at a Fredonia liquor store.  I made Wade go in with me.  It was so bad!  While we were there (10 minutes), the electricity went on and off six times.  It smelled really bad and resembled an episode of Hoarders.  

Now we are just taking it easy and we head back to work tomorrow.  Check back in for more "tourist" stories!

Wheeling....Where do I start!

We started off today at the Coral Pink Sand Dunes.  What an incredible place!

 They really are kinda pink.  Gordo got out and ran around like a crazy dog.  He really liked the sand on his paws but they turned all pink.  He got a big bath when we got home.

Wade and I cruised around the dunes for a while and had a great time.

Around 11am we headed out of the sand dunes (I was a bit car sick) and headed through Kanab to the State Park off road park.  It has some great views and some challenging trails.  We thought we would take an easy trail and just take our time.

We got through the wash and then headed out.  Look at the beautiful colors!

 Quickly, the ground was rushing up toward my side of the Jimmy.

Gordo took advantage of the ground being close and jumped out of the window.  He spent the whole time wandering around and smelling new smells.










Unfortunately, we had a bit of a problem.  At first we weren't too concerned, but after we tried to get out on our own, we decided to winch on to a bush and see if we could get out.  After two tries, we were a bit worried. The vegetation that we were hooking up to kept pulling out of the ground.   I told Wade that "too bad there was a big tree behind us".  He said that we could run the cable under the truck and pull it up, then he could use the truck to pull itself out.





It took us an hour and a half to work our way out of the situation.  There was a storm coming and I was worried that we would get hit with a lot of rain.  I was also thinking we might have to sleep                   in the Jimmy.

I wasn't too worried....I had brought three days worth of water, food, and dog food, as well as warm clothing and coats.  I probably wouldn't have had to worry about eating Wade Sr. or Gordo for at least five days.  Being the stronger of the three, I didn't have to worry about them eating me!

We eventually did make it out of the forest and back to our trailer.  After baths for everyone, I BBQ'd steaks.  We are now resting and thanking God we are home!  

Bryce Canyon National Park

Our first day off was spent exploring Bryce Canyon National Park.

 The day was kinda overcast but very cool.  By the time we got into the National Park, it was 68 degrees.  The pictures are a bit out of order but you get the idea.  It was beautiful.  The picture to the right was a Natural Bridge.  Also known as an Arch.

The picture below is from the "amphitheater" Those things that stick up are called  Hoodoos created by erosion.  It was pretty and we had a great time walking around.

You can hike down into the canyons if you want but Wade and I were happy to just peek from above.

Since I was a kid, I have really been into rocks.  There were so many rock stores on the way to the Bryce.  We stopped at three of them and I bought Christmas presents.  Sorry family...you are getting travel gifts this year!

 Gordo was a bit worn out by the time we headed home.  He slept on my lap all the way back.

When we got home I thought I should take a pretty picture of the area where we are camped.  The rocks are red and very cool to look at.  

We are hoping to go off roading tomorrow.  I stopped in the Visitor's Center at Bryce Canyon National Park and bought a Utah trailways book.  It shows all of the off road trails in the area.

Wade got his new GoPro Camera yesterday so I'm hoping to add some video in the near future.

Ending our first week of work!

Today, at work, Wade helped a guy from the Netherlands (who spoke VERY LITTLE ENGLISH).  The guy was going horseback riding tomorrow and he wanted to look just like an authentic cowboy.  Wade helped him pick out a pair of 501 jeans, a hat and they tried to find boots but that was a no-go.  He bought three pairs of jeans and a cowboy hat.  He will be really decked out for his ride tomorrow!

I also observed, while serving ice cream, that Americans want more ice cream in the cup and Europeans think I put too much ice cream in the cup.  Also, a British guy told Wade that we don't speak English...we speak American.   Five more weeks of this may kill me!

The boss got back today and all of the employees went into crappy mood mode.  It was kinda a drag.

Officially at 9:30pm we begin our three days off!  We are staying up late tonight and then sleeping in late tomorrow.  We are going to take the Jimmy out for a half day.  Gordo is very exited.

So Excited!

Wade and I have been working on our plans for our days off.  He went to the BLM office and got maps and he is readying the Jimmy and the GPS for our plan to spend the day off roading.  Now, before you panic that we are going out alone, we taking our three day packs as well as water for a week and sleeping/clothing for a few days.  We will also give our plan to our little campground people with instructions to contact the sheriff if we are not back by night fall.  I even have a Gordo emergency pack that we will take with us.

We are so excited to finally be doing what we really WANT to do in the Kanab area.   Gordo will have us full time for the next three days!  He loves to ride in the Jimmy.   I will post pictures of our off road adventures tomorrow.

On another note, my hands have experience an eczema flare up from work.  I'm pretty much allergic to all cleaning products except Windex.  My supervisor had me cleaning rocks yesterday and I'm pretty sure the product in the Windex bottle was not Windex.  I will have to check on that.  I even explained that I was very allergic to stuff.  I may have to decline to clean.  I can straighten but not cleaning products.  I bought a bottle of NuSkin and have used it for the first time today.  It seems to help.  Unfortunately you have to re-apply three times a day and it smells like nail polish remover.  Oh well.....

I realized today how much I love working with Worldstrides in DC.  I love my boss(es) and I love my co-workers.  I absolutely love working with students.   I'm thankful that I have eight months off to travel and have great experiences.  Some positive, some negative.  The bad with the good.

Looking Forward

We are off until 2:30 today so Wade went into town and got BLM maps for the off road trails in the area.  I guess there are hundreds of miles of open trails we can off road on.  Wade came back really excited.  This is great news.  It helps us to focus on why we are REALLY in the area.  We are working for a bit of Christmas money but we are also here to see the sights: Bryce Canyon National Park, Zion National Park, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, and all other things seeable!  We have three days off starting Saturday morning and are really excited to get out and do some fun things.  It will certainly make work more bearable.

I forgot to mention the drunk German from yesterday.  He came in and reeked of alcohol.  Now mind you, it was 2:30 pm!  He kept pointing his fingers at me (in gun fashion) and telling me to give me all the money.  Haha...blah, blah...  Smile for the customer....  Anyway after he went to another part of the store, he found the replica guns.  They look like old western guns but have non-loadable parts.  He then came over to me and stuck it in my face.  I took the barrel and pushed it downward and said "we don't point guns at people for fun".  He did it again and I then repeated the "we don't point guns at people" thing.  It must have been a crazy American look I gave him because he stopped.  I was ready to use my brand new Krav Maga move to remove the gun from his person.  He eventually got bored and moved onto the hats.  I watched as he stumbled his way back onto the bus.  BuBye!  Meeting all of these people from other countries makes me want to stay right here in America!

We had a bit of equipment failure on our sewer hose so Wade is out looking for a new one this morning.  I'm getting ready for work and setting up to make some pasta with meatballs for our lunch/dinner meal.  I'm going to make a bunch of pasta and use it for different things.

Two more days of work and then three days off!!!!!!  Eye on the ball...focus, focus.

A Lesson in Humility

Today was really a lesson in humility for me.  While at work the supervisor of the shift asked me to restock the batteries/camera display.  While I did this, she stood over my shoulder and told me which items needed restocking.  Wow...It was really obvious.  I had to say a prayer and take a breath because I wanted to come out and say something nasty (or at least, sarcastic).  I decided to let God teach me a lesson today.

I am really tired.  We just got the new schedule for next week and I think we will have less hours.  We also get Saturday, Sunday, and Monday off!  Woohoo!

Long Day!

Well today was interesting.  I got so much done this morning  before work.  I test drove the new gym, got all of our laundry done, ironed all my clothes for the week, and did the dishes.  We have a stacked washer and dryer in the RV so it makes it convenient.

We decided that since we were going to be working evenings, we would have our main meal at lunch and just bring something small for our dinner at work.  It worked out really well today so I think we will keep that going.

We go to work at 2:15 pm and worked an eight hour shift.  We both really don't want to work that much.  We were told that we would only be working about 6.5 hours a day.  Tonight was a solid eight hours.  ALL of it on our feet.  The up side to working evenings is that I'm not sitting, watching TV and eating all night long!  Maybe I can drop those last 30 pounds and get to goal this way.  Who knows?

We had a funny thing happen at the store today.  These French people came in and were trying on Wrangler Jeans.  However,  they neglected to use the dressing rooms.  At one point, a woman walked out of the dressing room completely naked from the waist up!  Wade Sr. had a bit of a shock.  He said "she was trying on pants, I don't know why she was topless!".  I looked into the back area of the store and saw two men in their under ware trying on pants.  I asked Wade about it and he said they had been doing that since they came in.  Come on people!  We don't want to see your naked bodies parading around the store.  And, for Heaven's sake, use deodorant!

People are Strange!

Gordo survived the long haul without us for eight hours.  He rushed out of the door as soon as we opened it and headed straight for a bush.  He was so glad we were home.  I threw the ball for a while and then he snuggled right into my lap.  I feel bad leaving him for so long.

Anyway...we will be finishing up our shifts this week but, if the hours continue to be long, we might have to ask for different shifts.  Good night!

First day of work

Today was our first day of work.  It was a long day of standing and helping people who didn't speak English.  Lots of pointing and guessing what they needed.  I learned so much, had a very full day, and had about five or six bus groups come through the store.  There were these five guys that came in and spoke Dutch.  We later noticed that two of them were wearing clogs.  REAL WOODEN CLOGS!  I always thought they were tourist souvenirs but I guess they really do wear them.

Wade had a nice talk with a tour director who was leading a bunch of German tourists on a Harley tour of the southwest.  I got the feeling Wade wanted to jump on a motorcycle and join them.

I worried a bit about Gordo but he did really well without us.  However, he was really ready to go "out" when we got home.

I also went and checked out the only gym in town.  It has serious potential and I signed up for two weeks to see how it goes.   We will be working in the afternoon through evening so I will be hitting the gym in the morning hours.

By the way I got the Internet working.  I was given permission to call the ISP and got it all re-set up over the phone.  The people in our little campground told me I was their hero.  I guess we are all a little more dependent on the Internet than we like to admit.

There is a lady in town who sells fresh fruits and vegetables from her land.  For $16 she will bring you, to your RV, a two large laundry baskets (one of vegis and the other of fruits).  I guess it's enough for three families.  I was asked if we wanted to "go in" with two other families for this service.  I decided to do the "local" thing and give it a try.    When in Rome.....

Background:

A little over a year ago, Wade and I sold everything we own and bought an RV.  It’s a 40 foot fifth-wheel towed by a Freightliner Semi which used to be a car carrier.  Wade “modified” it to carry our two cars and our fifth-wheel.  Four months a year, I work on the East Coast as a tour guide leading student tours.  The other eight months we are now foot loose and fancy free to travel and work as we want.  This blog documents our life as gypsies.

On September 14, 2012 we left for Kanab, UT.  We used Workamper.com and found a job at a souvenir shop for six weeks.  We loaded all of our stuff and headed west.  Kanab, UT is about 80 miles north of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and situated almost between Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park.

Oh my gosh!   I guess I never realized how much attention we would get in our crazy get up.  We are 71 feet when driving down the road.  People were pointing and staring mouth open!  We even met a lovely couple from Redding, California who took pictures of the truck and wanted to know if we had a blog/FB they could follow.

Along the way we traveled through the Rockies as the Aspen Trees were just changing for Fall.  It was so pretty.

Gordo was unimpressed:

We rolled into town on the 15^th and unloaded all of our stuff.  We were so tired on that first day that all we could do after unloading was take showers and head into “town” for dinner.

We decided to take a quick tour through town.  Quick is an understatement!  Don’t blink…you might miss it.  Kanab is a very cute town but very touristy.  I counted about 10 busses in our short time in town.  We found a diner and had dinner…  We were really shocked at the prices of everything here.  It is very expensive.  We decided to try to eat at home as much as possible and pack our lunches.  We are trying to stick to our budget and not dip into savings at all.   We drove past our new place of work and were pleasantly surprised at how cute it is.  I will get some pictures this week.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

The sun comes up late here in the shadows of Bryce Canyon National Park.  What a beautiful place!  So much red rock.  Gordo and I went for a spin around the camp ground and got ready for the day.  Wade and I were due to go complete paperwork for our new jobs.  We met our boss and saw all of the busses that come into the shop!  WOW!  Lots of people.

The highlight of our morning was finding a McDonalds in town!  Wade won’t have to go through detox for his Sweet Tea addiction and I can get my iced coffees. 

I am learning to slow my roll…  When we moved from So. California, I had to learn to live at a slower pace in Colorado Springs.  It took a while but,  I learned to relax and go with the flow.  I realized today that there is even a slower pace to life here in Kanab.  I found myself really frustrated because the campground Internet was out of service.  Since I am a computer person, I volunteered to work on the system.  Unfortunately some “yahoo” pushed the reset button on the router and it reset to factory settings, essentially nuking all of the settings that the tech did to get it going.  I got the whole think back broadcasting but the owner doesn’t know his password for the ISP.   I volunteered to call the DSL people but the person who has that information doesn’t work until tomorrow at 9am.  Slower pace….  No sense of urgency.  I’m learning.  So I did what any good tech person would do with an Iphone, I set up a wireless hot spot with my phone!  We are on limited use due to being limited to 2 GB of download data but, it works like a dream.  I can connect up to five devices at a time.  It’s all good….

Being Sunday, we thought we could drive by the six churches in town.  There two mormon churches, one catholic, one Baptist and two non-denoms.  We are going to try out one of the non-denoms next Sunday.  It’s such a small town for so many churches! 

Well, I just finished making about a thousand cookies.  It’s time to make dinner.  I will post tomorrow after our first day of work!