‘Twas a rolling feast!
We pureed pumpkins near the Mexican border, got stuffed with turkey near the Canadian border, and baked cookies for Santa after a return trip south.
But that’s what happens when ya roll from a SoCal Halloween, to a PNW Thanksgiving, to a desert Christmas.
Yes, it would have made far more sense to just stay in the southwest for the duration, but then we would have missed out on Thanksgiving with family (hadn’t seen our older boy and his girl for more than a year), and that was important enough to us to make the schlep back and forth through the brrrrr.
RV miles traveled this quarter: about 3512
(Map does not reflect our exact routing, hence the mileage discrepancy.)
Escondido, CA, Oct 1 – Nov 4: What an orange blur October was. Our workamping experience at Pumpkin Station really deserved a blog post of its own, but I just didn’t get there. The quick facts:
- We worked 10-11 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the entire month.
- Service industry employment was basically new territory, since neither of us had worked directly with customers since college days. Quite a learning curve, that.
- Although our job title was Assistant Managers, we really had our hands in all kinds of tasks necessary to keep the business running: hay rides, tours, petting zoo, sales, stocking, cleaning, decorating, phone calls, hiring, scheduling and more.
- Our compensation included a salary and W/E hookups on-site with regularly scheduled tank pump-outs.
- Errands like laundry and grocery shopping meant late nights out after the work day was done, since we didn’t have weekends off.
- And that meant we used very little fuel and spent very little money during the month we were bound to the farm. Another bonus? Free home grown pumpkins after we closed for the season. I didn’t have to buy a single can of Libby’s for my holiday baking!
- It was both exhausting and rewarding, and we haven’t ruled out a return in 2020.
– A hungry goat (they’re always hungry)
– One of many school field trip groups
– Our site management team
Las Vegas, NV, and Savannah, GA, Nov 4 -12: So what did we do to decompress after a month of working together day in and day out? We took separate vacations!
Tim held down the fort in the Las Vegas area (and even moved the fort successfully from one site to another without me) while I flew to Savannah, GA, to join the girls for our 25th annual gathering, which we call FriendFest.
The ten of us met when our husbands were serving as naval officers aboard the same ship in the 1990’s, and we’ve gone on our own “deployment” every year since 1995. We eat until our pants are tight, drink until we stumble, laugh until we pee, and we’re gonna keep doing it until we can’t keep doing it anymore.
– Front and back of custom made FriendFest t-shirts, and perfect party napkins for our crew of retired Navy wives
Port Townsend, WA, Nov 14 – Dec 2: Although heading north in the winter is not our favorite thing, we do it to spend time with people who are some of our favorites. Fun fact: This trip made it so that we hit all four corner states in a single calendar year. Bam!
I used my challah dough recipe to make a turkey to go with the turkey!
Spoiler alert: I got it wrong.
Southern AZ, Dec 7-31: We had no specific destination in mind upon leaving WA, so our goal was to head south until we could stand outside without coats on.
Nope.
Still no.
There was no snow at Horseshoe Bend, but we still needed coats.
And hats.
In southern Arizona, they know how to put the mmm in warm.
We stayed at Lost Dutchman State Park in Apache Junction, Painted Rock Petroglyph Site near Gila Bend, and the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base Famcamp in Tucson.
And when I opened our blinds on Christmas morning, I realized I’d just missed Santa’s takeoff!
Where to next? Our experience at the August Escapees Hangout in Maine was so rewarding that we’ve signed up for two more in early 2020.
In mid-January, we’ll join a team of RVing volunteers in New Mexico at the Escapees Carlsbad Caverns Cleanup Hangout. Per the event description, we will “help the National Park Service preserve the wondrous formations of Carlsbad Caverns. On Monday through Friday of this Hangout, we will spend 4-5 hours each day underground, deep inside the heavily-visited parts of the caverns, cleaning lint and other debris from the formations.”
And to keep life in balance after our work time, we will then go spend part of February at play, at the Escapees Baja Mexico Hangout, with toes in sand, margaritas and tacos in hand.
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and/or Twitter for updates as we go.
¡Con sueños de la playa, hasta la próxima!
We started full-timing in August of 2015, but I didn’t think to do an annual review until the end of 2016, and it was just a listing on Facebook of places we’d visited. After that, I started using a quarterly format.
- 3Q 2019
- 2Q 2019
- 1Q 2019
- 4Q 2018
- 3Q 2018
- 2Q 2018
- 1Q 2018
- 4Q 2017 (doubles as 3rd installment of our Amazon Camperforce write-up)
- 3Q 2017
- 2Q 2017
- 1Q 2017
- 2016
I happened upon your site through a mutual friend, John Cook aka Sluggo. Will definitely continue to follow – this is something we’re thinking about doing in retirement. Love your adventurous spirit and your sense of humor! Cheers, Julie Lemmon
Hey Julie! John and I go back a long, long time, and we’re looking forward to spending some time with his family in July. Happy to have you here!