Unemployed

All month long it has been a challenge to get dressed for work in the motorhome, and get campground host duties done and show up for work.  All month long I have been thinking "I can't wait until I am done"  Well, now I am and I feel unsettled.  I keep thinking, "did I tell Margaret (my replacement) everything she needs to know?"  Is it really OK for me to leave next week and go to California rather than being available to go into the office for the Board meeting?  Am I really done being a lawyer?  For a long time, my identity has included being an attorney, over educated, and somewhat pompous.  Now I pick up litter and sweep picnic shelters.  I suspect I am going through a little of what most retirees go through - but am I a retiree?  I don't know.

Do you know the muffin man?

We are settling into motor home living. Everything has a place and we can even find most things.   Most mornings we start with a litter pick up walk through the campground and picnic area.  The bay is usually smooth as a baby's belly in the morning and the birds are all active.  I love the flock of quail that are usually scurring near the playground in the picnic area trying to figure out who is chasing whom.

We had Luke and Noah for the weekend and the weather was very cooperative.  Noah was very enthused to be here when we were "on duty" camp hosts.  He was really wanting to answer people's questions, but nobody asked any.  He did help with litter pick-up which he is very good at!  He was quite concerned when we passed up a bandaid in a fire ring because we didn't have any gloves or our trash picker-upper (technical term) with us.  He helped me open up the CCC interpretive center and was very interested in the history of the men who built the park.  Luke looked at the manicans dressed in CCC clothing and said that the one dressed as a cook was the muffin man. Did the CCCs eat muffins?  The interpretive center doesn't say.  The CCC program was an amazing program that really provided a lot of parks and community development in a difficult time.

The boys went to the moon and to mars on the playground, found valuable sea glass on the beach (and informed me that it is not beach glass) and played several rousing games of soccer with the ball we found in the bushes on the beach.  We now have many new soccer rules I have never known before.

When it was time for bed, we made a bed out of the dinette for one boy and another bed on a pad on the floor for the other.  I had thought there might be a dispute over who slept where, but I was very surprised that the preferred bed was the one on the floor.  I never know what will look inviting to the boys!

Mike spent time today talking with some campers who have traveled the Al-Can highway three times.  It sounds very exciting and we are really having a hard time waiting to go!  Mike is ordering books on the highway while his driving hands twitch.  We can wait, we can wait, we can wait . . . . . maybe.

Strange encounters of the trail kind.

We took a walk today out to Lighthouse Point.  The trail goes through old growth forest up and down a wooded path complete with the usual roots and rocks.  About half way, we passed two twentyish women dressed in short skirts, high fashon boots and carrying/dragging pink suit cases.  The were as out of place as a giraffe in the artic.  When we reached the point, we discovered what looked like a professional photographer taking pictures of a series of young women in bikinis, cover-ups etc.  You never know what you might find in the woods!

But the boys had fun!

Bernie is so excited?

Noah and Luke came to spend the day.  Look how excited Bernie looks!

One more

It's not fancy but it's home!

All the shelters, restrooms etc. were build by the CCCs

Our new home

We moved to Deception Pass on April Fools Day.  We have been here for four days and we are getting settled.  We now have television, internet and have had time for a couple of small walks.  Bernie is completely confused and somewhat anxious.  He won't leave the motorhome willingly unless I come too.  He wouldn't even leave to go outside to eat this morning until I was ready to stand by the open door so he could see me.  Maybe age makes him neurotic, or maybe he learned it from us.  We have had two wind storms and a lot of rain.  We are looking forward to better weather!