Where: working a spring gig at Three Rivers Resort in Almont, CO
So, we needed a short term gig, and Three Rivers Resort needed spring cleaners…match made in heaven, right? We just forgot to ask the weather to get in on the party, and the first couple weeks here were brutal. We’ve never had the RV so cold for so long, like 5 days where the weather barely made it above freezing. Thank goodness for free electricity, cheap propane, and JJ’s homemade heater box that keeps the black tank from turning into an icecycle!
March 27
April 6
Aspen catkins look so elegant in the snow
April 16
Thankfully, things turned around a lot in the past week, the snow melted, and it’s actually been warm enough to be outside without your cheeks going numb. On Sunday, we leave to head back to the Eastern Sierra, but not without one last sucker punch from the winter. A major bridge west of Gunnison was recently declared unsafe and closed completely. The shorter alternate routes go over some serious mountain passes and are supposed to get a decent amount of snow starting on Friday, which means that we’re taking the much longer route that stays way lower in elevation. Our 800 mile trip has become 1200. If it snows on us again in Mammoth Lakes, I’m going to pitch a fit!
The good news is that there’s been plenty of work to keep up busy. This resort has about 55 rental units that all need to be spring cleaned, and we’ll get through at least 11 before we go, including 3 of the biggest houses. We’re getting faster as the weeks go on and settling into orders and routines that make the work go a little more quickly. Still, even a one bedroom unit takes about 2 days, because we lay our hands on absolutely every part. I tackle the kitchens, including the dreaded ovens, JJ scours the bathrooms, and then we divy up the rest. We’re not getting much cardio in our days, but our scrubbing arm muscles are on point!
……………………………………….
Hartman Rocks is a BLM open area just south of Gunnison, and it was a favorite hangout spot for our cat, what with acres and acres of fun rock formations for climbing. There’s also tons of dirt roads that are perfect for walking on the first warm day of the year.
Even with all the winter, there’s been some little signs of spring around here, like visits from the deer herds looking for green grass and the baby-est of flowers starting to pop up.
Another sure sign of spring is when JJ kicks off his sandals on our nightly walk along the river and tries out the water. Don’t let the smile fool you; it was still dang cold!
If you think of us on Sunday, please send good travel vibes!
Where: last week of vacation before starting our seasonal jobs for the year. Current stop: Southeast Arizona and Central New Mexico
We’ve met a ton of new-to-RVing folks who are super excited to see the world. They plan to travel all the time, see new things constantly, and try out a different job with every season. That’s a valid gameplan but it comes with a huge caveat: it demands a ton of energy to keep up that pace, particularly when it comes to new jobs. JJ counted our unique jobs a couple years ago, and we had held about 19 at that time, 19 separate seasonal jobs over about 8 years! Yes, being in a new place to explore can be fun, but you know what’s not fun? Learning a new seasonal job over and over. (Especially filling out online applications, where you have to attach a resume, then fill out a hundred pages detailing each job, which is already on the resume!) And that would be why we decided to return to 5 weeks at a job situation that’s not our favorite.
The real-time update is that we’re now at Three Rivers Resort in Almont, CO for 5 weeks of spring cleaning for 50-some rental cabins. We worked here in the summer of 2018 and for spring clean in 2019. The work is fine, we love our boss and co-workers, but the Rockies just aren’t my mountains so I’m feeling quite homesick after being away from the Sierra for a couple months. Also, it’s a major downside to be in Colorado in mud season. For about 4-6 weeks, all the forest service roads are gated to prevent vehicles from tearing them up, what with the fact that they are nothing but several feet deep of pure muck. So, we’re here during the period where there’s just not much to do. To add to our grump, our household has been under the weather with long lasting colds and sinus infections. We are thrilled to have access to the superb county Library system, because after a day of hard cleaning while feeling sick, we just want to sit and read!
…………………………………………………..
But back to the travels to get here! Southeast Arizona has long been a favorite winter haunt for us, with so much great geology to explore. Indian Bread Rocks is a wonderland of textures with tons of little nooks to explore. We came across metates (Native American grinding holes), a spring, and a little stream that disappeared into the desert sand. We boondocked here years ago, with only a couple other rigs nearby, but the place was packed with new roads, new spaces, and tons of vans and RVs.
We’ve been to Chiricahua National Monument a couple times, and it’s well worth repeat visits. The most interesting thing is how few visitors actually get out and hike. The parking lots will be jammed full, but as soon as you get 1/2 mile down the trail, you hardly see a soul. If you’re up for it, we highly recommend the Big Loop to see all the sights. This time we hiked an out and back lollipop starting at Massai Point to the Heart of Rocks Loop. It’s really easy to take way too many pictures here!
My folks traveled through New Mexico years ago in their Lazy Daze, and I remember that the Bosque Del Apache Wildlife Refuge was one of their favorite stops. We agree! The main event is December-February, when about one gazillon birds come down to spend the winter and you can see 10,000 sandhill cranes in one place. We were a bit late to the party but we still saw a huge variety of birds, ducks, turkey and javelina. There’s tons of hiking, a great visitor center, and there was basically no one else there. Highly recommend!
In a little over 2 weeks, we head back to the Sierra to gear up for our summer job at Crystal Crag Lodge, where I’m thrilled to report that an average snow year is now being followed by a good spring melt. We’re hoping for the least amount of shoveling possible!
We fell in love with Tucson the first time we visited. We like the mountains and hiking that surround it on all sides, the varied food scene, the farmers markets, the public art and murals, and the fact that it’s a very wet desert, so everywhere you look is green. As big cities go, it’s pretty chill, but still has everything we need that we can’t get in the Eastern Sierra. We like to go to Sooter’s for our annual maintenance checks on both the RV and car. This time, we also saw Cutting Edge Collision to repair our rear tire skirts which were cracking all around the rivets. They were able to remove the skirts, so we didn’t have to live at the shop during the repair. We looked kinda rough for the week the skirts were gone but the new ones look great!
Tucson is a great eating town and big enough to have every genre we might want. When we first started visiting about 15 years ago, the ice cream options were very limited. Now there’s all kinds of offerings, from traditional ice cream to gelato to raspado shops to chains like Dairy Queen…and you better believe that we took advantage of those opportunities!
If you’re craving quesabirria tacos, you’ll want to head to El Taco Rustico. The shrimp and cheese tacos are amazing as well!
Tucson has gobs of farmers markets and the biggest and best is the Sunday Rillito Market with probably about 100 vendors. You can find damn near any veggie this time of year, but the real draw for us is a couple of the specialty vendors. Lasagna and More sells frozen, ready to bake lasagnas, with a couple gluten free flavors. I especially love that every pan comes with a side of additional sauce to pour on after baking…so much tomato goodness! Red’s Roasters does small batch veggie roasting on site at the market with portable propane tumblers. We got roasted garlic, red onions, a mix of eggplant and zucchini, tomatoes, and also some dried chipotles…I want to try making my own chile in adobo sauce! We also bought some homemade cheese coated in chitepin peppers, a fun stir fry mix of bok choy, squash, bell peppers and onions, and approximately our own body weight in regular sorts of veggies. I was in heaven!
JJ and I have eaten gluten free for over 15 years and while it does make us feel better, I have to admit that it limits a lot of our dining out choices. I’ve always wanted to visit Gourmet Girls Gluten Free Bakery and Bistro, where absolutely everything on the menu is something we can order! We shared a tuna melt and a turkey bacon avocado wrap, and agonized over the dessert options before settling on a chocolate caramel cupcake and a chocolate chip cookie sandwich. It was all fantastic, but I have to admit–I did not feel very good after this meal. While we don’t eat gluten, we also don’t eat gluten free products very often, and a whole meal of the stuff was perhaps a bit much!
Sabino Canyon is a gorgeous hiking area in the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson, but we’ve never hiked there before because we thought you were required to take a paid shuttle for entrance. Nope, you can hike in for free! On a rainy morning, we suited up with rain coats and umbrellas for the 7 mile round trip to Seven Falls in Bear Canyon. The desert was magical with fog shrouded mountain tops and bright green cactus everywhere.
This little thing was the size of my thumbnail!
Seven Falls
We only saw 4 people on our way up, and we had the falls to ourselves the whole time we were there. On our way back down, the weather had cleared up and the shuttles were running, and we passed probably 100 people! A giant tip for this hike is that there’s a lot of creek crossings, many of which are almost impossible to do while keeping your feet dry. We wore our Earthrunner sandals and just tromped though the water.
We spent a week of our Tucson time at Sentinel Peak RV Park, which is just around the corner from our repair shop and close to everything in the city. The park itself is nice enough, but the area is constantly noisy with traffic and sirens. For the second part of our stay, we moved over to our favorite, a Pima County Campground–Gilbert Ray. The sites have tons of greenery between them and feel very peaceful. We love to walk the campground loops in the morning and at sunset to enjoy the changing colors.
Front yard, back yard shots. Engines propped up to discourage pack rats from getting in.
At Gilbert Ray, we were right around the corner from The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, an amazing stop with a little bit of everything. It’s a zoo, botanical garden and natural history museum with more exhibits than you can see in a day. The Raptor Free Flight show is one of the coolest things you will ever see, where the birds literally fly right over the heads of the audience. We saw a Crested Cara Cara, a Mexican Raven, a Great Horned Owl, and a family of Harris’s Hawks. The cave display was probably for kids, but we loved exploring the underground passageways and pretending to be bats!
The good times are coming to an end, and we’re starting a slow roll to Colorado for a one month gig. In the cold. And the snow. We might be crazy, but we’ll be all ready for Mammoth weather in May!
Southern California was a great month long stop where we could get a lot of RV projects done, but after a lengthy stay in a big resort in the desert, we were craving something different. I specifically wanted nights cool enough for snuggling, lots of hiking opportunities, and some dark skies. Thank you Campendium, the best website to locate RV overnights! We discovered Sleeping Dog Ranch, a hobby farm just outside of Sonoita, AZ, with both RV hookups and dry camping spots.
And trees!
Besides fulfilling all our other wants, the ranch was filled with lots of animals who provided so much entertainment. There were cats, dogs, goats, chickens, turkeys, and even a couple peacocks whose call, no joke, sounds just like a little kid getting murdered. Every time we stepped out our door, there were a couple friends looking for love, and frankly, would have happily joined us for an overnight slumber party. The best part was the free composting service provided by the goats and chickens, who were more than happy to eat up all our fruit and veggie scraps. FYI: favorites were cabbage and apples, least favorite was citrus peel.
Scout is very annoyed that Sam is getting petted while she is not
The only javelina we saw was this pillow in the clubhouse
We were invited to go into the goat pen whenever we wanted, but cautioned against getting butted. We just opted to stay outside of goring range!
Google “Rock Star Chickens” to see the coolest ones!
The ranch is just outside the Santa Rita Mountains, near Forest Service roads and trails, and close to several nature preserves, so I had lots of ideas of fun outdoor adventures. It was just the beginning of spring, so lots of the grasses were still brown and the trees hadn’t yet leafed out. A couple of our hikes were a bit on the drab side, but it was still nice to get outside and “blow the stink off” as my dad used to say.
Ocotillos leaf out after rains, no matter the time of year
We’ve hiked a couple sections of the Arizona Trail that runs the length of the state, but what with a 25 and 50 mile trail run going on part of the trail the day we were there, this was the most interesting!
Cool cattle guards
We hiked to Kentucky Camp, the headquarters of the Santa Rita Water and Mining Company in the early 1900s. You can stay overnight in one of the adobe buildings on the property!
Madera Canyon is a birding hotspot on the northern end of the Santa Ritas, with hikes that go up to snow capped peaks. We’re a little out of practice with elevation, so we just enjoyed a 6 mile hike up to Josephine Saddle.
Blooming mazanita
Yellow eyed junco hoping for a snack
Four nights at the ranch rejuvenated us enough to face a couple weeks of RV appointments in Tucson. As big cities go, Tucson is our favorite, but we feel more and more like country mice when we’re out of the Eastern Sierra!
I’ve long had the practice of what I call my four things: health goals that I try to meet every day, especially when we’re off work and have some more free time. The daily plan is a walk or hike, something to work on strengthening the muscles and bones, stretching or yoga, and a sensible amount of sunshine. I realize that I actually have another critical component for each day–healthy homemade food with tons of veggies, meat and fat. For the month of February we are hanging out at Fountain of Youth Spa and RV Resort (FOY), which is just about the easiest place to ensure perfect conditions for all these goals.
This past summer in the Sierra was abnormally cold, cloudy and rainy, and we felt like we only got to experience about a month of really nice weather, so we were craving warmth. We’re just east of the Salton Sea, elevation 24 feet, where the winters are very mild, and we have the opposite problem from this summer….we have to be sure not to get too hot! We’ve stayed at FOY many times over the years for about a week at a time, but we knew from past visits that it would be the perfect place to work of the backlog of RV maintenance projects while staying toasty. We’ve washed and washed the RV and car, resealed the RV caulking and touched up paint chips, filed the taxes, and we just have a few odds and ends to finish up before we leave. A month might have been a bit longer than we needed to stay to get everything done, but the monthly rate was much better than the weekly one, and now we have nice base tan as well as a completed to-do list!
I really can’t explain how excited we are to discover that the Ping Pong room is never in use in the morning. It is truly glorious to do body work without bugs!
There’s 15 miles of walking paths in the surrounding desert
The hot tubs are the perfect place to relax after a long day
Brittlebush, not to be confused with a plant we have at home, Bitterbrush
Hiking groups head out into the Chocolate Mountains behind the property
The Salton Sea is lovely from a distance (Google it if you don’t know the story!)
JJ reprising his role as Piddler on the Roof
In between all this healthy crap and RV work, we’re also having some fun. The Greater Palm Springs area is a fun place to be a tourist with all the palm trees and blooming flowers, and swanky mid-century architecture everywhere you look. Plus, I was able to get a library card at the Riverside County Library! And no stop in the area is complete without a visit to Shield’s Date Farm.
Our friend, Melissa, lives close by in Pasadena, and we had a lovely visit with her, complete with tons of food experience that we just can’t get in Bishop. This girl knows how to show you a good time in the big city! We’ve haven’t had Indian food in forever, and of course she took us to a delicious ice cream shop for dessert!
Buddy and Judy escaped the cold and joined us for a few days of RnR. They were busy busy busy during their stay, sampling a little bit of everything the resort has to offer in between some serious lounging in the sun. We took them on a walk to see the nearby Oasis and old stone house….both of which are a complete mystery in terms of who built them and why.
After they left, a neighbor asked if my folks enjoyed their visit. I said they weren’t my parents, but it’s quite a compliment to know I look like such attractive people!
……………………………………………….
I’m so sad to report that Jeff and Darlene won’t be coming back to work with us at Crystal Crag Lodge this summer. Darlene’s parents are in their 80s and need in-home help, so the 4 of them are buying a house together in Mississippi. We worked with “Jefflene” for 5 summers and see them as family….family that will be sorely missed!
However, I was thrilled to hear that the CCL owner, Derek, was able to find an awesome couple to work with us this season. Matt and Janice have been full-time Rvers for a couple years and travel in their super cool retrofitted school bus with their adorable cat, Meowy. As luck would have it, we are both staying near the Salton Sea and we were able to get together for lunch. Matt and Janice have lots of experience flipping houses and are insanely handy. Plus, they’re just really easy-to-get-along-with kind of people. We’re looking forward to this summer!
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the next stop is a bit higher in elevation to get back in cooler temperatures!
Where: on winter vacation in Bishop CA and Death Valley National Park
This January was the perfect time to spend a winter month in Bishop, CA. The weather was really warm, really dry, and we got plenty of sunshine, except for days that I took pictures! 😉 JJ and I got in a lot of movement, alternating neighborhood walks with hiking days and finally even stopped in to the Laws Railroad Museum and Historical Site. In case you’ve never been to Laws, I highly recommend it….it’s probably the best pioneer history museum we’ve seen.
This contraption turns railroad engines around at the end of the line to go back the other way, using only human power!
The Borax 20 Mule Team exhibit is the star of the whole place!
……………………………………………………………………………………..
Our friend Jim is so much fun as an adventuring partner, always up for a day of poking around at old mines. When he heard about our outing to all the workings on Blind Springs Hill, that was his top pick for our last hike with him before we travel for a few months. He was in absolute heaven with each hole sending him into a frenzy of exploration.
This deep abyss was too dicey for us to check out!
The can dumps–trash piles– are a fascinating glimpse into the past
The many butts of Jim checking out all the mines
It was so much fun to have regular hiking dates with Jim while we were home, and we’ll really miss him while we’re gone!
At the end of January we headed out for 3 months away from the Eastern Sierra. I’m going to have braces put on when we get back to Bishop in May, and that will tether us much more closely for 18-24 months. This year, February-April will be a bit of travel, a lot of RV maintenance and repairs, and a little bit of paid employment, too.
Our first stop away from home was visiting Glenn at his winter stomping grounds in Death Valley. Somehow, we haven’t crossed paths since he last worked at Annette’s Mono Village in 2022. He’s about as easily entertained as we are, and we spent a whole day just walking and talking in a couple canyons near his job at Stovepipe Wells. We topped things off with a classic Glenn/Rayn/JJ smorgasbord featuring taco/nacho-y thingys and a whole mess of ice cream and baked goods. We can always count on Glenn to get us a lot of miles and a lot of food!
The best hike in the park right now is Titus Canyon, which is usually a 4×4 road, but is now closed to vehicles after getting washed out in a storm.
Badwater Basin is normally a salt flat, but since the hurricane remnants came through in August, it’s been a lake!
Natural Bridge
We celebrated 19 years together in January, and this guy still has my heart!
January weather in Bishop was phenomenal, but we knew there was no way for our good luck to last, so we’re now down in warm Southern California for a month. We’re staying at The Fountain of Youth, a very affordable resort with tons of great amenities including the most delicious hot tub pools, just the spot to soak our bones in between doing lots of maintenance on the RV.
Where: on winter vacation, current stop Bishop, CA
In a relationship, it’s really nice to have common interests, where you get to do something with your partner that you both equally enjoy. For me and JJ, one of our biggest joys is exploring the Eastern Sierra through the game of “hey, what’s over there?!” Everywhere we look is another interesting dirt road or canyon or old artifact from mining or pioneer or prehistoric times. I recently found a couple documents that allow us to come up with even more ideas at home: a guide to all the rock art of the Owens Valley, and the website Western Mining History that lists 1,488 mining claims just in our county. Bishop is a fantastic winter basecamp to get out and explore, and these recent finds are just adding more fuel to our fire. I love walking with a goal or destination, because it’s so easy to get engrossed and be out most of the day; it’s no chore to get so much nutritious movement when you just want to keep going and see what’s around the corner!
The Tungsten Hills are just northwest of Bishop, 10 x 10 miles of dirt roads that are great for loop walks, underneath the gaze of beautiful Mount Tom.
Blind Springs Hill is just southeast of Benton Hot Springs, so we look up at it every time we go soaking in the tubs. This area was a mining hub for about 20 years, from 1866-1888, producing around $5 million in silver bullion, until all the mines hit a fault that cut off the productive veins. By 1900 the boom was over and the mines were abandoned. There was never a town site in these hills, but there are mines, cabins, can dumps, old machinery and just stuff everywhere you look. We covered almost 10 miles and still want to go back to see the roads we missed.
I don’t know a thing about old glass, but it’s fun to see
Black Canyon is just south of Bishop, and has an offshoot, Marble Canyon that’s supposed to be quite picturesque. We headed up with no real agenda, and again put in close to 10 miles darting off in different directions, poking around in interesting looking places. Marble Canyon is lovely, and an easy hike up a series of little falls, but we turned back at the point where we’d have to walk in the creek….we’ll save that for warmer months! We also discovered two mines– one with a safety gate (or fun stopper, as our friend Jim likes to say) and one where you could walk right in, if you’re willing to balance on an rotten log suspended 30 feet in the air.
This is the “road” and we actually saw some ATVs headed back down this!
No, we did not go across!
We bailed on Jim last week when the temperatures were in the single digits, but on a more temperate day, we went snow shoeing with him and Myrtle up Rock Creek. We went up along the creek, starting at Eastfork campground. All our years of working in this canyon, and we had never been on this part of the trail! I’m happy to report that even though Jim has the unfair lung advantage of working at 9000 feet, we were able to keep up with him.
Fish Springs and Black Rock were little communities between Big Pine and Independence, busy with farmers, miners, and ranchers from about 1864 until the 1920s (when Los Angeles started taking all the water from this area, which is a story/rant for another day.) There’s so many old buildings and structures still out there, but hardly any people, because there’s no developed trail heads, just very very rough dirt roads. It’s perfect for rambles on foot!
This had a plaque “Union Mill” and dates of 1978 carved in the concrete.
Rock Art
Old mine with tracks coming out the entry
So far we’ve been to about 10 old mines in this area and a couple rock art sites. At this rate, we have enough to keep us busy for another 100 years!
Where: on vacation for a few months. Current stop: Bishop CA
As you may surmise from the fact that I’m penning this missive, we did indeed make it though our holiday gig at JCPenney in Reno and moved on.(You might also know from the title picture of a sign in a local park….which you would never see in a big city!) I don’t want to say never, but I just can’t see the sense in taking that job again, because we barely got any overtime, and therefore, didn’t make all that much. It sounds like the last couple years have been getting slower and slower with online orders; whether the issue is a recession or nothing more than customers wanting more real world shopping, who knows? But, with basically no snow in the Sierra, the Mammoth Mountain ski area has been super quiet as well, so that job wouldn’t have been very lucrative either. Thankfully, we made just enough to be off for a couple months, and lord knows I will enjoy the rest!
The one real upside to Reno is all the food options. While cooking life in the Sierra is a series of substitutions based on what you can’t find at the store, there’s so many groceries in Reno that if one doesn’t have a particular ingredient, the next one will! It was also fun to have access to Asian markets, because a Filipino co-worker told us about Ube, a purple sweet potato that’s common in Filipino desserts.
Step one is make Halaya, or “ube jam”, preferably while wearing your awesome pinup girl apron
The finished product is a gorgeous purple! These are Ube brownies, but really Ube blondies because there’s no chocolate in them
Speaking of chocolate, we also did our yearly chocolate stock up!
Our first stop in the Eastern Sierra was Benton Hot Springs, for 3 glorious days of blobbing around in our own private tub.
Now we’re back in Bishop for January, and making the most of bluebird days to walk and hike as much as possible.
Since we’re off every single day, it’s easy to get together with Jim on his days off, whenever they might be. Our first hike with him, in a nearby canyon filled with old mining stuff, was basically impassable– a good sized creek flowing down the trail, filled with ice encrusted rocks and lined with thorny rose bushes on both sides. After a good attempt at getting up to the mine, we said screw it and went out for lunch.
Myrtle summed up how we all felt after fighting the icy creek
Tinemaha Reservoir
Miner’s house?
The Owens Valley is filled with petroglyphs, some not all that far from Bishop. We set out on a brutally cold and windy day for the short hike to find a few.
And even more than petroglyphs, we are finding tumbleweeds, aka Russian Thistle, an invasive plant that’s really taking over a lot of the valley lands around Bishop. The movies make them look so cute, like head-sized little balls that just bounce through town for dramatic effect. But, the dried plants are downright nasty, covered in sharp spikes that can cut you through your pants as you walk in areas where it’s filled up all the gaps between native plants. Plus, these local ones are freaking huge!
We don’t have much planned for our Bishop month besides daily walks or hikes, cooking lots of good food, and a few RV projects. The past couple years have been much more hectic than we prefer and it’s lovely to practice being human BE-INGS rather than human DO-INGS for a bit.
Where: working at the JCPenney warehouse in Reno, NV for the holidays
My parents instilled a love of musicals in me, and along with all the great classics, I have a special place in my heart for the rock musical Rent that came out in 1996. One of the main songs is “Seasons of love” that ponders how to best quantify a year of “five hundred twenty five six hundred minutes”–“in daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee?” The other day at work at the JCPenney, I realized that we are in the middle of our sixth season of holiday warehouse work– each season about 2 months long–which means we’ve spent one year of our lives (or 525,600 minutes) doing this kind of job. Kinda makes you think!
We’ve never found any income as lucrative at this time of year; on the flip side are the millions of “jobs” available in snowbird locales that just want to trade part time work for a free RV spot. A free site is lovely but you can’t pay your bills with it! We’ve worked at Amazons in Nevada, Texas and Indiana, and now three times at JCPenney in Reno, and generally earn about 10,000-15,000 in seven or eight weeks with very few days off. While the money is good, there’s also huge tradeoffs that come along with that kind of labor, like very little free time with the long hours and a huge physical toll after 15-18 miles of walking on concrete every day. We work alongside folks who have done the same job in the warehouse for years or even decades and can’t fathom how anyone can do it forever.
I don’t mean to sound like I’m complaining about a situation we willingly entered. But, this scenario is definitely one of the less glamorous parts of full-time seasonal work, and one that I didn’t hear much about before we went out on the road. When I realized that we’ve devoted one year of our lives toward something that takes such a toll on us, it made me think that I’d love to explore other ideas for winter work, and be open to an assignment that I haven’t even dreamed of yet.
I’m looking forward to a couple months off to daydream about possibilities.
p.s. Do yourself a favor and listen to the score of Rent!
Where: working a holiday gig for the JCPenney warehouse in Reno, NV
All good things come to an end, and often all too soon; our season was over at Crystal Crag Lodge after what felt like only a couple weeks of spring and summer. (In fairness, when you are still shoveling til the beginning of July, that is honestly a very short summer!) When I returned from my Dad’s funeral in Ohio, we only had a couple days left in the Eastern Sierra and we made the most of them, camping at Horton Creek Campground with views over the Owens Valley, and daily hikes up in the Sierra.
I’ve been working on strengthening a foot issue since the early part of the year, and the one nice part about it is that I felt justified in going on a lot of shorter hikes. In past years, we’ve focused on longer and longer hikes in order to get deeper into the Sierra, and mostly ignored anything under about 8 miles as just being too short for our liking. This summer, we explored lots of those front country locations and saw all kinds of places that were new to us.
One new to us hike was 7 mile Chocolate Lakes Loop that circumnavigates the Hershey Kiss shaped and colored Chocolate Peak and passes all sorts of lakes and little tarns. We got moving early on a frosty morning and didn’t see a soul for hours. The trails out of Bishop are really cool, because you feel like you’re in the High Sierra right away.
Chocolate Peak
Lasts of the season, both the flowers and the sandals
I look back on pictures like this and this and think that it can’t be real!
Lamarck Lakes is a place we’ve been before, but the one time we hiked to Upper Lamarck, so much smoke was rolling in that we could barely see it. This time around was gorgeous blue skies.
Nature’s ice rink
I’ve always though that Lower Lamarck Lake is one of the prettiest in the Sierra.
Upper Lamarck, sans smoke!
I’d love to come back here for a backpack and wake up to this view!
At the end of October, we moved up to Reno to work at the JCPenney warehouse for the holidays. I cried as we were driving away from Bishop; Reno is just so brown, and so big, and so loud, and I was sad to leave the Eastern Sierra when the fall weather was still just perfect for hiking. But here’s the truth we’ve figured out about the workamping world in the winter: if you’re not doing online work, there’s two main types of jobs, long term and low key and low pay, or super intense and short and high pay. After 2 winters working the whole season only part time, we’re ready to consolidate our work life now so as to maximize our play time later. It sounded better in theory a couple months ago, but I know I’ll love the opportunity to be off for a few months this winter.
Holiday warehouse work is fast paced and stressful, and in Nevada with loosy-goosy labor laws, it also means a crapton of overtime. We had 2 consecutive days off 2 weekends in a row, and we got in a lot of chores to make our future easier (yeah stocked freezer!), and also got out for some chill outings in and around Reno.
Just across the lake from our RV park is miles and miles of dirt roads
Jeff and Darlene at Steve’s Homemade Ice Cream in Fernley–they’re working at JCPenney too.
Monument to the Basque
The Wilber D. May Arboretum is the gem of Reno. I could walk here every day.
Have you ever seen a Coot’s feet before?
Rancho San Rafael Regional Park is great too!
Future weeks will be much longer and we’ll be working 9.5 hour days, at least 6 days a week. On the upside, we’ve been told that the dreaded 13 days straight after Thanksgiving might just be 9 days in a row, maybe. I may not be around here for a bit, but rest assured that on any day off, we’ll get out for some sunshine and nature, do some stretching, and eat the biggest bowl of ice cream you’ve ever seen!
holdingintentionalspace 