A Typical day at work

Several of you have asked about our work here and what we get out of it. I’m not sure it will make for an interesting post but I’ll document it here and y’all let me know.

It’s evening; supper is mostly finished before we even walk home. We cooked several meats out on the grill on our last day off. So it’s just a matter of reheating a protein and adding in some veggies.

Tonight was marinated chicken thighs from H.E.B. (large Texas grocery store).  Mark made street tacos with it…There is enough chicken in one of those packages for about 4 meals for us. I froze some for next week already cooked and ready to go.

It was a full 8 hour day for both of us, most of them are. We are campground porters. The recruiter told us it would be picking up trash and helping to move things around the campground. It is, in fact, 90% cleaning public bathrooms and checking bear boxes in empty campsites; then 10% helping to turnover cabin rooms, in the park. I don’t know if this is what it was always supposed to be or if COVID-19 changed the plan.

The job doesn’t start until 9:00 am. And for me by 9 the day is half over. My norm was to get up at four am and start the day. I make it until 5:00 am these days. We walk to work and it takes about 6 minutes (saves on gas money). There are 10 bathrooms with 3 stalls each and two teams to do them. We disinfect all surfaces twice a day. Our half is sixteen walls, 15 toilet bowls, multiple faucets, plumbing, handles, window sills and 5 floors twice a day. We use about 2 quarts of disinfectant each day. Each afternoon we check bear boxes in the empty campsites, to make sure the next guest doesn’t get a nasty surprise. If we finish early we help housekeeping with the cabin rooms that are here. It is physically demanding work but there is plenty of time for introspection. The first week we walked everywhere, all day; but the second week we got a buggy. I’ve never been so happy to see a little yellow subcompact cart, in all my life. We have to share it. There are 2 teams and we only have the one buggy. But I should have great legs by the end of summer.

What we “get out of it”:

The park has a $30.00/day parking fee. We are here for 12 weeks   $2520.00

There is an additional camping fee per day. But there are only two camping spots for a rig our size; and they are booked far in advance.

We get a space to stay.  (And what a place it is. We are parked in a private employee only area, away from the public. There are 12 spaces and there are only 4 of us so far. There are 2 on one end and one on the other end; and we are in the middle. The sounds of summer drift over to us from time to time. (Children calling to each other, a dog barking in the distance, occasional laughter, the smell of grilled meat, a car alarm. Most of the time it is very quiet) In the Woodlands that was $550.00/month and our neighbor was 10’ away

We get utilities. In the Woodlands that was from $150 – $275.00/month

We get an hourly wage on top of that.

We get a 50% discount in the store and restaurant on premises and there is an employee dining room where meals are even cheaper but we haven’t tried that yet.

We get a discount on the Motel rooms and the fancy, historic Lodge up at the rim. (Hint: If family would like to escape the heat this season; and not too sure about staying with us in Rufous…there may be options.  ; )

But wait we get even more:

 We’ve watched a young Dad running behind a bike teaching his kid to ride. We see whole families biking and hiking together. We hear snatches of conversation of parents teaching their children about the outdoors and woodsman ship. We see couples walking and talking without looking at a cellphone. We see children playing with children they have never seen before and might never see again. We hear words like “let’s play like we searching for..” We see college kids working their butts off doing all kinds of jobs to be here. We hear their stories of how many parks they have worked at during summer breaks: Working their way across American (they figured this out long before we did.) For some of them, this is networking in line with their majors, others enjoying the time away from the stress of school. We’ve met teachers making the best of their summer break and heard their stories, of where all they’ve been. And some retired people that show up here every season to get a little extra money and enjoy a different atmosphere. We see a different side of America; one we had lost track of, in the day to day grind of the everyday city life.

We’ve seen the forestry service help people reduce their footprint on the forest and still enjoy the out of doors. We’ve seen “recycle, reduce and reuse” at work and used in creative ways. We “see” the vision behind preserving these unique places across America. And the beauty here makes us want to see more of our national parks.

We’ve see amazing sunrises. We hear more birds in one day than in a “normal” week.  We’ve actually heard the pines groaning in the wind. And it wasn’t creepy; it was the bass counterpart to Mother Nature’s song all around us.  We smell the pines; we feel the breezes; we hear the trickle and rush of the streams.  The beauty of God’s Coloring book that is our world is unfolding before us one page at a time.

And will we do is again? Absolutely! It gives us a chance to travel, to see more, to do more and to keep our retirement account a little fuller for later in life.

 Our adventure here lasts until they close the park for winter, around the end of September to early October (decided by the arrival of snow). Leave a comment on what else interests you and let us know if you know something around here we really need to check out. Thanks for checking in. Follow us and let us know what you think