Thursday, January 31, 2013

Where Does The Time Go?

Here we are at the end of January already.  Time flies; and it flies faster the older you get.  I have a theory that life is like a roll of toilet paper.  If you look at one square of toilet paper as a year of time, and compare the entire roll as your life; here is what happens.  If you take a few squares off of a new roll of toilet paper (childhood), the size of the roll looks pretty much the same.  So you keep using up squares; when you get to the middle of the roll (middle age), the use of a few squares is more noticeable.  When you get near the end of the roll (senior years), the use of squares really diminishes the roll until you get to the core; and run out of toilet paper.  Life seems to be like that.  I feel like I am getting closer to the core and the squares (years) go faster and faster.  Sometimes I wonder how many squares (years) are left in my roll.  That is a question most of us don’t know the answer to; fortunately.  Anyway, I digress.

I last wrote on Saturday.  On Sunday we found a small fellowship of our church of choice in town.  After the service, we found another walk along the Colorado River and took the dogs out for a stroll.  Later that evening I got a decent sunset photo.

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We are settling in to the RV Resort lifestyle.  This week Rosie started going to pool exercise classes every morning at 9:00 am.  I entered the first of two available pool (billiards) tournaments this week and also bought in to the weekly Texas Holdum poker tournament.  In the billiards tournament, if you lose two games you are out.  I played 4 games.  On my last game, I got beat by the only “girl” in the tournament.  Poker was a little better, I came away with a few bucks more than I started with.  Yesterday evening we joined in the Wednesday pot luck at the recreation center.

On Tuesday we received an e-mail from my friend Jim Schrankel, who is still boondocking in Quartzite, letting us know of a Workcamping opportunity in Hood River, OR, at a County Park campground.  After some e-mail exchanges with the County contact, we filled out an application and mailed it off.  If we are accepted we will be Campground Hosts there from August 11th to October 25th. 

This is an important development in our ever evolving full time lifestyle.   We live on Social Security and whatever I can earn with part time self employment.  The income that we have enjoyed from my part time work in the past has diminished greatly over the last couple of years.  Part of that income is tied into the contracting industry, which is experiencing a serious downturn.  The other part of the income is affected because I have not been in geographic locations that lead to frequent work assignments.   This Workcamping job doesn’t pay wages, but we get a free full hookup site saving us camping fees for about two and a half months, plus we will not be burning up a lot of diesel pulling the camper around the country.  So a dollar saved is a dollar earned; sound familiar?  I will post more details on the Workcamping gig when, and if, we get a confirmation that we have been accepted.

Here are the end of the month full timing budget numbers for January:

Camping – $481.50 ($15.53 per night) Reflects 6 nights of free Boondocking.

Diesel Fuel when pulling – $144.00

Truck Service/Repairs – $0

RV  Repairs/Service – $0

Generator Gas/Propane - $92.13(all propane)

Satellite TV/Radio – $103

Campground Pet Fees – $36

Laundromat – $24

Total = $880.63

Thanks for stopping by!

4 comments:

TravelBug-Susan said...

Good luck on your job in Hood River. Beautiful country at the east end of the Columbia River Gorge. I hope you will have time to sightsee.

owensontheroad said...

Yes, good luck on the gig. We will be in Oregon June-August working at a fish hatchery just south of Tillamook. We are saving quite a bit by workamping these 4 months here in CA. It does help for sure!

Coldheartedtruth Teller said...

I am glad to see you are getting involved and enjoying yourself. And a few months of free rent sounds great.

Yellams said...

Happened upon your blog today and will become a follower. Looked back through your posts to January so I could see which campground you're staying in. I remember seeing Caravan Oasis when we were there in winter 2010-11 and we liked it. We stayed that winter at Arizona Sands. Thanks for letting us share in your travels. Stay safe.