beginning to make plans

Rudee has started her radiation and we are spending our days on the far east side of Indianapolis. She has her first treatment shortly after 8am. She is done by 9 and then we find a place for breakfast and start killing time. We have ran some errands and went to a shopping mall and spent some time window shopping. The time goes by pretty quickly and at 2pm we are back at the hospital for her second treatment that lasts until around 3pm when we get to head back to the motor home. Only 3 more days of this and we'll be done! :-)

Yesterday we had a phone interview for another work camping job. The interview went really well and we were expecting a call back today with a possible offer. That call came in at 11:30 this morning and we accepted the positions! We are going to be working in Custer, South Dakota at the Crazy Horse Memorial! We are both excited to once again be headed to the Black Hills. We start on June 5th but can arrive as early as June 1st at the employee campground which is just up the road from our jobs. We are starting to get excited again and it feels great to actually start making travel plans! We are heading back on the road!! :-)

Several of you have emailed or called us with job leads and we just wanted to say thank you, thank you, thank you. We have not actually met a lot of you face to face but feel like we know you by reading your blogs and communicating over the internet. Your messages of healing, hope, faith and love have seen us through this turbulent time in our lives and I don't know how I can ever thank you all enough. One thing is for sure, you all have a chair and a shady spot to sit under our awning anytime you need it! I'll keep you posted.

still looking

We have been busy the last few days looking to replace our Mt. Rushmore summer gig. We thought we had a strong possibility working at Custer State Park for the concessionaire there.  We were starting to get excited about living and working there and were just about ready to commit when, after getting a little more specific about the contract, we found out they take $240 out of your check for "housing and meals". Since we would be staying in the employee RV park we assumed the housing fee would only be taken out of one of our checks. Not so says the nice HR guy, the fee is taken out of both of our checks for a total of $960 per month taken from our wages. We both felt like this was an excessive amount and have decided to look elsewhere.
We would eventually like to do some volunteering for a free site sometime in the future. I know several of you do this and it is a great way to visit an area and get a free site in exchange for a little labor. Not a bad deal in our eyes. Right now though we are feeling like we need to make some $$'s. Our insurance (thank goodness we bought that policy last fall!) is a high deductible 80/20 plan and our savings account is going to take a big hit. We are not destitute (close, but still treading water! LOL) but we do want to replace that small cushion in case we have another big bill pop up on us.
We do have some other options and one that looks very promising right now. We will hopefully know a little more tomorrow afternoon.

Speaking of tomorrow, Rudee has her first two (of ten) radiation treatments. Last Friday we were at her surgeons office to have a catheter device inserted for the radiation, is is called Mammosite Treatment. The procedure was a tough one on Rudee but she was a trooper and we hope the worst is behind her. We will be spending our days at or near the hospital for the next week since they do one treatment first thing in the morning and then have to wait six hours to do the second one. The hospital is about 50 miles one way to the east side of Indy so we are going to take a picnic lunch and find things to do to occupy days between treatments. Friday will be liberation day and they will remove the catheter after her afternoon treatment and we will be done! You all have heard of VE day, well this is our VC day, Victory over Cancer! She, of course, will have follow up appointments and tests to make sure there is no return of the cancer but we should be ready to travel after the Memorial Day week end. Hopefully I can start writing about interesting things we are seeing and doing rather then all this boring medical stuff. I'll keep you posted.

one step forward, two steps back

We just learned late yesterday via an email from Laura at the Mt. Rushmore Historical Society that she has hired replacements for us. We were so hoping they would be able to hold our positions until we could arrive but this was not the case. She had indicated early on she would do her best to accommodate us but I understand they have a business to run and need the help. We are disappointed that we are within 10 days of leaving here and now have no where to go. :-(
I searched through the "hot line" listings through Work Camper News and came across a couple of possibilities so I sent them a resume'. One of them actually called us late last evening and offered us a job as camp hosts for a National Forest Campground inside Custer State Park in SD. Does anyone have any experience (or know of someone) working for Forest Recreation Management? The pay is lower then we would have made at Mt. Rushmore and the camp host hours can be a bit "odd" since you live on site but the work seems interesting and the location is where we would like to be.

I also applied for positions with the Grand Teton Association. This job looks to be similar to the Mt Rushmore job but is farther West meaning a longer trip out there and more fuel $$. I would love to explore that area though.

If anyone knows of a paying gig out there for a couple of beat up work campers please let me know! We don't have to make a ton of money but minimum wage would be nice. :-) I'll keep you posted.