Planning ahead

We have started planning for our first year "on the road" as full time Rv'ers. I wish it was just as simple as deciding which sites to see next and "where are we camping tonight?" but in our case our finances just will not allow us that much freedom. Yep, like many others, we gotta work :-(. We are planning to work camp the majority of the year to supplement our meager pensions and support ourselves. We have figured our budget on paper over and over and over again trying to reassure ourselves that all is well but we really wont be comfortable with the numbers until we are actually "living the budget". Does this make sense or am I just being a "fraidy cat"?

When Rudee's job went south I joined Workamper News and KOA Work Kamper. These sites list open jobs at RV parks around the country and I wanted to see what was out there for us.

We have had some long discussions about our immediate future and have decided we need to stay in the Midwest for at least the next year due to Rudee's parents health issues.

I found a new job listed for next season at the KOA in Terre Haute Indiana. The terms seemed fair, not the best pay/site combination I have seen but far from the worst. Yesterday morning we decided to take a bike ride over and check out the park.

Terre Haute is only about 60 miles from Crawfordsville and is only an hour from her parents home in Plainfield. The park, like most KOA's, is right off the interstate but, after getting off the bike, we noticed the park was far enough away that we could not hear any highway noise at all.

We went into the office and talked to the worker on duty who was a work camper herself. She said she really liked working there and this was her 5th season but she was going to "retire" after this year and She said she would be happy to introduce us to the owner.

Keith came right over to the office after her phone call and we talked for a long time getting to know one another. We were up front on our rig since we are bigger than most and sometimes this causes some surprises when we pull into a park not expecting it. Turns out Keith is not only familier with our type of rig, he tows his 5th wheel with a semi as well! He even hauls a motorcycle on his and is wanting to add a smart car as well. Is this "karma" or what?

He explained the job, hours, pay and benefits to us and we told him all about our previous experiences and what we were looking for. The job would be to help in their small cafe so he was real excited when he heard me talk about my previous job as a grille cook. It was a long time ago but I remember really enjoying my job cooking on a "flat top".

Before we knew it he was showing us around the kitchen and offering us jobs, all we had to do was respond to his job posting on the KOA website and it was ours! We both had good feelings about the place along with Keith and his wife Mary who we only got to meet briefly.

We left there and talked about it most of the day while riding the bike. We even did the budget again on a napkin while eating lunch! Man oh man does that ever stop :-)?

We decided to accept his offer and responded on the website to him this morning. This is not the way I had envisioned our first "adventure", I figured we would be in Yellowstone or maybe the Grand Canyon or eevn the Rocky Mountains, not Terre Haute, Indiana. I guess it's all good though because this is a change of lifestyle, not a vacation right?

We have to be back in Indiana the 2nd week of April to start work and we are still looking for jobs for the first couple of months of 2012 (someplace warm!). The search continues ......... I'll keep you posted.