Our First Two Weeks

The first couple of weeks we were there life was pretty simple. There weren't any campers to deal with, just a few of the seasonal campers. We had plenty to do.

There are 13 cabins at the campground. Some are only sleeping cabins and all they have are beds, a microwave and camp a refrigerator in them. These we had to clean and wash down everything. We had to was winter out of the cabins. Had to make sure there were no uninvited guests. We had to change the plastic mattress covers and make sure there were no mice in or under the mattresses. Then there were the deluxe cabins. This have a queen bed, single bed, sleeping loft, kitchen area and bathroom. These needed to be cleaned and flush out the water line of anti freeze put in for winter. There were also 2 super deluxe cabins. These cabins have bedrooms, full size kitchen and full size appliances. We had to shine stainless steel appliances and clean carpets up in the lofts. We had to flush the water systems also. Had to make sure the electric fireplaces were in operating order. This took a couple of days. It was okay because you could work indoors.

We had the bathrooms to clean also.We had to deep clean the bathhouse from winter. We had to use heavy duty cleaners and good old fashioned elbow grease. The water system This not bad because they had already been flushed out by Greg, the maintenance man. He lives at camp, so when he opened the water system for camp, he flushed out the bathhouse.

We had the game room to clean and paint the floor. We first had to sweep and mop the floors. The machine had to be moved to paint the floor. This took days, because you had to do this by moving all the machines to one side of room, paint the floor and let it dry. Come back next day and move machines to painted side of room and paint other side and let dry. Then came back third day and moved machines and painted main walk area of room with an extra coat of paint.
We had to do the same in laundry room. This room was easier, because most of the washing machines were not there. They were being replaced so so machines to move. Only had to paint floors.

Then there was the picnic tables. There is one in every campsite. There are 126 sites in camp, so that was a lot of tables. We just started on side of camp and went site to site and painted the tables. We got 60 done when we ran out of paint. This took a few days because it would get hot in afternoon, so we only painted in morning.

We had two and a half weeks to get all this done because Memorial Day Weekend was coming. Campers were coming earlier because the weather was mild for Wisconsin. So the weekends before Memorial Day Weekend we did have some campers on weekends. We also had to take a few days off to return to Milwaukee. My mother passed away and we had to attend the funeral. It was a couple of sad days, but we made it back to camp and started to work. It helped get me over the hump of sadness. One good thing is when we came back from funeral, we brought Rocky with us. Then the fun began.

Getting Started

It was around March 15, 2010. My wife had just left her job working at a major department store as a cake decorator. The job had gotten to her. It was all it took to convince her to hit the road. The dog and I were ready for a long time. We were just waiting for her.

We were just going to take our son back to college from his spring break and hit the road. We were going to go to North Carolina for a month. Being newbies we did not want to go far from home. And we wanted to travel a little before heading up to Anderson Indiana for a summer job. But the day before we were suppose to leave, we got a call from Wisconsin and found out my mother had fallen and broke her hip. She was 83 years old, and this was serious.

We postponed our trip and made a quick trip up to Wisconsin, or so we thought. We thought we would be there a few days and then take our trip to North Carolina. But our stay ended up being 8 weeks in Milwaukee. It was hard, because we had to take the bus everywhere we went. You do not drive a 36 foot motor home around the city.

Then money started running out. My wife took a job in a grocery store for a few weeks. She did not do very well at this. She hated this job, but we needed the money. We were suppose to leave to go the the Indiana job in May, but we knew my mother was not going to make it very much longer. We wanted to stay near Milwaukee, but wanted to get a job in a camp. We did not want to give up on our dream.

I went on the Internet to see if we could get a job in a camp. We had been staying most of the time at a truck stop. This is okay for a day or two put not for a prolong period of time. I tried the Milwaukee area and did not find anything. I tried Madison and did not find anything. Then I tried the Wisconsin Dells area. There are plenty of camps there. I went one by one down the list of all the camps in the area. It was in alphabetical order. I call the whole list. I left our number at a few places.

I called Wanna Bee Campground. It was the last number on the list. I spoke to the manager. Just so happened his camp hosts had quit at the last minute and he was looking for a new couple to fill the position. I told him of our work experiences. The manager knew we were new at full timing it and working in a camp. He was willing to give us a change, but we had to come right away. Work was waiting. I told him that my wife had to quit her job, which was something that would not be hard to do, and we would be in a few days.

We got hired on Sunday, and got to camp on Wednesday. We left the dog with our son and daughter in Milwaukee to start with. We wanted to check out the camp first. From day one we always felt that we fit in there. The manager and maintenance worker and us hit it off good from the start. We knew we made the right choice.