The move......

7:27 am - Thursday - 08/09/2018 - Southwest Harbor, ME - 69° F, 100% humidity, wind 10 mph out of the south by southwest.  It is raining hard as I write, and rained all night.

Today's blog post will be brief by necessity. At our new location we have no access to Wi-Fi as we did at SDC, and our cell phone signal is very weak.  Tony, my good friend, gave me his former Cricket phone which does work quite well here in Southwest Harbor. We went into Ellsworth to buy a Cricket SIM card, and activated the phone, however, we discovered afterward that it cannot accommodate a HOTSPOT , which would enable us to connect our laptop, and, therefore, enable me to type the blog more easily. So for today I am relegated to using this very small phone to write today's missive.

We were up at 5 am Wednesday to finalize our preparations to move to our new location.  It was quite humid, and we had the A/C going by 6 am. By 8:15 am we were ready to move.  Tony arrived 10 minutes later with his Chevy Suburban to pull our trailer out of site #78.  I moved the Newell out to the parking lot, and then helped Tony drop the trailer on his hitch. We were on the road heading south to his property 5 minutes later.

By 9:50 am we were ensconced in our new location for at least the next month.....

Tony's wife, Janet, brought us this sweet house warming gift.

.......we are happy with our new circumstances, and are quickly settling into our surroundings.  Life is good, and my blood pressure is down....it's all good!

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Goodbye SDC.......

5:42 am - Wednesday - August 8th - Southwest Harbor, ME - 69º F, 98% humidity, wind 1 mph out of the southeast......partly cloudy with a forecast high today of 76º F.  Up early as this is moving day.  My good friend Tony will be here at 9 am to help us move the trailer over to his property so we don't have to hook it up to the Newell for the short 3.1 mile drive over to his property.  Got a few things left to do before we role our wheels.  Rained most of last night and it is very humid!

Having made up or minds to quit our jobs at Smuggler's Den Campground on Monday afternoon we drove over over to my friend Tony's home Tuesday morning to take a look at the RV pad he had offered to us to use for as long as we need.  Tony and his wife Janet live about 3 miles from Smuggler's Den on the south side of Southwest Harbor off a quaint country road which is about 1/8th of a mile from pavement. It is very scenic and pastoral.......

 The RV pad with the in-laws' RV (they are not here right now)

The RV pad just after Tony moved the in-laws' RV....sweet!

.....Janet's parents keep their RV at Tony and Janet's property and come to visit a couple of times a year in the summer.  They are not expected back until mid September, so Tony offered to move their RV off to the side to allow us to park the Newell there and utilize the hookups.  Our trailer will be parked in front of the wooden deck you can see in the second picture just to the left of the gravel pad.  They have a very nice property, and we are truly looking forward to spending time with them.

After spending the better part of an hour with Tony and Janet we decided to head out and look for a new job.  There are several campgrounds in the area, as you might imagine, so we headed over to one near the Bass Harbor Lighthouse.  We really expected to visit numerous campgrounds to see if any of them needed workers for the rest of the summer season, with really no expectations we would find anything very quickly.  As we were walking into the first campground office we overhead the manager talking to a customer and telling that customer they were short staffed right now and were having trouble getting everything done each day.....my ears perked up immediately.

After the customer finished their business we stepped up to the counter and stated our purpose in being there.  He asked a few questions, and then handed us an employment application.  He explained we would work 4 days per week, 6 hours per day.....wait, what?  That was music to our collective ears!   It would be the same kind of work we do now.  We filled out the application, and as I handed it back to the manager I was about to say we could start next week (Monday), when he said, why don't you return on Monday after I've had a chance to review your application and call your references and we'll complete the details of your employment......perfect!  We have a week of vacation before we return.  Every day I worked at Smuggler's Den the first 6 hours was a breeze.....it was always the final two hours that got to me.  Now we'll have three days off each week to explore, and take care of personal business.  We left the campground walking on cloud # 9.  They do not have a site for us right now, but will probably in early September.....we can live at Tony's and commute the 3 miles to work at the campground until we can move our RV over there.  

By this time it was closing in on 2 pm and the humidity levels were off the charts.  It was so humid that even doing down to the beach to sit was uncomfortable, so we headed home to sit in our luxurious A/C the rest of the afternoon.

I can't tell you how seamless this change is becoming.  Before we even decided to quit we already had Tony's offer, and then the first campground we visit wants to hire us for the rest of the summer season with fewer hours required.....we could not be more happy.  Many say that 'things' happen for a reason, and I could not agree more with that sentiment.

Within about 3 hours we will have a new view out our front window, and will begin the second half of our summer adventure.......who knew?

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And then the roof fell in......

7:50 am - Tuesday - August 7th - Southwest Harbor, ME - 75º F (not a good sign for it to be so warm so early), 83% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the south by southwest......clear blue skies with a forecast high of 81º F.   

Monday was a hot, humid day here in Southwest Harbor that subtly belied what the events about to unfold.  The temp got up to 86º F, but it felt like it was in the 90's.  There was a little breeze first thing in the morning, but by 10 am it had stopped, and the air became heavy, heavy, still, oppressive.......and we, being the mortal human beings we are, began to sweat until our shirts were soaked through and through with perspiration.  

What, you might ask, did the hot, humid weather portend?  By 10:30 am two of our well liked co-workers had quit over an incident which had occurred the day prior between 3 of us (Alex, Tammy, and I) and the owner's husband.  We love working Sundays precisely because the owners are not here micro managing our every move.  Don't get me wrong, it is certainly their prerogative to manage their park the way they wish.  You either accept that, and take the paycheck, or you don't and stop taking the paycheck.  Nonetheless, we really enjoy Sundays precisely because they are not there.  We don't have to be looking over our shoulder wondering if we have inadvertently broken some unspoken rule.  

So, what happened?  Tammy, Alex and I were collecting trash as we do every day between 10 and 11 am.  As I wrote yesterday, we had only been able to clean 4 sites up until 10:45 am when we saw several RV's departing the campground indicating to us there were more sites to be cleaned immediately.  We figured we could get 4-5 more sites cleaned before our lunch break leaving Alex with 7, or 8 to clean after lunch, so we parked the company truck, jumped in our golf carts and managed to get 5 more sites cleaned in just 15 minutes......a good thing, right?

I was driving the company truck at the time we parked it out near the entrance to the park, and since I knew no one else would need to use the truck (the owners were not there) while we were at lunch, kept the key instead of returning it to the garage.  I was in the middle of lunch when I saw the Todd and his wife (her family owns the campground) drive up in her Ford Expedition.  I saw Todd exit the vehicle and walk over to our coach.  We opened the door and asked him what he needed.  He proceeded to give me a tongue lashing about parking the company truck near the entrance with black trash bags in the pickup bed, and then continued scolding me for not returning the key to the 'garage'.  Of course, I'm thinking "If you weren't here on your day off you wouldn't need the key to the truck so you could move it".  He and his wife were apparently driving into Southwest Harbor for brunch when they saw the truck parked out by the entrance with the the aforementioned black trash bags in the pickup bed.  Instead of acting like normal people, and just calling one of us and saying "Hey, we would prefer the truck not be parked out by the entrance with trash bags in the back, would you please move it?", they decided to come into the park and yell at all three of us......I was the last one of the three to be the beneficiary of their combined wrath over this 'egregious' infraction......think 'mountains out of molehills'. 

I was stunned, as were my co-workers.....we had never been told this was a no, no.  We thought we were doing something good by rushing to help Alex get 5 more sites cleaned, and somehow ran afoul of some unwritten, unspoken rule.  When I returned from lunch I found Tammy is a very foul mood......she was livid.  It takes me a while to come to a boil, but I was getting there quickly.  In just minutes a wonderful, happy Sunday was turned upside down, and we were all upset.

That morning we had discovered a leak in the kiddie pool, and Todd had been notified, so after he and his wife finished brunch he returned in his work truck to fix it.  Well, when Tammy saw he had come back she went into the 'garage' to confront him about how he and his wife had treated us.  It was not pretty, but, apparently, Todd had apologized to Tammy, and then Alex, but not me.  Tammy was ready to quit, but after the somewhat positive outcome she had decided to stay.  

Monday morning I pulled Todd aside shortly after clocking in for the day to tell him he had come close to losing 5 employees on Sunday with his unwarranted verbal assault.  He proceeded to apologize to me and I was thinking "Good, he's admitting he was wrong, and we can go on from here"......then the big BUT came......he said, "BUT, if you hadn't parked the truck there I would not have had to get mad"......kind of like the domestic abuser apologizing to his wife for beating the hell out of her, and then adding...."BUT, if you hadn't done what you did I would not have gotten mad and hit you"........uh oh!  He then pretty much proceed to say he was the owner and would run the campground the way he wanted and wasn't going to be held hostage by people threatening to quit.....it was then I knew it was over.  He had no clue it wasn't about how he runs the campground.....he and his wife do a great job of that....it's about how you treat your employees, and they are not good at that at all.

Within 20 minutes Tammy and Karen had quit and were packing to leave......two hours later Tony had quit and went home.  By 5 pm TLE and I had decided to quit......so five people, in the space of a few hours have quit, and there may be more.  I can't believe I am writing that.

TLE and I are at peace, and have already found a place were we can move our Newell, and take a couple of weeks to figure out what is next.  We're going to check around MDI to see if we can find another campground job for the next two months, or we may just just accept the offer of our friends to stay on their property indefinitely, and just spend the next month doing all the hikes and exploring we have not done yet.  It's all good, and I can feel my blood pressure going down.  You see, this is the wonderful thing about having wheels on your home.......you can change your view and be happy again.

And that, my friends, was our Monday......thanks for stopping by!

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How dry I am.....

6:08 am - Monday - August 6th - Southwest Harbor, ME - 65º F, 96% humidity, wind 2 mph out of the west by northwest......clear skies with a forecast high of 81º F.

It rained all Saturday night and into early Sunday morning, so we expected Sunday to be an uncomfortable day with temps in the 80's and high humidity, but a funny, but delightful thing happened.....we had an early morning wind that literally blew the humidity away.  So, even though it got up to 83º F Sunday, the humidity was in the low 60's percentile and it turned out to be a better than average day.  Monday promises more of the same.  I know when you read the opening paragraph everyday and see the humidity in the upper 90's you must think I'm nuts, or something.  The humidity is almost always in the 90's at night, but by 8, or 9 am it drops quickly into the 70's, then 60's most of the time.  Sure, we have had our share of very humid days lately, but what I describe is the norm, for which I am grateful.

I reported for pool duty at 7 am and just could not believe how dry the air felt.  Usually, on a humid day, we are all soaked with perspiration by the time we finish the pool at 8 am......not so on Sunday!  We transitioned from the pool to restocking the 'woodbox', which only needed 11 bundles of wood.....wood sales don't do so well when it is raining.  From there we began cleaning sites, but only managed to clean 4 of the 17 sites with departures as people were just not departing.  Many in the tenting areas were trying to dry out their tents and equipment so they pack up their cars and depart.  We spent time dead heading the flowers around the office, then turned to trash collection as there were still no additional sites to clean....customers do have until 11 am to depart, and sometimes too many of them do not depart until the last minute.  

As we were finishing trash collection, we saw that 4 RV's were on their way out of the park, so we immediately parked the company truck and set about to get those 4 sites cleaned before lunch....it was now 10:45 am.  We actually manged to clean 5 sites in 15 minutes as a tent site opened up as we were finishing the last RV site, so we actually ended up having cleaned 9 of the 17 sites before lunch leaving just 8 more after lunch......not bad.

Due to the overnight rain the bathrooms were quite messy, as one might imagine, and each one took us close to an hour to restore to a clean state.  By the time we took our usual post bathroom cleaning break it was about 2:15 pm.  We spent about 20 minutes spiffing up the laundry room, cleaning out the shop vac, and picking up a few bags of 'returnables'.  By then it was almost 3 pm and time for Tammy and Alex to end their day.  I had one hour to go so I fetched my Stihl string trimmer and headed down to the cabins to do some trimming .  That took me up to 3:50 pm and time to put away my tools, and clean the golf carts.  I clocked out just after 4 pm, and was home in the shower by 4:15.  

TLE had prepared a spaghetti dish for me to reheat for dinner which I did about 5:30......hahaha....I'm becoming a cook......well, maybe.  I got dressed again about 7:20 pm to walk down to close the pool and do my evening rounds of the campground.  I was finished with the pool just before 8 and spent the next hour talking with customers, and making one stop at site #110 to ask the folks there to turn their outdoor TV volume down.....I could hear it from 6 sites away.  He politely complied and I was done for the evening.

The air continues to feel dry this morning (Monday).....the forecast shows a high of 81º F, but based on past experience it will probably be more like 84-85......as long as the air remains dry it should not present a problem.

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'About Mainers'.......

5:12 am - Sunday - August 5th - Southwest Harbor, ME - 65º F, 99% humidity, wind 6 mph out of the north by northwest.......cloudy, clearing later this morning with a forecast high of 80º F!  Rained most of the night.....it's going to be warm AND muggy!

One thing I have noticed about 'Mainers' is they tend to double up on adjectives and adverbs.  For example, instead of saying something is very good, they will say it is good, good.  Or, if they want something to be very clean they will say they want something 'clean, clean'.  It goes across the spectrum.  At first I thought it was just one, or two people I work with, but as we have traveled around MDI I have found that most natives speak this way.  I'm not being critical, or even making fun, but just observing a local tendency. Okay, maybe I am making fun, fun just a little, but in the kindest most loving way possible.  I've asked my 'Mainer' friends about this, and at first they were surprised I asked, but after thinking about it had to agree that they all, at one time, or another have this tendency.

The other thing I have noticed is that there is no one Maine accent.  What kind of accent a 'Mainer' might have depends on whether he is from 'up north', or 'down east' (there is actually a region of Maine called 'down east), and one more region I for which I have forgotten the designation.  I have yet to master the nuances of each accent, so I will not attempt to portray them just yet, but I am working on it you can be sure.

Another thing is that on a two way road they will pass anyone stopped to turn left on the right, if there is room, without hesitation.  It's not that they seem to be in a hurry, because they don't do it quickly; it's just what they do.  In SoCal you would get a ticket all day and all night for doing that.  

A final observation about 'Mainers' is that they are amazingly friendly, helpful, and willing to give you the 'shirt off their back'........we have found that over and over again no matter where we travel in Maine.  In general 'Mainers' are laid back, not in a hurry, and willing to stop their car to let someone turn left in front of them when there is heavy traffic.  That is unheard of in SoCal.

In our almost 7 years of traveling we have been taking notes on places we might think about living if we ever decide to get off the road and live in a sticks and bricks home again.  Maine has been added to that very short list.

Saturday, thank you Jesus, it was cloudy all day, with lower humidity, and very cool......it was, but be sure, just a brief respite from several warm days coming our way on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.  I still managed to work up a good sweat by the end of the day, but was not quite as tired as I have been on the previous warm days.  As we have come to expect on Saturdays, we had 38 departures, which translates into 38 sites to clean before 3 pm......really before 2 pm as that is what the owners prefer.  We hit the ground running, and by lunch (11 am) we had only 15 to go, or I should 'I' only had 15 to go.....from 12 pm to 2 pm Tammy and Alex cleaned the bathrooms.  I managed to finish the final 15 before 2 pm.

I was home a little after 5 pm taking a cool shower, and awaiting TLE's arrival at 6 pm.  Another day in the books.  Since I must be at work on Sunday's at 7 am to help with the pool, I was in bed a little after 8:30 pm.....I need my beauty rest!

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Not normal.......

6:14 am - Saturday - August 4th - Southwest Harbor, ME - 65º F, 94% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the south.....overcast....rained a little last night....not much.....forecast high for today is 72º F, but Sunday and Monday will be in the 80's.....that's a heatwave for Southwest Harbor!

Friday was another warmish day.  You could just feel the 'heat' in the early morning air.....I was not looking forward to this day.   I've been in places where the temperature routinely hits triple digits in the summer time.  After a while you get used to it when you live in it day after day.  For some reason when it gets into the 80's here it feels the same to me as triple digits.  The older I get the less tolerant I am of temperatures above the mid 70's.  I really thrive when it is in the 50's and 60's.  All the locals say this is unusual weather for MDI.....not normal at all.  They also say the humidity levels we are experiencing are unusual for this time of year.  

At any rate you must push through it to get the job done, right?  And that is what I did along with my co-workers, Tammy and Steven.  There is no point in running through the things we do every day.....they are unchanging......wood, site cleaning, trash, bathrooms, string trimming. The only variation in the theme Friday was a stop at McEachern's Hardware to pick up some more wasp spray.....the Yellow Jackets are building nests at a frantic pace.  We get notified by our customers on a daily basis of another nest.  Fortunately, Todd has taken over responsibility for killing the nests......Tammy and I have become sensitized to their stings/bites and want nothing more to do with them.  Todd seems to have the skill to avoid being stung/bitten by them.  Fortunately McEachern's has stocked up on our favorite wasp/yellow jacket foam spray and we were able to get 6 of them this time.

Other than that it was a normal day at SDC.....well, normal except for the temps in the 80's.  We spent most of the day looking for shady places to work, and that is how my day ended....working in the shade.

The office was not very busy as most of the arriving customers had arrived by 5 pm so TLE left Sam to fend for himself the rest of the evening and came home with me.  I stepped out of my damp clothing right into the shower.  By the time I emerged about 15 minutes later I felt much better.  TLE handed me an adult beverage, and I sat down in my recliner to watch the end of the second round of the World Golf Championship-Bridgestone Invitational in Akron, OH.  This is one of the major golfing events of the year.....not quite Major status, but a big tournament, nonetheless.  By the time the second round had concluded TLE was serving me an enchilada casserole she had lovingly prepared for dinner......OMG!  That was one of her best efforts ever!

By the time I went to bed at 9 pm I was feeling myself again.  The forecast for Saturday shows a high of only 72º F......a little relief from the heat, if only for one day!  I'll worry about Sunday when it is Sunday.

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Local humidity.....

6:10 am - August 3rd - Friday - Southwest Harbor, ME - 68º F, 93% humidity, wind - CALM - partly cloudy with a forecast high today of 77º F.

As expected, after raining all night Wednesday night and into early Thursday morning, the morning air, as I walked to pick up my golf cart, was heavy with moisture....it was going to be a humid day.  The actual humidity was not bad, but when you live in the middle large grassy, very wet grassy fields, and the sun comes out you are going to get evaporation, which adds significantly to the humidity levels......I call it local humidity.

As I drove my cart down to the office I was still on a high from our 'weekend' which seemed much longer than two days.  Todd, Tammy and Steven were working on the pool getting it ready for the 8 am opening.  I recorded a time stamp on my new time card which will cover the next pay period of 8-2 to 8-8 and then walked over to the pool to help them finish their work.

We needed 25 bundles of wood to refill the woodbox on this day, and then set about cleaning the first of 20 sites having departures Thursday.  There were enough folks vacating their sites that we were able to stay busy until 9:50 am when it was time for Steven and I to begin the daily trash collection.  When we began collecting trash it was still overcast, but by the time we arrived at the office the sun was out and you could feel the humidity levels going up exponentially, and we were soon wiping sweat from our foreheads.  We were back from the transfer station just before 11 am so we drove down to the office to get our time cards stamped, and then we were off to lunch.

By the time we returned from lunch the sun was out in full force, and it was time to clean the bathrooms, which involves the use of a lot of water, which in turn makes the interior of the bathrooms even more humid than normal.  By the time we put the finishing touches on the men's side the perspiration had soaked our t-shirts, and I still had three hours to go.

I bid adieu to Tammy and Steve at 3 pm, picked up my Stihl string trimmer, along with some other tools and began trimming down in the tent sites (30's and 40's) where it was shady and a little breezy.  The time passed quickly and suddenly it was after 4:30 and time to return my tools to the 'garage' and clean my cart.  My t-shirt was still completely soaked with perspiration, and was I ever ready for a shower.

There is something about high humidity which just drains the energy from my body, and by the time I recorded the final time stamp of the day on my time card, and returned the cart to the garage I was 'all in'.  I headed home, took off my work clothes and jumped in the shower to soak the tiredness out of my old bones.

By the time I exited the shower and checked the humidity it was down to 67% and falling....Friday looks to be a better day.  TLE was home right at 6 pm....we went outside to enjoy the early evening air, have a couple of adult beverages, and light the Sea-B-Que so I could grill up some carne asada for street tacos.....a nice way to end a difficult work day.

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