It had been 4 weeks since I drove up to the campground and started work. During that time, I had stayed close by, even on my days off, mostly doing hiking and reading when not working. I wanted to go 5 weeks before going back down to Porterville for groceries and gas. However, a look at the 10 day forecast changed my mind. A major heat increase is on the way, starting tomorrow. Up here, we are usually at least 15° cooler than in the valley, and the temps might touch the 80’s within 3-4 days, meaning mid 90’s in Porterville. So I went down on Monday night, 3 days ago.
Getting groceries is the most important thing to do, and then gas and doing laundry. I started my laundry first thing and ate supper next door at the Thai restaurant while my clothes were in the wash. Pad Thai with beef, extra spicy. That was so good! After my clothes were dried and put away, I headed to Walmart for getting a new phone card and contact lens solution. I did pick up some food while there, but they are fairly expensive on groceries. It’s not a SuperWalmart, just a 2/3 sized one that has less than half the amount of food as a Super. The city wouldn’t let Walmart do a large store, fighting them for 10 years until the company gave up. Probably trying to protect local businesses. After leaving there, I headed to Planet Fitness to spend the night. There is covered parking with big solar panel arrays on top at the gym, which allows me to sleep in, without the van getting hot.
The time was after 10 pm, so a few parking spaces had opened up. I like to park within view of the front desk, it makes me feel safer at night. The gym is open 24 hours during weekdays. Never had a problem yet with vandalism on my van or anyone trying to break in at that parking lot, but better safe than sorry. So I parked, locked up the van, and crawled into bed. There is a lot of coming and going of cars until after midnight, so I put my headphones on and went online to watch videos on my cellphone. I slept in until 9 am and took my time getting up, playing online some more until noon. I can’t be online much in the mountains, so it was a great pleasure to be able to do it there. I’ve been missing YouTube mostly, but also social media sites and the news. Eventually I got up and went into the gym. The long, hot shower was especially enjoyable, feeling fully clean for the first time in a month. Solar showers at my campsite have to be quick, with only a gallon or 2 of hot water. I went to Panda Express for a late lunch. Had my usual beef-n-broccoli, string bean chicken, fried rice, and chow mien noodles. I did some shopping at DollarTree for various things that I needed. Did some driving around town to see what’s new. In the evening, I went to McDonald’s for a light meal and then went to the movie theater. But none of the films excited me. I returned to the gym, and took a little nap. Woke up and went back online until midnight.
The next day, I was much more active. I shopped at 4 four grocery stores, hiked all over the downtown area, went to Black Bear Diner for an afternoon breakfast feast, filled up on gas, bought children’s books at Value Village for my free campground library, was given 10 more kids books from the public library, and then headed back up the mountain to the campground. I arrived with still a couple hours of daylight left. So I cleaned the bathrooms and checked in campers. Several of the campers had questions and wanted to talk. I didn’t get back to my van until way after dark. None of my co-workers had visited the campground during my days off; so trash cans were overflowing, bathrooms were dirty, toilet paper was running low, and some campsites looked quite messy. I don’t blame the workers, because they have plenty of stuff to do elsewhere.
The company is still way short on workers, about 6 by my count. 4 day use workers, a garbage man, and a relief camphost/garbage man. They won’t pay more than $16 per hour, and people can make $20+ working at fast food joints. California has the highest unemployment rate in the country at nearly 7%, but apparently workers still have little interest in coming to the mountains to work. It’s rather ironic, because campers tell me all the time that they envy me, getting to be in nature all the time, and being in a cooler locale than the hot valleys. But money is the deciding factor. So, service is going to suffer and many campers/day-users will just not bother to pay. I’m not going to stress about it and really could care less if the huge conglomerate makes a profit or not, as long as I get my pay. I’ll still go above and beyond, but only because I’m a perfectionist and enjoy seeing happy campers. It does get a little harder each year to get everything done, both because I’m getting older/slower and I’m receiving little to no help in the campgrounds on my days off. So, I’m always playing catch-up.
Anyway, it was a great weekend for me. I spent about $300 in Porterville, but still should be able to stay under $500 for the month. Won’t need groceries again for 4-5 weeks and probably not gas, either. Some trips down will likely cost somewhat more. If the temperatures are too high to sleep comfortably in my van, I’ll have to rent a motel room for a night or 2. And usually I do go to a movie, if anything worthwhile is playing. I did weigh myself on Monday, before heading down and then again after coming back. No change, despite eating out 4 times. I like that!
iggyvandweller 