Camp Hosts at McCormick - We are done!

The "fire ban" is lifted! We finally got to build fires. It was nice to see fires going around the Park in the evenings. We had to loan out our barbecue and our electric fry pan several times when campers would come, not knowing they couldn't use briquettes or build fires, and that is all they had to cook with. We got to have several wiener and marshmallow roasts before we left.

The previous camp host planted several tomato bushes before he left. We sure enjoyed the tomatoes. He planted big ones and cherry tomatoes also. They were a real treat!

If there were ripe tomatoes when some of the Park crew came in, we shared. But, we ended up with the biggest part of them. I will miss having fresh tomatoes off of the vine.

Since we retired, we haven't gone to Church in the same place for very long. Terry thought he would be off the hook for having to give a talk in Church. Well, we stayed just long enough in McCormick and going to the little branch in Halfway, Oregon, to have to speak the week before we left. They are very friendly people and we really enjoyed getting to know them.

Last Saturday, two days before we left McCormick, we took our pontoon boat home. It had rained all the night before. When we got up that morning, there was snow on all of the mountains around us. Terry let me turn on the furnace for the first time!

When we came back from Emmett that day, we saw the wild turkeys. There aren't too many times that you travel from Cambridge to Hell's Canyon that you don't see any turkeys--that is until turkey season opens They seem to know when to hide.

We also saw our first mountain sheep up close. We had seen one other one, but it was quite a ways away up on the mountain ridge above the dam. This one was hanging out along the road as we came down off of Brownlee Dam. Other campers had told us one was there, but we hadn't seen it. It has a tracking collar on it and was pretty scroungy looking. I get confused (Terry says that is not unusual) because the goats look like sheep and the sheep look like goats.

This is a picture of the park coming down from the top of the dam. It is a little blurry because we are moving in the truck.

They planted flowers and built a little fence by the restrooms at McCormick this year. When we got there, only part of the flowers were doing very well. But after lots of care, they finally exploded! That was usually the last thing we did in the evenings is go water the flowers. Lots of campers commented on how nice they looked.

This is Steve, one of the head maintenance guys over McCormick and Woodhead Parks. He usually did the lawn mowing and anything else that needed done. When it was hot, they started early in the mornings and when he showed up at the park, lots of times we were still in bed. Even when they started work later, towards the end of the summer, we were sometimes still in bed. We told them we were "retired" so we got to sleep in! Steve was the guy we called if there was any trouble. It seemed like most of the trouble happened on his days off, but he was always there for us. He is a retired police office so he could handle anything!

Susie was a maintenance person. She had to put up with all of the guys and always accused them of assigning her to "restroom duty." When she would come with Steve to mow the lawns, he would tell her, "Go ahead and get the restrooms, Susie. I'll start on the lawns!" But, the restrooms sure got cleaned good when she did them. It was lots of fun visiting and getting to know her.

Terry, another head maintenance guy, came with Steve to do the restrooms the last day we were at the Park. I think that at least the mirrors got cleaned that day! Terry and his wife also own and run a bed and breakfast at Oxbow.

It was a pretty dreary day the morning we left. It kind of matched our mood. It was a lot of fun being Camp Hosts. We worked with great people and met a lot of really nice people. We hope that we get to do it again sometime. They fed us a great dinner of all-you-could-eat giant prawns. I could only eat four, but I think Terry had at least ten! And then they even gave us a gift certificate for Home Depot.

We got back to Emmett in time to attend a funeral of a good friend. He was our age and died suddenly of a heart attack. You never know! We are so glad that we have the opportunity to live our dream and feel very fortunate to have good health and be able to do the things we want.

We are headed to eastern Idaho after we stay here in Emmett for a week. We will stay in Jill's parking lot in Rexburg. Terry is going hunting with Shay. Jill and Dan just moved into a house in Rexburg and I think she has a few projects for her Dad to do while we stay there until after Thanksgiving. Jill and I are going to Dugway Army Base where Sarah and Ryan live, fairly close to Tooele, Utah, to can pears. Thanks for reading out blog and sharing all of our adventures so far.