We have a new volunteer here from Michigan, Jo who is from Otter Lake which is about 20 miles from my home town of Vassar, she has been coming here for about 4 years and is a breath of fresh air and a book of knowledge about this place! We also have gone out to eat with the volunteers on the southeat side, Sam and Diane, hoping to get together soon again, we really enjoyed each others company! Then we have Larry and Sandy who are full timers too and have also been coming here for about 4 years, then there in Steve who is in a 5th wheel and this is his second year here. Different people with different personalities!
We are already signed up to be here again in the fall of 2013 to the spring of 2014 and we have gigs in Michigan for May,June and July...We will be at Sleeper State Park for the month of May, Tawas Point State Park for the month of June and Port Crescent State Park for the month of July, then we are taking August off and do some traveling in the U.P. of Michigan since we have never seen the Porcupine Mountains or the Lake of the Clouds! We plan on leaving Michigan around the second week of Sept. so we can take our time heading back to Florida and enjoy some of the other states along the way! Hopefully my brother Butch and sister-in-law Norma will be able to follow us down here, working on getting them a volunteer gig! It would be awesome to have family here with us, they are perfect for this type of life, they love traveling and hate winter and cold weather, plus they have the sweetest personalities and love people and nature! It will help me get thru the holidays too since I had such a hard time at Christmas with missing the kids and grandkids so I plan on flying home next Christmas to be with them! What I would love to do is have them come down here and spend Christmas with us but the problem with that is we don't have any room here for them to stay, so I would have to get them a motel room which could be pretty expensive, so it will be easier to fly there for a few days!
The weather has been perfect here, 70's-80's during the day and gets down to high 40's to 60's at night, we have had a little bit of rain but it mostly rains at night, they say that this is the best weather they have had in years! We are going on an Airboat ride next Thurs. with another volunteer Steve and his brother who is visiting him, for around 3 hours with a lunch included. Can't wait, sounds so exciting, will be posting pictures for sure!
We have a little over a month before we are done here and since it will be too cold to head back to Michigan we are going to go check out the Keys for a couple of weeks and then head to our friends Annette and Barry's in Homosassa Fl. on the west side of the state by the Gulf of Mexico, they are gracious enough to let us park in there yard and we really enjoy their company, then we plan on leaving there around the 1st of April and slowly start heading back to Michigan! Hoping that Michigan has an early spring, don't want to go home to cold! Will be getting hitch-itch by then and will be ready to hit the road again!
Love this place, it is different then any other volunteer gig we have ever done, kind of like taking care of a large farm,like mowing, mending fences, keeping trails cleared, making fire lanes, brush-hogging, sign repairs, opening and closing the gates at night, cleaning the offices and visitor center, etc. so much different then camphosting because we have no campers to host, the only time we have to deal with people is at the visitor center two days a month!
Well enjoy the pictures and I will try to keep this blog going by posting pictures and updates! Have a great day!
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