"Home" for a Visit

We finished up our season at Everglades National Park on April 13th. We are the last of the seasonal volunteers to leave this year. With the temperatures getting warmer, the humidity getting higher and the bugs getting hungrier....I can see why everyone leaves by the end of April!!

Our first visit "Home" was to drive over to the west coast and see Kathleen's parents in Fort Myers.  Because this season we only had two days off together, Kathleen made most trips to see the Stanley's by herself, so it was nice to have Fred along for this final visit of the season.  It was good to see Dad in better health and we hope that he continues to improve. We also enjoy all the great home cooked meals that Mom provides.  Of course we also were able to get some good Chicago style pizza from Aurelio's in Fort Myers!!

We made arrangements to leave the RV at our spot in the Everglades while we traveled to see family. So it was a quick trip back to the RV to do laundry and repack for our flight to Chicago on April 16th.

Luckily for us, we arrived before the rain did but it was a rude awakening from sunny and dry to record breaking rain and flooding.  

It's amazing how fast the grandchildren grow.

Isn't she a cutie!!!

We had agreed to watch our 15 month old granddaughter Tia the day after we arrived.  Thankfully, there were two of us, because she can wear you out! The next morning we watched Tia and her big brother Jonas.

On Thursday we drove down to Homewood, avoiding the flooded highway and streets. We stayed with Fred's parents there for the rest of our visit.

Fred's sister Patricia arrived from California so we had fun seeing her again. It was a busy weekend with several parties.  On Saturday, there was a bridal shower for our youngest daughter Jennifer who is getting married in June.

Kathleen, Jen and future MIL Margo

 It was an interesting gathering of women from the Stanley's, the Gold's, the Witkowsky's and the Totsch's. Jen looked like the beautiful bride and received lots of wonderful gifts.

On Sunday April 21st, we celebrated Fred Gold Sr's 94th birthday with a family dinner at Carlo's in Chicago Heights.

Esther and Fred Gold Sr

Thanks Julie for the wonderful cake!!

A few doctor's visits, visits with neighbors and a tour through our old house rounded out the trip. 

We are back in the everglades for a few days packing and getting ready to hit the road.  I promise I'll be good and share the rest of our adventures.

We are still Alive!!!

I know, I thought that I would be so good about this and it's been almost a year and I haven't posted anything....
So here's what we've been doing.

SUMMER 2012:
We spent the summer in Branson MO and had a great time. We were there from May 1st until Nov. 11th. We were campground hosts at Branson Lakeside RV Park.  This is a city owned campground and the work is easy. Kathleen worked two 8 hour days in the office, taking reservations, checking in campers and collecting money. Fred's job was a bit harder :) he only worked two 4 hour days and his job consisted of driving the golf cart and leading people to their sites. He says that the hardest part of the job was deciding if he should wave them along using his right arm or his left arm!!!
In addition to getting a free campsite, we also were able to see most of the shows for free.  This was a great way for us to know what shows to recommend to other people. There were a few shows that we had to pay for, but those usually involved a meal so the price was right.  During our time here we went to 48 shows!!!  There's no way I could have gotten Fred to that many if he had to pay for them!
We enjoyed ourselves so much that we will be going back there for the Summer of 2013 and I promise I will go into more detail about our time there.

WINTER 2012 -2013
We have just finished up our second season at Everglades National Park. This year was similar in job responsibility as last year (we were interpretive rangers). The major difference was this year we were "hired" as a couple as "Interns for the Nike Missile Base". Under this scenario, between the two of us we only had to work 40 hours a week compared to the combined 64 hours that we worked last year.  In addition, we received a small weekly stipend. Because of this schedule, Fred worked 3 days a week and Kathleen worked 2.  However, Kathleen did put in extra time giving tours to "special" groups.  The most notable was the Park Superintendent and a group from the World Heritage Site committee!! It was nerve wracking but despite my nervousness, Superintendent Dan Kimble remarked at our annual banquet that it was one of his 4 most memorable moments of the season this year!!!  So I must have been doing something right.

SPRING 2013
Our season in the Everglades has ended.  The birds and alligators are off to better hunting grounds and so are we....I promise I will be better about keeping up with my blog.

Bad Bad Me

I have to apologize for being so bad at keep up with my blogs. You would think that I have all the time in the world now to do this, but I always seem to find something else to keep me busy.  I have been reading an average of a book every three days....so you can see how I've been spending my time.  But I am going to try and spend the next few weeks getting caught up. Thanks for your patience.

Next Stop Branson Missouri

We were contacted by the managers of Branson Lakeside RV Park in Branson Missori to "work" for them for the summer. After working (really working) in the Everglades, this sounded like a nice easy gig.  Kathleen works two eight hour days in the office, answering phones, taking reservations, and checking in campers.  Fred works two four hour days escorting the campers to their site while driving a golf cart!!! In addition, we get a discount (mostly free) into most of the shows in town.

When people would ask me what was in Branson, I would say that it is the redneck's version of Las Vegas!!!  And it is, but in a nice way...  The town is very proud of it's heritage and it promotes, God, Country and Family.

On February 29th this year a tornado did go through one part of the major entertainment section of town.

While there was some serious damage, no one was injured.  Driving through town, you can see the path that the tornado took and it came within a quarter mile of the campground.  However, the show must go on and you can see the progress that has been made in cleaning up and repairing the damages.

The campground has 170 RV spots and no tents allowed.  There is a manager couple, 2 assistant manager couples and 11 worker camper couples here now. We've already seen at least three couples leave for other opportunities.  The campground is situated on Lake Taneycomo (which is actually the White River that has been damed at both ends), it still looks like a river to me. There's great trout fishing in the lake as it is feed from the bottom of Table Rock Dam to the west of here. (hint, hint Doug and Cyndy...).  It's a fairly busy campground, but from what we've heard, not as busy as it has been in years past.  It's definately not as pretty as the campground we were at last year, but all of the work campers are extremely nice. We are within walking distance of Branson Landing which is a big outside mall with lots of shops and restaurants.  We've learned that happy hour on Thursday's is at Texas Land and Cattle!! $2 beer and margarita's and 1/2 price appetizers.

Our campsite unfortunatley does not have any shade, so with this horribly hot weather, we are in the process of getting a second air conditioning unit installed (hopefully today or tommorrow)!!

So far we have been enjoying our stay here.  We've seen some fantastic shows and some that we were glad that we didn't pay for...  It's a totally different experience from last some and this past winter, but that's the whole idea with our lifestyle.

If anyone wants to come and visit, it is a fun place, so give us a call.

Leaving Florida

We left Florida on April 15th, but I have to include a picture of Fred giving his last Nike Missile Base tour at Everglades National Park.

This was a great experience for us, alot of work, but we really enjoyed learning about the area and working with such a wonderful group of people.  Thanks to the National Park Rangers that we meet and worked with Ryan, Julie, Larry, Glauco, Leon, Leslie and Kirk (and Dale), and Bob (and Debbie) and to the other volunteers, Jan, Barb, Tom, Laura, Hayley and Linda. We hope to see you all again real soon.

We had a nice trip up north, however,  the only place of interest that we stopped at on the way was in Huntsville Alabama at the Space Camp and museum at the Red Stone Arsenal.  This is where NASA did a lot of the research and development into the space program.  We also got to see some kids who were there for space camp launch some rockets that they had made.  We even got to keep a few that landed in the bed of the truck or on top of the RV!!.

It was great to see the family and to celebrate Fred's dad's 93rd birthday!!

Dry Tortugas National Park

We took a few days away from our work at Everglades National Park and visited Dry Tortugas National Park.  It is an island about 70 miles west of Key West Florida.  It was founded by the Spanish explorer Ponce DeLeon in 1513 . It was called Tortugas which is the spanish word for turtles, because of all the turtles that were found on the island.  The name was later changed to Dry Tortugas so that mariners would know that there is no fresh water on the island.

The national park is actually composed of seven small islands.

The largest is Garden Island where in the 1800's the US government built Fort Jefferson. It is the largest all masonary fort in the United States.

The fort was originally built to protect the United State's gateway into the Gulf of Mexico.
It has a wonderful history to it.  During the Civil War it remained a Union Fort and was used as a prison for Union soldiers.  It's most famous prisoner was Dr. Mudd the physician who set John Wilkes Booth's leg after he assassinated President Lincoln.

The fort was never completed due to the fact that it was so heavy, that it immediately began to sink into the soft sand.  In addition, the weather has also contributed to it's decline.  However, considering the hurricanes that must have engulfed it throughout the past 175+ years, it's remarkable how well it does look.

We did enjoy a wonderful tour through the grounds.  We saw some beautiful birds (Magnificant Frigate Bird) and tried our luck at snorkeling in the crystal blue warm waters.

A picnic lunch and a walk around the fort was a perfect way to end the day!!

Vintage Everglades 2012

Welcome to the Second Annual Vintage Everglades at Everglades National Park.  We had a great time at this event, but it did take a lot of work and planning.  The premise to this event is to educate, inform and entertain the public through re-enactment of people and events that had an impact on the Everglades. 

The original idea of this was the brainchild of one of the volunteers that we worked with this year Laura Marquardt from northern Wisconsin.  We were able to pick the era and character that we wanted to portray.  Fred had an obvious choice...a Nike missile soldier from the 1960's

It doesn't seem like a hard choice, but we had to find a uniform from that era.  On one of our days off, we searched most of the Army Surplus stores in the Miami-Dade area.  There were a few places I wasn't sure if I would be safer in the store or in the truck to make sure it didn't get stolen.  Fred always had me stay in the truck!!!  We did find a uniform that fit the era, but did not quite fit Fred (maybe next year...).  Then came the  next step, finding the patches that were appropriate.  We were lucky to find the rank patches at the dry cleaners at Homestead Air Force Base.  The seamstress had a bag of old patches that she had removed from uniforms when a soldier got promoted. We found 2 Spec 4 patches there.  The other patches, Fred found by calling other bases.  So his uniform was complete. 

During Vintage Day Fred 'hung out' on the trail with another soldier, Bob Layman who actually did work at the Nike site in Key Largo.  Bob still had his original uniform and it fit!                                          They portrayed two soldiers who were off duty and having some fun on the trail watching the wildlife.

The idea for my character took alittle more thought and planning. After much discussion, it was decided that I would be a 'Hat Shoppe Owner' in order to show how plumes from the Everglades birds were used as a fashion statement.





One evening the women got together at the chickee (screened enclosed pavilion) and made miniature hats that I could "sell" in my shop.  The hats actually looked very good!!

I then had to figure out how to make the shelter on the trail look like a hat shop.

I must say, given the fact that I have no artistic ability I think it turned out quite well!!

There were all aspects of the Everglades represented here from the sleazy land developer.

Reenacted by Everglades National Park's Superintendent Dan Kimball (dig the boots!!).

To Marjory Stoneman Douglas the author of "The River of Grass" and the mother of the Everglades

and Ernest Coe the father of the Everglades.

We also had the more colorful characters like Hayley (aka the Nike Intern who we worked with) who was a plume hunter.

Linda who portrayed John James Audubon

Tom Marquart who not only made the glades boat, but was the gladesman with the alligator skins.  And yes the boat did float.

To Eric, our very scary Warden.

One added touch this year was representatives from the Native American community

This was the Turtle Women.  She is a descendant of the Calusa Indians the first native Indian's of Florida.

This was Jumper Osceola who is a Seminole Indian.

It was a lot of work, but we did enjoy ourselves and everyone who came and saw the event seemed pleased with it.