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Friday, May 1, 2015

A Day In the Life of a Camp Host

I added a little section to Wednesday night's blog....  but I will repeat it again this morning.  We decided to finish loading up the motorhome and headed out to the park on Wednesday night and arrived about 7 pm.  Ahhhh that's better....

NOW WE ARE CAMPING! 


Thursday morning, after sipping our coffee and having some breakfast, Steve had to get out and about with his work as usual. It's a normal workday for him as Facilities Maintenance Specialist Advanced.....  ahem, it's a fancy title, but in reality, he is the only full time maintenance worker in the whole park! LOL   He does get some short term workers in the summer months to help with cleaning and projects. Mostly, it's all on him to get the stuff done. 

Here is a bit of what kind of fun toys he gets to play with:


This kiosk sign from another area is going to be repurposed and used at the camp host site for information and brochures for the campers.  Steve had to dig two deep holes for the legs.  Rut Roh, the dirt only goes down about 20 inches or so before hitting limestone bedrock of the Niagara Escarpment.  Ain't no digging deeper!
Plan B.... He will now have to cut the legs off shorter, dig out a big rectangle of dirt, set a frame around it, prop up the sign with guide boards to keep it level, and then pour in cement around the legs to hold it into place. Argggh what should have been a 15 minute job will now be a lot more.  So is the life of a Facilities Maintenance Specialist Advanced, eh? 


I got our campsite set up....      
Of course the doggers helped me!~ 


We put extra chairs around the campfire pit
for visitors or patrons coming to ask questions


I rolled the awning out and hung up the lights and do dads.... 
Whirly gig thing from daughter Erin runs on a battery and twirls in the sunlight


I put the flags out on the front of the rig to show our patriotism,
and our little sign from daughter Erin to welcome folks...


Here are our lawn chair recliners, each with it's own little tray now in place.
Between our chairs is our tote box full of camphost information. 
As a host, we are here to be ambassadors the park, and have local information and park brochures and handouts at the ready for folks in the park.  We have 112 campsites, a handicapped cabin, and 8 large group sites able to accommodate 40-60 people on each one.  Whew!  This is our main reason for being in the park as camp hosts at High Cliff State Park.  


Our other main task is to clean out the firepits and grill units around the park grounds.  For this, we get a fun toy to drive around the park.  We are trained and certified to drive it before we can become a campground host.  




Here is my fun toy, a "mule" ......    





This can be driven around to haul the ashes in metal buckets in case any are still warm.  I bring back my loads to this little cart and dump them into the bigger cans.  Later, Steve helps me dump the big cans into the huge dumpster located up at his maintenance shop. 




Of course, we also pick up any trash when and where we see it. 


Enough gabbing now, it's 8 am 
and I need to get out and clean these firepits out....


We got about 12 done together last night after dinner,
but we have a full park expected this weekend.

While Steve is working his normal job, 
 I have about 5 hours to finish up the rest of the campsites that need it. 

Off to work! 












9 comments:

  1. Nice gig you both have!!..enjoy yourselves!!

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  2. Somehow, I imagine that working in a place like that is not really work but a lot of fun. I know it would give me pleasure.

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  3. The last time I camp hosted it was to take over from the regular hosts who went back to Florida after being evacuated because of forest fires. I only worked a few weeks, but would you believe I found smoldering logs and sometimes regular fires still burning in vacated camp fire pits! That did it for me. My little grandchildren have more sense.

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  4. Having the camp host and maintenance functions be the same people probably means things actually get done! The 3 or so times I have told camp hosts about problems, they have said they would "report it to the rangers", and then nothing was done for the duration of our stay (2 weeks in one case).

    The Niagara escarpment sounds hard to dig through. We saw the other end in NY.

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  5. Thank You for your work and for the work of all the camp hosts out there. You help make things good for us regular people. The value of a site in the park is not nearly enough compensation. You have to like doing it.

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  6. You did a really good job of showing us the life of a camp host at High Cliff. Thanks. I like the container of info that you provide for the hosts to give out to the campers! Next week I'll be starting my summer hosting job again, and look forward to it!

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  7. Nice Gig. Hope you have an enjoyable season.

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