The Livingston park feels less like a fulltimer retirement community and more like a college campus. Sure, most of the people are over 65, but they defy their ages. There are clubhouses and activity halls, and the calendar was so packed with activities every day, I couldn’t keep up.

One day I went over to join a yoga class, snickering to myself that it was probably going to be chair-yoga or something like that, but nope, it turned out to be a pretty good workout that even left me a little sore the next day!

One of the highlights of our visit was attending their daily social hour. OK, so there were no cocktails (oops, we showed up with some!) and sure, the meeting started out with obituary announcements, but still, after that sad business was over with, we got to hear the founders of Escapees, Joe and Kay Peterson, give the weekly talk. Joe and Kay have been RVing since 1970, when they sold their stuff and hit the road in their early 40s!

Joe and Kay are a kick! I hope Jim and I are as active and happy as they are when we hit old-timer status. They’ve lived an amazing life, truly something to aspire to. And the group they created is truly a testament to how people with a common identity and purpose can create a tight-knit community that’s as close to utopia as possible. I wish more towns across America were like this.

We reminisced about our summer workamping at the ranch, sipped cocktails, went swimming at one of their various club house pools, and enjoyed a quick nine holes of golf on the putting course outside their rig’s door. This pristine RV resort also boasts a full 18 hole course complete with hazards that include sand traps, a lake, and park model windows. But the manicured grass and level greens of Rancho Casa Blanca pale in comparison to the links at Gopher Flats in Slab City.

Winter Rules always apply at Gopher Flats Country Club. This may sound surprising when you consider winter probably lasts less than a week here on the slabs near Niland, CA. But one look around will explain why “preferred lies” are accepted on this course.

This is a simple way of saying that golfers may improve their lies in certain areas of the course. But at Gopher Flats it means two things: 1. Players can feel free to re-place their ball if hindered by say, a sage brush or broken beer bottle, and 2. Blatant lies about one’s score are not just accepted, but expected.

Gopher Flats is a Bob Unden signature course. Designed and created by Bob and Nancy Unden, the course makes fine use of the barren terrain. If you can find it, you will notice each hole has a tee with the distance clearly marked.

Flags are in place on the browns – you really can’t call them greens – and the cups are 8″ wide, which makes up for the bumpy rock hardpan. But that’s why you’ll also find a piece of carpet on a rope near each flag. Players are required to smooth the “greens” or pay the consequences if they don’t.

A few details make Gopher Flats shine above other RV golf resorts. For starters, the greens fees: Free! Yes, Gopher Flats is free, and open to the public 24/7 every day of the year. And not only scorecards and pencils are provided. Players have access to a wide selection of clubs at their disposal.

Sure, some of these club should have been disposed of long ago but what do you want for nothing? There are three bags, drivers and irons of all sizes, wedges and putters, both right and left handed. An ample supply of balls is also for the taking.

Every hole at Gopher Flats is a par 3, but when René and I played nine she shot a 59 to my 44. Do the math, and keep in mind that bit about preferred lies.

Later when we attempted an afternoon foursome with Flux and SkinnyChef, we only got through half of nine before calling it quits.

Perhaps it was the pending sunset with us a half mile from home in the middle of the desert, or perhpas it was all the Early Times, but a fun time was had by all nonetheless.

What makes Gopher Flats a must-play for any RV golfer, however, isn’t just the views, free equipment, or the beetle colonies living in the cups. It’s the fact that you can play with a front row seat to the U.S. Navy’s Chocolate Mountain bombing range.

Military helicopters can frequently be seen buzzing overhead and heard firing their big guns. Not knowing when the next fighter jet might fly by or another ground-thumping explosion might come in the distance adds excitment to every hole. And very rarely has anyone ever stumbled upon an unexploded ordnance.

What kind of work environment are you most comfortable in?

Are you someone who craves structure? Do you work best when you act as one integral cog in a large corporate machine? Are you more comfortable when working within a well-defined job description? If the answer to all of these is “Yes”, then perhaps you should focus your search on large organizations, like State and National Parks.

Because workamping job descriptions can sound identical from place to place, but how those jobs are managed from the top down can make all the difference in the world when it comes to your happiness, and that of your co-workers’.

Is Workamping for Mom and Pop for You?

When we first saw the Vickers Ranch workamping ad, the job descriptions were a little vague. It went something like “Help out with ranch duties and have fun.” We knew that Jim would do maintenance and ranch hand stuff, and I would be cleaning rental cabins. But we were told there would be other unforeseen duties too, so flexibility was a must. Things could change daily. Some days we would work 8 hours, others maybe 4. We might get 2 days off a week, or none.

Call us crazy, but it sounded like the perfect job. We love working in small businesses. Jim’s always worked for companies with less than 50 people, and I’ve found that I thrive in those with fewer than 20. I love the challenge of wearing many hats, and never really knowing what to expect from day to day.

If you haven’t worked in a small business before, or disliked working at one, here’s why you should stay away from small, family owned RV parks and resorts when you apply for workamping jobs, even though they sound like fun.

In a Mom and Pop business, there is no set routine.
Owners often fly by the seat of their pants and make things up on the go to keep things running. Situations can change radically from the minute you start your day, to the second you clock out. As an employee, you’ll often be asked to do things outside of your job description. And even if you aren’t asked to do something, you should have the wherewithal to know when it’s time to look around for projects that need to get done, and successfully execute them without needing much direction.

In a Mom and Pop business, “the business” and “the home” are the same.
Entrepreneurs have little time for anything but the business, and if they have paid staff, they’ll often ask them to do things to help make their home lives a little easier. I can’t count the times I’ve ordered gifts for bosses partners, or made personal travel arrangements, and I never gave it a second thought.

At the ranch, if things were slow, I would help Paulette out in her yard. She, like me, loves to dig in the dirt, but gardening season coincides with tourism season, so during the summer months she rarely gets to garden. I love any change in routine, so getting outside was fun for me. On other occasions when it was quiet around the ranch, I gave Paulette some computer lessons.

The Vickers also had some renovation projects around their house that needed to get done before fall, and the guys were always there to swing hammers, when they weren’t maintaining cabins or working with the horses.

We often worked on spontaneous projects that weren’t in our job descriptions, and nobody seemed to mind. Well, almost nobody.

How Not to Win Friends While Workamping

There was a third workamping couple who started the season with us, but it didn’t take long to see that they weren’t having a good time.

When they were hired, they swore that they were flexible and real go-getters, but as time went on, their true work attitudes were revealed.

They were two retired, lifetime government employees, and both seemed to find it difficult coping with the improvisational nature of working in a small business. If something wasn’t in their job description, they didn’t do it. The husband only wanted to work on his special projects, never offered to help another ranch hand in need, and refused help when it was offered. The wife worked hard while cleaning cabins, but if we were done early, she would ask to go home instead of pitching in somewhere else on the ranch or at the Vickers’ home. It was later revealed that she felt that the owners were using their employees, by asking them to work on their house.

Their lack of familiarity and comfort level with Mom and Pop businesses resulted in clashes with other workers, and working with them was difficult at best, for everyone. Then, one day in mid-July, the couple had a blow up with Paulette, after the wife was asked to re-schedule one of her days off, because it fell on an unusually busy day. A shouting match ensued, and the next day, they left the ranch.

Everyone was stunned, but their departure was a welcome relief. Once they left, a great big ball of invisible stress left with them. Everyone suddenly worked better together, things got done, and we all started having fun again.

Think Before Applying

The workamper job ads can sound easy and laid back, especially if you’re coming from a stressful career. And maybe some are, like sitting behind a cash register. But if you’re not the right fit for a national park gift shop, life can easily be miserable for you, and your co-workers.

So do yourself a favor, and conduct an honest assessment of your workplace background and attitudes, before you apply for any workamping job. And just remember, if you don’t like it, you can always leave, and you don’t have to make a scene on your way out.

But enough about my hay stories. By now, I’m sure you’re as tired of the hayin’ as I was when we finished. How ’bout some fishing?

This isn’t exactly timely anymore, but consider it my summer fishing report for Lake City, Colorado – from the Vickers Ranch fish ponds, to their upper ranch mountain lakes, to the Lake Fork of the Gunnison River.

A fun time was had. No gear was broken. And a few fish were caught. But not too many.

The biggest fish I caught during our stay on the ranch was also the first. Being my first fish of summer, ritual dictates that I had to set it free. But it really was big! Really. The fat trout I landed at Steer Pen lake might very well have been one of the legendary Cutbow variety I had been hearing about – a cross between a cutthroat and rainbow known for growing to monstrous size.

Well, mine was no monster, but easily at a couple pounds it was fun nonetheless. It hit on a silver and black attractor fly I tied, which I threw way out on a bubble after having little luck near the shore. Which brings me to the topic of waders … When fishing the upper lakes at Vickers Ranch, leave your waders at the cabin. Otherwise, you may quickly find out just how far one can sink into the muck just off shore

The rest of the summer was all about quantity, not size. I had the most fun fly fishing the hidden pond above Vickers Lake. Just walk around the lake and upstream a hundred yards. You’ll find a shallow reedy pond teeming with hungry Brook trout. These feisty little native feeders actually know what a fly looks like, hit quick, and put up a good fight for their size. Unlike the many planted lunkers I saw others pulling out of the lower ponds on Powerbait.

Save your waders for the river. But plan your trip accordingly because timing is obviously imperative if you actually want to catch fish. When that time might be is hard to tell. When we arrived at Vickers Ranch, the water in the Lake Fork of the Gunnison River was way high from a wet winter and late snow melt. By the time we left, it was low and warming quickly each day.

It was late June when I first tried my luck in the river which runs right through the Vickers property. Having not seen a single fish pulled out near the cabins, I hiked through the lower horse pasture to where the canyon begins. This stretch of river is catch and release with flies only, which is fine by me. I reeled in two small cutthroats on a streamer by fishing a deep bank after wading out to the center.

I thought for sure this would mean lots more much bigger fish later in the summer. Not. Multiple trips back to that spot resulted in an empty kreel. And not because I released my catch.

Noticing an awkward lay of my line, and admitting that I never really fully understood the intricacies of fly rod, line and leader weights, I ventured to the Sportsman for some leaders and advice. I got plenty of the latter, and am more than open to a second (or third) opinion.

I have an 8 1/2′ #8 Fenwick I inherited from my father. This fly rod has suited me well. But as my cast improved, I began to notice that it really didn’t. Apparently I was using leaders that were far to light for this rod. And according to one young Lake City guide, it is really only suited for larger bonefish. I would “never catch a trout with that thing,” I was told with a laugh. Well I have. Plenty, but that’s not the point.

With no leaders of suitable weight to match my line, this guide set me up with a small spool of 14 lb. test monofilament. He suggested using that – with no tippet – instead of a leader. He also suggested I buy a new #6 rod if I wanted to go trout fishing. that wasn’t about to happen that day. My cast did lay out a bit better, but I did apparently continue to “scare fish all day” like he said I would when trying dry flies.

After hearing about some huge brown trout one of the Vickers’ neighbors caught north of town, I ventured downstream. Rene plucked her guitar while Jerry sat and watched me wade down the river and out of site.

I worked dry flies down and casted various streamers on my way back up, only to get one good strike right where I started. I was ready to quit and wasn’t paying attention, until the excitement of actually seeing it strike made me jerk to quick and lose it.

No more fish were had, and I never caught another large enough to bring home for the grill after that first one I let go. And I have no pictures to show because I can’t bring myself to keep Brook trout. They are just too pretty to eat.

A LiveWorkDream production. Playlist Run Time: approximately 15 minutes. Average Video Length: 4 1/2 minutes. Filmed on location in the upper meadows at Lake City, CO by René. Produced and directed by Jim. Executive Producer and Key Grip: Jerry G. Dawg. Made possible with a grant of the Vickers family generosity.

Meet the Vickers, five generations of hay farmers working the family guest ranch. Find out why 94 year old Perk calls workamper Jim by the name Boll Weevil. Hear Larry Describe what’s in the hayfield. See Paul and Jim find out the truth. And watch the youngest Vickers play in the hay.

Producing street signs for Vickers Ranch was the perfect opportunity to apply my expertise as a signmaker, brush up on my woodworking skills, and learn to operate a backhoe – all while getting a crash course in condominium plat regulations.

Being a graphics guy, I was first asked to produce a hanging sign for the Ranch’s main entrance promoting their jeep rentals and horse rides. Irony ran through my thoughts as I crafted this sign from a rough-cut plank of wood and a couple old horseshoes. This is ironic because for the past ten years or so I often struggled to educate clients on the benefits of professional signage over handmade signs.

I was happy with the job I had done, but not extremely proud – probably because I’m used to the perfect graphics we once produced with the help of a digital printer and laminator.

Fellow workamper Al had warned me not to do “too good a job” because then I’d be expected to keep up the good work. Well, I apparently did just that.

When the boss saw my work, he said “Have I got a job for you!” With the Vickers selling off their rental cabins under condominium zoning, one of the many regulations requires that access be clearly identified by named streets. The street sign project quickly became mine. And I quickly determined to do a better job than I did on my quick and dirty hanging sign. Especially considering that the stock I was to use included a couple beautiful 2″ thick black walnut hardwood boards.

Ripping the 7″ planks with a hulking 20″ circular saw was the hardest part, considering I didn’t have access to the table saw that day. (Thanks Paul!) Designing the signs was easy. I intended to rout out the letters, then paint them for easy visibility. And being that graphics guy that I am, I knew Arial Rounded, condensed about 70% would make a perfect template. I know, you may be thinking “No you didn’t!” But if you care to discuss the taboo of stretching type, you can go ask the Textwrap type guru. There I digressing again…

I printed out all the street names in 216 pt. type. That’s three inches for you non-graphic guys out there. I then applied the paper template to the wood with a thin coat of varnish. Glue would have been to messy to remove with a sander, which I used after cutting out all the letters with a router and 1/4″ flat bit.

After cutting the signs apart with a radial arm saw, and only one ugly mistake with the router, I added a beveled edge around them for detail. I sanded off the paper template and the painting began. Multiple coats of white exterior latex with a tiny brush inside all the letter channels only took a few days. A few coats of spar urethane varnish took a couple more and really brought out the beauty of the black walnut. The signs were ready for installation.

Planting the posts became another workamping opportunity for education. When I suggested I would dig post holes with a pick and shovel, Paul laughed at me. I soon learned how to operate the backhoe, and why they call this place the Rocky Mountains. And I would have finished installing all the posts, had I not hit a water line where there was supposedly none. (Thanks again Paul!)

With the street signs done, it was on to various other manual labor projects and learning experiences. But if you’re wondering how the Vickers came up with Street names like High Muck A Muck, Isolde, and Gnome Way; these are the names of old mining claims the family had owned or worked.

Some days, I’ll bring in a haul like this one. Notice there’s no beer in this photo. Well, there’s only been one or two times that people left behind any sort of tasty alcoholic beverage. Seems like they’ll drink all their booze before finishing their food.

Now, before you go thinking “eeew, sick, you don’t know where that stuff’s been!“, I’ll tell you that I have a few freegan rules about what I bring back: it can’t be home made, must not be in an unmarked package, and be relatively healthy.

Being the tightwad that I am, last month I started doing rough estimates of the dollar value of my daily hauls. In one month alone, I brought in $288 worth of food and other miscellaneous items.

And speaking of saving money, here’s our Road Trip Expense Report for July 2008. We’re saving tons of money here, and have only put in $99 worth of diesel into our tank since June 1st. Town is only 2.5 miles away, so I run most of our errands by bike. Also, notice our food bill. Part of the reason it was so high is because we went to Gunnison and stocked up. Our goal is to not have to go there again. So far so good, I think we have enough provisions till we leave. With a local garden nursery merchant now selling organic produce in town, we’re set.

This summer, for me, it’s all about cleaning. I’m on the housekeeping and laundry squad. Rah! Rah! Rah!

Some days it’s just me, another workamper, and co-owner, Paulette Vickers. Mid-week, my job can be easy, and there might not be a single cabin to clean. On these slow days, I’ll go work in Paulette’s garden, which is a great change of pace, since I love playing in the dirt, and her yard is awesome.

But on the weekends, when we have to turn over nine cabins before 3pm check-in, that’s when things get really dirty, and the “all hands on deck!” call will go out for everyone to pitch in.

Tourists, Please Don’t be a Slob

There are about 13 cabins total. Most are two bedrooms, but some are four, and they can be a lot of work to clean. Most guests are well behaved and keep the cabins relatively neat, but occasionally you’ll get one jerk who decides he has the right to leave a disgusting mess for us (while probably thinking; “hey, it gives people jobs“).

Scrubbing floors, cleaning grease off stovetops, sanitizing bathrooms and changing linens is exhausting. It’s mindless and repetitive, and will wear you down quickly if you don’t have a good attitude about it. For me, this job is over at summer’s end, so I look at it like that. Plus, the Vickers family are the greatest, most down to earth people. They’re incredibly generous, kind, funny, and thoughtful, and they make it really fun to be here, even on the hardest days.

All in the Family, All in a Day’s Work

I look at Paulette, and I don’t know how she’s done it for so long. She’s been heading up the housekeeping crew, among her many other roles, for around 30 years. She and husband Larry took over the ranch from Larry’s Dad, Perk, who took it over from his dad. The ranch has been a resort since the 1920s, and the Vickers family has owned this incredible 1800 acre property since the late 1800s.

When I first accepted this assignment, I was surprised to learn that Paulette would be working right alongside me. I assumed only workampers did the grunt work. But what I learned was that in a small, family run resort like this, nobody is above housekeeping duties, even the wrangler, Jeremy. Well, almost nobody thinks they’re above it . . . but that’s a future discussion.

I’m Such a Wimp
This job is hard, but it’s been another insightful step along our path to researching what we want to be when we grow up. I’ve been asking myself: Do I really want to be a resort owner? The answer: no, at least not of a resort on this scale.

Catering to tourists on this level seems like one of the harder ways to make a living, and to me, I think that hobby farming (something I still really want to do) would have far greater rewards.

I’m disappointed in myself for being such a wuss, and scratching off “Resort Owner” as a future occupation. But, I’m grateful that I learned this about myself, before we blindly bought a resort and dove in head first. After all, these little discoveries are exactly what our journey is all about.

P.S. Ever thought you wanted to get into the resort business? Then I highly recommend reading the book, “I’m Living Your Dream Life,” by Michelle VanOrt Cozzens. It’s an entertaining read about a young couple that decides to flee their big city lifestyle in Oakland, CA, and buy Sandy Point Resort, in Northern Wisconsin. Cozzens gave her book that title, because so many of her guests always tell her “You’re living my dream life!” But being a resort owner isn’t always a dream, and Cozzins’ book gives a truthful, humorous look at her “dream life.”

During our early days on the road, I kept getting annoyed at the number of RV parks that lacked recycling facilities. About the only places that did offer any kind of recycling were national parks, which only take aluminum cans. It killed me to toss recyclables, but in our little 5th wheel, I felt we didn’t have a choice.

For a while I considered being as green as my RVing friend Sara, and carrying around our recyclables and compost matter until we found a collection point. But honestly, I’m not that gutsy, and unwilling to put up with storing this stuff in our shower where she does. Also, with our big ol’ dog Jerry along, I don’t want our RV smelling any funkier than I think it does. I had to pick my battles, and into the trash went our recyclables.

Throughout the middle of the country, we saw few, if any, small towns with extensive recycling programs in place. When we landed in Spearfish, South Dakota (population about 10,000), we asked the local economic development guy why they didn’t have a recycling program in place.

He explained that it was a matter of cost-effectiveness. Spearfish had a program once, but couldn’t afford to ship it out to the nearest recycling facilities in Rapid City, 50 miles away . This is the same story with most small towns. Recycling is voluntary, and residents must take their items to a redemption center themselves. As far as e-waste goes, if you ask locals where to take it, they’ll go “what’s e-waste?”

Here at Vickers Ranch, a while back, the owners tried setting out recycling bins for guests, but the bins kept attracting yellow jackets, and even worse, bears. It was an open invitation for destruction and dead bears, so they gave up.

When I saw the huge amount of recyclables that go in the trash each day, I asked the owners if I could collect cans and bottles, and then store them in a bear-resistant metal barn until they could be taken to the nearest big recycling station, 55 miles away in Gunnison. They were fine with it, so now when I’m cleaning cabins, I’ll put on my big rubber gloves, and dive into the trash to fish out recyclables.

Still, I can only collect what I see when I clean cabins five times a week. But the rest of the time, Jim says that when the garbage gets collected every evening, tons of bottles and plastic still ends up in the landfill. Just thinking about this makes me feel overwhelmed, like Lisa Simpson trying to save the world.

I admit, I’m only one person, I can only do what I can do, whether it’s pulling cans and bottles out of the trash, or getting into discussions with rednecks about why Obama needs to win this election. As long as I do something, I sleep a little better at night.

But the one thing we didn’t really consider, were the foodie sacrifices we’d have to make to live and work in a really remote mountain town with a year-round population of 500 people.

No, I’m not whining because Lake City doesn’t have a HellMart. But I am sniveling about the lack of really good produce available. There’s one tiny grocery store, which carries a decent selection of dry goods and staples, but a miserable range of old produce that shrivels up the minute I bring it home. There are no local farmers or organic grocery sellers, and whenever I go to the crappy grocery store, it depresses me to think about how we’re missing out on the peak of the summer produce season. Nothing in that store is locally grown, even from within a 100 mile radius. If it doesn’t come on the Cysco food truck, they don’t carry it.

We were warned about the sad little store, so we stocked up on booze, dry goods, and Jerry‘s food before arriving. Now that we’re running low, I’m debating whether it’s time for a major shopping trip to the nearest big city (Gunnison, population 5k). We could make the 110 mile round trip there and back, but we’re having a contest with ourselves.

We want to know if we can actually consume every spec of food in our RV first, and we want to see how long we can live on the half tank of diesel we arrived with, on June 4th (today, fuel is $5.32 here). I’ve been riding my bike to get groceries, and we’ve only taken the truck out a handful of times.

So sure, we’re paying more every week by shopping locally, but the fuel cost of going to Gunnison makes it a wash.

The more iceberg lettuce we eat, the more I wonder if we could handle the sacrifices it takes to live all year in a remote mountain town, especially in light of fuel prices. Our job here is only temporary, but if we attempted to live in a place this small some day, we would just have to become year round farmers, that’s all there is to it.

Now that I think about it, I think I see a business opportunity here in Lake City.