Working Deja Vu

I woke up in the early hours of this beautiful Arizona highland morning with a severe case of deja-vu.

Systems training, training manuals, data input, customer service, writing promotional material, pep talk from the boss, it all came flooding back since Wednesday, when I began my first day of Work-Camping at Elk Pines RV Resort. I couldn't get back to sleep at all.

Perhaps this nightmarish nostalgia had been triggered by my recent viewing of a film set in Port Glasgow, not far from where Richard and I used to work and live in Scotland before we gave up all that stress and moved to the USA to begin our retired RV lifestyle. But two days into our new 3 day a week jobs in the resort (me in the office and Richard doing maintenance) has certainly brought back lots of memories.

Our trailer - parked in site number 10

For Richard, it's also brought back use of muscles he forgot he had. As maintenance man, on his first day he jumped right in (literally) to dig a chest-high ditch in search of the cause of a water leak which had appeared at the back of one of the trailers in the park. He ended up with a nasty blister on his hand – and that reminded me of the time that happened to us two years ago when we first arrived at his cousins Mark and Jill's homestead in Colorado, and we both had blisters and grew muscles we never thought possible, helping them extend and prepare their vegetable garden! You can read about that here.

Of course, the change in elevation might have something to do with my early morning rise – though I had been sleeping like a log ever since we arrived here.

Acclimating to a change in elevation can affect you in all kinds of strange ways. Last Friday (Good Friday) we moved our 5th wheel trailer from 1000 ft to 6500 ft above sea level, from Coolidge “in the Valley” (aka Phoenix area) to Overgaard, a little place located on the Mogollan Rim in the White Mountains, Arizona. When we went on a hike on Easter Sunday, walking in  a cool 65 degrees (around 18C) was really invigorating. There was even snow left on north facing slopes from the last fall a few weeks previously.  

What a refreshing change after the near 90's (28 C) of Coolidge. However, I was extremely aware of the shortness of breath and pumping heart. I also suffered a few blinding headaches and sinuses seemed to be affected too; but a week after our arrival everything is finally easing off. Just a lingering sneezing and coughing - could it be some kind of allergy for Richard?  and chapped lips remain for me... but wait a minute... perhaps this heightened awareness of past and present is also a side effect of this sudden change of altitude?

Our new home for the next six month is Overgaard, which is linked directly to Heber, and both form a small community that grows tenfold in the summer months, when this area becomes the place to head for people from "the Valley" who find themselves overwhelmed with daily temperatures over 100 F (40C)! Neither seem to be incorporated towns; they seem to function solely with the help of volunteers - the library and community center seem to be the lifeblood of the area. We visited the latter during our days off to see what was on, and discovered they offer a three course lunch every weekday for the over 60's, at $6 each! We stayed for Chicken Fried steak, and it was really not bad at all. They have a thrift store on site also, and after a half hour of checking out the bargains, we bought a much better quality coffee maker for an absolute steal! We also saw a for-sale sign for two bikes - his and hers - and they were in fantastic condition and excellent value, so we bought them. On looking up the brand and model online (Schwimm) - it seems they are vintage - from 1980 - and sell on E-Bay for three times what we paid. Of course we will have to invest in lights and locks and helmets, but the Heber-Overgaard community has a cycling path the length of it (about 4 miles), so, quite apart from the obvious health benefits, it will be much easier and cost efficient to just hop on the bike to do some basic daily shopping, or go to the community center for a cheap lunch, than rev up the diesel engine on the truck!  And of course we can cycle to the local Wild Women Saloon for a a drink on a Saturday night after we finish our three day working stint, for a drink or two... if we have the stamina after our third day's work, of course!

I sit on my backside but Richard's work is much more manual. He rakes pine cones and needles from the enormous RV sites (almost double the size of what we have encountered so far in other resorts) and generally keeps the place i working order and looking good. He looks pretty swish in his buggy – note all those implements he gets to handle on a daily basis!

 However, he is rather pooped with all this work. I've caught him snoozing at lunch time... anyone would think he was an old fart!

However, we are only a week into our new life chapter, and I'm sure things will settle down. I'm looking forward to cycling, mixing with the locals, and forging new friendships with neighbors when the season begins in earnest in May, and all this work will turn into play.