Workamping: Working, for pay or as a volunteer, while living in an RV.
Which is exactly what Pat and I have been doing for the past month. And what a fast month it has been!
Here’s an aerial photo, taken two days ago, of where we are:
Wales West RV Resort & Light Railway is in southern Alabama, about half way between Mobile and Pensacola. We’re about 25 miles north of Gulf Shores, AL, a popular destination of snow birds.
In fact, friends of ours from Cedar Rapids are there now. Ron brought his airplane down a month ago, so can do some flying this winter. It is from his plane that I took the picture above. Our trailer is very near the entrance, which is at the upper right in this picture.
The park is beautifully decorated with over a million lights. School groups have been coming to ride the train to “the North Pole” and visit with Santa, who gives them a small wooden train which they decorate with foam stickers, crayons, etc. Then they have a little snack of hot chocolate and a molasses cookie. Pat and a lady from Hastings, MN, serve the treats. Coincidentally, she is originally from Cedar Rapids and her husband, Skip, is an airplane mechanic and pilot and both have motorcycles. We have quite a bit in common!
Skip and I have been taking turns being Engineer and Conductor on the mini-train. Its tracks are 7.5 inches apart! Does that make me a real engineer? Here I am, at work yesterday morning:
There are five carriages. Each can carry seven, if most are little kids.
Power for the mini-train is provided by a Briggs & Stratton gas engine. The “big” train is powered by a steam engine! Its tracks are 2′ apart.
They have a Welsh theme, but it is far from fully developed. I’m hoping that the two boxes of books, from my uncle, the late Rev. R. Lewis Jones, which I deliverd will add to the ambiance.
I’ve also replaced the huge muffler on an excavator. That certainly dirtied my hands—and jeans!
This is our fifth Workamping gig. Each has been very different from the others; all interesting and enjoyable.
Tuesday, we will move on to spend three months in Rockport, TX. It’ll be our seventh winter there. Are we in a rut? Probably. But we enjoy the other guests there so much that we just keep going back.