Homeless in the wilds of the USA
HOME IS WHERE YOU PARK IT
Pat & Gary Jeffries' Home Page
When we left Virginia in January of '96, following the winter that would not quit, little did we know that we would really enjoy being homeless. Both my wife Pat and I had worked in downtown DC for years, and were ready to get away from the hustle and bustle of the big city.
The first year we were infected with the 'gotta get it all done in two weeks' syndrome. We drove over 30,000 miles, visited 29 states and spent far too little time in any of them. By fall we were ready to relax. We had met some folks in Virginia the previous April who had suggested we might enjoy spending part of the winter in Alamo, Texas at the Alamo Rose RV Park. We made our reservations with reservations. Spend four months in one spot, our previous record had been four weeks, and we had been more than ready to move on then. Wellll - we ended up spending five months at the park and made our reservations for six months the following winter. We met lots of really interesting and nice folks and were kept busy with loads of activities.
The summer of '97 we volunteered to spend a month at a wildlife management area in La Grande, OR. We had visited friends in the area the previous summer and had really loved the mountains and cool weather (almost froze to death watching the Fourth of July fireworks). This was our first experience at volunteering, and we weren't sure how much would be expected of us. This was quickly settled when our boss told us, "you are volunteers, you do what you want to". We ended up spending three months there due to a slightly broken ankle (don't ride motorcycles on soft gravel). The manager and assistant manager of the area and their families made us part of the extended family and insisted we stay on at the volunteer RV site for as long as we needed. Pat continued to work (she wasn't about to spend days inside a 35-foot RV with an immobile and grouchy husband). Before leaving, we signed up to return for two months during the summer of '98.
We left Oregon and returned to the Rio Grand Valley by way of Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Virginia. Not the most direct route, but by now we were becoming aware that we had plenty of time to see what we wanted. The second year we drove less than 24,000 miles and spent much more time smelling the roses in beautiful areas of the country.
After another busy winter in Alamo, we left for Oregon, by way of Delaware (isn't that the short way?). We visited some friends we had made in one of the many RV organizations and then stopped in Virginia to visit children and grandchildren. We drove to Oregon across the northern part of the country and visited as many National Parks as we could.
With both of us healthy, we were able to participate in all sorts of fun things at the wildlife area: banding ducks, geese, and owls; driving the tractor to plow, harrow, and cultipack the fields; help spray for weed control; assist in stocking streams and lakes with trout; and anything else they would think of for us to do. It was a very busy and enjoyable two months before we headed South again.
Yes, that is a live baby bird, about two days old or less. No, its mother won't abandon it because a human handled it. Birds have no sense of smell, and the mother and father bird, after buzzing me several times to express their displeasure, made several trips to the nest to feed their returned offspring.
Working at a wildlife area is fun.
This trip to the Valley was a little more direct, four weeks in Utah, a week in Arizona, and a week with the children and grandchildren in Oklahoma. Utah has to be one of the most beautiful states in the country. We have spent five weeks there now and still have more National Parks and Monuments to visit. This picture of Monument Valley is actually just across the state line in Arizona, but was visited from Gouldings, Utah. If it looks familiar, many western films were shot there.
We have settled down for the winter now, but if any of you happen to be in the vicinity of Alamo, Texas, drop by the Alamo Rose RV Park and sat Hi. We are the Alfa Toyhouse with the Goldwing parked next to it, or if you're more numerically oriented, check out lot 54.
