Why We Do What We Do

We are not living this lifestyle to collect more toys, we are living this lifestyle to collect more memories. It’s not about the material things we gather, it’s more about the spiritual journey we are on and sharing all these wonderful moments with our readers.

Desert Hot Springs, California - Cloudy, Snowy Mountains

We thought the “American Dream” consisted of how many toys we could buy, we fell into that trap and it cost us so much of our inner souls. We now know that it is not about all of that, it is more about the life we are currently living, we have never felt more alive.

Bridge Crossing the Mississippi River in Natchez, Mississippi

Even though it cost us our family and many of our friends, we know that this is where we are suppose to be in our lives at this moment.

Ship Docked in North Carolina

If we could go back and change a few things, would we, could we?

Most of us would definitely answer yes to that question, but the fact of the matter is that there really is no going back. We can only move forward. Something we do everyday. We learn from our pasts but we never blame them or we never dwell in them. Life is way too short to live in regret.

The Atlantic Ocean View

We hope that you are all enjoying your lives, wherever they may take you. Our paths have us growing and learning from each and every journey, we hope the same for all of you. Once again, thank you to all of our readers, especially for all the comments, many have touched our hearts and we look forward to meeting up with you all sometime in our travels, until then, safe travels to you all!

Change of Plans…Again!

Once we leave here, we were going to the coast of Washington and drive it all the way down to San Francisco, a plan that we had been wanting to do for years. But, we got a call about a 5 day assignment in Reno, Nevada at The Reno National Championship Air Races and we jumped at the chance. Working with Susan at Scootaround once again will be great and of course the extra money will be fantastic.

How much fun is this going to be, five days of REAL AIR RACING by six classes of aircraft, close-up access to racing aircraft, pilots, and crews in the pits, a world-class air show, a large static aircraft display, including the Heritage Trophy competition, and great concessions and amenities.

We had planned to check out Reno after we were done with the pumpkin lot, but instead, we will do it now and then flip flop the coastal plan. After the pumpkin lot and before the Christmas lot, we have 16 days and then our plan will include to go up the coast to Washington, staying as tight as we can to the coast, enjoying the fall weather.

It seems in seasonal work there is always 3 dimensions. First, the opening when everyone is getting to know one another and everyone works together to get the place opened. Then, everyone gets into the busyness work where guests are the main concern. Then finally, you have the closing, where most people are fed up, tired and just want it all to end, or for the most part many who have already left. But, the thing is, whoever is left must still work together to get the place closed for the season.

That is where we are, down to just over 2 weeks, one of those weeks we will be helping to close down many of the cabins and then the last week we will only have about 20 people here including guests and staff that we will be cooking and baking for, then onto our next adventures…Life is Grand!

No Longer Using Verizon Broadband…

Yes, I know, we have been going on and on about how great Verizon Broadband has been for us for the past 5 years or so, but we just had to do it.

Jerry has been becoming an internet freak, almost as much as me, so we had to come up with something since WiFi will not be available as often in our future plans as we would like to use it. So…

We changed to MiFi with Verizon…fooled you guys.



Did you really think we would ever give up Verizon? We are grandfathered in with our plans that nobody else has or can get so the answer is, “NO” we would never give it up.

And, by the way, we are so glad we changed to the MiFi…it is fabulous. Now, we can both get online with our one plan and it seems faster, if that is possible.

Ordered it online since there was an additional bonus for us and it was delivered the very next day. The setup was so simple, turned it on and followed a few menu clicks and it was complete. Within minutes, we were both online enjoying the internet.

Life is certainly grand, it‘s the little things that make it so!

Changes at the Ranch

We had a great week, really nice guests and it sure does not hurt that we now only have 4 weeks left before we begin our new and exciting adventures.

The ranch also changes as of this week, adults only, no kids, not just guests, but the young ones that have been working all season have left.

Flowers in bloom around the ranch this week!

Then most importantly, our working hours change. This is because for the entire season, we have cooked two separate meals, one for the staff, then another an hour later for the guests. Now the staff eats with the guests. We no longer have to start work at 6am, we will now be starting an hour later, yippee, another hour of sleep in the morning!

A breathtaking rainbow at the ranch this week!

Then, many of the activities cease to continue. This does not affect us but it changes the atmosphere of the entire ranch.

Alcohol, can now be served in the dining area, where as for the entire season, it was not allowed. This will probably not affect us either since we do breakfast and lunches. Well at least we hope it does not affect us! Not sure if we want to deal with people who may drinking at breakfast and/or lunch.

Flowers in bloom around the ranch this week!

Also, possibly wishful thinking on my part but we are hoping that the cookie eating will not be as enormously high as it has been. This in itself will cut our hours as well. Not that we had been working excessive hours, but they have been busy ones. Whereas now it will not only be less hours but those hours will not be as full with total busyness as it has been in the past few months.

Looking forward to the changes and to making it through the last four weeks before heading out and crossing off two more states on our bucket list.

Beautiful scenery on the way to the ranch!

Life is grand and we are so very grateful that we are able to live this lifestyle and to be able to share it with all of our friends and readers. Thank you for reading our blog and especially for all the wonderful comments you all send, we love hearing from each and every one of you.

The road into the ranch!

How Rude Can Some Folks Be?

This past week was challenging, not due to our hitch-itch, but due to a very rude and obnoxious woman who was one of our guests. She apparently is a chef, or cook at a restaurant and has written a few cook books…good for her.

People who must put other people down in order to try to feel superior just get under my skin. If people want to make themselves look good, then go right ahead, but do not do it by tearing down others.


After, 4 days of us cooking and baking for her and her family, she had the nerve to come into the kitchen and ask if she could please use the kitchen to make her special dessert. Now mind you, I have been baking non-stop, all sorts of desserts and fresh breads and other goodies for her family and our other guests. I was in shock and said probably not, but she would have to ask the owners, Carolyn was highly against it but Ernie thought it would not do any harm… Boy, was he wrong. She was allowed to make her Peach Crisp desert for her family and all she provided was the peaches, we provided all the other ingredients and she only made enough for her family.

Throughout the week she made some very rude comments, these are just a few;

As she asked the owner and dining crew to taste her Peach Crisp, she smugly said, “Now this is real food, not this fake stuff you serve.”
On Friday during lunch, she said, “We cannot stand to eat here one more night, we will be going out to eat some real food.” This is an all inclusive ranch so she has paid in full for all meals.
Another incident, she literally shoved her way past the dining girl to make her table another pot of, as she put it, “awful coffee”.


Some people, you just can’t please and we decided a long time ago, that we do not waste our time trying to please them all. We do our best and if somebody doesn’t like it then that is their problem. Life is way too short to allow her issues to cloud our days. We have really come a long way in our spiritual growth. Was a time when we would have allowed her rudeness to ruin our week, but because we allowed ourselves to feel her pain as an individual, we were able to just smile and let her be.

Cookies, Cookies and More Cookies

When we began this position, we were told that they have an bottomless cookie jar out at all times. We were told that they can eat up to 500 cookies per week. Yea, right! Last week they ate 640, a new record, we could hardly keep up with making more.



Then, this week they almost doubled the record, they ate 1,240. Oh my gosh, we have been baking cookies non-stop, on top of all the other baking and cooking we do for breakfast, lunch and desserts. Felt as if we were a cookie factory, only we don’t have the machinery to help us.



Okay, calm down…take a deep breath…only 6 more weeks...actually, only 2 more weeks of big groups then the guest count drops for the rest of the season…breathe…we will make it through, especially if the tips keep coming as they have been.



No trips this week, we stayed around the Ranch and did some remodeling on the rig. This is our second shower remodel. Our first remodel a few years ago, we applied glue to a flexible wall covering, but the covering had been separating for the past few months.



So this time we were just going to paint, but when we removed all the covering, we realized the glue was stuck mostly to the walls so we got creative.



Instead of trying to remove all the glue, we used it, along with some joint compound and made a stucco like pattern, then painted over it. Looks good!