Dave on a park hayride There’s never a shortage of work to do at Pocahontas State Park. Its 8000 acres are heavily used, and so it is a never-ending challenge to keep it up. That said, we started plugging away at our assigned tasks (and some that we found on our own) to do our part and earn our keep as soon as we arrived. The withering heat during the first week made it a challenge, but we managed to pace ourselves. And in between, we got some visits from family for some fun time.
Building a bracket for the rear view mirror Making It Work
Our jobs at the park take many forms. Sometime it is grunt work hauling and digging and trimming. Sometimes, it’s time spent with the patrons at concerts, hay rides or campfires. Sometimes, it’s work on projects we identify. No matter which form it takes, we find it makes the days go quickly. Our first 2 weeks certainly did.
Our jobs at the park take many forms. Sometime it is grunt work hauling and digging and trimming. Sometimes, it’s time spent with the patrons at concerts, hay rides or campfires. Sometimes, it’s work on projects we identify. No matter which form it takes, we find it makes the days go quickly. Our first 2 weeks certainly did.
Battery Charger cover The park has new electric golf carts for each of the hosts, and one of them had not been retrofitted with a rear view mirror. With a little guidance from maintenance, we fashioned a bracket from a scrap piece of metal, borrowed a mirror from another vehicle no longer in service and solved the problem of the rear view mirror. Another issue arising from the new carts is the fact that the park host has no structure to house the battery charger. Since these can’t get wet, we fashioned a cloth-covered frame using wood scraps and some material left over from our boat cover. It was designed to give the charger room to breathe, but keep it dry. However, Dave had been puzzling over the charger’s output all week. He saw no indication it was charging the cart. Sure enough, the cart's low battery light came on one morning. With some consultation with the other hosts nearby, he determined that switching chargers with their cart allowed each of them to charge successfully. And, luckily our new charger still fit in the cover. Good design.
Gravel on site 96 When we chose our site, it hadn’t rained in quite a while. However, there were ruts in the site from previous RV’s, indicating a pretty soggy area. That was confirmed by one of our first assignments to address the drainage on site 96. Hmm… what’s our site number? We retracted the slide and dug out the top layer of eroded dirt (a grueling job), and then hauled several gator loads of gravel to fill in the top layer. When a torrential rain arrived the following Friday, we found ourselves in a bit of a lake. While the work we had done was good, it was far from sufficient. Dave dug a little more out to create a channel for the water to flow, but we will be coming back to this if time permits.
Dave practices on the John Deere We took some time to re-familiarize ourselves with the tractor and hay wagon. Making circuits around the CCC field, we started with just the tractor and then between hay rides one night, took the wagon as well. The training paid off as you’ll see later.
And one morning, we got trained by our grandson, Droz, in boundary marking. The park marks trees on its boundaries with yellow stripes or metal signs. We had a rough start finding a good stretch to mark, but once we got started, we got the hang of it quickly. We had a good teacher.
And one morning, we got trained by our grandson, Droz, in boundary marking. The park marks trees on its boundaries with yellow stripes or metal signs. We had a rough start finding a good stretch to mark, but once we got started, we got the hang of it quickly. We had a good teacher.
Rumours in concert So, we also helped with some fun events, making it to a few hay rides, and a campfire program, but the most unique event we assisted with was a concert by a Fleetwood Mac tribute band called Rumours. We helped put on wristbands on patrons for an hour before enjoying a few sets in the amphitheater. It didn’t take long before there were lots of people dancing all around us. We had to make it an early night because the next morning we would be up early to help with Teen Volunteer Week.
Teens with bags of invasive species pulled on their first day Twenty Teens
“Please, no more stiltgrass. I’m having nightmares about it.” Nothing brings drama to the table like teenagers. Teen Volunteer Week began with 21 youth and a shifting number of adult volunteers who would guide them, many for their first time working in a park. From 9 to 2 each day, we would work on a project, then follow that with 2 hours of something fun. The youth weeded the CCC Museum garden, removed invasive species (lots of Japanese stiltgrass), cleared trails, repaired a walkway and even trailblazed a mile of a new mountain biking trail. The afternoons were spent tie-dying T-shirts, learning archery, canoeing, swimming at the pool, and fishing.
“Please, no more stiltgrass. I’m having nightmares about it.” Nothing brings drama to the table like teenagers. Teen Volunteer Week began with 21 youth and a shifting number of adult volunteers who would guide them, many for their first time working in a park. From 9 to 2 each day, we would work on a project, then follow that with 2 hours of something fun. The youth weeded the CCC Museum garden, removed invasive species (lots of Japanese stiltgrass), cleared trails, repaired a walkway and even trailblazed a mile of a new mountain biking trail. The afternoons were spent tie-dying T-shirts, learning archery, canoeing, swimming at the pool, and fishing.
For those of us planning each day, the biggest challenge was getting the group moved around in the park. This played out on Thursday as Dave put his hay wagon training to work, pulling the group a few miles to the site of the new trail and then on to the pool and back to maintenance on the highway. It went well, although the climb up a particularly steep hill had us sweating a bit. (The older truck required a change to the wheels to move to 4-wheel drive. Luckily, the park staff with us knew how to do this before the next hill.)
Over the course of the week, we got to know the kids, (which included Droz and Jayden) and enjoyed working with them as they learned how to make a difference a litte bit at a time.
Over the course of the week, we got to know the kids, (which included Droz and Jayden) and enjoyed working with them as they learned how to make a difference a litte bit at a time.
Jayden and Taylor help Grandma make fruit salad for supper, while Grandpa watches Family Time
On July 5th, we had a belated holiday celebration with Bonnie, Taylor and Troy arriving from Emporia and Droz and Jayden coming to spend the night. After some pool time, we had a picnic that included (of course) a campfire with s’mores.
On July 5th, we had a belated holiday celebration with Bonnie, Taylor and Troy arriving from Emporia and Droz and Jayden coming to spend the night. After some pool time, we had a picnic that included (of course) a campfire with s’mores.
