Apr25
Posted on Apr 25 by Ruth Davis
It’s been a month since I last wrote, and I wonder how you are doing with the state of things. Are you enjoying your time at home? Feeling overwhelmed, stressed or anxious? Maybe you are experiencing some depression and immobility. Perhaps you are feeling all of these things and more. There is no right way to move through these days. Only that we do move through them. One day, one hour, sometimes one moment at a time. Here at Kartchner Caverns in southeastern Arizona, the days are starting to heat up into the 90’s. The cave tours are still closed, but the full park staff is working because the trails and campground are open. On weekends, every camp site is occupied. The winter camp hosts have returned to their summer homes, so last week, we moved down into the upper campground’s camp host site to fill in, since our summer gig on the Oregon Coast is still on hold. Our new camp site is paved, more level, and offers an expansive east-facing vista of the mountains and basin. After four...
Mar22
Posted on Mar 22 by Ruth Davis
I hope this post finds you feeling safe, and calm, with everything you need. We’re still down in southeastern Arizona at Kartchner Caverns State Park. Last week, word came down from the main office that all cavern tours were cancelled, and last weekend the Discovery Center also closed. The campground and hiking trails are still open until further notice. All volunteers here, except camp hosts, have been officially relieved of all duties. When we heard we were no longer working, I was excited about the two week vacation before our planned departure to Phoenix at the end of March, en route to our summer job on the southern Oregon coast that starts mid-May. But as friends described the panic and hoarding that was happening in the big city, I had no desire to be there for the planned two weeks. Marika and I talked about bypassing Phoenix completely, but both of us agreed that we should spend at least a few days in Phoenix, to see my dad. But then what? Should we continue on to...
Feb12
Posted on Feb 12 by Ruth Davis
There’s always something new to learn and experience at our volunteer jobs. Usually the learning is obvious: we have to know facts and stories about the place, or the people, or the natural areas. We have to study, review, maybe take some training tests, so that we can share our new knowledge. But this job is none of that for me. Because I’m not going into the caves, I haven’t needed to learn about stalactites and stalagmites. Instead, this job is all about learning to work with people, with schedules, with changes in the schedule. And being flexible, and understanding, and going with the flow. Marika says it’s my Welcome to the Real World class. And in so many ways, she’s right. For thirty two years I worked for, and with, and by myself as a private computer trainer. So everything was done my way, on my time line, and it was always well executed. And even when I had a conflict, I found ways to work it out. But now, I’m working with different personalities, different levels of...
Dec18
Posted on Dec 18 by Ruth Davis
If you know me at all, you know that my standard line has always been “I hate the desert.” And yet, here we are, volunteering at Kartchner Caverns State Park in the high desert of southern Arizona for the next four months. We are surrounded by mesquite trees and century plants and prickly pear cactus, and I am truly and deeply loving the landscape. In some ways I have surprised myself. But in others, not at all. Because I chose to be here. Because Marika really wanted to spend a winter in the desert for the birds. Because I know it’s not forever. Instead of focusing on the things in the desert that are not my thing (the dryness, the lack of water), I’m appreciating the gorgeous expanse of sky, the intense quiet, and the ring of mountains all around. They are just far enough away that there is an openness, but it’s not infinite, offering a kind of sheltering, spacious comfort. We arrived on the first Tuesday of December and began orientation and training the next day. One of our jobs...
Nov22
Posted on Nov 22 by Ruth Davis
It’s been a lovely two months of leisure and travel as we’ve slowly made our way south from our plover job in central Oregon. We traveled north up the Oregon coast with stops in Tillamook and Nehalem Beach State Park, enjoying the windy beaches and small artsy towns. Then we finally left the coast and drove inland to Sauvie Island, just north of Portland. Sauvie Island is part wildlife refuge and part farmland, no gas stations or laundry, but there is an RV park, right along the Columbia River. We stayed for a week, enjoying the quiet of the off season, and the birds flying through, even though that meant hunting season. On several different days we drove halfway to Portland, then Ubered to the art museum and the Japanese Gardens. Another day we found a decent bagel and lox spread, and enjoyed the exhibit about Leonard Bernstein at the Portland Jewish Museum. And we got together with my most influential and inspiring writing teacher, Tracy Trefethen, who I haven’t talked to in 20 years, who lives in Portland. She came...
Oct12
Posted on Oct 12 by Ruth Davis
Twenty one years ago, Marika, our eleven-year old lab mix, Zasu, and I were on our longest RV trip in our 24 foot motorhome – six weeks along the Oregon coast. We had come for a birding festival in Charleston, near Coos Bay, at the beginning of September, and then we spent the next five weeks inching our way up the map. We spent time in Florence and Newport, then hopped and skipped up to Astoria, over the long, long bridge into Washington, then back down the coast as far as Bandon, before finally heading home to Phoenix. It was so fun to stay in a place for a few days, do laundry in small towns, and drive no more than a hundred miles in a day, if we drove at all. It was the first time we talked about someday, living in an RV full-time. According to the Oregon campgrounds book that we were using back then to find campsites, Tillicum Campground had ocean view sites. They didn’t take reservations, so we decided to put up a prayer to...
