Moving from Belton to Beaver Dam, Wisconsin - Tues., Sept. 23

Woke up this morning refreshed and ready for the relatively short drive to Derge County Park in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. We hopped back on U.S. 151 (only 1.2 miles from Joy Lake Campground).

While we thought U.S. 151 was great through the countryside, we weren't aware when we got to Madison we had to take the Beltway (U.S. 12/U.S. 18) to get around Madison. We stayed on U.S. 151 right through the heart of downtown. Yikes. That was nerve-wracking! After we were into downtown, I remembered we had a brand new Rand-McNally Trucker's Atlas. I hauled it out and directed Bob onto a freeway and all was calm once again.

We made our way to Derge County Park in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, which will be our home for three nights. Kevin and Evelyn workamp at the park. (We knew they wouldn't be there when we arrived but they said we could camp in Site 2 and share their water spigot. They would return in the afternoon.) As long as we come during the week we shouldn't have any problem getting into a site. No kidding. The first night, we were the only ones camping except for them.

They invited us over for happy hour that evening after we got settled. Um, getting settled is another story. Here goes...

I have never backed the 5th wheel into a site before. With Bob's help, I got the 5er backed into Site 2. (No report on how many tries that took.) We got out our electric cord to share the electric post on Kevin and Evelyn's site...our 25' electric cord was too short. Then Bob got out the water hose (in fact we had two hoses connected together) and they were too short to reach the water.

Plan B: Change sites, but first fill up the fresh water tank with the fresh water hose at the dump station, and then move the 5th wheel to a site with the electric box closer to the rig. So that's what we did.

However, I had a horrible time backing into the site we chose. Bob and I just couldn't figure out how to get the 5er going the right direction. I couldn't even tell you how many times I backed up and went forward. It's embarrassing, but I guess you've got to start somewhere. We were taking so long, Kevin came over and offered to help. We gladly accepted.

With his direction we finally got Rigamarole in the site. Whew. What a sense of relief and jubilation. I did it! (Of course it was a team effort. The trailer is relatively straight and it's on the pavement. Sorry, Kevin, for driving all over the grass.)

Proud of my first back-in success

It took about 50 tries, but I did it!

Nice spot in a park next to a corn field.

Derge County Park

Below is Kevin and Evelyn's new Pinnacle. It's beautiful.

The remains of happy hour.

Evelyn and Kevin - camp hosts

After happy hour, we all rode into Beaver Dam to have dinner at Culver's. That was good.

Evelyn gave Bob directions on a three-mile route he could run from the campground. We talked about workamping at amazon.com because all of us have done it. We got the scoop on Fernley, Nevada, where we had worked in 2011, and the Kansas and Kentucky locations as well. 

Thanks, Evelyn and Kevin for being great camp hosts.

Travel Bug out.