Lake Ridge RV Resort 2009 – Pt. 1

Richard and I arrived at Lake Ridge RV Resort in Hillsville, VA on April 27….This is where we are the Activities/Crafts Directors…We went to our site #259 and  got all set up…Site #259 is located down in the Lower 40 camp sites…The site is a good site and we have had no problems with our wifi and hopefully will not have problems the whole time we are here…Our job takes us from May 1 – November 1…

On May 5th, Richard and I started getting the crafts room together and the activities in order for all the themed weekends…Luckily I got to work on the crafts room while Richard worked on what he needed to get going for the themed weekends…We took inventory of all crafts, signs, & inks for printer…From May 5th, 6th & 7th, I started to get the crafts room together…Moving tables around, putting some old crafts away, pulling some old crafts off of the wall, finding the crafts from last year that are in the storage room, moving paint around and whatever else needed to be done…There was lots of dusting to do…Spiderwebs every where and dust from the past 6 months of the crafts room being closed…Now that the crafts room is re-arranged, I am hoping that we sell more pre-screened tees, pillow cases, tote bags and back packs…One of the crafts for this year is Iron-ons…With samples out, my hope is that women and girls will see what can be done with iron-ons and fabric markers…All of the foamy crafts are now freebies for all the games and activities that Richard runs…Foamy crafts did not sell well at all last year…This year we have suncatchers, wood crafts like bird houses, cars & a few signs and jewelry making…I cleaned out the jewelry cases and added some new beads to the cases so that there are more matching beads for our guests to make bracelets, necklaces or anklets or all 3…Along with all the wood crafts and suncatcher crafts are Ceramic crafts…One of the main craft item we do is Tye Dye T-shirts…This year we are going to use Rit Dye mixed in bigger containers and then poured in to squirt bottles… Tye Dyeing is done 3  times during the open campground season but I am hoping that we can do the tye dyeing more than 3 times while we are here…Richard and I are hoping that the Activities and Crafts take off well this year…

Our work days are Tuesday – Saturday of every week until we leave except for 2 – 4 day weekends…One in July and one in September so that we can go to our granddaughters birthday parties…The crafts room hours are from 10am – 6pm, Sunday through Tuesday & Friday-Saturday…On Wednesday and Thursday, the crafts room is open from 10am - 4pm…The only reason the crafts room is open until 6pm 5 days out of the week is so that one of the workampers gets her hours for the week…Our 2 days off are Sunday & Monday so someone has to run the crafts room…Fridays is B I N G O…and I do not like Bingo…but that is part of our job…Last year I called the bingo numbers and Richard turned the bingo numbers on the wall cause we have an old fashioned wood bingo board… A person has to flip each wood number as they bingo number is called…It’s a pain in the butt cause when someone yells bingo, then we have to flip the numbers back around…

This year Richard is going to introduce Wheel of Fortune…I hope that it goes over big…The maintenance crew made the box for the wheel…I can’t wait until it is all finished…

More to come as time goes by…

This week of May 25th,  Lake Ridge is now selling all kinds of cute little rubber duckies for the Lake Ridge Duck Race that is held at the waterslides…One side of the 2 sided waterslide is closed off to the guests so that buckets full of rubber ducks can be tossed in to the spiraling water and they go on their way down to the bottom of the waterslide where one employee catches the first duck down and 2 others catch all the other duckies before they go in to the water filter…The employees do a fantastic job of catching those little yellow decorated ducks…Today I went to the waterslide to get some pictures and see how those little duckies go down…It’s pretty cool and there are people along the fence cheering on their duck that they bought in the office…The duck that they pick out, ranging from biker ducks, pirate ducks, princess ducks, military ducks & animal ducks are theirs to keep after the race…There is a first place prize and a second place prize…It is a wild thing to see…All the guests who bought ducks gather around to see if their number on their duck swims down to the bottom and gets to be picked up first…

This week of May 25th has been a slow week of crafts…We’ve had a few guests come in and do a few crafts…We’ve had a few kids, with the help of their parents, do tye dye t-shirts…A little girl worked on a turtle suncatcher…and that has been it…Now there is a good reason for this…The kids are not out of school yet…Within the next few weeks, all the counties in VA. and NC. will be out and then the vacations will begin…Then I hope that our crafts room will be busy…If any one wants to see what goes on, there is a web site to see what Richard has put together…This web site is http://resortactivities.blogspot.com and one can enjoy the reading of what he puts on the site…Hopefully this will help all guests who want to see what is going on in the coming weeks and let them decide on which weekend they want to come and camp at Lake Ridge…

The weekend of Memorial Day, we were very busy on May 24th…The weather was looking terrible, rain was coming…or so it looked like…so many guests came up to the crafts room to do all kinds of crafts  ranging from tye dye tees and socks to ceramics…Unfortunately, I was the only one working and I was busy all day long…No time for lunch but a time for a sip of water…The manager and I will make sure that I have help on holiday weekends…all in all, it was a great day…