Preparations to Move to Our Volunteer Job

August 28, 2010. Williams AZ

The last few days have been spent primarily hanging out at the RV park. We’ve both been doing some bike riding in and around the town of Williams.  The weather has been very mild with occasional afternoon showers although it rained last night.

I mentioned in one of my previous posts that we accepted a volunteer position for at least part of the fall and winter. I occasionally check the website Volunteer.Gov which is where I had found this position.

We will be working at Bill Williams River National Wildlife Refuge which is on the western border of Arizona. It’s about 23 miles south of Lake Havasu City. We were looking for something out west that would be warm for the winter. I think this will fit the bill.

It’s my understanding that our jobs will be doing general maintenance and upkeep of the day use facilities and visitor center working a schedule of 3 days on and 3 days off with another couple. In exchange we will be provided with a covered RV site with full hook-ups. We accepted the position back in June and were invited to start right away. However, we declined noting the temperatures were well over 110 degrees. We told the refuge we would be there by the first of October and possibly earlier.

Well we decided to go early..about a month early and plan to be there Monday. It’s still hot at the refuge, but the month of September should bring a cooling trend. We’ve been getting a little bored hanging out in Williams so we decided to volunteer early. We plan to stay till the first of January.

Today we took a ride in the truck to Flagstaff for an early dinner and to fill up on diesel to include filling my two 5 gallon containers. At $2.95 a gallon I figured it was worth it to purchase the extra ten gallons. Diesel in Williams is $3.19 and $3.59 at the interstate exits...literally highway robbery! 

Tomorrow I’ll check the air in the tires on our Carriage fifth wheel and air up the rear duals in my truck along with a host of other chores in preparation for departure Monday. I just hope the weather cooperates as it’s raining as I’m writing this.

So I’ll report back soon and provide all the details once we arrive at the refuge.