Introduction to the adventure

I have one last board meeting with Kitsap Humane Society before we start to get serious about getting ready to leave for a month in Montana.  As board president it's pretty much a professional preparation for this meeting which seems like a fitting send off to head out for the remote wilderness in Montana. Great contrast in worlds.

So why this Montana trip? It goes back several years when our friends, Laurel and Jake DeLong decided to give up the city life (or as city as Kitsap County is), rent out their house and travel the country living out of their camper for a year.  Along the way they learned about the world of caretaking, where you could earn a living by taking care of very cool properties owned by other people.

They ended up care taking an old silver mine ghost town in Idaho for the winter and a fly fishing resort in Montana for the summer. You can read about their adventures at Laurel's "Eating up the road" blog.

So after several years of care taking the opportunity presented itself to purchase the Montana resort...and they did a few months ago.

A couple of weeks after the deal closed, we called the Delongs at their new resort ( at least new to them) to ask how things were going, did they need anything, etc. After a few minutes, Laurel said that some of their employees were leaving in August and they needed more help for the month and, I am sure because she knows Marie is gifted at cookery, asked if we wanted to come and work at the resort for the month.  I am sure that I was an afterthought but I am not a bad cooker (sic) and a pretty good handyman, so I think I can make myself useful.  Maybe I will be cleaning bathrooms, but that would be okay too.

So here's the deal.  The work will be no more that 20 hours per week, We will stay in the lodge, eat with the staff (of course, we ARE the staff), get Sundays and Mondays off and we can take Zoe, our 75 lb, 6 feet long rescue dog who the head geneticist from the company where we sent her DNA test insists is at least half traditional Chinese Shar Pei - not the wrinkly face kind. And we thought she was a lab when we adopted her... Jake and Laurel have a very cool dog, Cannella who is already friends with Zoe.

Tomorrow we start getting ready. One week to go.