We spent the Winter of COVID (2020-2021) in Mesa, Arizona. This was our second experience workamping for a large Encore resort, and we really enjoyed it. We both worked in the Activities Department, but of course, with COVID, there were very few activities.

We were also wary of doing too much outside of the park, since during much of our stay Arizona had the highest percentage of COVID cases in the world. Fortunately, we were in Maricopa county and most businesses here followed COVID protocol and most people wore masks and practiced social distancing.

We enjoyed our time here and loved the weather, but feel like we really didn’t get to see much of the area or do a lot of the things we’d like to do. Our summer traveling was also up in the air until recently. We had booked an Alaskan cruise that was scheduled to leave from Vancouver at the end of July. Not knowing if the cruise would be canceled or not, we didn’t feel comfortable looking for a job for the summer. And with all of the uncertainty around COVID we didn’t really know how to plan.

A few weeks ago the cruise line canceled our cruise and Arizona made all adults eligible for the COVID vaccine, so we finally feel like we could make some plans! We signed up for the vaccine and made plans to leave a week after our second dose.

When we bought our new fifth wheel, we also recieved a free one year membership to Thousand Trails, which we have wanted to try out for a while.

More to come, but our plan for the summer is to travel around California staying at as many Thousand Trails parks as we can (and to see an ocean again!!).