The fifteen person attendance at our first pot luck dinner in the park was disappointing. However, the food was diverse, delicious and plentiful. Bill made a mile high lemon merange pie and yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting and multicolored sprinkles. The pie didn't last long; many people took the pie before they took their main course...quite a compliment.
Thursday nights activity was a beef stew dinner outside by the lake. Bill was assigned to make rolls and an apple crunch for desert. I ran errands and served the desert. About sixteen people attended; not a huge turnout. However, those in attendance had a great time and sat around the bonfire after dinner for quite some time chatting and roasting marshmallows .
Highlighting our stay at St. David's RV Resort were the two evenings that Johnnie Ben Como, an Indian/Mexican country western singer performed at the park. Johnnie is a local who talks, sings and plays one of the three eighteen string guitars in existence. He entertains for over two hours non-stop taking requests, singing old standards and songs he has written himself.
All good things must come to an end. Over the next few weeks things slowly spiraled down hill....Our assignments changed like the wind.....one week we were assigned to run activities on Mae's days off the next week she told us the guests would be on their own; no need for us to organize card games for them. She insisted we take two days off a week....never mind we still didn't have a regular schedule. Bill had received rave reviews for his cinnamon rolls which should have made Mae happy....but it didn't. The following week, she went back to cooking Sisco Foods cinnamon rolls herself. She told us someone told her there was a rumor in the park that we wanted her job; we think she made it up to see how we would react! She obviously felt threatened by us, in spite of the fact that we assured her we were headed to Florida and had another volunteer assignment on April 1st.
The next week Mae told us she was taking Thursday off and we would need to put on a pot roast dinner by ourselves. No problem....Bill found a great recipe on line that had received rave reviews. So at 7:30AM on Thursday morning he put the pot roast in the roaster with secret gravy making ingredients that we bought ourselves. I peeled and chopped tons of vegetables and potatoes...by noon the sign up sheet had hit thirty! People were signing up because the pot roast smelled so good. Mae showed up three times during the day to check up on us. When she discovered that Bill had made two cakes, a carrot and a yellow with chocolate frosting and was decorating them with flowers and mini carrots she got ugly and said he was using powdered sugar that she was planning on using that weekend. We offered to replace it, but she said never mind she would figure it all out. Well, the dinner was a huge success. Thirty two people signed up...four of them being Joan and her husband and two visitors from the corporate office. The pot roast turned out great; the reviews were right the gravy was delicious. Lots of compliments to the chef! Joan's husband took most of the remains home with him; a compliment by itself.
Sunday, Feb 5th, we worked the pancake breakfast with Jeanie, another volunteer. Jeanie and Bill were assigned to cook pancakes on the griddles. Jeannie told Mae she didn't want to cook; she never cooked at home her husband did all the cooking. Bill and I both offered to cook for her, but Mae said she needed to learn how to do this reminding us once again that she was in charge. Bill ladled pancakes onto her griddle and Jeannie went into a melt down and ran off crying when she couldn't flip the pancakes. Bill, the volunteer who normally grills the steaks on Saturday night, happened to be attending the breakfast and took over for her. Mae said nothing to him. Bill or I would have gladly taken over for her, but did not dare to interfere since we had been duly warned by Mae just minutes before that "she was in charge". To further complicate matters, we ran out of pancake batter half way through the breakfast...Mae had decided to let ten people in who did not have reservations...fatal mistake! She had no reserve batter in the store room and had to improvise with Jiffy biscuit mix. Mae handed the bowl of batter to Bill hissing "don't you say a work Mister". I was serving Mae's burnt sausage patties, and lest we run out, cut back the portion to one pattie per person. I think there were a few unhappy customers that morning. After breakfast we headed back to the clubhouse to wash the dishes. Mae followed us over saying we should clear the air and have a chat. The chat only served to convince us it was time to move on. The following morning Bill wrote Joan a letter explaining our reasons for leaving and we pulled up stakes and hit the road.
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