Roper Lake and Dankworth Pond

Hi all,
  A little more info on our park. Roper Lake State Park is a combination of two parks. The main area holds the visitor center, 30 acre Roper Lake, and 50 site campground. It also has a group camp area along with eight cabins.
 The second part is a day use area named Dankworth Pond. It has a 18 acre pond and picnic area. It also has a 2 mile hiking trail. The trail leads through two arroyos and up to a recreated Indian village. The village contains replicas of dwellings, grinding stones, roasting pits and other artifacts. Sadly the village is currently not being maintained.

 Dankworth Pond had been just newly reopened. Cattails had taken over the pond making any use impossible. In a joint effort with the State and Wildlife and Game the pond was drained and dredged removing the cattails and scrub from the area. They have refilled and are now in the process of restocking. They will be holding a grand reopening ceremony in December.

 We survived our first few days on the job. We were a bit worried as the weekend was almost full. Veterans Day is a Arizona school holiday bringing out the families for the three day weekend. Friday we got surprised as they posted our work schedule for November. Turns out we will be getting three days off a week. When we took the job we were told it would be visitor center with some light maintenance. We are actually scheduled to work two days in the visitor center and two days in maintenance. The maint. jobs will be various tasks, The park manager keeps a list of projects he would like done and you pick what you're capable of. We may also assist cabin cleaning if needed. They showed us around the work shop where we could find tools for whatever we need. They have a very open system to just take whatever you need. We also have use of a Kubota utility vehicle and trucks if needed. The schedule should be good as many days the visitor center is very slow and time will really drag. So now Wendy and I get to plan for three days of what to do or see (oh darn).

  Talking about jobs and planning, Wendy and I have decided to return to Custer State Park for the summer. It was a hard decision as going back to one place when there are so many places to see and explore. We are doing it a bit different this year, I will be the camphost at Stockade North campground. It is smaller than Game Lodge campground so I should be able to handle alone. Wendy will be applying for a paid attendant job. We had discussed this with the supervisor and he was all ok with it. Wendy will work 24-32 hrs.and have off the same days. We put a lot of thought in this and think we can make it work. We kid that Wendy will be working for some new tires for the truck.