Norm and Chris had known they wanted to full time RV from the time they purchased a tent trailer in 1983. Their first motorhome was a brand new 1988 22' Class A Itasca, which they owned for five years before upgrading to the 1993 29-foot Itasca that took them to their first Life On Wheels Conference. After selling their stick and mortar home about mid-year of their first year of full-timing, they ordered a 1997 35-foot Safari Sahara diesel pusher that they named “Grizzly.”

But before starting out in their Itasca, the Dentons had done their homework. Still too young to retire, but wanting to get on the road while they had good health and stamina, they had packed their twins off to college and earmarked money for their tuition. Norm, an architect, sold his interest in a firm, raising eyebrows of his partners who plainly stated he was entering a mid-life crisis. Chris, a hairdresser by trade, had determined a few years earlier to pass a CDL driver’s license test and become a school bus driver. Her reasoning: Workamping jobs for shuttle drivers in Grand Canyon typically paid more than minimum wage.

Yet, sixteen years later, Chris has never taken that shuttle driver’s job. After leisurely traveling to Yellowstone National Park their first summer, Norm landed a job as a fishing guide—not really a job for him because fishing is his passion. However, when autumn approached, they headed back to their hometown in Washington and Chris resumed her job as a bus driver, at least until their house sold. While they had envisioned summer Workamping jobs and winters loafing through the warm deserts of New Mexico and Arizona, the realization of a monthly salary plus benefits from a school bus driving job started to look more promising for the immediate future. Norm tagged along, trading business lunches with clients carrying briefcases for the clatter of school kids filing onto a big yellow bus swinging backpacks and lunch boxes.

“Driving school buses gave us good incomes until I could access my retirement fund without penalties at age 60,” Norm says. “Working with a public school schedule, we often had three or four-day weekends free, plus mid-winter and spring breaks. Then there were summers off.” While their jobs were not easy, rising at 5:00 a.m. to prepare for their runs, the Dentons also had the option of unplugging at the end of a week and driving to Long Beach Peninsula. No lawns to mow and no house to repair. When their traditional home sold, they traded addresses for a site in a local RV park and purchased their dream motorhome.

The summer of 2011 marked the Denton’s’ first true Workamping job since they started full-time RVing in 1995. After taking retirement from their bus driving jobs, the couple started working in May at Grizzly RV Park in West Yellowstone, Montana. Even in May, they encountered a blizzard, and start up seemed slow at the luxurious RV campground.

“We had become used to a strict schedule,” Norm says. “We met our bus stops precisely on the minute, so it took a while for us to adjust to a more relaxed working atmosphere.”

Norm and Chris were among seven couples hired to work four days a week with three consecutive days off. The men in the group worked outside, taking care of the grounds and maintaining the facilities. One of their managers trained the women in the group to use the Campground Manager program for reservations.

“I knew when we were interviewed in person the summer before we took the job that the park uses Campground Manager,” Chris says. “But the managers, Mark and Brenda, prefer to do their own training, so it did not matter that I had no experience with the program. Each couple started working on staggered dates so Brenda could train each one personally. There were a lot of details and repetition, but the managers’ philosophy is: ‘anything you do can be fixed.' They were great employers.”

At Grizzly RV Park, the office opened at 6:45 a.m. and closed at 9:00 p.m. Workampers had an eight-hour day, with one hour for lunch. The shifts were 6:45 a.m. till 3:45 p.m., 8:00 a.m. till 5:00 p.m., 10:00 a.m. till 6:00 p.m., and noon until closing at 9:00 p.m. Norm and Chris worked the 8:00-5:00 shift, giving them plenty of daylight on long summer days to go into Yellowstone and fish or sightsee. “We often packed food and sat on a river bank soaking up the beauty,” Chris says.

For compensation, the Dentons received a full hookup site with cable and Wi-Fi, laundry privileges, and hourly wages. “Many of the stores/restaurants in West Yellowstone considered us ‘locals’ and offered a discount because we worked there for the entire season,” Chris explains. “We were ‘comped’ passes to some of the tour companies, river rafters, zip-line companies, and river guide trips to better promote their businesses. It was great and we tried to do as many as we could fit in!”

Chris continues: “The ladies did the usual check-in for guests, made reservations, and gave information about the area.  In essence, we were tour guides and public relations personnel. We were also responsible for the retail purchases in the office/store.”

Norm describes the men’s duties: “We kept the buildings clean, including the bathrooms, laundry, and conference room with its coffee and cappuccino machine. The outside grounds had to be mowed, clipped, edged, and manicured. We checked and fixed electric boxes, TV cables, and anything else. Many campers were new to their RV and so the guys were often asked to 'help' or give guidance on dumping the grey/black water, hooking up at the site's electrical,  and also to point to the best fishing holes in Yellowstone. Our jobs included lots of public relations!”

Both Norm and Chris note the funny questions they were asked: "When do they let the animals come out?" or "What time do they turn the geysers on?”

At the end of the season the managers let each couple go about one to two weeks apart. Some had other Workamping engagements for the winter. Labor Day came, and Norm and Chris watched guests packing up to return home, and possibly, put their campers in storage as they resumed their lives.  “We hadn't really thought about life after our job here at Grizzly until we realized our last day was at the end of September. It felt weird that we had no job to return to or no place we had to be,” Chris says. “For years we had dreamed about doing this—and it was even more fun than we thought. In the past, we had been the ones packing up and heading back to work after a summer of playing.”

Fall didn’t last long in Yellowstone National Park. Within two days, the aspen and cottonwoods were green, and then amber colored. And leaves began to drop. Nighttime temperatures dropped below freezing and before Norm and Chris left Grizzly RV Park, snow was predicted.

On their last day, the Dentons were called into the manager’s office for an evaluation exchange. The managers asked how they could improve. Then they offered Norm and Chris an invitation to return for next season. “We decided we would like to go back next spring now that we know the management’s expectations,” Chris says.  “We are drawn to Yellowstone National Park with all its wonders of wildlife, geysers, bubbling pots, flowing rivers, and green mountains. How amazing to see a season start here, and then to see it end.

“I wish I could accurately express how weird it felt to know we were heading off to another adventure and did not know what to expect. For a whole winter, we had no timetable, no agenda, and no clue what we'd find around the next turn of the road.  “Exciting?  Yes,” Chris continues, clicking off the places on their list yet to experience. “But kind of scary, too! However, we’ve been living full-time in our present motorhome since 1997, and none of the glitter of this lifestyle has worn off.”