Support Services For Volunteers A Most Often Unrecognized Expense For The Parkway
Upgraded electical service to support more support from volunteers ...
One of the nice pleasures of traveling between the campgrounds on the Blue Ridge Parkway is visiting with the campground hosts. These are volunteers who are most often retired, have committed the whole or part of a season to serving the public, and simply enjoy this as a way of life for a season in a beautiful location.
I am always full of anticipation any time I pull in to the campground because their reserved spot is near the front where there is a power and water hook-up. Being a campground host is a special subset of R.V.’ers who like a turtle, carry their home around on their back. The conveniences of this special camping sect most-often have all the conveniences of a real home including power appliances, air-conditioning (when and if needed), hot showers, and satellite connections to TV and the Internet.
Interestingly, the power requirements to support this turtle home have outstripped the power capacities of many of the campgrounds electrical services. Such is the case now at at Crabtree Falls when I found these maintenance and engineering staff dredging to install a new power hookup to the host site. I was a little naive in my question by just guessing how large a service they were installing. I asked “a 50-amp service, “no”, they replied — “200-amp”
200-amp is a full-scale standard residential electrical service. Certainly a worthy investment for the Blue Ridge Parkway, but an expense that most would ever guess as being a maintenance item to attract and retain these special volunteers.
