Author: Lee and Tracy

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First Time Moving the RV without Lee

Despite everything that happened I did sleep OK, mainly because I took some Nyquil.  I woke up at 8am and saw Greg wasn’t going to be there until 10:30 and rolled over and slept until 9am.  When I woke up I had energy and purpose and started buttoning everything up.  Because I was way more comfortable with the inside of the rig I started there, and tried to move slowly and with great deliberation.  Lee always double checks my work so I wanted to be super careful I didn’t miss anything, and by the time Greg got there at 10am I was close to being done.  During the pack up process I kept going out and talking to the gate guard supervisor who was covering.  I made sure I transitioned all their equipment back to them and left their extension cords etc with the trailer they provide.

I want to be clear here I absolutely did NOT have to move the next day.  The gate guard company would have figured it and laid no expectations on me.  I wanted to move the RV for a few reasons.  First and foremost I wanted Lee to come home to the RV already moved.  He was lobbying for us to wait until he could come and help and I absolutely did not want him in a truck five hours round trip and then dealing with the move.  Second, I wanted my stuff near the hospital.  I had to get Jack back and needed the RV and cage etc to make that work.  I wanted my bed, my shower, my clothes etc, and since I was lucky enough to have a place to take it I wanted to make it happen sooner rather than later.  Third, I was trying to do right by the gate guard company.  There was a small area they could maybe squeeze a second rig and trailer in but it was not optimal.  By getting out before the relief came it made their lives easier.

The only reason I felt comfortable doing any of this at all was because Cori was with Lee.  She got up and went to the hospital and spent most of the day with him.  She kept him entertained, talked to doctors and basically made sure he got what he needed.  If I didn’t have her doing that no way would I have left him alone all day.  It would have had to wait.  If I didn’t have their help I probably would have needed to wait for him anyway.  Several gate guard friends were close by and they certainly would have come and helped, but having a place to go and a long time friend to help gave me the courage to tackle it immediately.

During this process Greg was absolutely amazing.  He doesn’t own a fifth wheel, but the basic mechanics of slides, power, water, and sewer aren’t that different.  He also had brought his truck down which was really great because instead of needing to neatly pack everything, we just threw most of the outside stuff into his truck.  That was super important because Lee is the pack master and I would have a hard time duplicating how he packs.  Left to my own devices I probably would have thrown everything on the bed, which would have been a mess.  Because we were both a little uncomfortable we took our time and talked through everything out loud.  He was extremely kind and patient and let me work through it at my own speed.

When we got to the hitching though we both paused.  Hitching is really important, and neither of us had ever done it ourselves.  We talked it through and it looked right but Greg wanted to make absolutely sure.  If the hitch was wrong we could have severely damaged the rig or the truck.  I appreciated the fact that he didn’t just barrel through and first we called Lee.  Unfortunately he was in the middle of a room change (from ICU to step down) and couldn’t talk so then we called Bill.  He wasn’t immediately available so next I called Steve.  Up until this point, I hadn’t told Steve and I didn’t handle that call very well.  Basically it was “Hi Steve, Lee had a heart attack, he’s OK, but can you help us with our hitch?”.  I wasn’t thinking to clearly at that point. Steve to his credit, after his initial shock took it in stride but unfortunately didn’t have the same hitch.  Lee called back and so did Bill and ultimately Greg felt comfortable it was hitched probably.

The only thing that made it really tough, was Lee had written about what happened on Facebook.  I was glad he told people, because word was starting to leak out, but that act opened the floodgates.  Tons of people reached out to me and the love and support was amazing. I was glad Lee was telling people he was OK, but I felt like I needed to stop and answer every single text.  In retrospect I should have made a general Facebook announcement and waited until I was done with everything. The kids wanted more information and now that he was OK, they had a lot to say. Everyone was worried and rightly so but I was just feeling overwhelmed.  Not the best head space to be in when trying to move the rig without Lee and I really needed to focus. No one knew that of course, which again is why I should have just made a general announcement so people would know why I couldn’t get right back to them.

We finally got it done and although Greg offered to drive I decided I was going to.  He’s never driven a fifth wheel and although I had every confidence in him, I felt this was one thing I could do for myself.  He did keep the dogs in his truck because I knew Jack would be all over me and didn’t want any distractions.  Pulling out was actually the hardest part because I had to go down the oilfield road and turn around.  In retrospect we should have driven it first, but it didn’t even occur to me because we never have a second vehicle.  I went down  to the spot where the helicopter had landed thinking that area would be big enough to turn around, but what I didn’t see was a HUGE rut in the middle of the road.  No way was I going through that so I started trying to back up which I am not very good at.

Hard to tell from the picture but it was bad

Thankfully Greg saw something was wrong and he pulled up. He walked it first and then said he could get it through.  He pull the truck as far to the right as he could and the RV tipped significantly as he was going through.  In that moment I was 100% sure it was going to flip on it’s side and I think my stress meter just overloaded. Emotionally at that point I just shut down although I did feel relief when he made it through both ways OK.

Going through the first time . It seemed way worse in person.

 

Coming back out.

I took back over driving at that point and Greg followed me.  Right before San Antonio I did stop at a rest area and told him I was feeling comfortable and he could go on ahead.  I took a few minutes and ate some pizza, went to the bathroom, and tried to talk to Lee.  Again, he was in the middle of talking to doctors but I exchanged texts with Cori and she said things were OK.  Lee was lobbying hard to be let out of the hospital, but they were having none of that.  He hated his room, his roommate was seriously ill, and he just wanted to go home.  The enzyme tests though weren’t as low as they would like and they needed to do an echo.  He was staying another night and was just going to have to deal with that.

I continued driving and followed my GPS which took me an unusual way.  Turns out there were accidents and construction on the normal route, which Greg took, and I actually beat him there.  Unfortunately as I was turning into his driveway I cut it to close and once again got stuck.  I needed to back up and was nervous because I was in loose gravel.  Thankfully Greg got there 5 minutes later and he got it in the driveway.  He had to make a super wide turn up into the grass to get it in but he managed just fine.

At least I stopped when I saw I was in trouble and didn’t make a bad situation worse.

The next part we both knew was going to be difficult.  Greg had never backed in a fifth wheel and I knew I wasn’t great at it.  The site we were getting into was extremely tight and Lee had trouble the last time we were there.  At this point I talked to Lee but he said it was not something he could talk someone through unless he was there.  Greg and I were on our own, but I felt pretty confident we would figure it out.  I knew that Lee had pulled onto the hill to get it lined up last time and I also understood that it took numerous tries in a situation like this and was a battle of inches.  Greg was really calm and patient and we talked the entire time.  Ultimately he had it lined up beautifully and I was super proud of him.

He had to pull pretty far onto the hill in front of him to make it work.

At this point we were both really tired but there was lots left to do.  He stayed with me and watched while I hooked up power and water and he was nice enough to hook up the sewer.  The dogs were going crazy at this point glad to be outside, but when I opened the door they both came in.  There isn’t much room in the RV when the slides are in, but Hobie managed to squeeze his chunky self in there anyway and went straight to the toys.  That made me smile for the first time in two days. And one more time I want to say how wonderful Greg was.  Many men would have just taken over in that situation.  Not to be mean but in the attempt to be helpful.  Greg made me feel supported but also let me feel in control which I desperately needed in that moment.  He was amazing and couldn’t have handled it any better.  I will always be grateful.

Puupies running in the grass.

 

Hobie squeezing in.

I takes a while to set everything up and even though I did the bare minimum it took a while because there were piles of things I hadn’t dealt with in the button up process.  I was exhausted when I was done, but also knew I needed to get to the hospital.  Cori had just left to head back so I called Lee and told him I was on my way, but he said I didn’t need to come.  He was really cranky and there was nothing I could do to make it better and he wanted me to rest.  I didn’t fight him too hard because I was wiped.  Cori brought home some Panda Express and after eating a quick dinner I went and laid down.  I was mentally too wound up to sleep right away but at least I could rest.  I took the phone in the bedroom with me and finally got to sleep.

At 4:30am the dog woke me up because he needed to go outside.  I had a hard time falling back to sleep but knew I needed to.  I woke up at 7:10am and saw a 6:40am text from Lee saying please come and get him because he wanted to leave as soon as they released him.  That threw me into a panic and I got the dog to pee real quick, grabbed him a shirt and coat, brushed my teeth and left. I knew I shouldn’t rush, but I couldn’t help myself.  I felt late and the guilt from not going the day before came flooding in. Once I got in the truck though a couple of things slowed me down.  First I didn’t have enough gas to get there.  I stopped at one gas station but the pumps weren’t working and then found another and filled completely up.  I had the presence of mind to make sure I put my finger on the diesel symbol on the pump though.  Never making that mistake again.  That gas station had a McDonald’s in it and I went through the drive through and got a sandwich to go.  I hated to lose the time, but I knew I needed a full stomach.

I was also slowed down by the accident on the freeway.  I don’t think I have ever driven on the freeway in San Antonio without either an accident or construction and this was a doozy.  It took me an hour and ten minutes to get to Lee but it turned out to be fine. The cardiologist had released him at 6:30 am but the internist still had to sign off.  He ate some breakfast and then wanted to get dressed, which he did.  We waited another hour and finally they let him leave.  He was coming out of his skin at this point, and couldn’t wait to get out of there.  After we left we needed to stop and get his prescriptions which was tricky as well.  It took a while to fill them, but thankfully my insurance plan has an RX benefit and all in it was only $38.  While we were waiting I had a long talk with my brother and went through the medicines and after care treatment.  The cardiologist talked to Lee but he was super groggy and I wanted to talk to someone I trusted.  Once again having medical people in the family really helped.

I learned that Lee was taking Plavix (to help with the heart plaque) and a cholesterol lowering medicine.  Both of those were for long term prevention though.  The low blood pressure medicine or Beta Blocker was actually my biggest concern but was the most important.  That medicine does two things, the most important was to slow the heart down so it doesn’t work so hard.  Since Lee’s blood pressure was good throughout the event I was concerned about it getting too low, but my brother suggested buying a blood pressure machine and checking it regularly.  If the blood pressure got too low he could cut them in half but it was extremely important in the short term that he take those pills.  We also talked about the short-term recuperation, again things I would have talked to the cardiologist about if I would have been there.

On our way home, Lee started talking about lifestyle changes.  I had made up my mind that in the short term I was going to allow him to decide the changes he wanted to make and I would be open to doing them with him.  Long term if he was unwilling to make any changes that would be a separate conversation, but I hoped the event scared him enough that wouldn’t be necessary. Thankfully the entire experience was unpleasant enough he wanted to make changes.  We both felt it was important to take this seriously but also take a moment as well.  I also made sure I didn’t put lots of demands on him, because ultimately it was his decision.

When we got back to the RV he felt pretty good, but needed to rest.  He also had lots of phone calls to make.  Cori said she would make dinner and then left to go to the store and brought us back a Ninja Air Fryer.  We had looked at these before but were on the fence, but now was a perfect time to get one.  We loved our little baby fry daddy but it was messy and of course not good for you.  Cori made fish, green beans, and salad for dinner and used the air fryer to make tater tots.  They turned out really crispy and everyone really liked them.  It was incredibly thoughtful of her.  In the last couple of years she had gone through the process of eating healthier and has been a wonderful resource.  Our friend who had a heart attack a year ago also reached out and told us about the McDougall diet. He has had dramatic results from adhering to it and has lost 40 pounds and is now off all medicine.

 

I particularly appreciate how they both approached me being helpful but also understanding about how difficult life changes are.  A few people had made comments telling us what to do that I found rude and a little hostile.  We both knew we had to make big changes and make them quickly, but we were also dealing with life as well and it was all overwhelming.  Our plans for the next six weeks involved Lee working in Arizona and then taking some time off before starting work in Portland.  Unfortunately the cardiologist was on vacation next week and couldn’t see us until after we had to leave.  We didn’t have enough medicine to get us through to Oregon where our family physician is and weren’t all that comfortable traveling without a check out.  Lee made several phone calls and finally got someone to understand our unusual situation. They found a cardiologist to see us on Monday of next week, but it was no easy thing.  She had to go to her managers to even make it happen.

I was finding that when we talked about how we traveled people were just glazing over.  Finally I just started telling people we lived in Oregon and were on vacation and that they seemed willing to deal with.  There was a very good chance at one point we were going to need to stay in San Antonio indefinitely.  That still could happen depending on the test results.  Sometimes they want to do a follow-up catheter in 3 months.  It would be extremely difficult if not impossible to transfer all of this to another doctor. And all of this might not matter except we have bills to pay.  The kids were pushing hard to have him not work the March job, but that will cover our months expenses.  We already had lost 2 weeks on pay in the oilfield and things since November have been tight.  Thankfully we had a place to stay for free indefinitely, but we needed income coming in.  I was resolved in the short-term not to even think about it, but it was on Lee’s mind.  We talked through the various scenarios but there were too many unknowns to make any decisions.  I steadfastly said we would figure it out no matter what and his health came first.  I was completely open to just getting a temporary job if we had to stay to bring some money in.

It’s not a complete disaster, because we have $16K in an contingency fund for just something like this, but Lee knows once that fund is gone we need to stop traveling for a while and build it back up.  We also have the medical bills looming of course, but again I was pushing that off to another day.  It didn’t help when I got a call from the helicopter company verifying insurance and letting me know they were going to bill $57K.  We will see how all of that plays out over time, and yes, I am as sticker shocked as you probably are.  Right now though we tried to focus on what was right in front of us and that was getting the cardiologist appointment, and making some decisions about lifestyle changes.

Lee woke up the next morning and said he wanted to try Chantrix.  I called my Dad and he called in a prescription for us immediately.  We also gave me some great information on what had just happened.  One of the best pieces of advice he gave me was to try and get a CD copy of the medical procedure.  They record them now and he thought it would be good to take to any other cardiologist.  I never even thought about that. After the call, I left to get us the Chantrix.  I had to go to two different pharmacies because they each only had one starter package , but it was 100% covered by insurance which was great.   Cori also fixed another really healthy meal of pork loin, salad, and she even made a yummy low calories desert.  She has found great alternatives for sweets which should really help quite a bit.  We can’t really replace every “bad” food item we have, but we can replace them with better alternatives over time and cook things in healthier ways in the meantime.  Cori also gave Lee some things to try including Kodiak Cakes, which he really liked and Stevia, which he is trying in some recipes.

She’s been amazing through all of this and her approach is just right.  She is providing information and encouragement and giving him someone neutral to talk to.  Which was a really good thing because at some point I just mentally shut down.  I needed a minute to catch my breath and as much as I appreciated his enthusiasm, it was all overwhelming.  Let me put it this way.  I woke up Monday morning and by Friday my husband had a serious medical incident, I had lost my job, moved my home, was quitting smoking, and changing my diet. The brute force tactics are certainly called for in this situation, but all things being equal I wouldn’t have chosen to take all this on at once.  What mattered both then and now was Lee.  He is a person who needs to make quick and dramatic changes and I get that about him.  The worst possible scenario would have been he didn’t take it seriously, and I will take all of this over that any day.

So that’s where we are right now. I will continue to walk you guys through this as it occurs and we will see where it all ends up. Right now, if at all possible, we want to continue with our life as planned.  Hopefully everything will be just fine and we will continue to be able to do that. I will say one thing, no matter what happens: I don’t regret being a full time RVer.  Obviously if this would have happened in a normal house things would have been simpler in some respects, but the things we have seen and done over the last four years were worth whatever comes our way.

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What Lee Will Do To Ride In A Helicopter

Let me start by saying that Lee had a mild heart attack but is OK.  As of this writing he is home and doing fine. I decided to write about the incident because I think it is really important to share what happened.  As you probably know, Lee smokes, is a little overweight, and has a terrible family history of heart problems. His risk factors for a cardiac event were really high and the choices he made led directly to it happening.  It’s OK if you judge us for that, hell I do, but please keep in mind that people have heart attacks all the time who don’t have these risk factors.  I personally know four different people who have had heart attacks since we started full timing four years ago.  Two of them never smoked and one of the four was a woman.  This truly could happen to anyone and I think walking you through the incident may help someone if it happens to them.  That is why I am sharing this story.  I will ask in advance that you keep any post comments positive.  I am quite aware that there are many things we could have done differently and I am going to talk about those as I go through it.

To set the stage, we have been working on a gate about 2 hours south of San Antonio.  The gate has been pretty mellow and the day was just like any other day.  Around 10am, Lee ate some lunch and almost immediately started to feel bad.  He was nauseated, his left fingers were tingling, and he has sweat on his upper lip.  At first he thought it was food poisoning and then maybe the flu. When he woke me up at 11am (my regular time) he really was feeling bad.  When he mentioned the numbness I had him take a baby aspirin and go lay down.  I’m not even sure why I did that.  I have had baby aspirin in my RV since a friend of mine had a heart attack but we have never used it.  I didn’t really think he was having heart issues at that point, but thought just in case it couldn’t hurt. Turns out that one baby aspirin could have saved his life, or at least mitigated the damage.  The first thing the Squad personnel did was give him more baby aspirin.

He was laying down for less than 10 minutes when he said I needed to call 911 because his chest was hurting.  In 30 years of marriage, Lee has never asked me to call an ambulance, and I did it immediately.  The problem was the closest small town was 20 miles away and all they had was a rural health clinic.  I briefly thought about driving him there instead of calling, but because we were working the gate and I wasn’t 100% sure where to go I just called.  Again, this was a split moment decision and it turned out to be the right one.  During this vehicles were continuing to go through the gate and I was running back and forth and waving them through.  I stopped one and asked if anyone back in the oilfield had medical experience, and he said no and I should drive Lee into town.

That felt wrong to me and since at this point the chest pains were much worse, I wasn’t even sure I could get him in the truck.  I sat there holding his hand watching him writhe in pain and was sure he was going to die.  That feeling of helplessness will stay with me the rest of my life.  I need to do something, so I called my brother (who is a doctor) and he immediately took my call.  I asked him if there was anything else I could do and he said no, just baby aspirin, and felt I should wait for the squad.  That calmed me down enough to call 911 back and they said they were less than 5 minutes away.  The fire department did call me because they couldn’t find our gate and as I was outside trying to get my bearings a truck pulled in and said he had seen them down the road and immediately turned around and went and got them and led them to the gate. There were three vehicles that arrived and it was all less than 20 minutes from when I called, which is amazingly good response time considering how rural it is.

They used a portable EKG to verify he was having a heart attack and gave him some nitro which provided some relief.  They also determined he needed flown to a hospital and had a helicopter en route.  I cannot say enough about the professionalism and expertise of these young people. Our RV bedroom is very small but somehow they managed to fit four people in there and be extremely effective.  The unusual circumstances didn’t bother them in the slightest and they had the situation well in hand. While they were with him I couldn’t fit in the room and took that opportunity to call my boss.  He was on a conference call with all of the supervisors and they had someone there to cover before the squad left.  This was important because it was a one lane gate and at this point it was completely blocked by the squad vehicles.  The oil company and the gate guard company managed traffic somehow and made sure there wasn’t an accident.

I am not sure how this happened because I kept running into the bedroom to check on Lee. He was extremely upset.  He kept saying he couldn’t leave me, that he had to take care of me, and I had to keep assuring him I would be OK.  At one point when I was out of the room I heard him say he didn’t want to die and I almost lost it. My falling apart wasn’t going to help anything and I was ruthless with myself as I started putting a plan in place.  I had the dog, I was 2 hours away from the hospital, and I couldn’t go with him on the helicopter regardless.  The thought of him being alone until I got there was awful so I called my friend Cori.  Cori was staying north of San Antonio and as soon as I told her what was happening she and Greg got into the car.  They didn’t even have a location yet because I wasn’t sure what hospital but she brushed that aside and said she was on her way towards town.  She said to meet them at the hospital and bring the dog and they would make sure Jack was taken care of. Since I had no idea how long I was going to be gone, I knew I couldn’t just leave him.

At this point they had Lee stable and were moving him into the ambulance and driving him down to the helicopter, which they had landed in a patch of the oilfield.  Again the team they sent was amazing, because they figured out the logistics of where it would land very quickly.  The only thing they didn’t know was which hospital he was going to so I had to sit and wait until the helicopter took off.  That was the worst part and seemed to take forever.  It was just the logistics of moving him into the copter, but it felt like forever and I was sure the worst had happened.  During this period my sister called me and said all of the right things.  She is a nurse, and reassured me I had done the right things and then asked if she could pray for me. I said I would appreciate that and she said if it was okay she wanted to say a prayer with me right then and there.  More than anything else that act calmed me down and right after we finished the prayer the helicopter took off. I even had the presence of mind to take a picture of it taking off through the window, more out of amazement than anything else.

Helicopter taking off from oil field

Although I was calm I really wasn’t thinking very clearly at this point.  I felt like I was on autopilot and in retrospect what helped me was the fact that I had thought about this scenario in advance.  Because we were in a remote location, I had thought through the basic logistics of a medical emergency.  Turns out there were lots of details I didn’t take into account but at least the basics were covered.  I spoke to the medical team as they were leaving and got the name of the hospital and then immediately texted Cori.  She was able to get there right before the helicopter landed and was in the ER with Lee ten minutes after he arrived.  That was a huge blessing and knowing she was there I was able to not be so frantic.  I talked briefly to the relief supervisor and then packed some things for the dog and jumped in the truck.  Here’s what I didn’t take.  No coat for Lee (it was very cold) or any other clothes.  Nothing for myself in case I wanted to spend the night.  I grabbed the book he was reading and then left it on the table and he could really have used that.  I was fixated on the dog and got his leash, bed, and dog food, but nothing for myself or Lee.  I did make sure I had a medical card, my purse, Lee’s wallet, and some cash, all of which was important.  The emergency squad got his insurance information before he even got on the helicopter, so I knew I would need that.

Helicopter coming into hospital (courtesy of Cori).  we think it was same one could be wrong about that.

At this point I got in the truck and started driving.  The hospital was on the north end of San Antonio and with traffic was roughly 2-1/2 hours away.  I really focused on staying calm while I was driving and even drove through a McDonald’s to get a quick sandwich because I hadn’t eaten anything.  It helped that Cori was with him and I knew he was stable.  They were running tests and the worst thing I could do was get in an accident.  We knew it couldn’t be that bad or they would have rushed him to surgery and what I learned later was his enzymes were very high indicating something was wrong, but the EKG results were inconclusive.  I spent the time thinking and calling some people.  I called Lee’s mom first and then I spoke to his Dad, and my Dad.  My Mom is on a worldwide cruise and in Australia so I didn’t reach out to her, but I did follow up with my brother.  I also called Bill and Bryan, two of Lee’s best friends.  I tried to think of the people that absolutely needed to know, and when I was almost at the hospital I called Linda.  She was on my mind and I knew she loved us and wanted to give her a call.  Everyone was really great, but I want to give out a piece of advice here.  Anyone you notify, you will need to get up to date throughout the event and that can get a little overwhelming.  Texts were better and group texts were the most efficient, but some people I needed to speak to one on one. Just think about that when you start notifying people, because once they know and are involved you have to keep them up to date.

I intentionally didn’t call my girls because I wanted information before I did that, and I knew those were all individual phone calls.  When I arrived at the hospital, Cori sent Greg out and he took the dog and got the truck parked in a safe spot.  I went back to the ER and it took forever (it seemed) to get back to him.  Three hours had gone by at this point and I desperately needed to see my husband. He was doing OK, but he was in some pain.  Nowhere near the level of pain he was in during the event itself but it wasn’t going away and his enzymes weren’t going down. Not long after I got there the ER cardiologist came in and asked a series of detailed questions.  Based on that conversation she determined she wanted him to have a catheter that evening and left to get it scheduled.  Cori was amazing during all of this because she asked all the right questions.  I come from a medical family, I know what to ask, but seeing him laying there my brain totally froze up.  She took notes and made sure we had all kinds of information and never left my side.

One thing did occur to me after the cardiologist left and I realized this was the point where I was supposed to be my own financial advocate.  Thankfully, we have insurance, but like many others it has a huge $7200 individual deductible.  I told Cori I know I am supposed to bargain shop around at this point on procedures, and even decide whether or not to get it done, but in an emergency situation like this how the heck was I supposed to do that? I get how that works in an outpatient situation (in theory), but if these doctors weren’t in plan or the procedure wasn’t covered for some reason it didn’t matter.  Nothing mattered other than Lee not being in pain anymore.  We both knew the helicopter ride would have been expensive, Lee even said in the midst of the heart attack in the RV “we can’t afford that”, but what should I had done?  Said, “No, don’t send the helicopter, we will drive the two and a half hours and see what happens.”?  No way.  Those thoughts briefly crossed my mind and were immediately set aside.  I would deal with the bills when they came, and I was so thankful that despite the occasional urge to get rid of insurance and roll the dice we never did that. It is likely because we made so little last year they will forgive some of the debt, but even if they don’t there is a big difference between $10K and $100K.  I’m guessing here, and we will see how it all plays out long term but the idea of my trying to manage the financial aspects in that moment was just ridiculous.

One other thing I want to mention here is I truly believe that at this point they could have released him.  If he had downplayed his pain, if we all weren’t so engaged, or if we weren’t honest about his risk factors, they may have sent him home.  The EKG wasn’t showing a heart attack and for some reason they didn’t see the EKG from the oilfield.  The doctor made sure he got in though, and they kept a doctor late to do the procedure.  We stayed with him in shifts, taking turns eating and during all of this Cori had her sister come and pick up both dogs.  That was incredibly nice of Sherry because she drove an extra hour round trip to make that happen. I though at this point Cori and Greg might take off but they made it clear that wasn’t happening. They were absolutely amazing, and I can’t say enough how lucky we didn’t have to go through it alone.  Without them I would have had to try and find a boarder for Jack and probably would have left the hospital to do that.  Best case I would have been running outside periodically to check on him which would have been more pressure. Not to mention how much the moral support mattered and not feeling alone in a strange city with no family nearby.

Greg fixing Lee’s oxygen. He kept all of us in good spirits.

 

He got ripped off on dinner though and had to eat this vending machine sandwich.

 

It’s tense being in an emergency room and the fact that we didn’t know if they were going to do the procedure didn’t help.  Lee did decide to call each of his daughters individually just in case something happened during the procedure.  They were thankfully all available and they all handled it very well.  They took the time to make sure I was OK as well, which I thought was incredibly sweet of them.  Finally a couple of nurses came in and started his prep.  They took him upstairs and put us in a waiting room and told me it would be about an hour.  That wait was incredibly long, because we had no idea what they would find when they went in.  At the hour and a half mark I was really starting to get jumpy when the doctor finally came out. Up until this point, every single person was nice and professional but this guy really rubbed me the wrong way.  He acted as if he was annoyed he had to stay late to complete the procedure and explained that one very small artery was entirely blocked.  He stated it was too small to stent or bypass so they used a balloon to open it, but he shrugged and said it may not last.  Some other arteries were 40% blocked, but they don’t stent until a vessel is 75%.  They were just going to treat it with medication and lifestyle changes.  Finally he said, “He needs to stop smoking.”  and wandered off.

At that point I was enraged.  The procedure may have been routine for him but it certainly wasn’t for us, and only the fact that Cori and Greg were there with me kept me from going off.  I went and called Lee’s Mom immediately to give her an update that he was OK and just as I was finishing the nurse came out.  She was wonderful. she took us back to see him even though he was still in the operating room, and then showed us before and after pictures.  Her explanation made sense and she was very caring and Lee was alert and largely pain free.

The area point to the very small artery that was clogged shut.  You can see where the blood is flowing down and to the right, and then just stops.

 

And the after picture shows blood flowing again past the tiny branch and continuin down to the right.

I found out later after talking to my Dad, who is also a doctor, that the heart often does a natural bypass in situations like this.  Blood over time will flow to different areas, which probably happened in this case which minimized the damage to the heart.  Without a stent there was no way of knowing if the plaque would continue to move and another event could have happened at any time. They actually kept Lee in the hospital for two days to observe him, which my Dad felt was a good thing, and administered medicine and monitored his enzymes while he was there.

We all waited until Lee was settled into his ICU room and made sure he got something to eat.  He was starving, which I thought was a good sign and since it was late they fed him jello and turkey sandwiches.  I offered to stay, but he said I didn’t need to, and Cori offered to get me a hotel room with points she had.  At that point I had no clothes or toothbrush and just wanted to go home.  Greg was coming down first thing in the morning to help me move the rig and I just wanted to go home.  I made the very long drive home and ended up arriving at 1am.  I talked briefly with one of the gate guard supervisors (four of them covered our gate in shifts until they could get a permanent replacement) and then started to clean the house.  It was absolutely trashed and I couldn’t even start buttoning things up until I at least did the dishes and picked some things up.  At 2am I went to sleep and set my alarm to get up at 8am to start the move process.

I’m going to stop this post here and I’ll talk more about what happened in the next post.  Again, Lee, is doing well, and we are putting a plan in place for lifestyle changes that I will cover in more detail during the next post.  I am incredibly grateful for all the love and support we have gotten from the people in our lives, and from strangers.  Once again I will ask that you limit your post comments to items that are constructive and/or positive.  It was difficult reliving this again to write this post, but I really felt that it was important to share.  I also recommend that you read a post  written by Les and Sue about their experience. He was very healthy, had regular exams, ate well, had excellent blood pressure, good cholesterol,  and didn’t smoke and he had a major heart attack while living in his RV.  When I was going through our experience, I remembered some of what she had written months before and I found it very helpful.

 

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February 2019 Budget

Another good month, with expenses only hitting $2,718.  We made $3,775, so another thousand dollars put into savings.  The only big unexpected purchase was our Nighthawk Hot Spot, which was $216. It’s working great though, and since internet is such a big part of our lives I don’t begrudge the purchase.  Also, as an FYI I finished our taxes and sent them to the accountant.  We made roughly $16K last year in 1099 income, and had about $3500 in expenses we could deduct along with $3300 interest on the RV loan. There were major changes this year to the tax code, and I am really not sure how all of that is going to turn out.  It might end up being better for us to just take the standard deduction and not itemize.  We’ll see.  I’ll let you know when the accountant gets back to me.   For more details on this month you can see below.

 

 

Groceries – I adjusted the budget amount to $700 a month for this year based on prior spending and that seems to be a much more manageable target.  Unfortunately we are extremely limited in grocery stores within a one hour drive and the prices reflect that.

Entertainment – My favorite author came out with two new books in the month of February, which was great for me to read, but hit this category a bit. Lee also got a book. Normally we don’t buy books brand new, but he really loves Stephen King and couldn’t wait to get it later.  I also bought my own copy of Open Road, and seeing myself in print was a pretty special moment.  Unfortunately due to printing in color, the trade paperback version is kind of expensive, but I wanted a copy for myself.  It turned out really good.

Insurance –  Now that the new insurance company is in place I need to adjust the budget amounts.

Cigarettes – We buy what we need quarterly and since we will be on the move in a couple of weeks, pre-bought what we would need.

New Equipment – New wifi hotspot, I talked about that above.

This month was fine and we are working until March 18th and then moving on to Phoenix where Lee picked up a week of live event work with a good friend and company he used to work for.  We have saved more than enough to cover our costs until we hit Oregon, and then will start making money again.

 

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  • Purchase the ebook telling the story of how we became full time RVers.
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Mouse, Gate Guard Ladies, and a Rattlesnake

I know crazy title…right?  But it’s been a crazy kind of a week, and things were all over the place.  Before I get into it though, the very best part of my week was getting the results of Kyrston’s ultrasound and finding out she is having a baby boy!!  I loved having daughters but have always wanted to be able to do the boy stuff!  So that’s pretty cool. And the baby looks perfectly healthy and normal which is the most important thing.  He’s definitely photogenic as you can see from the picture 🙂

Baby Boy Klouse

OK, so back to the week.  Well, first of all we had a mouse and it was a big one.  We see signs of mice pretty regularly in the belly of the RV, but rarely do we see them in the rig itself.  It was a quiet night and I was watching TV, when a fat one scurried across the living room floor.  Jack was napping and didn’t even see it, but the next night he did and spent quite a bit of time growling at the area by the sink.  He kept looking at me as if he didn’t know what to do and I wasn’t sure either.  On the one hand if he caught the mouse that would be good, but then I would have to deal with it.  Ultimately he didn’t go after it and Lee caught it in a trap the next day.  That was a relief!

The next day was more excitement because I was meeting up with a group of Gate Guard Ladies.  I have been in a Facebook group with these women for a couple of years, but have never been close enough to attend one of their gatherings.  This lunch was in Cotulla, only 30 minutes away, and I was thrilled I would be able to go.  I was a little nervous of course because I had never met any of them in person, but turns out they were a great group of women and the Mexican restaurant they picked was pretty yummy.

Small Mexican restaurant

 

The restrooms were clean and had this VERY unique “redneck plunger” in the corner which cracked me up. I have a couple of friends who might like one of these.

 

Wonderful group of women. As you can see I’ve put on a few pounds gate guarding.  I’ve been baking quite a bit and it’s definitely having an impact lol!

As someone who is blessed with a really close group of full timer friends, I always find it interesting to see how new groups of full timers I encounter will compare.  What I affirmed was that there are as many ways to live this lifestyle as there are people living it.  There were people in the group that were brand new full timers and others who had been on the road for ten years.  One thing that I found interesting was several of us started full timing with little RVing experience, which is more common I think than people realize. Most of these women gate guard most of the year and although they have tried other jobs, they prefer it because of the freedom.  There is relatively minimal hassle or drama in these gate guarding jobs and many of the women tried camp hosting and much preferred this type of work.  One thing we all agreed on was it was a good way to sock away some cash and although we all had vastly different approaches to how we covered the hours, there were lots of commonalities.  The conversation just flowed and I really enjoyed getting to know them.  And if you are a woman who ever gets a gate guarding job, I highly recommend this group.

I was the first one to leave because I had to stop at the store and get home to relieve Lee.  He starts his day at 3am and I didn’t want him to work too late.  I was barely home and we had just unloaded the groceries when we had a unsettling incident.  One of the oilfield guys pulled in and told us he had seen a huge rattlesnake on the road heading towards our rig and intentionally run over it.  He knows us from this and other gates and was trying to help us out.  Unfortunately it wasn’t completely dead, so we watched to make sure the road was clear and he ran back over it again.  Super nice guy!

Lee talking to the driver

 

This was the snake in the road we could see it was still moving

 

A huge semi came down the road but missed it!

 

So the driver backed over it again for us!

 

Lee went out later and took this pick. He said its body was as big as his arm.

 

Although we have had one up close and personal experience with a rattlesnake in Arizona (see blog post here) this is a little different because now we have Jack.  I take him for walks at night and he loves going into the nearby brush, but I’ll need to make sure he stays in the road.  I’ll also have to make sure I wear the head lamp when I go out and it becomes very important to always look down.  This is the first time in three years we have seen one even this close and we have been really lucky.  In the past we were at gates with lots of hawks and/or road runners and they do a great job of keeping them away.  Plus, we usually leave before it gets warm enough to have to deal with them, but the past couple of days have been on the warm/humid side.  In any event we will keep an eye out and it caused enough excitement that it was definitely worth mentioning.

Supporting our Blog

We very much appreciate your support of our blog. You can help by doing any or all the following:

  • Make purchases via our Amazon website links.  There is no additional cost to you, and a portion of the proceeds help support our blog.  Search Amazon.com here.
  • Purchase the ebook telling the story of how we became full time RVers.
  • Purchase our recipe book filled with 80 recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. You can purchase the kindle or paperback version on Amazon or buy the Apple version on Itunes.
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It’s Been A While

When you are gate guarding the days tend to run together, and it seems like I blinked and twelve days have gone by since our last post.  Nothing major has been going on.  Nothing blog worthy at least, but since a couple people reached out I thought it would be nice to at least check in.  First and foremost, Jack has been bored out of his mind.  There is much less area for him to run here and the cow herd is particularly aggressive.  In the past cows have just ignored him, but these bulls lower their heads and take a couple of steps so I am keeping him inside when they are around.  Unfortunately I never know when they are going to show up and it is particularly unpleasant when it happens at night.

Jack will start to get antsy and I will peek outside

 

These guys get pretty close to the rig

 

On all sides

 

And since he can smell them and see them out the window he’s not happy.  As you can see those horns are no joke.

In an effort to keep him entertained we are trying all kinds of things.  We learned he likes carrots, and he gets rough and tumble with his dog bed.  The dog bed is incredibly well made because no matter how rough he gets with it, its completely intact.

 

Belly rubs are good too.

Sometimes just having a bath is enough entertainment! IF you watch till the end it’s got some pretty cool slow mo of him shaking off the water.

I’ve been pretty bored myself as we have about 24 days left until we can leave.  I’ve been watching the show Sliders which I’ve never seen before, and another show called Humans, but nothing really exciting going on.   I have been trying some new recipes and baking quite a bit, but besides that not feeling very creative.   I finally got all the tax information and will be starting that soon.  Definitely need to get that done before we leave. The most fun I have had is looking for baby stuff for my daughter!  Every month I get to take the amount I make from the blog and book sales and buy Kyrston a present.  This month I bought her a Fisher Price 3-in-1 play mat with a woodland baby theme.  Thanks everyone who shopped at Amazon through our link or bought a book!  Being able to buy these little things without hurting the budget means a lot to me.  Helps me feel connected to her pregnancy.  My daughters and I also started a Pinterest Baby board where we can pin cool ideas.  I am not super crafty, but there are a few things on there I might be able to make when I finish her baby quilt which I am plugging away on.  I finished all the big letters, now I just need to do the animals!

Lee on the other hand has always got some sort of project going on.  It’s pretty windy here, so Lee tried a new way to weigh down our outside tent, that is working very well.

Jack was curious

 

There is water in the buckets. It was necessary because we are on blacktop and he can’t use stakes.

We also were having some difficulty with our AT&T Velocity WiFi hotspot, and after several hours on the phone with tech support it turns out it is just too old.  We bought it five years ago and because it is no longer supported it can’t get updates and it has trouble staying connected to the towers.  After much discussion, Lee went ahead and bought a new version called the Nighthawk, but after ordering it he found out they cancelled the order because they wouldn’t ship it anywhere but our “home” address in FL unless he drove to an AT&T store and ordered it in person. Lee got pretty frustrated over that, because there was absolutely no way around it.  Trust me he tried.  Finally he learned a very few AT&T stores might have the item in stock, even though the AT&T website says they are only sold online. It used to be stocked in stores, but now is only available online and after making several calls he discovered there was ONE in Uvalde, which 90 miles away.  Lee went and picked it up and so far it is working great. Neither one of us was thrilled about spending $200, but we didn’t want to get a third party device just for a lower price and then have problems with it. Five years is a long time for anything to last, and if this one lasts that long it will be well worth it. Plus they had a nice Chinese restaurant two miles from the AT&T store and we were able to treat ourselves.

 

That’s really all that is going on.  We will be in Phoenix the week of March 22nd.  Lee is working for his old company for a week, and I’ll be seeing some friends, including Guy and Sue who I have not seen for a long time.  VERY excited about starting to move again, although I’ll be curious to see how Jack handles it.  I’ll leave you with some sunset pictures I took tonight.  It was absolutely gorgeous and on all sides of us.  Usually it’s just pretty in one location, but this night was a special 360 degree view.

Behind us towards the main road

 

 

To the left

 

To the right

 

Semi truck going down the road towards the drilling rig

 

another view of the rig where the sun sets

 

Straight overhead

 

Supporting our Blog

We very much appreciate your support of our blog. You can help by doing any or all the following:

  • Make purchases via our Amazon website links.  There is no additional cost to you, and a portion of the proceeds help support our blog.  Search Amazon.com here.
  • Purchase the ebook telling the story of how we became full time RVers.
  • Purchase our recipe book filled with 80 recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. You can purchase the kindle or paperback version on Amazon or buy the Apple version on Itunes.
by

Hobie and Jack Reunited

After a few days of very minimal traffic, the drilling rig finally started to arrive.  The good news was that our supervisor told us to just wave the big trucks through and not worry about capturing their information either coming in or going out.  The reason for this policy is the gate is a single width (only 16′)  and the big trucks just barely fit through.  The last thing we want is a traffic jam, which would result in trucks needing to back up or sitting out on the road, which is incredibly dangerous for a county road with a speed limit of 70mph.

We very much appreciated the common sense policy and wow has it made a world of difference.  Instead of going out to the gate and opening and shutting it every time, we simply lean out our door and wave the big trucks through.  This new policy was even more appreciated, because the weather cooled down very suddenly.  We went from 90 degree weather with 80% humidity to 41 degree weather with 37% humidity in a matter of a few hours. It’s great not needing to stay outside or even bundle up since our stints outside are much faster.  Most importantly because of the new policy we were able to see Cori and Greg!  They were passing through on their way back from a trip and wondered if they could stop by.  Since we have a large patch of grass they could fit their little RV in AND we knew we wouldn’t have constant interruptions we said were thrilled to see them.  We love it when people come and see us while gate guarding, but it is no fun when you have to stop every five minutes and run out to the gate.

As soon as they arrived I grabbed Hobie and brought him in the house and Jack went absolutely ballistic.  He not only remembered Hobie, but jumped all over him in glee.  They were moving so fast I couldn’t even get a non blurry picture, and this was the best one I could get.

 

I also wondered how Jack would do with Cori and Greg since he has been pretty suspicious of any strangers we have seen, but he obviously remembered them.  He jumped into Cori’s lap and was all over Greg throughout their entire visit.  I don’t know if it is because they smelled like Hobie or he remembered them, but it was really amazing to see. It has been two months since we have seen them and it was like it was yesterday.  Hobie, of course, remembers his Aunt Tracy and he settled in quickly, stealing all of Jack’s toys and exhibiting his usual “thug dog” behavior :). But he was also very patient with Jack’s exuberant puppy shenanigans.

Jack in Cori’s lap

 

Thug Dog!! Hobie and Jack look a ton alike.

It was great seeing them and very nice that they went out of their way to stop and find us.  We aren’t exactly off a main road out here, so you have to really want to see us to visit!  The only downside was Jack was super bummed after they left and starting whining as soon as his friend Hobie was gone.  He bounced back after a few hours but there was some serious moping going on.

Sad Puppy

 

I finally took his dog bed out of the crate and let him attack it and that cheered him up.

The next day I headed into Cotulla for the first time because I needed to pick up a package we ordered from Amazon.  When you are gate guarding it really matters what the nearest small town has in the way of services and Cotulla wasn’t that bad.  They have a small ACE hardware store that accepts packages, and a decent Lowe’s grocery store.  The Lowe’s stores are in several of these small towns and actually have a decent selection.  The prices of course are much higher, but if you buy what is on sale you can get some nice items.  They also have really decent meat and their beef in particular looks very nice.  It is all guaranteed Texas beef and in general Texas beef really is better than any other we have had.  We will need to travel an hour to Pearsall for an HEB or Walmart, but it’s nice to have a store 20 minutes away for bread and other quick items.

After checking out the hardware store and the grocery store I drove a little around town and as things go it wasn’t that bad.  Because it is right off the interstate (and near the oilfields) there are several hotels and small restaurants.  There is a McDonald’s, Wendy’s and a Pizza Hut which is a pretty rare thing, and nice for those days when you want to treat yourself.  It’s certainly not as nice as Kennedy, Texas (where we stayed last year), but much better than Encinal.  Everything is relative.

The package that I had delivered, was actually something I saw on a Superbowl commercial.  I am not an impulse buyer, but I saw this dog bowl set with a storage container underneath and it looked interesting.  It is better for dogs to not have to lean down to eat their food, and the storage compartment solves another problem we were having with where to store the dog food.  Added bonus, this should work much better on travel days and truly it is perfect for a dog in an RV.  The Iris elevated dog bowls come in multiple colors and is Jack approved.  They come in three sizes and we measured him before selecting the medium size and he immediately started feeding from it.  It has been awhile since I have been this excited about a new purchase and I only wish we would have gotten one earlier.

Fits perfect under the hanging baskets in our kitchen.  It holds up to 14 pounds of dog food, which is great.

 

And Jack dove right in.  I like that the bowls are large so less filling.

Speaking of packages, Kyrston got her last present and loved the rattle I got her.  She even spent some time going through her “special box” from childhood and found the bear that she came home from the hospital with.  One good thing I did as a parent was save items for the kids in plastic totes.  Every kid has two of them, and when we sold the house we made sure they went with them.  I had forgotten that the bear was even in there, but apparently I saved both the bear and the clothing she came home from the hospital in.  It’s always nice when you have a good parenting moment, especially for something you did 30 years ago!!

The Bearington Baby fox rattle I bought. The eyes are stitched, not plastic, so there’s no choking hazard.

 

And her original 1989 bear.

Finally, we had a truly spectacular sunset this week.  The colors were so deep and red and it’s a bit disappointing that I couldn’t capture the colors to what my eye saw.  Lovely though.

Jack checking out the sunset. The cell phone didn’t come close to getting the reds.

 

I pulled out my long lens and Canon camera and it did better.

 

Supporting our Blog

We very much appreciate your support of our blog. You can help by doing any or all the following:

  • Make purchases via our Amazon website links.  There is no additional cost to you, and a portion of the proceeds help support our blog.  Search Amazon.com here.
  • Purchase the ebook telling the story of how we became full time RVers.
  • Purchase our recipe book filled with 80 recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. You can purchase the kindle or paperback version on Amazon or buy the Apple version on Itunes.
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Settling in at New Gate

After a few days off near Crystal City, we headed for our new gate near Los Angeles, Texas.  On this particular gate we were taking over for another couple who had to leave for a funeral and had to coordinate times with them.  Changing out with gate guards can be very hectic, because the traffic doesn’t stop coming.  Moving one rig out of the spot and another one in is bad enough, but add multiple vehicles coming and going and it can get crazy.  Thankfully this gate is still pretty slow and the couple we were taking over for did a great job of helping out during the transition.  They were both really nice and I really enjoyed talking to both of them.

By the time we were settled it was around 3pm and I was really tired.  Thankfully we had a strong enough cell signal to watch the super bowl pregame and we both settled in for the rest of the evening.  I was worried about how Jack would handle the move, but he did great.  The pad itself we are on is pretty small, but thankfully there are long strips of grass that he can run around in.

We have never been on a pad this close to the road and initially we went to some trouble to be able to move back a few feet.  Unfortunately there are giant sticker bushes behind the rig and we don’t have anything to clear them out.  The sewer tank was also difficult to place, but we did find a position that worked. Ultimately, we decided to just stay where we were because it wasn’t as bad as we thought.  Don’t get me wrong it’s tight, but it also forces the trucks to go very slow which is a good thing.

I helped with the placement of the sewer tank and it was my idea to rest the hose on the tank. Felt pretty good about that!

 

Overall I like the location and feel much safer than I did when we were down at the border.  We are surrounded by other oilfields and gates in this area and can see them in the distance.  It’s also nice to be on a flat piece of land because we have much better views of the sunset.

Along the road on the left is all grass that Jack can run in.

The only negative so far are the cows.  We have had herds in every gate we have done, but this particular herd is pretty mean.  Both the male and female cows have horns and don’t look like they would be afraid to use them.  They are also not afraid of us at all, and get really close to the RV.  When the babies are close by one or more are always staring at us and frankly it makes me feel a little uncomfortable.  Hopefully when the traffic picks up they will move to other areas on the ranch, but for now they are pretty frequent visitors.  And yes I am keeping a close eye on Jack because they are not afraid of him at all.  They look like they would stomp him if he got too close. We have been forced to leave him inside a couple of times, which we have never had to do before.

Big ones are pretty close to the rig as you can see

 

Those horns are no joke

 

A couple of the younger males locking horns in the middle of the road.

 

The smaller ones are really cute

But there is always an older one staring at us like this when they are close by.

Cows aside it has been nice here with weather in the 80’s and even 90’s this week.  We are due for a drastic drop in temperature in a couple of days to 45 degrees though which will hopefully drop the humidity as well.  The drilling rig should be coming on Saturday, which is nice to know, and even nicer that multiple people with the oilfield company have talked to us about schedule.  Our last gate no one communicated with us at all, and it is much easier to plan when we know what is coming.

One last thing.  As soon as we get to a new gate, we need to find out a way to get our mail.  Not all post offices accept packages and since they rarely answer the phone we usually have to make a trip and see them in person.  In this case though Lee asked the question on our Gate Guard Facebook group and learned the local ACE hardware accepts packages.  We called them and they said they were happy to take packages for us, which is great since I need to have our mail shipped to us from our mail service, and start working on our taxes.  And speaking of shipping, I have been using our AmEX points and sending small presents to my daughter Kyrston who is expecting. Nothing major, just little things so she knows I am thinking of her and that has been really fun.

This puppy bathing towel was the cutest!!  Love my girl and can’t wait to be a grandma!

 

Supporting our Blog

We very much appreciate your support of our blog. You can help by doing any or all the following:

  • Make purchases via our Amazon website links.  There is no additional cost to you, and a portion of the proceeds help support our blog.  Search Amazon.com here.
  • Purchase the ebook telling the story of how we became full time RVers.
  • Purchase our recipe book filled with 80 recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. You can purchase the kindle or paperback version on Amazon or buy the Apple version on Itunes.
by

January 2109 Budget

People often wonder why we would gate guard for so little money ($150 a day), and it’s a fair question, but it turns out that of all the work kamping jobs we have done, this one is the most budget friendly.  Budgets are about what you make and what you spend, and we spend very little money when we’re gate guarding.  Partly that is because we are working every day, and partly because we are usually nowhere near places to spend money.   That’s good, because we really need to put some money back in the bank account.  This month we made $5254 and only spent $2452 for a net profit of $2803. One other thing I wanted to mention was we finally changed insurance companies, and saved quite a lot there as well. Details are listed below.

 

 

Groceries – This month we really tried to eat what we had in the house, and intentionally did not make a Costco run when we ran out of chicken, which is one of the reasons we go to Costco. For us, $545 is a very good month, 

Dining Out – Since we were on a gate that wasn’t close to anything, this was another easy category to do well in.  One thing I am buying is the $7.99 Pizza Hut online special, but since I can get four meals out of one pizza , I actually think that’s a really good bargain. (If you compare this to my typical $12 McDonald’s lunch, it’s a spectacular bargain. – Lee) 

Entertainment – Lee ordered a couple of Nevada Barr books online to complete the series he has been reading.  If you have never heard of her, she is a former National Park Service ranger who writes really wonderful mysteries set in our National Parks. He really enjoys reading books that take place in parks we’ve been, and others we haven’t visited, but plan to. If you are looking for a new author and like mysteries, Lee highly recommends her. (I can’t recommend these highly enough. They’re light without being brainless, serious without being too dark, and the protagonist is a very fresh character that I just can’t get enough of. I’ve been reading this series of 19 novels nonstop since late summer when I “discovered” them. – Lee)   The other $40 went to a month of Hulu TV. The only time I miss having “regular” television is during football season, and since this year we were too remote to get regular TV stations, we tried Hulu.  Turns out it was terrific and well worth the price.  I watched all of the games live, and was able to watch old versions of Top Chef as well.  Really glad we finally found a workable solution for this time of year when we are not close enough to San Antonio to get regular television.  The best part is it is month to month, so now that football is done we can turn it off, and any time we want we can turn it back on, since it requires no activation fees or special equipment apart from a PC, or laptop or whatever device you will use to watch it.

Cell/Internet – We’ve been paying an extra $30 a month for the sim card for our Winegard, and I’m sorry to say that we are discontinuing that card on our plan. We really tried to make this work, but in a variety of circumstances we have never felt it did a better job than our AT&T hotspot.  More often than not the speeds were unusable (to our standards) and it’s not worth the money.  I will be updating the post we wrote on the product as well, sorry to have to do that but that’s where we are at.

Truck Fuel – Another benefit of not going anywhere is of course truck fuel.  Because we are 1099 employees when we gate guard we can deduct mileage traveling from one gate to another.  Plus Texas usually has some of the lowest fuel costs in the country.  We filled up just once this month, and it was $96.

Insurance – When we first started on the road we used Miller Insurance because they were full timer friendly, and only recommended plans that covered our lifestyle.  For the first few years everything was fine, but then the rates in Florida started to rise and ultimately our truck insurance was almost double the original rate.  Two years in a row I called and tried to see if they could find me a less costly plan, and both times I was told I would have to give up coverage levels (full replacement value on the RV for example) to get a lower price.  What bothered me even more than the price was the sharp decrease in customer service.  In both cases I felt as if I was bothering them and just didn’t get good customer service.  This year I was reading the RV-Dreams blog and based on Howard’s recommendation decided to get a quote from American Adventure Insurance.  Not only was the experience excellent, but I also saved $120 a month on our truck insurance AND did not lose any major coverage items.  If you are looking for new insurance I highly recommend you get a quote from them and here is information on how to do so. .  To be clear I am in no way compensated by anyone for this recommendation.  I had a bad experience with Miller and a good experience with American and feel strongly enough about both that I wanted to mention it. Costs this months are higher, by the way, because starting the new policy required two months up front, and we had some overlap.  Long-term we should more than get that back.

Pets – One part of my life that I am still splurging on is Jack.  We spent another $113 on him this month.  He is a puppy and chews a lot so we are buying pretty expensive bully sticks, and we also bought a harness and Lee made the trolley dog-run.  That is going to settle down at some point, but it makes me happy and Jack happy so I am OK with the expense.

Overall it was a really good month, and hopefully next month is good as well.  We did have four days off at the end of the month between gates, but that loss of revenue won’t show up until next month.  Our new gate (which I will talk about in our next post) is even more remote, so I don’t think we will be having tons of expenses this month either.  Oh, and below are Lee’s new charts (and other crucial information that you had no idea you couldn’t live without. – Lee) 

 

Here’s the year by comparison of the month. As you can see, we’ve come way, WAY down from $4200 in January 2015 to this year’s $2500. I like the downward trend. I’m looking forward to what February can be, because our high year for that was $5300 (!!!) in 2016, and last year it was a measly $1986. I don’t know if we can do that well again, but we’re going to try. 


And here’s the more expanded graph that shows all of the months. Again, I like the downward trend, but those peaks make me crazy. Mostly those are “special” months, like our visits to Vegas and major RV repairs, but I still don’t like them.

And here’s the breakdown of the month. I like seeing things like dining out and “home improvement” such a tiny slice of the pie! 

Here’s the “travel map” for the month, such as it is. The only move we made this month was from the gate we were working near Laredo to the RV Park where we waited for the next gate. Once we are finished with gate guarding for the season there will actually be something to look at here, while we work our way to Phoenix for a little showbiz work I’m doing at the end of March, and when we spend April playing and making our way to Oregon for our summer gig. 


Boring month for temperatures, but I’ll take 70-80 degrees in January any time! We had almost no rain at all, but we had a couple of very windy days, including one with sustained 35 mph winds which sort of came out of nowhere and since I didn’t have enough warning, it tore up the roof of our pop-up shelter and bent one of the legs. 


And finally, here’s some more detail numbers…

28 days at a work location, so no campground fees
  3 days at an RV Park that was paid for by the gate guard company, so campground fees there either

Total pictures taken: 324

Total data used across all devices: 1.836 TB (That’s terrabytes, or 1,836 GB! Really glad we have that unlimited data plan. In the past we had to make do with 80 GB per month, like cave people.)

Total truck miles:  423.3
Non-Towing Truck Miles: 356.4
Total trailer miles:  66.9 (Those miles are tax deductible, which is nice)
Total Engine Hours: 10:48
Fuel Used: 30.5 gallons
Avg. MPG: 13.8

And here’s Jack having a showdown with the locals…..

Supporting our Blog

We very much appreciate your support of our blog. You can help by doing any or all the following:

  • Make purchases via our Amazon website links.  There is no additional cost to you, and a portion of the proceeds help support our blog.  Search Amazon.com here.
  • Purchase the ebook telling the story of how we became full time RVers.
  • Purchase our recipe book filled with 80 recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. You can purchase the kindle or paperback version on Amazon or buy the Apple version on Itunes.
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Jack’s First RV Park

It’s kind of weird that Jack has been with us for a few months now and has never been to an RV park before, but when we got him we were staying with friends and then spent the last two months gate guarding.  So when we got the call that we only had a couple of days left and they were paying for us to stay in an RV park for a few days until the next one, I was curious how it would go.  Jack hasn’t even been in the truck for two months so I didn’t know how he would handle the controlled chaos of moving.

First though we had to get through several VERY busy days as the drilling rig was pulled down and taken out.  This particular gate requires physically opening and shutting it which really does add to the workload especially on heavy truck days.  Also these trucks were the big ones, so both sides of the gate had to be opened and it seemed liked every time we walked away from the gate we were back out there opening it.

To give you a feel for the size of the trucks, take a look at the difference between the height of the cab, and the height of the load.

 

Our awning for perspective

 

It wasn’t so bad when they came out in groups but generally they were spaced 5-10 minutes apart requiring closing the gate between vehicles.

Although we had a lead for Jack outside, I really didn’t like him to be outside with all this traffic, so mainly he stayed inside unless one of us walked him.  We did get a few slow periods though and made the most of them, allowing him to come outside and roll around in the sun.

Being super cute is rough!!

 

He was happy in his little patch of sun

 

 

Finally, the traffic slowed and we got the word we could leave at 5pm.  In the past we went directly from one gate to another OR stayed at the “yard” (which is basically a parking lot with hookups at their supply center, but this time we were told we could go stay at an RV Park which was nice.  It was only an hour away so we went ahead and headed out at 5pm on the dot and Jack did great with us packing up and bringing in slides.  He was excited to be back in the car and we made our way down back highways to get to Triple R Resort.

The park was in the middle of nowhere and I really couldn’t understand what the draw was until we learned it was on a river.  It turned out to be pretty nice and pretty empty in off-season with lots of room for Jack to run around.  The first night he did great getting settled in but it took multiple trips to get him to go to the bathroom.  There are lots and lots of smells in a new place and he seemed to want to smell every one of them. That’s been our biggest problem for sure, because getting him to focus enough to go to the bathroom has been a problem.  He wants to smell everything, to the exclusion of anything else, and although I get it, walking him multiple times to go to the bathroom has not been fun.

 

We are down on the end with one other couple waiting for a gate

 

There is a nature walk along the river which is really pretty.

The best part of the park is they have a HUGE fenced in dog area where Jack can run.  At first all he wanted to do was walk around the edges sniffing the fence, but eventually he realized he could run a bit and that was fun watching him run.  We have no idea how long we are going to be here, but I am happy because we both really needed a little break.  Also our 30th wedding anniversary is on Feb 4th, and now we can take one of the next couple of days and have dinner and celebrate a little. There are definitely worse places to be, and it certainly beats the yards we have stayed in before.

HUGE play area

 

Sniffing the fence

 

Zoomies!

 

Supporting our Blog

We very much appreciate your support of our blog. You can help by doing any or all the following:

  • Make purchases via our Amazon website links.  There is no additional cost to you, and a portion of the proceeds help support our blog.  Search Amazon.com here.
  • Purchase our ebook telling the story of how we became full-time RVers.
  • Purchase our recipe book filled with 80 recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. You can purchase the kindle or paperback version on Amazon or buy the Apple version on Itunes.
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Watching the Lunar Eclipse

Sometimes working nights can be a really cool thing, and tonight was one of those nights.  First it was very slow since it was a Sunday and with minimal interruptions I got to watch both playoff championship games.  I have been a Patriots fan since I initially moved to New Hampshire in 2001, and tonight’s game was a real nail biter.  I know that many folks would love to see someone else win for a change, but you have to admit they give great football!!  Love that team and super excited to be going to the Superbowl!!

The timing of the game ending was just perfect, because that’s when the lunar eclipse started.  It was the first totally clear night in several days and there is perfect visibility of the moon. I honestly can’t remember seeing a lunar eclipse this clearly ever before.

As the eclipse started I was surprised by how well I could see it through my telephoto lens

 

This little sliver reminded me of many pictures I have seen

 

And the moon being in brown was super cool. The picture doesn’t do it justice

What else is going on?  Things have been busier at the gate as the drilling phase comes to a close and we are still waiting to hear back on when/if the gate up north will be available.  Since I finished my book I have have some extra time/energy and have been trying our several new recipes.  Since I collect old recipes I tend to get a group of them and this is a good time to really try to narrow down which one (or combination) is the best.  I’ve wanted a spinach salad recipe for a while so one slow night I made numerous mini spinach salads and then tried a variety of dressings to see which one I liked.  That was pretty fun.  I’ve also been watching Top Chef and Top Chef Masters on Hulu and getting lots of inspiration from those shows. I seem to be happier when I have some sort of a project going, and after finishing the book I have a bit of a void I am trying to fill.

My mini spinach salads for dressing taste testing

 

I also heard back on the consulting job finally, and unfortunately I didn’t get the position.  It was down to two of us, but the other person had more Agile experience, and although I thought the final interview went well, that is an area where my skills are not as strong.  That’s one of the problems with leaving the workforce like we did.  Skills get rusty and although you can keep up to date on latest trends through online education, you miss practical work experience.  I get it, but am pretty bummed, because it would have worked perfectly with our schedule.  On the plus side, I did get pretty far along in the process so it appears future opportunities are not completely closed to me.  And another piece of good news, Lee picked up a week’s work in late March in Phoenix working a live corporate event, which is a nice opportunity for him to keep a hand in his specialty.

Anyway, not much else.  Mainly just checking in to share pictures of the eclipse.  We are two months into gate guarding this season, and this is the point where things start to be a bit of a grind.  We were offered a day off, but there isn’t much to do in the area that we are interested in and we hate to lose the money, so we are just working straight through.  The only other thing is Lee and I switched our shifts a little bit and now we are working 3-3.  That 3pm to 4pm hour is pretty busy and a rough way for Lee to end his day, so I am taking that now.  Evens out the workload a little bit.

I know I am not writing about the daily job, but for those of you who are interested in a more detailed account of gate guarding I recommend reading our daily blog posts from the first time we gate guarded.  Things haven’t changed that much since then.  You can start those here.

 

Supporting our Blog

We very much appreciate your support of our blog. You can help by doing any or all the following:

  • Make purchases via our Amazon website links.  There is no additional cost to you, and a portion of the proceeds help support our blog.  Search Amazon.com here.
  • Purchase our ebook telling the story of how we became full time RVers.
  • Purchase our recipe book filled with 80 recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. You can purchase the kindle or paperback version on Amazon or buy the Apple version on Itunes.