Day 12

Since it was Championship Football day, Lee and I changed things up a little bit and right after I had some breakfast and took a quick shower I took over for him.  It was REALLY windy all day.  Lots of gusts and even though the wind was behind us it was coming through under our rig with enough force to knock over chairs and tables.  The temperature was OK, but the dust was really getting to me, so Lee had a brilliant idea.  He pulled the truck over and I used that to sit in and log trucks in and out.  Not sure why we didn’t think of it before, but it worked brilliantly.  I still had to get out on occasion to log in a truck or person I didn’t recognize but it was so much more pleasant.  And the truck drivers didn’t seem surprised by it and quickly adjusted to looking at me in the truck.

The most interesting thing that happened was they brought in another huge CAT.  The scale of these things never ceases to amaze me and since they unloaded it right by the gate I got a couple of pics.

See the driver for scale. It was crazy huge

They unhitch the trailer and then drive the cat down then hitch back up. Quite an operation.

I went inside around 3pm and watched both games.  They were both pretty boring, but since the Patriots won I was still pretty happy.  I did feel a little guilty though about being inside during Lee’s time, so decided to go ahead and clean the carpet.  Between beets and Christmas trees the carpet had taken a beating, but the small carpet cleaner did a wonderful job and it didn’t take that long to get it really clean.  I have been trying to save tasks that are quiet for the night-time (gotta fill that time until 4am), but louder jobs (or things that require phone calls) I am doing during the day when I am inside.

Nice clean carpet

Oh and in case you missed it my gate guarding neighbor said the deer may have been killed by a cat.  There are bobcats, cougars, and possible jaguars in this area and since the ranch across the street is 33K acres, there is lots of room for them.  I guess a cougar was killed on the road not that far down from our gate in December.  Not sure how I feel about all that, other than it would have been nice if our company had mentioned it, but maybe that’s just something folks down here know about.  Once again our neighbor came through with great info and it’s really been a blessing knowing her.  We IM every day and she’s always available to answer questions for me.  Really nice. (For those unfamiliar with this wildlife, I have included some pictures for reference. – Lee) 

Bobcat

Jaguar

Cougar

I also wanted to mention that she and her husband are campground managers in Minnesota in the summer season, and they are looking for some part-time help (2 days a week for full hookup site) in their campground this summer.  I don’t know if anyone wants to spend time in that area this summer, but thought I would pass it along since they have been so great to us. Here’s the link to the job ad if anyone is interested. OK back to working on the recipe book.  I am currently going through all my pictures and finding generic ones of cooking stuff so I can use them on the title pages.  Fun, but a little time-consuming. Oh, and I will say going out to open the gate in 50 degree weather, really helps with staying away.  That night air gets a little nippy sometimes!

Day 13

My neighbor invited me down today to see my oil rig since she has a great view from her location.  I also got to see her guard shack, which was very interesting, and meet the person she and her husband are sharing the shifts with.  Some of the gate guarding jobs are from your rig, but others have a shack.  I really liked how it was set up and they even had satellite TV inside.  According to them, some gates still make you go outside to check in trucks, but theirs was awesome because they were allowed to stay inside.  They had heat and AC, and even Millie the resident cat.

The trailer

Entrance has a fly screen hanging down

Pretty roomy inside. Didn’t make me feel claustrophobic at all

Cat just hanging out

And here’s a picture of our rig

It was great talking to both of them and I think my biggest take-a-ways were all companies are a little different, and don’t be afraid to negotiate terms. They also explained that many gate guards took long-term contracts and then subcontracted a couple of weeks or months to someone else while they did some traveling.  I was wondering about that, because I can’t imagine staying here for an entire year, but I understand the appeal more.  If you get a good gate, it sort of makes sense to hold on to it and then just get someone to cover for you.  I don’t think we will go that route, because we would need to be here part of the summer, but you never know.  I also talked to my neighbor about the fact that younger white men seem to have a bit of an edge when talking to Lee.  She said her husband runs into the same thing (they have been very polite to me) and thinks it’s because in the oil business we are the lowest folks on the food chain.  Older men and Hispanics have been unfailingly polite to both of us but the younger guys do have a bit of an edge.  It’s not a huge problem, but it is slightly irritating so I thought I would mention it.

Speaking of slightly irritating, I met someone who works at the ranch next door and he told me he dumps his deer carcasses behind that gate.  The smaller deer was not one of his but the other pieces were.  No wonder the hawks are hanging out over here.  It’s a buffet.  Not sure how crazy I am about that since it’s less than 50 feet from my front door, and since there are wild cats and coyotes in the area not crazy about anything that would draw their attention.  I didn’t say anything though, but hopefully now that we are here and I told him I could smell it, he will discontinue the practice. On the plus side we have picked up a very cool Northern Mockingbird that hangs out near Lee in the daytime.  He likes to drink from the AC water that goes into the trough behind us and doesn’t seem concerned about us at all.  Allowed me to take some nice pics.

Northern Mockingbird

On a completely different note, I have had a series of failed recipes in the last couple of days.  They weren’t awful, just not to my liking, and they culminated in a particularly spectacular Cookie Dough Drop failure.  I found this recipe to make cookie dough and drop it in a deep fryer and thought I could shortcut it by buying prepacked chocolate chip cookie dough.  What I ended up with though was melted chocolate dough in the oil and a bit of a mess to clean up.  It wasn’t a total loss though as I made cookies out of the remaining dough but still, kind of a bummer.  I seem to hit these streaks where several recipes are great and then have multiple failures in a row. Ah well, what can you do?  Just have to keep plugging away.

That’s all from the land of gate guarding.  We completed another week and as you can see from the chart below the hours are getting longer.  The traffic isn’t super busy at night but there is enough of it to lower the hourly rates some and keep me awake. Now that the rig is up we will see what this next week holds.

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Day 10

Today was a busy one as they started to bring in the equipment for the drilling rig.  Lee also met the “company man”.  As a side note I am really not crazy about that term everyone uses for the oil company rig boss.  It’s a little 1930’s for me, but hey when in Rome,  He was actually someone different from we were told would be our contact, but that was fine.  He introduced himself and made it very clear he did NOT want the heavy equipment trucks logged in.  Lee said sure no problem, everyone is pretty clear never upset the company man, but I did call our Account Manager to verify since it was never mentioned to us in our orientation.  She said, “Whatever he wants” and told us how to put it on the tally sheet.  It’s actually less work for us, I just wanted to make sure we didn’t have a problem down the road.

So we spent the late morning and early afternoon watching a parade of very interesting equipment come by. We had 88 equipment trucks and 105 regular trucks for a total of 193 vehicle entrances/exists.  Not as busy as gravel truck day, but still pretty busy.  Lee took some pictures to share and we don’t really know what much of it is, but thought we would pass it along.  It made the day a little more interesting that’s for sure.

To give you a feeling of the scale

They did run a water line near the gate though and we got to see that.  Not sure why when they are drilling a well around the corner, but they are bringing water from 2-1/2 miles away for the drilling.  Watching them run this hose it was extremely clear these folks had done this before.  Very efficient.

Giant Hose spool pulled on a flatbed by a pickup truck

Then hose pushed into place vy a CAT

And covered with dirt where it cross the road. No trench was dug though

At the end this “pump?” was left here

The coolest thing is I had read a black hose was a great deterrent to rattlesnakes, but we don’t own a black hose.  Look what’s behind our rig now though!!  Not sure if it will help, but didn’t cost me a dime and since it’s so big hopefully the snakes will continue to stay away.

Runs all the way across behind our rig

Between trucks I noticed that the Harris’s Hawks were pretty agitated so on a break I started to walk over.  I didn’t think it was the trucks, because they haven’t really cared up to this point, but wanted to see why they were screeching.  Fair warning the next pictures are nature graphic, so if that bother you please scroll down quickly until you see  Day 10.

Boy these guys are camera-shy but I got this pic

The were flying around.

So beautiful

As soon as I got close, I could smell something dead.  This is recent by the way, because I walked over a few days ago and smelled nothing.  Initially it was hard to see, but there was a deer torn apart and it was on two sides of a fence pretty far away from each other.  The back-end was on one side, and the head and front was near me.  Not much was left, but I could tell why they were making so much noise.  Scroll NOW if you don’t want to see.

The body on one side of the fence

Head

And legs pretty far away from each other on mine

Why I am even showing this is I am wondering if these birds are powerful enough to have done this or have coyotes been in the area and this is what remained that the birds were fighting over.  I’m not even sure how a deer got here.  Our ranch has high fence designed to keep deer in, but the ranch across from us has a lower fence.  I guess it could have come from there, and I have heard coyotes in that general direction, but this was right next to the road.  Could have been hit by a truck I guess, but it’s a good 20 feet between the front and back half.  These are powerful birds so maybe they did this.  I just kind of want to know if coyotes were that close to the rig.  Anyone know if a raptor could do this?

Anyways, sorry about all that.  On the one hand it was gross, but it was also kind of cool.  We think these birds have a nest in the clump of trees right across from us, and there are several congregating over there. It’s like Wild Kingdom!!  You need to remember this is the closest to nature I have been in several months, so I may be obsessing a little lol. Update:  Our gate guarding neighbor said it might have been a cougar.  In December a “beautiful one” was killed right down the road from where are gate sits.  I knew there were coyotes, but it’s good to know about the cougars, since I am going out at night to open and shut the gate.  Generally they don’t mess with people though, but still good to know. 

Day 11

So what have I done over the last couple of nights.  Worked on the taxes some, added a couple of recipes, mopped the floor (wow was it dirty), carpet cleaned the couch (wow did it need it), and answered a slew of emails.  I also played some computer games and watched a little TV so it wasn’t all work.  We are starting to see a little more traffic at night, but between 2-4am it’s still no trucks.  That’s the hardest time of the night for me, but when I try to sleep I wake up groggy and then have a hard time getting back to bed. For right now at least I think it’s easier to just push through.  I like my 4pm – 4am shift, although dinner time is a bit of an issue now that we are getting busy.  Lee covers for me while I cook, but then I am getting up several times during dinner to check guys out.  That’s their dinner time as well and many of them leave the job site to go into town to get something to eat.  Overall the shift itself is fine,a nd I really like going to sleep while it is still dark out.  I worked thirds shift for a year when Kay was a baby and I always had a hard time falling asleep when it was light outside.

Thankfully the generator noise isn’t bothering me, because first thing this morning they started the water pump and it is loud.  Thankfully it is a temporary solution until the well onsite is completed, but I am not sure why they had to put it so close to our rig. Our generator purrs like a kitten in comparison and we have to raise our voices now to talk to each other outside.  IT was another busy day of big equipment coming in and Lee got some pics to share.  Again, have no idea what much of this stuff is, but it was huge and kind of cool. He had another busy day with 199 trucks and 111 of those were large vehicles.

It was hot when I woke up (close to 90) and since the sun shines in between the awning during 1pm and 3pm, Lee was getting roasted.  Our account manager and ranch owner stopped by around that time and they were ok with him putting up a tarp to help block the sun.  It’s not pretty, but it helps a little and is way cheaper than the $189 side sun screens, which don’t look like they would work that great anyways. We took it back down at 3pm when I took over and the sun went behind the rig, so it wasn’t up for that long.

Plus it got crazy windy, and quick. So much so that the awning had to come in as well, but luckily both the wind direction and sun were on the other side of the rig.  It was crazy gusty though, so much so that at one point our carpet blew up and knocked over both chairs and both tables.  Lee staked down those corners of the rug and we got things set back up and about that time the generator started acting funny.  At first we couldn’t figure out was it was, but then Lee realized it was running out of diesel!!  That was surprising since just the day before I mentioned to our Account Manager we had not gotten any diesel, but she said our supply should last a month.  I took her at her word, since what do I know, but we had been told it would last 1 week, 2 weeks, and now a month by three different people. In all fairness to them, the company is going through a major restructure and lots of people are taking on new roles.  Still it was not great since, no generator, no light, and it was now fully dark.

We texted and were told a delivery was on the way to “all locations”.  Apparently we weren’t the only ones having this problem.  Two hours later our delivery showed up and in the meantime I ran the gate in the dark.  We still had lots of trucks coming through, so I used the flashlight to show them where the grates were.  Especially the trucks who were leaving because they needed to make a left turn and on this moonless night you really couldn’t see where the gate was.  Like I said not great, and I left the gates standing open, because I wasn’t going to mess with trying to open and shut them in the dark.  Eventually the fuel game and the generator (and location lights) were back on which was a good thing.

To end on a positive note though, one funny thing happened.  We are on a road that dead-ends into another ranch and were surprised when a big Class A pulled into our driveway.  Lee went out and talked to them and the poor folks were lost, so we let them pull into the yard and then turn around and Lee gave them directions.  It was just really surprising, and kind of funny, to see a Class A out here, and I am glad we had a place big enough for them to turn around. Being able to help someone really lifted our spirits on an otherwise challenging day.  The work is still not hard, but the heat, wind, loss of power, and traffic volume all combined to give us a tougher day than we are used to having. Still nowhere near as stressful as trees of as physically hard as beets, but definitely not the nice, calm days we have gotten used to.  Hopefully most of the big equipment is in now and we can go back to regular truck traffic.  The wind is supposed to continue into tomorrow though so we will see how that goes.

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Day 8

Another productive night last night although I had to wake Lee up at 3:51am because I simply couldn’t stay awake a moment longer.  Luckily I did fall asleep unaided though, and slept through until 11:15am.  I mentioned Tylenol PM as a means to get to sleep in my last post and wanted to say a friend of mine who works as a pharmaceutical rep did reach out and say to be wary of taking it too often.  According to her, the acetaminophen can do liver damage if taken every day, especially when combined when alcohol.  Since I rarely drink I didn’t worry to much about the last part,  but appreciated the advice.  It’s important to me that I can sleep most nights unaided, mainly because I am concerned that over time over the counter sleep aids wouldn’t work anymore.  Thankfully the combination of a fan and my Dohm white noise machine seemed to do the trick and I slept very well.

I was pretty groggy when I walked outside though and saw that our gate guarding companie’s tech support was onsite.  I was a little embarrassed with the serious “bed head” hairdo, but he seemed to take it in stride.  He brought us an AT&T cell phone booster and we saw immediate results from it.  The CEl-Fi booster system is not cheap costing around $700, but as I said the difference was dramatic.  We went from having 1-2 bars to full bars immediately when he turned it on.  It’s omni-directional, unlike the one we have that you have to point at a tower, and seems more powerful.  The major downside for RV life though is it’s not completely weather proof and you still need to find a high place to mount it.  Still it is kind of interesting and Lee is going to do some comparisons with the one we have versus what they provided while we are here.  A $700 purchase is definitely not in our near future, but it will be good to know and it’s a great benefit for us because we have AT&T and all of our devices are receiving the boost.

Speaking of that I wanted to talk about our cell coverage.  We started with AT&T because back in October 2014 we locked in a great double data deal with them and don’t want to lose it.  Eventually I did pick up a second Verizon phone, because I was running into some issues up in Montana where we didn’t have AT&T and I was working remotely.  At this point though I am spending $67 for a basic phone with minimal data that I rarely if ever need.  AT&T has been working fine in almost every place we have been and has actually been an advantage in certain places like Texas.  So I spent some time talking to AT&T via Help Chat on the computer (I really like when companies offer that service) and discovered I can move my phone number over to an old Iphone 4 Lee has and it would only cost $15 a month.  This would save us $60 a month on our cell bill which is a significant savings.  Eventually I will want to upgrade of course, but I will wait until they are offering some deals with a free phone if you sign a contract.  Right now they aren’t offering anything at all and frankly the Iphone 4 will be an upgrade from what I have.  We could do it all in the mail, but think it will be easier to an ATT store, I just need to call one and make sure only one of us can go.  Since one phone is in my name and the other is in Lee’s it could require both of us, which of course we can’t do.  Still pretty excited about the opportunity to save some money, so we are going to work on that as soon as we can.

Speaking of expenses we got some quotes back from Mor-Ryde and for our rig the basic 8K system will be $3,600.  This is actually very reasonable and I am pretty sure Lee is on board with it.  We are going to continue escalating with the warranty company, but it looks like this will be a good choice for us.  The cost is so low because we are going to do it in stages.  The disc brakes would be another $2,600, but we are going to wait on those and see if they can upgrade our existing ones, and the H rated tires ($615 per wheel) will also wait until our newish tires need replaced.  We won’t get the additional carry benefit without the new tires, but we can upgrade at any time once we have a need.  They also allow you to stay onsite at their facility and the three day installation seems very reasonable.  We haven’t completely finalized our decision yet, but I am feeling good about the choices.  By the way, our friend Bill has been awesome through all of this.  Bill is a guy who loves researching and is more than happy to do it on his friend’s behalf.  He’s spent tons of time on the phone with Lee talking both this and our battle with the warranty company through with him and he’s been super helpful.  All I can say is everyone should have a Bill in their life, because having someone to talk these things through with is great.

We received our acceptance into the gate guarding Facebook group and it’s been very eye opening.  These are all working gate guards and they are extremely frank about their experiences.  We are learning quite a bit and it’s great learning more from an experienced community.  Speaking of gate guarding, I’ve been trying to figure out a way to explain why these long shifts bother me so much less than the other jobs we have done.  The closer I can come is to use a babysitting analogy.  If you ever babysat as a kid, doing it when the kids were awake was a ton of work.  Kids require a lot of attention and if you were any good at it, you didn’t get much of a break.  Once in awhile though you got a babysitting gig at night when the kids were asleep.  That was awesome as you could watch TV, talk on the phone, and eat popcorn.  The parents generally paid you less money for those jobs, but the work was super easy.  So far this has mostly been like a night babysitting job and since the work is easier, the low pay doesn’t really bother me.  If the work gets hard I expect that to change, but hopefully that explains it.  Your mileage may definitely vary on this though, just trying to explain why this feels so much different.

What else.  Well they brought fresh water and pumped out the sewer tank today. I spoke to another gate guarding employee about how long he thought the assignment would last and he felt they would “find what they were looking for” and three wells would be dug.  Each well takes about 45 days and there is some overlap so that should take us into March which would be great.  It’s not guaranteed of course.  If the first well doesn’t produce they may decide to not continue, but since the ranch next door has been so successful odds are they will find it here too.   On a completely different note,  I tried to make corn dogs for dinner with a new recipe…NOT a success, and we both ended up not eating it for dinner.  That rarely happens, but when it does Lee is always a good sport about it, and hey, they can’t all be winners.  We also saw a beautiful sunset tonight. The sun sets behind the rig and is mainly in the trees, but I made a point of watching it tonight and it was pretty.  Not as pretty as sunsets on the ocean, but it was nice.

Tonight I am finishing a project with my pictures I started last night, starting to gather tax documentation together, and going through some emails, working on the recipe book, and of course writing this blog. Boy it’s nice not having to squeeze these types of things in around everything else.  Having this alone time at night has been nice.  We love each other, but when you live together in a small space and work together long days you rarely get any alone time.  I wouldn’t want it to be like this all the time, but the break has been good after the intensity of the last several months.

Day 9

I woke up this morning pretty warm as the bedroom temp had raised to 80 degrees.  I was a little worried about that when I went to bed, because the temperature switch from 4am to 12pm can be pretty significant.  It’s a shame I am such a light sleeper because there was a beautiful breeze, but the truck noise through the window would definitely wake me up.  Lee and I talked about it and I guess he’ll need to turn off the heater and turn on the AC when the temperature swings this much and try not to wake me up.  We’ll give that a try going forward, and I’ll let you know how that goes.

Despite being a little disoriented I started my morning routine.  One of the things I like to do is read blog comments and there were some really thoughtful ones this morning.  I love when people ask questions, because it makes this more of a conversation than a monologue, and since not everyone reads the comments I wanted to share one here.

Doug asked, “I have a question. Don’t answer, if you think it is too personal. You both quit your careers at a fairly young age to pursue your dreams. How do you plan for your retirement years working hourly jobs that don’t move you towards a retirement nest egg?” and it was such a good question I thought I would also answer it here.

I spent a ton of time thinking about this before going fulltime, so the answer is not going to be a short one.  I knew from watching my Mom that between 50 and 60 were “prime earning years” and thats’s when most people  worked on getting out of debt and really socking some money away. At that point, I had around $150K in a 401K account, but I knew that wouldn’t be enough to keep me comfortable in retirement.  That knowledge certainly gave me pause, but I also knew as a Gen X’er my situation was going to be a little different than the Boomer generation.  We can’t take middle-tier social security until we are 70 and I always assumed I would need to work until then. In my current position (assuming I wasn’t laid off at some point) I was facing 20 years of hard/intense work ahead of myself and had no expectation I would actually live long enough (or be in good enough health) to ever enjoy my “retirement years.”

So I had two choices.  Take the time now, with the understanding 20 years is a long time and I could reenter the professional work force later or continue to plug along and hope my health held out.  I should mention the only reason I had the choice at all is because we were in a solid debt position.  Yes, many people make a ton of money between 50 and 60, but they also spend it.  They either get out of the debt they have created for themselves with school loans or kid expenses and/or they spend it on very expensive vacations.

Don’t get me wrong, those are valid choices, but we went another way, and I fully credit Lee for that.  We helped the kids a little with college (and paid for two weddings) but only to the extent we could pay in cash.  I also took advantage of my work’s tuition reimbursement program and ended up getting my bachelors and my MBA only spending about $7K out of pocket.  Yes, it took me 8 years and it was hard to not go into debt for the kids, but again Lee was adamant.  So at 47 when we started talking about this all we had was the mortgage, car loan, and about $10K in debt.  Never would have been possible if that wasn’t the case.

So the short answer is I was fully aware when I made the decision and we have put the 401K in a lock box (it’s grown to $169K since I kept contributing the first year I was still on the road and was working).   When we get to the point where we are down to $10K in regular savings (we have around $40K since the beginning and so far have maintained that balance) we will get better paying jobs, at least for a little while.

We have some friends who did this by the way.  When the stock market crashed they left the road and went back to work and when it recovered they went back on the road.  There are no rules here, and 20 years is a really long time.  I think folks who are researching (myself included) think it’s a decision that has to last forever and really it does not.  Family , finances, and personal healthcare are all factors that can change quickly and can’t always be predicted. Plus for me there is another factor as well.

I have been trying to find a way to express how I feel about missing parts of my old job and thankfully a reader Dineen captured it perfectly.  She said, “…you realize your personality may not be fully suited (at least at this point) to permanently giving up a career life that doesn’t provide you with meaningful work and an environment in which you are respected for your experience and expertise.” Exactly!!  Thanks so much Dineen and thanks Doug for the great question.  If you would like to ask a question  please feel free to comment or email us at camperchronicles@gmail.com.  Either Lee or I answer the emails privately or if the topic has value for a broader audience we will post them here.

So back to the daily account.  I’m actually sitting outside writing this today on the laptop and that is working great.  It’s a beautiful day, sunny and 66 with a light breeze.  The only problem is the darn bees.  Wow they are aggressive down here, and even without a brightly colored shirt they are all around.  I am obviously not a fan, although thankfully I am not allergic. So asked Lee if he could pop down to the Dollar General and see if they had some kind of a trap we can use. Yes I am concerned about the bee population, but as I am typing this there are 5-6 in close proximity.  My love of nature has limits (Deb you would be freaking out lol). I even changed my orange socks to white ones and that actually seemed to help a little.  Any splash pf color and they are all over it and I draw the line at having bees land on my ankles. He came back with a Raid Fly Stick and two Yellow Jacket Traps  and hopefully that will do the trick.

Raid Fly Stick

Rescue Yellow Jacket Traps

I also wanted to mention we have stopped drinking pop/soda and so far so good.  Lee is strictly drinking his tea and I have started making ice tea  and I bought some single serving Country Time Lemonade packs  which are great.  If I feel the need for a sweet drink I put filtered water in a small glass and use a portion of the pack until I get the flavor just right.  Sometimes I like it a little more sour and use less, other times I load up the sweetness.  It’s a real budget saver and much more economical than a whole can of pop/soda, half of which I ended up throwing away anyways. Plus, I am sure it is better for me health wise. 

The only two exciting things that happened today were an oil truck got stuck going back to the water well and it took two big tractors to pull him out.  That all happened rather late and he had to dump all of his water in a field to lighten the load and then come back with another one.  Opening and shutting the gate at night is a bit of a challenge because the new lights they set up do not light the entire area, but I am getting used to it.  I also got another new bird which was pretty exciting.  The Harris’s Hawk (cool because that is my maiden name) is unusual for this area and the only raptor that nests and hunts in groups.  We saw some raptors in the tree across the street from us, but every time I got close they flew away.  This one was on the pole and I got a couple of shots from the rig with my long lense but as soon as I took two steps towards it it flew away.  It’s cool though we know what is living over there and hopefully I can get some better pics.  We originally thought it was the same bird as the other day, but this yellow band gave it away.  Very fun!

Harris’s Hawk

Overall it was a good day, but I swear as soon as I finish one task another two pop up.  That’s what happens when you blow stuff off for several months and then finally get a chance to be settled.  I have to keep reminding myself I have lots of time and slow down my pace, but my natural inclination to get things done and over with as quickly as possible is working against me.  The last thing I want is to trade self-created stress for the real stress we are no longer in though, so I am working to keep a grip on myself.  Plus there is a finite list of things to do and sooner or later I will work my way through it.

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Day 5

We found out yesterday that the trucks wouldn’t be running 24/7 for another few days so I decided to try something different and went to be around 1 am.  To talk about how that went I am going to need to get into some bodily functions, so for those of you who don’t like to read about those sort of things I recommend skipping down three paragraphs!  I am in the one year transition between peri-menopause and menopause (right on schedule because the average age is 51) and why that is important is it’s a terrible year for sleep.  Hot flashes that wake me up are almost a nightly occurrence and sometimes they are so bad I have to step outside to cool off. Humidity levels (along with salt and chocolate) seem to make it much worse, and since rain has been threatening for the last couple of days here, they have been particularly bad.  To help with the hot flashes we listened to my mother-in-law (always a wise choice) and invested in a nice set of 800 thread count sheets from Bed, Bath, and Beyond.  The sheets were over $200 so we only have one set and they really do help with the hot flashes.  This matters because the first night I tried sleeping on the couch without them it was pretty bad so I needed to figure out a solution.

After thinking through the various options I decided to bring our 100% cotton, thin Chenille bed spread out to the couch.  This actually worked pretty well and that in conjunction with the AC being on allowed me to get some rest last night. You also have to think about what you will wear if you are going to sleep at night.   Bra or no bra? (No bra. Always no bra. -Lee) Sweats or jeans. (No pants. Always no pants. – Lee)  If you do have to get up and go outside there won’t be time to change.  Currently I am splitting the difference with cotton sweats and a t-shirt, but that may change as we get busier at night.  Then again I may not be sleeping at all if we get busier.  I think it will be much easier to stay awake if there is some activity.

Either way when you do a shift change (regardless of the time) there is a bit of an issue.  Whatever time you decide to shift change, one person will need to stay up a little longer to give the incoming person time to brush their teeth, have a cup of coffee, wake up a little etc.  Plus you need to think about when you are going to poop.  So far the traffic has allowed for tiny breaks to run into the rig and pee while the other person is sleeping, but pooping just takes too long for that. So it needs to be done when both parties are awake, and depending on your ability to schedule that you need to take your shifts into account. And to completely take this conversation into the person, you also need to take that into account for your sex life.  You can either roll the dice on a time period when few trucks are coming in (not something I would choose, but hey, I don’t judge), only have sex when you are not running 24/7 (it only happens during certain phases of the project so chances are there will be some days when you can be pretty confident no trucks will come), or not have sex at all. For us personally we feel we can work with the schedule, but some people have very active sex lives so I thought it was important to mention it.  Honestly it makes sense anytime you are working 24/7, but it never really occurred to either of us until we got here.  The “When are we going to have sex?” conversation was pretty funny actually. (I didn’t think it was funny at all. I’m still waiting for an answer. – Lee)

OK, enough of all the oversharing, but things are important and I would have liked to have thought it through before I tried this.  I definitely think I would have looked for a different sleep outfit and may end up checking out Walmart depending on how it goes.  I definitely cannot sleep in jeans, but maybe some cotton crop pants are a decent middle ground.  (I recommend Zboss suitjamas. – Lee) On to other things.  It rained for the first time today and it actually was OK.  Rain with little wind we can handle (use the awning) or wind threatening rain is fine as well.  We haven’t experienced super rainy and windy yet but that will definitely be a challenge.  I reached out to our gate guard neighbor and solicited her advice and she talked about rain gear and an umbrella.  Well, we have both of those, so we will have to see how it goes when it comes to that.

Luckily today wasn’t the day.  Serious storms with tennis ball sized hail and tornado watches were to the north west of us, but we were largely unscathed.  It was windy though, so after the 40 gravel trucks finished in the early afternoon, I decided to close the gate.  Every ranch owner has different rules, but ours is mostly concerned about his livestock.  He has 1,000 acres on this ranch (his family owns other as well) and they have both cattle and deer here.  The deer are of particular concern as they are raised for hunting season and some of them can go as high as $20,000 depending on the size and number of points.  I know, we were surprised too, but hunting is big business down here and this ranch both feeds the deer and culls the herd to encourage the stock to grow big.  In any event, the rules are gate definitely closed at night (not sure how that will work if we get very busy) and open in the day as long as we are outside.  We tried all kinds of combinations today including sitting inside our RV with the door open (helped blocked the wind), sitting outside under the front hitch, and just sitting outside.

The entire time Lee was “noodling” the problem of how to best close the gates in his mind, and not surprisingly he came up with a good solution.  (Some people think the gates in my mind have been closed for a long time. – Lee) When we took over the gate we were given one chain and one combination lock.  But despite the gates being heavy they do swing in the wind.  The right side stays out of the road because the hinge pole is ever so slightly tilted, but the left side swings into the road at times if it’s windy. This made me nervous that it could hit a vehicle.  The gate also swings the other way and is standing over a heavily weeded ditch which we were warned might contain rattle snakes.  For obvious reasons I don’t want to walk in that ditch at night to grab the gate and close it.  I was OK to walk on the cattle guard and grab it from the middle but Lee didn’t like that because he was afraid I would fall through the gap and hurt myself when he was asleep.  Plus the gate is much harder to pull from that end, especially when the wind was blowing.  So Lee went into full MacGyver mode and found me a solution.

Lee testing the swing on the “problem side.”

Initially he used bungees but the gate is so heavy it broke several of them so he went to caribiners and paracord, I didn’t like this first solution because I needed to step into the ditch to reach and release

So he put  metal tent stakes  into the ground ($.97 at Walmart) and then tied the paracord to one end and put a cam jam carabiner on the other end. This worked great as it stopped the gate before it swung over the ditch.

Once this was solved we still had the problem of keeping the gates together. The padlock would be take to long to release with vehicles waiting so he used a large carabiner he had to hold it together

Although, a couple of my issues; it’s still pretty tough to close the gates with only one person.  You have to swing one beyond the closing point, then run over and swing the other one, and hope they meet in the middle when the first one starts swinging back.  It often takes a few tries, and as Lee says, looks a little bit like a Chevy Chase movie.  Since I will be doing this at night, it’s important I stay in the middle of the cattle guard where they welded a narrow walkway.  I’m am sure I will get good at it, but for right now I am practicing.  We heard a story about a gate guard who lost her finger when her ring got caught in the fence and I believe it.  When the wind was blowing strong I really had to put my weight into it to avoid getting knocked off my feet.  I am kind of surprised we weren’t given a solution of some kind when we were setup, but this might be the type of thing they expect you to solve as every gate is different.  Definitely recommend having carabiners and paracord though if you take one of these jobs. (A well dressed man ALWAYS has carabiners and paracord handy. – Lee) 

While Lee was figuring it out I walked over to get a look at a huge bird that was up on a telephone pole.  The account manager told me this was a great area for bird watching, and this was my first chance to try to get some pictures.  We’ve seen several road runners (a good sign as they eat rattlesnakes), but this bird was something new.  I was thrilled when I used my Cornell Laboratory Merlin Bird App and discovered I had seen a Crested Caracara.  Not only is this a bird I had never seen, it’s a bird I had never heard of.  The picture wasn’t great, but enough to easily identify the bird and I was super excited to learn it also eats snakes.  Awesome!  Can’t wait to get some better pictures of it, the road runners, and the various hawks I have seen around, but for now I will take it!  It’s been months since I have seen a new bird, and I am happy to have a chance to take some bird pictures again. 

Crested Caracara

After Lee fixed the gate, we had our weekly budget discussion and then he went to the grocery store.  In order to get a handle on our grocery budget, we are menu planning at least 7 days in advance and always before we go to the store.  It’s not easy changing 10 years of bad habits (ie: buy whatever we feel like when we feel like it), but it’s definitely something we are focused on.  We are also both committed to tracking food versus non food items this year, because we think we may have some opportunities to save money in the non food category.

While he came back I watched football and since everyone left by 6:00pm he made ribeye  for dinner.  It was really good, Costco has great steak in Texas, and I thoroughly enjoyed the Green Bay/Dallas game.  That was by far the best game I have seen all year.  Then Lee went to bed and I stayed up and watched Pittsburgh/Kansas City, wrote this blog post, and ultimately laid down.  I am trying to get back on schedule since we were told we would have traffic 24/7 in about 5 days, but it’s tough with no trucks to keep me awake.  Just going to have to play it by ear and see how busy it will be.  I did reach out to our neighbor gate guard and asked how the traffic changed by phase.  She said when they are drilling the majority of the traffic would be change of shift but there would be trucks throughout the day.  When fracking there are constant sand tankers and during flow back constant water and oil tankers.  One of the construction guys also shared with us they were working 24/7 when they started to pour the concrete and that could get a little busy.  It would be nice if they shared the project schedule with us in advance, but I kind of understand why they don’t. Schedules change frequently and I am sure they want to make sure the guards stay alert no matter what.  I get it, but it is helpful when the construction guys stop and share a little information with us. We generally don’t ask, but they often give us a heads up on what we can expect that day which is nice.

So we still like it and are already talking about maybe doing it after Amazon next year, but for me it is too soon to tell.  The work itself I am totally fine with, and we both really like that nobody is standing over us micromanaging, but I am still a little  worried about the weather and the traffic volume.  Need to see what that looks like in practice before giving it a total thumbs up for me. Lee’s pretty much sold on it though.  He really likes it as a winter alternative. Certainly it’s easier than anything we have done in a long time, plus it covers all of our basic expenses, which is a good thing.

One last thing.  I got an email from Anna, one of our readers, who had some followup questions so wanted to answer them here. My answers are in blue italics

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Once again we had no trucks after 7:00pm, but at 1:30am I did get a visitor.  The motion sensor chime went off and I looked outside and saw a man standing in the lit area near the gate.  I stuck my head out and asked if I could help him, and it turned out he was looking for the ranch down the road, so I sent him farther down.  As soon as I came back inside and closed the door I realized how very stupid that was. I didn’t even look and see if there was a vehicle (there was, he had parked his semi on the road before the  RV) and I had absolutely no idea who he was. It was just dumb, and I knew it the minute I finished the interaction, but it was late, I was distracted, and it’s taken years for Lee to make me more safety conscious.  I grew up in a small town where we didn’t lock our doors at night, so it’s been a long haul for me to be more focused on my personal safety.

When it became clear that no one else was coming I tried to lay down around 2:15am in the hopes I could get up earlier and help Lee more during the day, but it didn’t go very well.  Our couch is comfortable, but too short to sleep on, and the material doesn’t breathe very well.  Not surprisingly I woke up at 5am with a nasty headache and a crick in my neck.  I was also sad and pretty angry.  I wanted to be with my mother and I was so angry that I couldn’t be that I started to cry.  My reaction was pretty normal, considering I was grieving, and after crying a little and talking to Lee I went back to sleep.  I woke up at 10am feeling much more rested and quite a bit calmer.  I was still sad I wasn’t with mom, but the anger had passed.  I believe that God/the universe has a plan, and as much as possible you have to accept it, even when you don’t get what you want.  It’s also not all about me, and that became much clearer to me as the day unfolded.

We were pretty busy with gravel trucks today, seeing 384 entrances/exits.  It was a much easier day though, because almost all the trucks were gravel trucks, and we only needed to keep a tally sheet on those.  It may also have been easier since we are both getting more comfortable.  As our database is built it is much easier to check trucks in and out because you simply search on the license plate and all the information is there.  Lee and I were both able to enter the data directly into the tablet and keep up with the pace, which helped eliminate the extra step of writing it on paper.  I also covered more of the day shift which made things much easier on Lee.  We took turns being outside and that certainly made the job much easier. A few big items came in the last couple of days but mostly it has been gravel trucks or pickup trucks.  Here’s a couple of exceptions.  Don’t know what these are but they both went to the water well area.

While I was working I texted my mom, brother, and sister to see how things were going.  I needed to actually talk to my sister and at that point Lee took over and I went inside.  I tried once or twice to have a phone conversation while the trucks were coming in, but it’s really not possible for us at this point.  It takes all of our focus to log trucks in and out and the noise from the trucks themselves doesn’t make it much easier.  Texting though works just fine, because this can be done between trucks.  The conversation with my sister went very well, and I wanted to say here that I am incredibly blessed to be doing this with them.  My brother has been amazing, keeping an eye on mom, and my sister has taken a week off work and is driving up to spend a couple of days with her and then bringing her back to her house for a few days as well.  As you can imagine, knowing they would be with her was a huge comfort to me and allowed me to have more peace with my decision to stay.

Wendy is able to take the time off from work and the kids because her husband is recovering from back surgery.  Under normal circumstances this would be very difficult because she has 4 children ranging from 2 – 17, but since Josh is home and recovering well he can take care of the kids.  And that’s what I meant earlier about there being a plan. Wendy wants to do this, and leaving for a little while might be exactly what Mom needs right now.  I still wish I was with them, but like I said, it’s not all about me.  And it’s hard to remember that in moments of stress, especially when nothing is making sense, but what I’ve found is if I am patient and wait a bit, things become clearer.  Like I have said before, I really don’t believe much in coincidence, and this many stacked up together I really don’t believe in the random.  That’s just me though, and as Lee says it doesn’t really matter as long as it all turns out OK.

I felt much better after talking to Wendy, and remembered that it was playoff football weekend.  Lee doesn’t watch any sports except women’s beach volleyball and no, I am not kidding about that, so every year we talk about playoff weekend. I don’t feel right just ignoring him for two solid days, and depending on what else is going on I’ll only watch my favorite games.  This year of course we are working, and since we don’t have an outside TV that means he would have to work when the games were on.  Talking it through though he mentioned he could easily bring the bedroom TV outside, and before you knew it he had done just that.  It worked really great, because I could sit outside and check trucks in and out and still keep an eye on the game.  I didn’t think anyone would care because a) I was getting my job done and b) it’s Texas, and football is practically a religion down here.  It worked great and I watched the Atlanta/Seahawks game that way and Lee got some stuff done inside.

Our rig.  Most days we can’t have the awning out because it’s too windy but it’s great when we can

Gate guarding with my media center.  I am supposed to wear the yellow vest but it was seriously attracting bees so I kept taking it on and off

Lee came out around 5:30pm and I went inside and decided to make him an apple pie.  I had bought the ingredients to make my first ever apple pie, and I was so grateful for the TV setup that I decided to surprise him.  I used Pillsbury refrigerated pie crust for the first time and it worked very well.  The topping was sugar, cinnamon, and graham crackers, and Lee declared it a success.  I was pretty excited he liked it because it’s not only cheaper than buying a pie at the grocery store, but also we can guarantee a good pie.  Being able to make pie is an important part of our 2017 budget plan.  If you have been reading along, you understand why.

My first ever apple pie. Not pretty but tasted good

Score!

It was a pretty good day all in all, but then Lee told me I had received an email from a reader.  He gave me a heads up on the contents, so I decided to wait until after dinner to read it.  Keep in mind that this person had no idea my step father had passed away when they sent this email, and they obviously felt passionate about my last couple of posts or they wouldn’t have sent it at all.  After reading it I have decided to post it here in it’s entirety with my responses.  We have opened this blog up to readers questions and I believe we should also (when possible) talk about differing opinions.  Especially when it comes to work positions.  Some folks are researching revenue sources by reading our accounts and I certainly want to provide as much information as possible.  As we always say there is no one way to full time, so I would be surprised if some folks didn’t disagree with me on a regular basis.  So for those of your doing research, please keep that in mind that no one source ever tells the whole story.

Anyway, here’s the email.   I thought about editing it down, but frankly that’s a slippery slope.   My responses are in blue italics

Hello Tracy and Lee,

I just want to write to you and say…….you are Very NEGATIVE….!!!  You have said in your blogs, you really don’t want to hear about jobs from others because they might cause you to form an opinion about a job!!! But isn’t that what you two are doing with your blog?  I did say that recently, and I knew at the time that I didn’t express that thought very well.  I like to hear first-hand accounts from people in person when I can.  When I am reading a blog post from a person I don’t regularly follow I am a little more cautious because opinions are so subjective and I don’t know them.  I would hope people who read this blog felt like they knew me enough to take what I write into account, but as I say, often everyone is very different and your mileage will probably vary. 

Last year while you were in Quartzsite, YOU wanted to meet up with us so WE could tell you about our GATE GUARDING experience (20 months of it)…..but YOU put us off…..I really don’t think you were interested!!!!  I do remember that, and I apologize for it.  Quartzsite had a steep learning curve for us and we were a bit overwhelmed by everything going on at the time.  You were very generous in your offer to get together and discuss it, but the scheduling just didn’t work out.  It certainly wasn’t personal.  

But now you sit and listen to ONE gate guard and started forming opinions!!!!  Yes you had a water problem!!!! MY 1st question is WHY didn’t you fill your fresh water tank BEFORE heading to the site?  You had to have known you would be hooked-up to a water tank with unpotable water!!!!  Also make sure you have bottled drinking water…..do not drink what is in the tanks!!!  We received the call to come to the job on our way to Padre Island and since we were planning to fill up there we only had a partial tank.  We were told it wasn’t potable but that it could be filtered, but yes, you are right, we would always in future arrive on a job with full tanks.  It’s also a fair point that I only have one person’s experience to go by so far.  She was nice and seemed credible, but certainly we are trying to get more information.  We have asked to join a Facebook group for gate guards and are waiting to be accepted.  I am sure we will learn more as we go, and from what we hear from that group.  In the meantime, I am reporting what I have experienced firsthand, or heard.  It should be viewed in that context. 

A hoe for snakes?  Really? What brainyac told you that?  Depending on size….they could jump the length of the hoe!!!!  Unless they are right next to you, leave them alone!!!  And if they are next to you, like a 12 inch rattler was one night for me….(I too did the night shift because my husband is on insulin), “I” CALMLY stepped away from it!!!!!  Hopefully you look under the steps when you go out at night!!!!! Especially since you are right up against a fence with high grass behind your rig!!!!! I also hope you have Decon and use mothballs. Two employees with the gate guard company told me to use the hoe.  When we discussed it it was only in a situation where the snake was in our main walking path and would not move.  I totally agree to leave them alone otherwise.  I do look under the steps, and thankfully they are well lit and the grass is somewhat far away.  It is a concern though, because we walk outside frequently.  The hoe is right next to the steps for that reason. I do not have Decon or use mothballs, but I appreciate the advice on those as well.

My husband use a week whacker to keep the grass down around our rig.  And a TV security monitor for $300.00!!!!?????  If you aren’t looking at the monitor someone could still come to your front door!!!! WOW!  We too had illegals……if you are on nights with your door open…..you constantly need to be ON GUARD!!!  I thought the security cameras were a cool idea.  I didn’t mean to imply they were mandatory.  Since my husband is a videographer he was particularly intrigued by cameras.  I, by the way,  worked in assets protection for a company for seven years in my 20’s. We used cameras and they worked great. 

My husband put rope lighting all around our rig and trk so I had extra light at night!!!!!  Also helps keep animals and snakes away.  I have heard that works, or a black hose.  So far we haven’t seen anything but may go that route as well. 

Also I HOPE you have a generator because those darn things seem to go out at night and YOU won’t get service until the next day……AND THERE go your lights also!!!!!!  We do have a propane generator and solar. Not enough to run the flood lights though, but we have talked about possible solutions for that.  For right now we have a flashlight within easy reach at night in case the power goes out and Lee walked me through today how to reset the breakers on the generator.  

I used candles, lanterns and flashlights!!!

Oh and if you do have a problem, don’t be demanding……I don’t know what prompted the gate guard employee to lecture you but YOU ARE IN ESSENCE BOONDOCKING with a small convenience!!!! and getting paid for it!!!!!  I didn’t feel we were being demanding but rather standing up for ourselves, but it may have been perceived that way.  No one ever said to us in the orientation process that we were boondocking.  We were told we would have water and power onsite so I thought of it more as a construction trailer situation with our house being the trailer. To me it still feels that way.  Boondocking is when services are farther away.  That’s just my take on it though, I can see your perspective. 

There is also a BIGGER WALMART in Pleasanton and one in Devine! Thanks I appreciate that.

OH and NOT ALL GUARD COMPANIES treat you the same!!!!  We were NEVER lectured by the company we worked for when things went south!!!! Good to know.

Sorry if I sound harsh but let me tell you, Gate Guarding is NOT for everyone!!!  For my husband and I, we enjoyed it….due to all the animals, people we met, being quiet and we had the loveliest sunrises and sunsets!!!  Yes sometimes boring….but we watched TV and movies, listened to the radio outside and danced under the stars, saw rattlers, other snakes, coyotes (love the howling at night), wild hogs,  horny toad lizards, cattle, different kinds of birds and butterflies, cougars, bobcats, deer, watched eclipses, stargazing, milky way viewing, international space station sightings and even one UFO!!!!  That’s great to hear.  So far we like it too, but it’s early days yet.  The work is definitely MUCH easier than anything we have done to date which is nice.  And in case I don’t say it enough I encourage everyone to try these jobs for themselves.  People are all different and something I am not crazy about you might love.  Hopefully what you read here will help you be better prepared than we were though if you accept one of the positions. And really that is my main goal, writing the blog I wish I could have read. 

It really is too bad, you never met us…..maybe we could have given you some OTHER answers to your questions.  Yes maybe we haven’t done it as long as the other couple did….4 years….but the MORE you hear, the more advice you can pick up!!!!  Fair enough and I appreciate your reaching out. 

And my suggestion to you two, be MORE POSITIVE!!!! You can tell your stories but watch the negativity!!!!!  Each experience is just that, an experience!!! That’s a really fair point and one I have to say I worry very much about.  To the point that when we were writing about Christmas trees, I called my mother-in-law (my moral compass on certain issues) and asked her if I was being too negative.  She said it was fine as long as I admitted to my readers that sometimes I was just being whiny.  So in case I haven’t made that clear, sometimes I am just having a bad day. That being said, it is always something I need to keep an eye on because I never would want to discourage anyone from trying this lifestyle.  I try to be as honest as I can stand to be and not turn anyone off.  I think most of the time I get it right, but sometimes I am either too “Pollyanna” or too negative, and sometimes there are other factors that I don’t talk about that are affecting me.  I am a person not a personality.  

This lifestyle is not a place to make money and survive!!!! Good luck on that!!!!  I have to completely disagree with you on this one.  I have met some people who state they are earning their entire budget by working on the road.  After the last two years I now completely believe that is possible.  By reducing costs and taking numerous jobs throughout the year the math can work.  What I don’t know yet is whether we will want to do this.  That’s what we are trying to figure out, and what I think many people find so interesting.  

From an UNSOLICITED ADVISOR!!!!  Appreciate you reaching out and again I am sorry we didn’t get to meet in Q.  Take care, Trace

Camper Chronicles is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, a program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. We very much appreciate any purchase you make via our website links.  There is no additional cost to you and helps support our blog. Thank you.   Search Amazon.com here