Just Another Day In the Oil Patch

It was a beautiful day today, as it has been all week.  Temps in the high 80's or low 90's, blue sky with some big white puffy clouds traveling lazily across the sky.  Look at all those wildflowers!  I didn't realize South Texas could be so beautiful in the springtime.

I realized as I was sitting down to type my J subject that I haven't written about our daily life in a while.  I know some of you are curious about it because you have asked.

In our sticks & bricks house our days were filled with 8 to 5 jobs, fixing dinner, cleaning up, yard work, fixing whatever needed it, laundry and getting ready for the next day of work.  It's not much different living full time in an RV and being gate guards.  We still have all the usual chores; dishes, cleaning up, vacuuming, dusting, fixing 3 meals a day and fixing whatever needs it.  The biggest difference is 300 sq ft takes a lot less time and NO yard work.

Instead of spending so much time on work or chores, we spend more time in each others' company, reading, chatting with neighboring RVers, blogging and computer stuff.  We do all the other leisure traps too; TV, napping, snacking, playing computer games.  We also do things more slowly.  We don't usually have to hurry to do anything.  The stress level is almost nil and the contentment level is maxed out.

We still work.  But the work is not hard or demanding.  A vehicle pulls up to the gate and you sign them in, then sign them out when they leave.  Simplified description, but doesn't get too much more complicated then that.  

The hard part is the hours.  This is a 24 hour gate, as most of them are.  Dave goes to bed at 7 or 8 pm while I work the night shift.  He gets up at 2:30 am and I hit the sack until about 9 or 10.  Or at least that's the plan.  I've been having trouble sleeping past 7 or 8.  If I get up too early, I'll go doze in the chair for awhile.  I take a shower, eat breakfast and then I am ready to take over while Dave takes a nap.  He never naps for longer than an hour and around 3 I take a nap to get me through until 3 am.

He fixes himself some breakfast before I get up.  I fix my breakfast after my shower and then he'll have some lunch.  We eat dinner together (my lunch)and then around midnight I'll fix myself some dinner.  Somewhere in there one of us will do the dishes, or dust or clean off the counters.  

We have to dust quite often.  When it's not raining the dust is everywhere.  When it is raining it's hard to keep the mud out.  These caliche roads are sticky sucky mud when it rains!

We'll be leaving the oil patch next Monday, but before we do we'll have to clean as much as we can, inside and out.  We'll need to make sure everything is secure again for traveling and make sure the mechanical and hydraulic systems for the slides and jacks work.  But, with our life being slow we get a little done each day.

Until tomorrow.