Working the dream life for 17+ years.
Living the dream full-time RVing nomadic lifestyle working as location independent entrepreneurs.
There is one project on my list of workamping duties here at the ranch that I am particularly proud of.
Producing street signs for Vickers Ranch was the perfect opportunity to apply my expertise as a signmaker, brush up on my woodworking skills, and learn to operate a backhoe – all while getting a crash course in condominium plat regulations.
Workamping saves RVers money on road trip expenses with lots of freebies. Our July 2008 RV road trip expense report shows how.
Here’s to the roofers, framers, and ditch diggers who think they have it harder than those who sit in front of a computer for a living.
They may be right. I know because I now have experience working in both worlds.
Having toiled at a desk, driving a mouse for most of my working life, I’ve had a chance this summer to live the life of a laborer, driving everything from nails to a backhoe.
For years, as a busy desk-bound graphic designer, I often wished I was outside just digging a ditch or something. Now, workamping on a busy guest ranch has taught me to be careful what you wish for. And given me cause to reflect on the intricacies of my life on the job, whether it be behind a desk or under a truck.
This has been a rough week at the ranch. In the span of three days, two workampers quit, the chef got into an accident and might be out for the season, and some guests are being a challenge. I see the look on my boss’ face, and I can relate.
Back in the day, whenever things would get rough while we were running our old business, I would read this quote on the wall above my computer:
“I’d rather be the captain of my own dinghy than a junior officer on the Titanic.”
–Dr. James Chan, Author of “Spare Room Tycoon; The 70 lessons of sane self-employment.”
It was a constant reminder of why Jim and I were working countless 12 hour days, jumping through flames to deliver impossible client demands, and barely stopping to catch our breath to show Jerry some love. Yet, despite the endless agonies that go along with being self-employed, I’ve never been happier while making a living.
It took me a long time to figure out that I was meant to run my own business.
Since Jim got the world’s tiniest violin out and told you about his hard days here at the ranch, I’ll take this opportunity to tell you what I’ve been up to.
This summer, for me, it’s all about cleaning. I’m on the housekeeping and laundry squad. Rah! Rah! Rah!
Some days it’s just me, another workamper, and co-owner, Paulette Vickers. Mid-week, my job can be easy, and there might not be a single cabin to clean. On these slow days, I’ll go work in Paulette’s garden, which is a great change of pace, since I love playing in the dirt, and her yard is awesome.
But on the weekends, when we have to turn over nine cabins before 3pm check-in, that’s when things get really dirty, and the “all hands on deck!” call will go out for everyone to pitch in.
I overheard this Texan tell an Aggie joke about a couple guys framing up a building.
One reaches into his bag, looks at the nail he pulled out and throws it over his shoulder. He pulls out the next nail, looks at it and pounds it into the wall. He continues to do this until the other guy asks, “Why you throwin’ out half the nails?”
First guy replies; “They’re pointing in the wrong direction!”
“Dummy,” he says, “Save ’em for the other side of the house!”
It got me thinking to the workamping I’ve been doing this summer.
Find us a boondocking spot in beautiful country in the middle of nowhere, and we’re all over it. When we started looking for a summer workamping gig, we wanted a job in remote, mountain location. There were a couple of forest service jobs we could’ve taken, but we ended up here at Vickers because 1) it paid more, and 2) it offered us the chance to see if we’re resort owner material.
But the one thing we didn’t really consider, were the foodie sacrifices we’d have to make to live and work in a really remote mountain town with a year-round population of 500 people.
Having worked in technology marketing, I understand the importance of launching products in time for Christmas. But it always bothered me when Sales insisted on going to market before items were ready to ship. Which is apparently just what Amazon did last December.
But a couple months back Amazon announced that the Kindle wireless portable reading device is indeed now shipping.
Save on Driving Atlas and Travel Planning Maps with July Coupon Codes from Maps.com!
An RV workamper becomes a housekeeper at a summer dude ranch and learns how real resorts operate.
The day before we were set to arrive at Vickers Ranch to settle in for our summer workamping jobs, our Datastorm F2 satellite internet dish stopped working. It refused to lock onto our satellite (91W).
We’ve experienced intermittent trouble and lengthy searches before getting online in the past. But this time it wouldn’t lock on at all. The dish went up, stopped at every bird in the sky attempting to identify the signal, only to continue searching. After calling MotoSat for help – and sending them a few photos of what we assumed was the problem – they determined that an “in house” repair was required to fix the issue.
With our online lifestyle, there was no way we could make it a week – let alone through the summer – without a serious hack job, and a way to find our satellite. So, we took a 900 mile round-trip detour to Salt Lake City for a factory repair at their headquarters.
The only other option was to remove the entire dish mount ourselves, get it off our roof somehow, and find a freight company to get it from Creede, CO to Salt Lake City for the repair. Not to mention re-installation. It was quicker and cheaper to just drive it there. And the trip turned out to be fun. Or at least interesting.
Bookmark this post and set aside time to watch this entire End of Suburbia program about peak oil with people close to you. Pending or not, crisis or melarkey, what’s most important is to listen to and realize who is saying the enlightening if not disturbing things in this documentary. Read Matthew Simmons’ Twilight in the Desert
Click the bottom middle icon at the bottom right of the YouTube player to view at full screen. Better yet, get the End of Suburbia DVD
June numbers are in, and it was a cheap month thanks to our summer workamping gig. Check out our RV Road Trip Budget Expense Report for June 2008 You’ll see in the “Fuel” line item, that we went over budget. But those costs were actually from May, when we had to go to Salt Lake City to get our Motosat dish worked on.
We haven’t spent one single dime on fuel since we got to Lake City. We arrived with a half tank, and we’re trying to see how long we can make it last before we have to drive 55 miles one way, to Gunnison, the nearest town where we can do some real stocking up. Diesel fuel here is $5.01/gallon.
I’ve Got More Faith in My Mattress than The Stock Market
Meanwhile, we listen to NPR’s economy report every day, and just cringe. And today, when I reconciled our retirement funds statements, I wanted to cry. What little money we do have tied up in mutual funds has been whallopped. At this rate, we’re going to be working to support ourselves till the day we drop dead. Jim thinks I should stop looking at our statements for a while.
We just received the funniest comment on any of our posts, from someone named Harvey. (Sorry RhodesTer.)
It made me laugh. And it reminded me of fellow workamper Al, who we met working here at Vickers Ranch.
On the post I wrote about trying the NextGen Gallery Worpress plugin, Harvey said:
“You got a picture of canned pork brains, and everybody wants to comment on what program you’re using!”
ROFLOLFYIETATBD! 😆
Jim extols the virtues of his super quiet Honda portable RV generator and reminisces about Cohab Canyon with a video panorama.