A Fond Farewell

This summer would have been our third in the oil patch. We have been out here; with the exception of a couple of breaks, for over 2 1/2 years. Ironically enough we leave the patch at the pinnacle of our gate guard career, having almost doubled our pay since starting. We are pretty much accustomed to the heat and the dust and the elements in general.  However; this last gate has wore on us, especially since it required someones presence most of the time. The way the gate is set up the RV is off the road a ways so running back and forth to check folks in is virtually impossible. That relegates the guard to either stay in the guard shack or sit in a chair out by the gate. I'm not lazy by any means, but it would be nice to be able to catch a cap nap once in a while and sit in my comfortable chair between breaks in traffic. Anyway, we try to schedule a mini vacation around a Memorial Day chili cookoff, and had planned to do that, when we spied an opportunity on Andy's forum. How appropriate that our lives should swing in full circle. First, Andy was primarily responsible for me getting my lard ass down here to the patch and now a lead from his forum will be taking us away. Even more serendipitous is that we will be reacquainting with SiteWatch. Some of my dear readers know that I was hired by them after stepping in and helping them when a guard got sick. That cured me of ever trying to gate guard solo, as Missy was up north with her son. Unfortunately, this was also the time that I burned up the engine in our diesel pusher, so I could not take the gate they offered us and lost the opportunity to join SiteWatch. It's a whole other story; but this was doubly disappointing, because SiteWatch can be so difficult to get on with. But, I digress (as I am often prone to do). We followed up on the opportunity on Andy's forum and it turned out to be a job providing security on a wind farm. We will be working the "construction" side of SiteWatch-they provide security for construction projects from stores to things like the wind farms. While it's not quite as lucrative as the oil field gate guard gig, it does provide a decent income. Additionally there will be NO MORE LOGGING (yeah!) and we will live off site. As my gate guard friends know that means we can sleep together, eat together, go out together; you name it. We also won't have to subject our vehicles to the thrashing they now get on these lease roads or travel hundreds of miles for groceries. I haven't even begun to fathom what it will be like not to be dependent on a generator. We have left the door open to return to the oil patch, especially since we will have an "in" with SiteWatch. Hopefully all the friends and acquaintances we have made down here will stay in touch and not disown us. After all, we will still be working a gate and have to hold a license with the DPS-we just won't have a derrick or some other oil field accoutrement just outside our door. The blog will continue as we will still be workamping and living fulltime in our house with wheels. So, for better or worse, there will continue to be fodder published through my blog. An update will follow once we are settled.