live. work. dream.

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.

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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.

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I might have said it before, but this time I believe I have truly found the best biscuits and gravy on the planet. I can stop looking now.

Perhaps it was the real cowboy coffee, cooked over an open fire, or the crisp rocky mountain air. Maybe it was the horse ride up the mountain, the breathtaking views, or all of the above.

But I can honestly say Carla and Paulette make the best chuck wagon team when it comes to a ranch style breakfast that would please any old cowpoke. Or workamper in this case.

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For as long as I can remember, recycling has been a way of life for me. Growing up on the left coast, I can’t remember a time when I threw cans or bottles in the trash. So imagine my surprise when we left our little Northern California cocoon, and got a reality check by seeing how the rest of the country approaches the recycling issue — or rather, avoids it altogether.

During our early days on the road, I kept getting annoyed at the number of RV parks that lacked recycling facilities. About the only places that did offer any kind of recycling were national parks, which only take aluminum cans. It killed me to toss recyclables, but in our little 5th wheel, I felt we didn’t have a choice.

For a while I considered being as green as my RVing friend Sara, and carrying around our recyclables and compost matter until we found a collection point. But honestly, I’m not that gutsy, and unwilling to put up with storing this stuff in our shower where she does. Also, with our big ol’ dog Jerry along, I don’t want our RV smelling any funkier than I think it does. I had to pick my battles, and into the trash went our recyclables.

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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.

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Today is Blogshare III, courtesy of the talented R at And You Know What Else. What’s a Blog Share?

A blog share is what happens when a fellow blogger writes something for someone else’s blog, completely anonymously. So someone will write something that gets published on our site, and I’ll write something that gets published on someone else’s blog. Get it?

Why am I doing it? Because it’s a chance for me to write something that I don’t want to discuss or confess here. It’s fun! If you’re a blogger, you should try it some time.

Here’s a list of the participants, and below the list is the beautifully written anonymous post.

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One of the books piling up next to the bed in our RV was a free one I got as yet another perk workamping at Riverbend hot springs resort in New Mexico. Free books are great. They’re even better if you actually enjoy them.

And I enjoyed reading Amarillo In August by Jonathan Miller, author of Rattlesnake Lawyer – the book about which this book is about.

Amarillo In August isn’t so much about the Author’s first book, as it is about the book signing tour he embarked on throughout the Southwest to offload the cases of books his publishers dumped in his lap, almost literally. But it does hint about Rattlesnake Lawyer just enough to tease any legal thriller buff. Smart marketing. Something Miller should have thought of before publishing his first book. A book that cost him his public defender job and nearly got him disbarred.

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When I first wrote about the Amazon Kindle, I should have known I jumped the gun.

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. For real. So I waited a while to be sure, and sure enough, you can get your own Kindle for just $359. I heard it on NPR, it must be true.

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Pardon me for being an oddball RVer, but I’m just not the GPS type. Give me a map and compass, or a local to ask for directions any day.

If you’re planning the next leg of your journey or a new road trip and need a current atlas, now is the time to shop at Maps.com and save! Through July 31, you can get 5% OFF all orders at Maps.com! Just use the promotion code HEAT5 upon checkout to receive your discount.

Or, use the promo code HEAT10 at checkout to save 10% off all orders over $100! Both offers expire July 31, 2008.

How do I know all this? I told you, I’m a just maps kinda guy. And I like to save money.

Our sabbatical has always been about discovering the ins and outs of potential business endeavors. Here at the dude ranch, we’re learning how real resorts operate.

The ranch has around 18 cabin rentals, and I’m on the cleaning crew. After just a few weeks, I’m discovering the answers to all sorts of things I wondered about whenever we’ve stayed in lodging establishments. For example;

Let’s start with bed linens. Did you know that most of the time, even at the schnazziest resorts, only the bed sheets get washed after a guest checks out? Not the mattress pad that they slept on. Nor the blankets that probably have a few hairs embedded in them. Certainly not the bedspread that they might have sat buck-naked on after taking a dump. And most definitely, not the pillows that they slobbered on. Rooms need to be turned over quickly for the next guest, and it’s just not practical (or resource-friendly) to wash everything, every time.

Keep in mind that generally, the more you pay for a hotel room, the cleaner it’s going to be. Here at the ranch, cabins aren’t cheap, so guests can rest easy. Paulette, the owner, has extremely high cleanliness standards, and I’m working my tail off to meet them.

It’s just that the other day I realized that even in four star hotels, the only thing that could be separating me and a raging case of scabies from another guest, is a thin white sheet.