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#133 Fort Stockton RV Park

  • Writer: Randall Cothren
    Randall Cothren
  • May 3, 2017
  • 5 min read

Updated: Feb 25, 2021



When we were leaving Iraan Mecca was about to go do a job for an oil company where she had to watch the gate. When they set up a drilling rig it needs to be fenced but opening and closing gate all day and night slows productivity. They pay somebody to sit all day and watch the gate. It was a good-paying job. I think it was $100 a day or something although she did have to sit out in the sun all day.

It was cash money and she said something like man if I didn't have this job I would have loved to go with y'all but I need the money. She would drive an hour or more away and I think she just lived in her car to keep expenses down.


I asked Mecca if Savannah could hang with her at the ranch for a few days. We usually take a few days off to kind of do our honeymoon getaway thing. We've always done it all the whole time we’ve been married. We run off each year for an anniversary for a few days. Mecca said she was just sitting around why don't you have her come to my house. kind of practice being a ranch hand. We'll ride some horses and did sound kind of pretty good.






We left Balmorhea and Mecca at Fort Stockton. India and everybody got settled into an RV site and then we met her at the Walmart. We all got all kinds of grocery supplies and something to eat. We filled her tank with gas and a little spending money as thanks. They headed back to the ranch for me and India just kind of hung out at Fort Stockton. It was a small town probably considered boring to most anyone. To us, it's close quarters in the RV with Savannah so it's just kind of nice to be on her own without having to behave. We had a few dinners and go to see a movie and goofed around. We messed around and we were going to go to the museum but by the time we got around to it, they were closed on a Saturday or Sunday.


At the RV park they had these agave or yucca things in bloom. Theses flower pods were the height of the power line poles.




We were trying to figure out what kind of exciting wonderful thing we could do so India saw an ad at a coffee shop that had a live band on Saturday night. We put on our pretty clothes and out to the coffee shop we went. We had dinner first and I thought it was a wonderful idea. The venue was called the garage and it was a very large garage. They had truck maintenance and some mechanics on one side that physically do mechanic work all day. Upfront they created a storefront that was kind of a Starbucks-type environment and they were inviting a live band and to just come to drum up some publicity for the venue.

When we got there we were the only two people there. We figured we were just early. As the night went on we realized we were the whole audience for the concert. I can only imagine how that band felt. I think they said it was sort of en route to their weekend so they didn’t go out of their way. They had to set up all this equipment and been so ready to jam and only Randall and India came. We weren't much to look at but we were there only customers they had so they were happy to have us.

I guess I think later maybe one other guy came in. They were playing heavy metal but they were so good at it. Sometimes people have no talent and are just really loud and that sells These guys were loud but had such a clean symphonic metal sound. It wasn’t our style but we wanted to try to be hip. One of the coolest things was there was about a 4-year-old little girl who had clearly grown up from birth in a heavy metal pipe environment. She just dances like a madwoman all the time always smiling. She will most likely permanently deaf by 10 years old but I'll tell you it was funny to watch how cool she was. You can't really say would it be a parenting magazine cover to have her out at 10 o'clock on a Saturday night listening to heavy metal but it was funny. The name of the band with Razor Doves and we actually liked it. The style was a real hard Gallup and it was hard rock. almost metal but it was so well polished that's what I was attracted to. After the first set we kind of decided we would sneak off but I did buy 3 CDs they are about $5 a piece. I liked it hears a clip of their YouTube stuff.




I started talking to Mecca and even the Dad a little bit about preaching the Good News of green energy. Whether it's solar, wind, or whatever and they seem to be kind of receptive to doing something. They seemed receptive to a solar-powered water pump for the windmill water well. One of them had been broken for some years now. I'm definitely out of my league on this but I've been doing a Rube Goldberg project drawings on how to have a solar panel driven 12-volt motor crank a crankshaft to make the sucker rod go up and down to pump water using the Sun. I'm not a mechanical engineer but it's fun to try. I spent a couple of hours doing some research on how to operate a windmill operated well using a pump jack. A solar-powered 12-volt motor would move the pump jack. It may or may not work but I went ahead and ordered a solar panel and found a 12 volt motor from a golf cart caddy on Craigslist. I had everything all designed so I went ahead and ordered the solar panel and had it delivered to Iraan at the library.

Tomorrow I want to take a bunch of my research and ideas over to the ranch and see if I can make myself a solar-powered water pump. We’ll see Savannah and hopefully, she's been kind of bonding as I'd like to see her spend some time with the ranch. She may not have that courage just yet we'll just have to wait and see.

With that, we left Fort Stockton and went back to Iraan to meet with Savannah


 
 
 

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