My Little House on Wheels on the Praire

Blog 3424 – 03.19.2025

My Little House on Wheels on the Prairie

When I started the last phase of my career in quality in 2009 as a contract welding and utility inspector for the oil and gas industry I hoped to get hooked up with a contracting agency that would get me out of state assignments. I remember one agent for one of the agencies that I hope to work through telling me that if he could get me a little experience on a pipeline inspection job that he could keep me busy. He finally landed me such an assignment just outside Detroit, Michigan in the suburb of Melvindale where a large oil and gas refinery was putting in a new thirteen mile section of pipeline to connect the facility to crude oil coming from Canada. I worked on that project for four months and after that drew a two month assignment in Kenai, Alaska.

A previous agent told me that if I ever drew an assignment of more that six months that I should buy a small used RV Camper trailer. He said my per Diem (extra money that third party companies pay in addition to an hourly wage as a housing allowance that is tax free) would pay for it on one six month assignment. I followed his advice and on the way to report to my assignment following Alaska I bought a nineteen foot pull behind RV camper trailer in Green River, Wyoming where the project manager had an office. On my way to report in about a mile before I got there I saw a small lot with several campers for sale. I stopped there after my meeting and bought my first little house on wheels on the prairie. I spent an additional night in a motel in Green River and picked the trailer up the next day. The man who sold it to me said that my six-cylinder Jeep Wranger would be able to pull it to Baggs, Wyoming about 350 miles east of Green River, but that I should get a pick-up truck for longer hauls.

The Baggs assignment, twenty-nine miles of 19” diameter gas pipe lasted about six and a half months and my next assignment was in Hudson, Colorado north of Denver.

There was about a foot of snow on the ground in mid-February when I had to report to Hudson so I left my trailer at the Happy Camper Campground in Baggs till the second week of June when the owner of the campground said the snow would be gone.

I picked it up in June and pulled it to a storage lot in Loveland, Colorado where I was staying in an extended stay facility. I had also bought a 1960 Willys Jeep and a new car hauler while in Baggs that I had to make another trip back to the Happy Camper Campground to pick up and pull it to the storage lot in Loveland.

After having to do some expense repairs on the Wrangler on the front end and rear end components after a couple of long hauls I finally bought a new Dodge Ram 1500 in 2015 which made pulling the camper a lot easier. I lived in the camper in several other states besides Wyoming and Colorado, including Alabama, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Indiana, and Nebraska, while on various work assignment till I retired in December of 2021 after my last six month work assignment in Nebraska. I put quite a few miles on that little house on wheels on the prairie which I also retired it being quite a bit worse for wear in 2021.

Just yesterday my brother-in-law and sister-in-law picked up my new (used) 20’ pull-behind RV camper trailer in Lafayette, Indiana and pulled it to their home in Indianapolis where I hope to drive up in a couple of months and bring it back to Texas. I wish I had some pictures to share of it but I remember that it is laid-out quite similar to my first trailer.