God has been good to me my first couple of days here at the ranch. It has been a “vertical learning curve” for sure but each new thing is a pleasure to conquer. I was sure after my first day that I wasn’t cut out for this. After my second I thought I could. The vista of the mountains is beautiful. I can’t think of a more gorgeous view to wake up to in the morning.
There is a mountain called Sawtooth across from our porch that lights up in the morning with the gentle rising of the sun. Then my day begins. The first thing I learned here is that everything has a different name. There are make-ups, turn-downs, thoros, etc. Even the vacuums have different names: Grog (the most reliable), or Hilda, for instance. Apparently a lot of people have nicknames as well—Moose, one of the kitchen workers, or Biff a cowboy. Back to the routine—the day starts out with A.M.’s (another term) wherein we simply clean and straighten the public areas.
There are four major jobs (if this is going too in depth for you too bad—just skim. I want to remember this later.) Baby-O (see what I mean about the terms) which is the spaceman like vacuum you wear on your back and with which you simply go around the edges of the room; LOC—our organic cleaner for everthing that isn’t wood and might collect dust. Then there is the Buff up for all the wood and finally bathroom which is exactly what it sounds like. After that breakfast—yum. And then we head back to the Comm which is basically the room where all the cabin girls hang out. Then begins the folding—the never ending folding—mountains and mountains of sheets and pink-ish towels seem to congregate there in poor pathetic lumps! Later in the day we might have thoros—which is the term for cleaning cabins between the guests visits—we load up a kit (with all the chemicals and rags and trash bags) and a vacuum and then we load up into Mona (a white van with no seats in the back, no door on one side and, most unfortunately, no power steering!) and drive the routes between cabins, unloading like a S.W.A.T team with all our equipment. Driving the routes sounds easier than it is because it is all dirt roads here and all one way so it involves a lot of backing up and turning and backing up again. Once you’re in a cabin for thoro’s I feel like it is a race against time. Each cabin is only supposed to last about 30-45 minutes which is easy depending on the number of people on your team.
The people here have been delightful and fun. I have especially enjoyed our morning devotion with our team of cabin girls. I will tell you more later but it is late now (10:20!!! Which doesn’t seem bad but our days start at 6:45). I will say I went to my first square dance tonight. I loved it! How’s that for a teaser? More later, I promise.
Filed under: Uncategorized , Cleaning, Colorado, Lost Valley Ranch, Mountains, Ranch, Square Dance
Recent Comments