Our RV Adventures

Yesterday (Friday) marked our 2nd week of gate guarding here at this Marathon site. And we probably won’t hit 3 weeks because our rig will be leaving around the middle of next week, and we’re probably going with it.

At least we think so. The Marathon people want us to follow them, but we haven’t heard definitely from Gate Guard Services yet.

Since I was over near the new drill site today I decided to take a look at the area. The road is pretty good, much, much better than our first gate. The first 3 miles are regular two-lane paved road, with the last 5 miles consisting of a very good gravel road. There are already a couple of drill sites in the area, with a lot of heavy truck traffic, so the roads are being kept up.

Here’s the turnoff to the drill site. The pad is a mile or so down this road, so I don’t know if we would be parked here, or closer in. I couldn’t get to the drill site itself because they were still working on the road back in there.

But this doesn’t bode well. Just to the left of this turn-in, I saw this.

Maybe this move isn’t such a good idea after all. Or is the road back in there worst than i thought.

Also yesterday, our diesel generator started acting up. The diesel part was fine, The generator itself was the problem. The L2 side kept dropping below 105 volts and our Progressive EMS was shutting down power to the rig to protect our AC’s.

The L-1 side was also low, about 112 volts, but still within limits. Since it was in the 80’s and we needed the AC’s, I disconnected from the generator and started up our coach generator. Then my next step was to call Mark, our support guy.

He was out here in about 20 minutes to check things out. By this time the L2 voltage was down to about 80 volts. Not good. And after fiddling with the voltage adjustment with no success, he declared the generator deceased and called to have a new one brought out.

So in about another 30 minutes our new generator trailer was in place and purring along. The replacement generator also solved our other problem of the frequency being off and making our clocks run slow. So that was a bonus.

I’ve now had some time to play with my new Kindle Fire, when I can get it away from Jan. It looks like we may end up being a two Kindle Fire family like we ended up with two regular Kindles.

Getting down to basics, I really like it. It’s great for reading Kindle books in low light, and even outside as long as your not in the direct sun. The color screen is bright and looks good.

The web browser works great and seems to be fast. I’ve not noticed any problems on my regular websites.

Battery life seems to be pretty good. Although, like the regular Kindle, it helps to keep the Wi-Fi turned off when you’re not using it.

Now for the Cons:

The glass screen is very reflective and attracts fingerprints like a toy store attracts kids. But I’ve ordered a screen protector sheet kit that’s supposed to take care of that problem. I also ordered a case that looks pretty nice. I’ll let you know how they work out.

I was surprised to find out how many of favorite Droid apps aren’t available for the Fire. Especially odd since they both use pretty much the same OS.

That’s about it for today. I’ll talk more about the Fire as I play with it. (When I can get it away from Jan, that is.)

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Thought for the Day:

“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”
― Dr. Seuss

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First off, thanks to everyone who contacted us or Nick, concerned about our safety in today’s storm. We’re fine. A little damp, but fine.

Last night (Wed.) was nice, and it was still nice when Jan took over the gate at 7am. But the thunder, lightning, and rain woke me up about 11, and it only got worse as the day rolled on.

By the time I took the gate back over at 2pm, it was just coming down in sheets.

And then the hail started. And kept on coming down, mostly marbled-size, but I did see some larger chunks. By this time the wind had really picked up and was pretty much blowing sideways under the canopy.

Then about 3:15, Jim Streeter, the Company Main (the overall boss of the rig site) pulled up in his truck and told us to take shelter in the Toolpusher’s trailer with the rest of the crew. Apparently a tornado had been reported in the area, so they shut the rig down and got everyone in the trailer.

These trailers are solid metal, very heavy, and have no windows. Probably the safest place on the rig site.

Jan said, “Yeah, until the rig falls on us.”  That’s Jan, always looking on the bright side of things. And of course, as we’re leaving the RV, I had to tell Jan, “No, you can’t take the cats!”

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They finally let us loose after about 45 minutes and we came back to this.

Our canopy had partially collapsed from the weight of the water pooling in the cover. I was able to somewhat repair it, but it’s never going to quite fold up the same any more.

Then a few minutes later, we got the final “all clear” signal.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a rainbow this low before. And the other funny thing is that, after taking this picture and getting ready to take another. the rainbow just disappeared like you flicked a switch, and not faded away like most do.

Earlier in the day, I was talking to the Company Man and he said they expect to finish up here sometime around Wednesday of next week, and that he expects us to move with them. But I don’t know what our company wants us to do. I’ll check with them on Saturday when i go over to pick up the mail.

The rig is moving about 45 miles west of here to just south of Charlotte, TX, which is about 15 miles from our favorite Wal-Mart in Pleasanton, TX, so that would be nice.

As usual, we see how it goes.

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Thought for the Day:

Always leave your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark.

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