Monthly Archives: August 2013
A New Record . . .
Our first full day on our new gate and we’ve already set a record. We had 141 vehicles come though today. Our previous high score last year was 128.
We’re on a fracking gate, but they also have a couple of rigs getting ready to “spud in” (start to drill) back there too. I suspect once they get all their equipment moved in and the set up done, things will quiet down a bit. I hope.
The GGS guys came by to fill our 550 gallon water tank this morning, a little after I went to bed (7am). In the rush to get us over here and set up, they brought it over empty, and we just used our rig water for a day. A little later, Austin, our GGS support guy, came by to replace our vehicle alarm bell, which had died overnight.
Remember those old service station bells with the hoses you drive across? Well that’s what we have, with the hoses stretched out about 100 feet in each direction. When you have a problem, normally it’s a leaky hose, but this time it was the unit itself. Austin carries spares of pretty much everything, so it was a quick fix.
While he was here, I had him turn up the juice a bit on the generator. With both AC’s running, we were getting 108 volts on one leg and 110 on the other. Pretty low and not good for the AC’s. And if we turned the dryer on at the same time as both AC’s were running, it dropped the 108 voltage below 105, which means my Progressive EMS would kick off because the voltage was too low. I had him turn it up to about 120 which should be fine.
Later, when I get a chance, I’ll go out and play with the frequency setting on the generator. It’s running at about 58.5 Hz according to my Kill-A-Watt, which means our bedroom projector digital clock runs slow. I’ll just take my Kill-A-Watt out to the generator and tweek it a little and get it closer.
Speaking of the Kill-A-Watt, every RV’er should have one of these.
P4400 Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor
They’re less than $20 and show voltage, amps, watts, frequency, and KWH. It’s on my Ten Things Every RV’er Needs list for the seminars I used give at Nick Russell’s Gypsy Rallies.
Sometime in the next few days, after things settle down here, I’ll probably go to the same every 2-4 days posting schedule that I did last year. It’s hard to do much with “a lot of vehicles came in and a lot of vehicles left”.
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Thought for the Day:
One of the most obvious facts about grownups to a child is that they have forgotten what it is like to be a child. — Randall Jarrell
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We’re Still Gateworthy . . .
After being told we probably wouldn’t be sent out until tomorrow, the call came about 3:15 to head ‘em up and move ‘em out today. And at about 3:45, we did.
We were sent to what I call the 2nd gate. Right off US-281A and only about 6 miles from the GGS office.
And as it turns out, the previous gate guards that work for another company did not know they were being replaced until this afternoon.
We were able to park on the other side from where these guards are parked. This puts our windshield pointing east rather than west into the afternoon sun. It will really help with keeping things cool.
This was what we refer to as a ‘Hot Gate’. We hit the ground working, Jan logging vehicles in and out while I was getting the rig parked and everything set up. We had the usual great support from the Gate Guard Services guys, who had our power, water, and sewer trailers all set up and ready to go.
About 5:30 I drove back over to the Interstate and got us BBQ sandwiches for supper at Choke Canyon BBQ. Turned out to be pretty good.
I went in after supper and tried to sleep for a while before my 11p – 7a shift started but didn’t have much luck with that. But I bet I’ll sleep good next time.
More from the Whitsett Gate tomorrow.
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Thought for the Day:
“The burden upon us is that we are not ruled by men of ordinary ignorance, but of extraordinary ignorance.” – G.K. Chesterton 1922
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