Monthly Archives: August 2015
Carthage Gate . . .
Jan and I were up early this morning, 6:15 early. We wanted to be on the road by 7:15, leaving Henderson for our gate location about 20 miles away. We were supposed to meet Jamie, our Gate Guard Services supervisor, there at 8am.
Our new gate turns out to be about 1.5 miles off the highway, and close enough to Carthage, TX to have good cell service and good Internet. We normally name our gates by the nearest town, so this is now officially the Carthage Gate.
Jamie had already logged a couple of trucks in before we got there, but as is our usual method, Jan took over the clipboard and started logging while I got us parked and set up. Actually I got us parked twice, because after I had parked, leveled and put the slide out, the Company Man came by and asked us to move forward about 15 feet so we weren’t under the high-tension power lines overhead. Jamie and I looked, and we weren’t really under them, but we moved anyway.
The forecast was for thunderstorms this morning and they showed up with a vengeance about 9am, with lightning strikes all around and very heavy rain. One strike was so close, the hair on my arm stood up. Jan worked out of the truck during all this so she stayed pretty dry. By about 10:30 the storm had passed and the sun was out, making things nice, but humid.
We’re actually in the middle of a cattle ranch, but we haven’t seen any yet, just little reminder piles of their presence. But all in all, it’s a nice site.
We don’t have a prepared pad this time, so we’re just parked on the grass. Since we’re on kind of a rise, it should stay pretty dry.
We hope.
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Thought for the Day:
“Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.” – Milton Friedman
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Gateward Bound . . .
Gateward Bound . . .We left the Colorado River Thousand Trails about 9:15, heading for Henderson, TX about 260 miles away. Tomorrow morning we’ll be on our first gate for this year. Of course it could be our only gate, or just the first of several.
Our first year of gate guarding (2012) we were on four gates in four months. In 2013 we were on one gate for the entire three months, while last year we were on two gates in three months. So we never know how it’s going to turn out.
All we really know at this point is that it’s a frack gate, and it’s about 8 miles west of Carthage, TX. Beyond that, every gate is an adventure.
Our trip was pretty uneventful, except for an extra long stop at the Pilot in New Caney, TX. I have never seen pumps this slow, especially diesel pumps. Filling up in the RV lanes, I was getting 3 gallons a minute. Which means it took me almost 30 minutes to take on 80 gallons.
When I went inside to get Jan and I a couple of iced coffees, I complained to the cashier who said they’d had a couple of other complaints, and they’d called someone to look at it.
We got into Henderson about 3pm and found our way to The RV Park of Henderson where we got a 50 amp FHU site for $12.50 on Passport America. A great deal for a really nice park.
After we got set up, we checked out places to eat here on Yelp. We were both kind of in a steak mood, but hard to believe, that in a Texas town there’s not a steak place. So we ended up going to the Smokehouse, which turned out to be a real good country cooking place.
Wrapping up, today was Landon’s first day of Kindergarten and he looks like he’s made himself right at home.
He’s been really excited about starting ‘real school’ as he calls it.
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Thought for the Day:
If it’s not fun, why bother?
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