Our RV Adventures

Or A Day Too Far.

Well, we did have a few more vehicles in today than yesterday. 59 today vs. 56 yesterday. Still not bad, not bad at all. I was outside at 5:15am this morning, thinking the workers would start coming in about the same time as yesterday, but apparently they slept in today because no one showed up until almost 6:45.

We had hoped that today would be a repeat of yesterday, with everyone leaving about 5:15, so we could make one last try at dinner in town. But apparently we went a day too far, as we still had 10 vehicles on site at 5:30, and the last guy in about 4:30pm said, “See you tomorrow morning”, as he drove in.

Bummer.

The weather’s been just about perfect the last few days, with temps in the high 70’s / low 80’s in the day time, and mid to high 50’s at night, But we are scheduled for more thunderstorms on Saturday, of course, just as things finally dry out around here.

Our landowner came through today, mildly complaining about the fact that all the work crews were still around on both sites, and would be for a while now. He was originally hoping that they all would be gone by next Saturday, the 7th, the start of deer hunting season in this area.

He has a lot of deer feeders and game cameras out, and charges people to hunt on his land. So he’s going to have to cut back on the hunting areas so someone doesn’t bag his limit in Flowback workers. Or gate guards, for that matter.

Back the end of September, when Jan and I had our afternoon Anniversary getaway to Shreveport, I tracked down a Cavender’s to buy some better boot laces, because the cheap Wal-Mart ones I’ve been buying only last a couple of months.

I normally wear boots, the short boots, or engineer boots, all the time for the ankle support. Both ankles have gotten pretty banged up over the years, mostly due to a few problems encountered when jumping out of perfectly good airplanes a long time ago. So if I try to do much walking in something like Crocs, or other sandals, I’m hobbling pretty quickly.

So I figured a place that sells a lot of boots should also sell the best quality, longest lasting boot laces. And when I asked at the store, I was shown these Ariat brand ones, the ones on the right.

At $6.50 a pair I would expect them to last at least six and a half times longer than the Wal-Mart $1.00 ones on the left. So I bought two pair, secure in the knowledge that I was now set in the boot lace department for the rest of the year, and almost certainly beyond.

TEN DAYS!

That’s how long the first pair lasted.

I had just put a new pair of the Wal-Mart ones on my boots right before I bought the new laces, and being as cheap as I am, I waited to put the new ones on until after the old ones broke. I mean, why throw away a perfectly good pair of laces, right?

So early last week the old ones snapped and it was finally time to installed my new long-wearing, maybe even lifetime, shoe laces.

TEN DAYS!

I mean these are quality laces, solid leather,

and made in . . . India?

INDIA?

INDIA?

WTH!

They supposedly worship cows, but they’ll chop ‘em up and make poor-quality, third world shoe laces out or them? What would Raj say about this?

And now I just figured out that for the $13 I paid for these ‘laces’, I could have bought two years of cheap laces from Wal-Mart.

Just damn!

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Thought for the Day:

If leather shrinks when it gets wet, why don’t cows shrink when it rains.

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Finally!

About 20 till 6 this morning the bell rang and I stuck my head out the door expecting to greet one of the frack water guys who usually come in around 6am. But instead I found the point man for the Flowback team that was about an hour behind him.

And about 6:30 here they came. As it turned out, they weren’t really the Flowback crew yet, but more like the Flowback and ‘Anchor Down’ prep crew. So now it was back to our old routine.

I got dressed and went outside about 6:15 to get set up since we had stored away a lot of stuff under the canopy during our downtime, and also because of the four days of rain we just had. In fact as it turns out, the heavy rains may have been why everything Flowback was delayed since last week.

By 7am when I went inside to go to bed, 8 vehicles had come in, and by a little after 5pm we’d had a total of 56, a big jump from the None we’ve had for the last week or so. They were mostly bringing in equipment and tools

When we’ve got a new crew coming in like this, I always let Jan find out the particulars of what’s going on. The guys are always happy to chat up a pretty blonde who’s asking questions. Me, I usually just get ‘grunts’.

We were hoping that this might be a 12 hour job. but no, this is still a 24 hour gate. But the good news is that this Flowback will go at least a month before the Workover Rig comes in. Since we plan to leave in a little over three weeks to head back to the Houston area on November 22nd, this works out perfectly for us.

Yesterday Jan and I had talked about going out to dinner tonight, figuring it might be our last chance for a while. I mean, the Flowback’s gotta finally start sometime, right? But I guess we just went a day too far.

But not really, as it turns out. A little before 5:15, two trucks left that were the first two trucks in this morning. Since normally “First In, Last Out” means ‘Bosses’, I checked over the log and found everyone had left for the day, except for one truck. And since it was pretty overcast, there should have been lights on at the pad if anyone was still working there but it was dark down that way.

It’s not unusual for the crew to leave a vehicle or two onsite, so I stuck my head in the rig to tell Jan we might still be able to go out, but found her almost ready to bring out our dinner.

Bummer!

After we finished dinner, delicious leftovers from our Jalapeno Tree visit for Jan’s Birthday this past Sunday, I drove down to the pad to check things out.

And as I figured, the one missing truck was there, but no one else. Our window of opportunity had slammed shut.

But maybe tomorrow? We’ll see.

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Thought for the Day:

According to a recent study, “nearly 10% of college graduates think Judith Sheindlin — commonly known as Judge Judy — is on the Supreme Court.

To quote someone, somewhere, “I fear for the Republic”.

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