Our RV Adventures

Our friend Barbara Spade, who’s a Ranger at Colorado River Thousand Trails, sent me a list of questions about Gate Guarding.

And this made me realize that we’ve added a lot of new readers since I last talked about the job in any detail, so I thought I’d answer her questions here for everyone.

So first, some background.

Oil and drilling companies pay people to sit at the entrance (the gate) to their work areas. This can be a drilling site, like where we are now, or a frack job, a workover rig, a coil tubing job, or a completion. It might even be a production area with a lot of big storage tanks where tankers come to pick up the crude and take it to the refinery.

We don’t work directly for the oil companies, but for a contractor who deals with them. There are 15-20 gate guard companies, including the one we work for, Gate Guard Services.

We’ve worked for them for 5 years, 3 or 4 months a year, and always for the same supervisor, Jamie Hime. The first two years we were in the Whitsett/Pleasanton area about 60 miles south of San Antonio, and the last three years we’ve been in the east Texas area, either near Bryan/College Station, or up near Carthage.

We like up here much better. There’s real trees and grass.

The gate guard companies like and use RV’ers because we bring our own housing with us. They supply us with ‘full hookups’ so for us it’s just like we’re at an RV park.

As far as pay, this year we’re making $125 a day, the same as we made our first year in 2012. The other 3 years we made $150 a day.

Now as far as Barbara’s questions, which are in bold type.

What is the canopy for?  Chairs?

One of us is always outside on this gate, 24/7 so the canopy gives us shade and keeps us dry in the rain. I just realized I haven’t taken a photo of this gate, so here’s one from our very first gate 5 years ago.

I assumed that there was like an office trailer where you work and it would be something like our gate shack here.

All of our gates have been like this one, with us sitting outside. We have alarms that tell us when a vehicle is entering or leaving, so on some not as busy gates the guards stay in their rigs and then come out when a vehicle approaches. We’ve never had one this slow.

There are some gates where you work out of a trailer or guard shack. Which means you have to park your RV at a regular RV park.

You check in delivery trucks?

We check in and out  every vehicle. It could be a semi bringing in diesel for the rig’s big generators, a flatbed bringing in equipment, a worker coming on shift, or a salesperson.

We get the person’s name, company, tag number and the time they came in.  When they leave we just note the time. We have been on gates where the person had to actually sign in and out. These are a pain.

Is there an actual gate like we are supposed to have here or do you just keep a log of who comes in and goes out?

Yes. Sometimes there is an actual gate, like there is here. But it always stays open. In some cases there’s no actual gate, but just a cattle guard. We have both gates and cattle guards here.

I assume it is a 24 hr. per day job so one of you has to be working.

This is a 24 hour gate so one of us is always out here, although we have been on 16-18 hour gates. The pay is the same.

Jan is the AM person and you are the PM person?

Some couples do work 12 hr. shifts, but Jan and I split it up. She works from 7am to 1pm. Then I work from 1pm to 6pm. Jan then works from 6pm to 11pm, and then I work from 11pm to 7am. Strange, but it works for us.

There are no hookups so you have a generator running all the time? Water comes from a tank on wheels and there is a permanent honey wagon?

Gate Guard Services furnishes us two support trailers as shown here.

The closest one, the big green one, is a septic tank system on a trailer. It is pumped out as needed, which is not often. We’ve only had to have ours pumped out once in 5 years.

The second trailer holds a 11.5kw diesel generator, a 250 gallon diesel tank, and a 500 gallon water tank, The generator runs 24/7, only being shut down every two weeks for an oil and filter change. The diesel tank and the water tank are refilled at the same time.

What about cell and internet reception?  TV? 

This is the same as when we’re at Colorado River. We have a Winegard Dome for DirecTV and a Verizion Aircard for Internet.

If you need groceries one works the gate while the other shops?

I usually do the shopping once a week. Right now it’s a 30 minute drive into Bryan/College Station.

What if one of you fell and broke your leg?

Well, hopefully they wouldn’t just shoot us. In a emergency, we would tell the Company Man what had happen and head to the hospital, or wait for the ambulance. I would also let Jamie know what had happened.

Could you both leave to go to the hospital?

Yes. Logging vehicles in and out is not a life and death situation. Even in normal operation we occasionally miss someone who comes through while we’re taking a bathroom break. Some drivers will wait for you to reappear. Some won’t.

A funny thing about logging vehicles is that the logs are almost never used. By any body for any reason. Our first year, following a Marathon drill rig, I had to turn in the logs every night at the office. But not since then.

We still have logs from 4 years ago. I think twice someone has wanted to look at the logs to see if something was really delivered. But that’s it.

Early on, I ask a Company Man (the big boss) what the logs were really for, since nothing was ever done with them. He smiled and said it’s so if something bad happens, we know how many bodies to look for.

When I noted that we were parked only about 200 feet from the drill rig, and that if the rig went up, we, and the logs, probably would too, he smiled again and said, “Well, it’s not a perfect system.”

Thought for the Day:

I am free of all prejudices. I hate everyone equally. – W.C. Fields

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Well, we’re off and running, or drilling, anyway. They finally spudded in (started actually drilling) sometime after midnight this morning and so far things seem to be going OK.

When I got up at 11 this morning, and after we had our coffee, I headed over to Bryan/College Station to pick up a few things, mainly the plywood squares to cover up the gaps in our pad timbers. Otherwise  one of us is going to step off in one and break an ankle and they’ll have to shoot us.

I also picked up a new tarp for our canopy, and I’m really glad I did. A late afternoon rainstorm showed that our old one, left over from last year, leaks like sieve. So I’ll just put the new one on top of the old one and tie it down.

On my way back from B/CS I stopped off at a Whataburger to pick up a late lunch. I got our usual burger/fries/drink combo, but probably not again. Or at least no fries.

They don’t handle the 30 plus minute trip back to the site very well, and just end up cold and chewy.

Next time I’ll try to find a convenient Chicken Express to bring back for lunch, and see how well their Fried Okra travels.

Jamie, our GGS supervisor is supposed to be here tomorrow (Monday) to bring us more water, and me a hardhat, We didn’t start out with a full 500 gallons, only 350, so we’ll need more soon.

And I need a hardhat so I can take our trash onto the pad to put it into the trash bin.

Tomorrow begins our 2nd week on the gate, and so far it’s been pretty nice. We only had 43 vehicles come through the gate today, as opposed to yesterday’s 74. But a lot of that was big trucks hauling off the equipment used to build the rig. So I would expect 40 to 50 vehicles a day will be the norm.

Hope so.

Thought for the Day:

Why do some people think that disarming the sheep makes them safer from the wolves?

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