Our RV Adventures

Today begins our 3rd week here at Blue Moon Gate, another slow day with only 37 vehicles coming through our gate, just a few more than yesterday’s low count.

I spent part of the afternoon working on our bell system, trying to fix a leakage problem. Gate Guard Services supplies us with one of those old fashioned bells like they used to have at gas stations a while back.

Lengths of rubber hose  are laid out across the entrance and exits and are connected to a bell. When a vehicle drives over a the hose, the increase in air pressure in the hose causes the bell to ring. The only problem with this is that after a couple of weeks of being run over by 80,000 pound truckloads of oil rig stuff, the hoses are either so flatten that they don’t generate enough air pressure change, or they’re just plain leaking.

Then I have to splice in sections of new hose, but for some reason I’m still having a problem with the one that alert us that a vehicle is leaving the pad. So I may just set up one of my Mighty Mule Driveway Alarms to fix that problem once and for all.

I mentioned yesterday about the new, ‘better’ WiFi system being installed on the pad, since the Company Man was going to let us use it. I noticed that the datacom people had put a couple of antennas up on a pole, and when I got a closer look today, they’re the same Wilson directional antennas that I use on my Wilson booster system.

And I may still need to set mine up, since the new, ‘better’ system only gives me one bar of signal and my devices won’t stay connected. So we’ll see.

The high note of the day was that we got fed again, this time with a setup in the Safety trailer with a serve-yourself spread. They had Shredded Brisket, Pulled Pork, Potato Salad, Beans, and buns laid out, and you make your own.

I went down and made Jan and I both a sandwich of each, and a big serving of Potato Salad. I didn’t get any Beans because the Styrofoam containers they furnished didn’t have any divisions in them, so it would have just all run together. It was only later in one of those ‘Doh!’ moments that I realized that I should have just spooned the Beans into another container.

I made the sandwiches big enough, and thick enough that we just ate half of each one, so we’ll have another meal tomorrow.

And it was really good BBQ, too.

About 3 we had another squall line come through, giving us about 30 minutes of heavy rain, thunder, and lightning. And the lightning part means the rig shuts down for the duration, and everyone goes inside.

I guess you can’t be too careful when you’re working on a 200 foot tall lightning rod.

I have been constantly amazed over our 5 years of gate guarding how many drivers don’t speak English. I mean, not even enough to understand, “What’s your name?”.

So I have to resort to ¿Cuál es tu nombre? ¿Primero? ¿Apellido?

That’s “What’s your name? First? Last (or Surname)?”

Luckily we lived in Colombia, SA when I was a kid, so I can normally stumble through making myself understood. I do have to be careful sometimes because Colombian Spanish is not the same as Mexican Spanish which is not the same as Spain Spanish. And each one has its own idioms.

For example, you’ve probably at times had Pico de Gallo at a Mexican restaurant. Well, ‘pico de gallo’ translates to ‘rooster beaks’. Supposedly it’s called that because of the little pieces of red tomatoes and white onions in the mix. Of course it really could be rooster beaks, I guess.

And don’t even get me started on Portuguese. It’s just enough like Spanish to get you either slapped or shot, depending on the situation.

“If you can hear the shot, you aren’t the target.”

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Not much happened today, which was reflected in a new low vehicle count, with only 33 vehicles coming through the gate today.

Don’t know if it’s the holiday weekend or not, especially since the rig apparently got all their problems worked out and went back to drilling again this morning. But ‘slow’ is always good, so it works for us.

I did finally find out what was confusing me about how they’re drilling the 3 wells here, though. In the past (2012) when we worked a multi-well drill site, they drilled the first well all the way down to the required 12,000 – 14,000 foot level and then moved to the next hole and drilled that one.

But I was confused when they drilled the first hole for a few days, then moved to the second hole for a few days, and then the third one. I knew they didn’t have enough time to go down to 14,000 feet. And they didn’t have enough drill pipe on the pad to go that deep either.

It takes about 350 pieces of drill pipe to go that far down, and since it is all stacked right out in front of us, it was easy to see that they didn’t have enough pipe on hand.

But then a couple of days ago, I heard the Company Man telling a visitor that they’re doing these wells in sections, though I’m not sure why.

In some cases they do it in 3 stages – a surface drill, an intermediate drill, and then a deep drill, setting the casing, the well liner, in place as they go. So they cycle through the wells, doing a surface drill on all three, then an intermediate drill on all three, and then a deep drill.

But apparently our well will only be done in two sections, not three. I assume that this all varies due to the soil conditions downhole.

I did get the site WiFi code today, but that’s about all the time it lasted. . .a day. When he gave me the code, he said that they were putting in a better one, and in fact the guy was there right then working on it.

And I guess he got it installed because this evening the old one no longer works. The WiFi part is still up, but it doesn’t connect to anything. I was hoping that they might have used the same password on the new one, which would have simplified things for everyone, but no luck. So I’ll try to get the new code tomorrow.

We did get some unexpected rain about 8:30 this evening while Jan was on duty. I say ‘unexpected’ because there was no rain in the forecast, just ‘Partly Cloudy’. Jan said the ‘Partly Cloudy’ lasted for about 30 minutes, and luckily she only had one vehicle come in during that time.

I did get a photo today of where and how we’re parked.

We’re parked parallel to the highway, so entering vehicles come from around behind us and then stop in front of the canopy.

The tarp over the canopy is not very photogenic, but it works. The standard canopy fabric just does not hold up to 24/7 in the Texas sun. And a replacement is about $100. But if the tarp gets shredded at some point, and it does once or twice a year, then another $20 at Wal-Mart and I’m back in business.

I’m cheap, what can I say.

“We are defined as much by our enemies as we are by our friends.”

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