Pipe dreams?

The night shift has been slow lately, which is great for me, I get to sleep a little :-)

Monday morning a little before 6am a group of semi trucks hauling pipe showed up at the gate. There were four in the first group and as one left after unloading another arrived to take it's place. There were at least 6 loads of pipe delivered before 10am.

Earl, the company man, stopped in and told us to turn away any salesman since they would be unloading and moving pipe all day and were too busy for sales calls. He said they have reached their mark in drilling and were "starting the turn" meaning they were drilling more horizontal rather than vertical. He told me the casing pipe would start going in and be cemented into place probably this week end.

This marks the beginning of the end for the drill rig, or so I am told. When we first arrived they said they expected to be here 30 days. We arrived on the 31st and the rig arrived 4 days later so end of next week would be 30 days for them, right on schedule.

Tuesday was another routine day here at the gate. We did have some sales calls and even got 2 fresh Tacos delivered by one of the companies. I had one for lunch after I got up from a nap and it was very good. I'm not sure what cut of beef is in it, could be tongue or lips, all I know it was very tasty :-).

Later in the day Earl came back out to the gate and stopped to talk for awhile. He was off for the next 2 weeks and said when he saw us again we would be at the new location. I made sure they wanted us to follow them and he said they absolutely did and really appreciated all we were doing. This made me feel good and I am honored to be asked to follow the rig. He did not know where the new location was exactly, said it would be in this general area and we would be moving in approximately 10 days.

There will still need to be a gate guard at this site so when we move someone else will move in here to take our place.

We are both a little nervous about the move. You never know what the next gate will be like. This one is wide open with a view of the main road which Rudee likes. There are cattle guards at the gate so you can leave it open 24/7 whereas with out a cattle guard the gate would have to be opened and shut with every vehicle. The downside here is the proximity to the well pad. We are literally right on top of the action here and it can get pretty noisy.

I guess each site has it's own "personality" and the best we can hope for is a large level pad and enough room that we can sit on our patio without the semi trucks running over our toes :-). If I get enough early warning on the new location I'll try and do some reconnaissance in the Dakota before moving the entire circus train. I'll keep you posted!