accidental visitors

I am starting to get a little spoiled here at the gate. The last 3 nights there has not been any traffic from 10pm until after daybreak the following morning :-). That changed this morning when the alarm bells went off at 4am. I jumped out of bed and checked in a crane and its support vehicle. The crane is used to raise and support the fracking rig so it will not be used for another 3 days at least. The driver of the crane left 10 minutes later in the support vehicle. Really??!! You have to come in at 4am and wake me up to drop off a piece of equipment that is not needed for several days? Oh well, such is life here in the oil fields of Texas :-). Last week as the gate was starting to slow down I had a lady in a car come in shortly after 3am. We don't see a lot of cars here, mostly pick up trucks and the drivers are overwhelmingly male. She said she had to clean the office trailer on the front pad so I took down all her information and she headed back to do her thing. Ten minutes later the bell rang again as she was leaving. I went out to check her back out and she mentioned she only came in to vacuum the carpet. This office trailer had been locked and not used for at least 2 weeks but for some reason it had to be vacuumed at 3am. Sheesh!

Yesterday we had some unexpected company when a pick up truck towing a 5th wheel came into the gate. The driver hopped out and said he was lost and needed some help. I introduced myself and was happy to help out if I could. As soon as I said our names he recognized us. Turns out we had been exchanging emails for the last few weeks about gate guarding. Barry and Sharon http://finders4.blogspot.com/ are veteran full timers. They traveled and worked on the road for 10 years before buying a place in Florida where they settled down for a couple of years before heading back out on the road again to do some gate guarding. They have been assigned a gate near us and were trying to locate the entrance. The directions they were given were a little lacking, nothing new in the gate guarding business :-), and after a few phone calls they got some updated information and were able to get pointed in the right direction after a short visit.

Good luck guys and thanks for dropping by!

We are actually looking forward for the fracking crew to arrive and start their work. This will mark the beginning to the end of our gate guard season and we are looking forward to a break. We sat down yesterday and made some plans on where we want to go and how long we want to stay. Right now it looks like we will head for Del Rio to the Lake Amistad area for a few days where we can do some sight seeing before moving up towards Kerrville to catch up with some full timing friends we have not seen in a couple of years. That's the plan right now but of course they are written in jello and are subject to change! I'll keep you posted.