Workin' RVers

bad TV day

2012-01-30T09:09:00.007-05:00

We are down to only about 5 workers left adjusting the flow on the back well. The company man came out and told us all they are getting out of the well is water but that should change in the next day or two when the oil and natural gas starts to flow. The water they take out is being trucked away to a holding area several miles south of here.

Needless to say, aside from the water trucks coming in and out every few hours, the gate is pretty quiet.

Sunday we had another one of those boring type days. I piddled around outside just doing "busy" type work. I put a few things away that we don't expect to be using for awhile and started the generator and let it run for awhile to exercise it. The manufacturer recommends that it be ran for at least 30 minutes under 50% load every 30 days. After letting it run I topped off its fuel tank and added some more Stabil fuel stabilizer which will keep the fuel "fresh" until we need to use the generator again.

The Sunday after the NFL conference championship games has to be the worst TV day of the year. Any other time sports nuts can watch some kind of game, race or event. There was absolutely nothing on. The Nascar season doesn't kick off for a couple of weeks, no NFL games until next week when the Super Bowl will be played, baseball is still a few months down the road, heck I couldn't even find a golf tournament to watch. I'm not really a huge sports fan but I do like to watch a good football game and I'll pass an hour or two watching a Nascar or Indy car race and if I'm in need of a little nap I'll even turn on golf :-). Yesterday there wasn't even a decent John Wayne movie to be had! You know what that means, an all day marathon of Lifetime Network chick flicks! :-0

I called my grand son Nicholas yesterday and he told me all about his visit to Indianapolis. They spent the day Saturday doing the NFL experience in downtown Indianapolis. They had all kinds of activities for young and old alike. All of our kids and their spouses attended at some point during the weekend. They said the crowds were large but the atmosphere was like Mardi Gras and they all had a great time. Looks like Indy is going all out hosting their first Super Bowl. I know they have been preparing for this week for over a year now. Tickets to the big game can still be purchased as long as you have an extra $3,000.00 laying around. That's for one ticket in the upper decks! Yikes!

We expect a slow week here at the Hinkle Ranch and are looking forward to easing our way back into retirement mode! I'll keep you posted.

slow Saturday

2012-01-28T21:18:00.005-05:00

Things are slowing down here in a big way. Unfortunately they haul out the flow back water 24 hours a day. They are using 2 semi tankers that make trip after trip so every 1 1/2 to 2 hours they are either coming in or going out. They do tend to travel together which makes it a little nicer but it still interrupts my nap time :-(.

Saturday has been a slow day. Hunter from Gate Guard services was out today to replenish our tanks. We always try and have a little treat for him to enjoy on his trip back to Corrizo Springs. Today he got some trail mix, a famous Amos cookie and a cold bottle of Mountain Dew.

The flow back trucks have kept up their routine and we only had a few other visitors passing through the gate today. We have only filled in 1 page of entries which makes today the slowest day we have had in a couple of weeks.

We have heard rumors that the fracking crew will return for their vehicles sometime Sunday morning so we should have quite a parade leaving the gate. I'll keep you posted.

they left .... almost

2012-01-27T07:41:00.006-05:00

The fracking is done and the crews are all packed up with nowhere to go. I was told they were going to move to another well pad just around the corner from us but the drilling rig is still there. I'm not sure what the plan is but most of the fracking equipment is on the front pad and the coil tubing equipment is parked next to the road leading to the back pad. There were crews in most of yesterday doing maintenance on the large diesel engines I photographed in yesterdays blog. They are changing the oil and fuel filters on each one so they will be ready for the next job. They worked all day Thursday and said they would be back again on Friday. The coil tubing folks are doing the same thing on the side of the road.

I did take a drive to the back pad to toss our trash bags into the dumpster and it is pretty much deserted. The flow back crew is there and we have had some semi trucks in and out hauling the waste out. They do have a "birthday candle" set up but it has not been lit yet. This is a vent pipe for natural gas and has some oil mixed in as well judging by the soot and smoke they put out when they first light them up.

For my fire department and EMS buddies I snapped a photo of the safety crew as they were leaving.

This company provides certified firefighter/paramedics that man this vehicle while the fracking process is going on. They also keep a log of all the personnel on site as well as their location in case of a catastrophe. The trailer has an ambulance body on the rear portion and a portable pump with foam for firefighting on the front portion. Pretty cool set up!

Looks like we are starting to see the beginning of the end here at the Hinkle Ranch as I anticipate they will close the gate down as soon as the flow back is completed. The company man told me this morning they are thinking it may only take a week to complete. Our plan is still to leave here on the 6th but may change if they release us earlier. I'll keep you posted.

swappin crews

2012-01-25T23:52:00.009-05:00

Today the frack crew finished up their process' and started moving their equipment off the back pad. They have some interesting equipment they use. I wonder who came up with some of these things?

The semis that haul the big diesel motors were all moved from the back pad onto the front pad as well as the caterers trailer. They lined them all up like a military regiment on the parade grounds.

The big vertical boxes on the very front of the trailer are 2 large radiators and the rest is all engine, transmission and controls! These things have some power!

The coil tubing crew was next up to bat. They moved their equipment back to the well and "rigged up". They will clean out the well in order for the crude oil to be extracted. I am told this should only take about another day and they will tear down and head out as well.

The next process will be to regulate the flow and this lasted about 2 weeks on the front well so not sure if that is normal or not. The crew that did this last time was pretty quiet and rarely left the pad so we hardly knew they were here. The downside was they hauled out the waste water 24/7 so there was a semi tanker coming in and out about every couple of hours :-(.

We were pretty pumped that the caterer was moved closer to us. Since they arrived they have been in the middle of the chaos on the back pad. I did drive back a couple of times and pick up some meals but felt a little "out of place" being there. They opened up on the front pad and we waited until the crews had all been fed before walking over. I guess we waited too long because the cooks were just locking up the trailer and told us they were being told to shut down and would not be open again until sometime tomorrow. They felt bad we didn't get a meal and told us to be sure to come back tomorrow and they would take care of us.

We didn't have anything thawed out for supper so Rudee threw together a home made pepperoni and mushroom pizza that was absolutely perfect! She really is too nice to me :-).

We did have some rain and gusty wind last night. Luckily the rain didn't last too long so things dried out pretty quickly :-)

Things are starting to wind down here at the gate. The next couple of days should see a mass exodus of most of the workers and equipment. I'll keep you posted.

"doin the shuffle"

2012-01-24T23:33:00.005-05:00

We are still busy "frackin the tree" here on the Hinkle Ranch. During the day we have a lot of pick up trucks coming and going then in the evening hours the semi trucks hauling sand start in. They use lots and lots of sand and we have a steady stream of semis going in and out until around 2am when it slows down to a trickle for a couple of hours. Starting around 4am the pick up traffic starts up again as we approach shift change and this continues until after 6am when we get another break in the action and it slows again for a couple of hours. That has been pretty much our routine here for the last 3 days, that is until this evening. You could almost feel a change in the air. The sand trucks suddenly stopped coming and more equipment was coming out than going in. Talking to the workers confirmed that the fracking process will end either tonight or tomorrow. Sure enough several pieces of equipment arrived for the coil tubing which is the final clean out of the well and they are all staged on the front pad ready to move into position as soon as the frack rig is moved out.

I was able to get some sleep today but no more got in bed and fell asleep when I heard the rain start. Oh oh it's gonna get muddy again :-(. The rain lasted for about 45 minutes and then stopped. They are still predicting rain and storms for tonight after midnight and we even under a tornado watch so it may be a bumpy night :-0. There is a small cement bridge over a dry creek bed at the entrance to our gate which could serve as a tornado shelter if need be. There is really no other place to retreat to and I'm sure not going to try and hang out inside the 5th wheel if the big blow comes.

Tomorrow should be an interesting day with all the equipment getting shuffled around. I'll try to remember to grab the camera and get some pictures of that circus :-). I'll keep you posted.

yep, we're busy :-)

2012-01-23T01:21:00.006-05:00

The fracking has started with a vengeance on the back pad. Last time they were here doing the front pad we were right in the middle of the action since the entrance to the front pad is just a few feet from the front of our 5th wheel. The fracking process is very loud with several large diesel engines running at high rpm's plus there were workers running around all over the place. We really felt like we were more in the way than anything else. This time they are at least 1/4 mile away so the noise is a lot less and we have our own "space", Rudee and I both agree this is much better.

Vehicles have been coming and going at a steady pace. They use a lot of sand in the various fracking process' and it all has to be trucked into the site so we have been busy checking the semi trucks in and out. The crews change shifts around 5am and again 12 hours later at 5pm. They are all staying in a motel in Laredo and using a shuttle bus to commute to the site. That makes it a little easier on us versus all of them driving their personal vehicles. When the drilling rig was here their crews stayed in trailers on site but rarely was there a day when most of the crew didn't pile into cars and headed to town for several hours after their shifts ended. There are few staying on site, the company man, safety personal as well as the caterer all have trailers but they rarely travel outside the property.

The weather has been perfect the last several days with highs near or above 80 degrees and only a light breeze. Sure beats all the sleet and snow they are getting back in Indiana :-). They are calling for some showers and thunderstorms to start sometime on Tuesday and continue into Wednesday so we'll need to be ready to fight the mud again :-(. We are expecting the fracking to be completed late Tuesday or maybe Wednesday morning if all goes well and then the crew will start to tear everything down and prepare to move to the next site. Once they are all moved out it will be almost time for us to start preparing ourselves and the rig for moving on as well. I'll keep you posted.

"Frackin a tree"

2012-01-21T10:22:00.007-05:00

Friday was not too busy a day here at the gate. We figured it must be the calm before the storm since the fracking was due to arrive in the morning :-). Rudee made a run into town and picked up our mail, groceries and fast food supper. May seem strange but I am looking forward to being able to go to the store (or anywhere for that matter) together. I miss doing things with my sweety :-).

Saturday morning heavy fog rolled in making our area look a little spooky but it burned off pretty quick once the sun was up.

Shortly after taking that photo lines of trucks started arriving. The first group there we 13 semis with all kinds of odd looking equipment trailers while others carried large diesel generators that filled the entire trailer. They had no more cleared the gate when another wave arrived followed by another :-0. Needless to say we have had a busy morning and so far have checked in 23 semis and quite a few pick up trucks and two shuttle buses. They tell us they are here to "frack a tree", cracks Rudee up when they say that, not sure why? :-). Oh ya, we checked in one roach wagon too! Whoo hoo, free food :-).

We have heard they will "rig up" today and start the fracking process tomorrow. This well is the same depth as the one on the front pad so they figure the fracking will take about the same length of time which was around 4 days and then another day for tear down then the parade starts all over again. Should be a busy week for sure. I'll keep you posted.

"here they come"

2012-01-20T01:16:00.003-05:00

Thursday morning I checked in my first worker for Trican which is the company doing the fracking. I told him I wasn't expecting anyone until Saturday and he said they would start arriving sometime today and that Saturday was the scheduled "rig up" day.
True to his word about 30 minutes later I heard Rudee say "here they come" and was met with a long line of semi trucks turning into our gate. The equipment and chemical trucks were the first to arrive and then all afternoon and evening we had wave after wave of trucks delivering sand. The majority of them have left with just a few stragglers back at the pad.

One thing for sure is you never know who you are going to run into out here in the giggle weeds of Texas. We were checking in vehicles the other day and a pick up truck with Louisiana plates came in and the driver said his last name was Manning. Rudee asked him if he was related to Peyton Manning. Turns out he is Peyton and Ely's cousin and they all grew up near each other. She told him we were from Indiana and he yelled "Go Colts!" as he drove toward the pad. :-)

The good thing about the fracking is they bring their own caterers and feed us really well. So far the catering truck has not arrived yet but should roll in and get set up soon. They cook three meals a day and are open 24/7 for the crew (and us too!). When they were here last time the cook and I struck up a friendship and he took really good care of us. Their menu was varied and very tasty. Rudee is looking forward to having someone else do the cooking for a change :-). I'll keep you posted.

TV trouble

2012-01-19T09:44:00.004-05:00

Well I am back on the night shift again :-). Last evening around 10pm we had a truck come in towing a generator powered light stand behind his pick up truck. When he checked in he said he had 2 more left to deliver and his drive time was over 1 hour round trip :-(. Oh well I knew things would start hopping the closer we get to the fracking crew arriving. They are still saying the circus train will show up Saturday morning. That's cool, we'll be ready for them.

I opened up the hide-a-bed last night and, once the "light man" had finished his deliveries a little after 2am, I was able to catch a nap. When I got up early this morning the TV was not working ... again! We have a Tailgater automatic satellite dish from Dish Network and so far it has worked fairly well. On three occasions now it has failed to acquire the satellite signal. Each time was the next morning after shutting down the generator for service. Coincidence? Who knows? Our generator was serviced yesterday and this morning "poof" no signal. I went through all the diagnostic stuff several times and everything showed we were locked onto the correct satellites and should be getting a picture ...... hmmmm. The last 2 times I fixed it by changing the cable connecting the dish to the RV. Both times the cable was slightly loose at the connections and I thought that may be the cause so I used a pair of pliers to tighten them the last time I had problems. I checked the connections and all were tight but decided to try and change the cable anyway. I got out another cable and swapped them again. This is not a new cable, I just keep swapping the same 2 cables back and forth. Once I had everything wired back up I went through the diagnostics again and BINGO, locked on and watching TV :-). The only thing I can figure out is maybe a dirty connection? The generator theory is interesting but it does not do it every time we disconnect because the generator gets serviced every 10 days or so and we have only had the problem a couple of times so I am thinking it is just a weird coincidence.

I read a blog this morning that offered some good guidelines for living your life in 2012. Permission was granted to copy and print it on the site so I am including it here.

LIFE'S HANDBOOK FOR 2012
Health:
1. Drink plenty of water.
2. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar.
3. Eat more foods that grow on trees & plants & eat less food that is manufactured in plants & has to be killed, bled, cured, aged, smoked, fried, or frozen
4. Live with the 3 E's -- Energy, Enthusiasm and Empathy.
5. Make time to pray to which ever God you believe in
6. Play more games. Feed the birds. Plant flowers or vegetables- even in a pot.
7. Read more books than you did in 2011.
8. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day.
9. Sleep for 7 hours.
10. Take a 10-30 minutes walk daily. And while you walk, smile & notice your surroundings, changes in nature every day, & listen to the birds.
Personality:
11. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about. Each person has their place in the scheme of life.
12. Don't have negative thoughts of things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment - do what you can to make the world around you better.
13. Don't over do it. Keep your limits. Physically, spiritually, financially or emotionally. Be humble.
14. Don't take yourself too seriously. No one else does.
15. Don't waste your precious energy on gossip.
16. Dream more while you are awake.
17. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need. This is very important
18. Forget issues of the past. Don't remind your partner with his/her mistakes of the past. Don't blame your parents for every problem you have. That will ruin your present. We choose actions & reactions when we become adults.
Happiness:
19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. Don't hate others. It's easier to understand and move on.
20. Make peace with your past so it won't spoil the present. Yesterday is gone and you have a limited number of tomorrows.
21. No one is in charge of your happiness except you. It's your choice to feel happy or miserable, anger or joy, frustration or acceptance, jealousy or peace, shame or pride.
22. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class, but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.
23. Smile and laugh more.
24. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
Society:
25. Call your family often.
26. Each day give something good to others.
27. Forgive everyone for everything.
28. Spend time with people over the age of 70 and under the age of 6
29. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
30. What other people think of you is none of your business.
31. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.
Life:
32. Do the right thing!
33. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
34. God heals everything.
35. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
36. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
37. The best is yet to come.
38. When you awake alive in the morning, thank God for it.
39. Your inner most is always happy. So, be happy.
Last but not the least: We only share this earth for a short time - why waste it on hateful thoughts and deeds when there is so much joy and happiness to discover I recommend you copy and paste this into a format that will allow you to print it out. Print out a few copies and hang one on the mirror you brush your teeth at in the morning. Hang another one on the refrigerator. Maybe one more in your car or truck so your read it each time you get in or you're sitting in traffic.If you could live by half of these items, your life would be a much better, more happier place.

I once heard that a persons character is not determined by what he does when people are watching him but what he does when they are not.

Things should continue to pick up here at the gate but we are physically and mentally ready for it! I'll keep you posted.

accidental visitors

2012-01-18T07:50:00.011-05:00

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.

workin for the weekend

2012-01-16T19:48:00.004-05:00

We have actually had a little traffic at our gate today after another quiet night. There has been a crew in making preparations for the fracking to start. They said there has been a slight delay though and the frac crew will not be here until Saturday. This crew will be working today, taking tomorrow off and then will come back Thursday and move into the housing units for the fracking.
Rudee made the comment that she was happy they are waiting until Saturday because the week ends are "boring". What??!! Boring??!! We have always looked forward to week ends back in our 9-5 slave away for "the man" days. Now all of a sudden week ends are boring? Well I have to agree. Even though our current gig as gate guards is a 24/7 job and we really don't have any days off the week ends do seem to go a little slower than other days. I guess the gate is typically a little slower on the week ends and there is not much on TV so things do tend to drag a little Saturday and Sunday.
I read a lot of fulltimers blogs and most tend to avoid doing a lot on the week ends since the stores, restaurants, tourist areas and highways are filled with the working folks trying to enjoy their days off. I guess I still have that "Monday -Friday 9-5" mindset but I'll work on it. :-)

The temperature today was downright balmy! 80 degrees in the middle of January :-) gotta love it!
The rest of the week looks nice as well. We are looking at another 3 more weeks here at the gate and with the fracking going on we are looking forward to our time flying by! I'll keep you posted.

lazy day

2012-01-15T19:47:00.006-05:00

We have visitors! Don Smith, a fellow gate guard, dropped by for a visit. We have been communicating via RV.net Forum but had never met face to face that we knew of. Don and his wife Shar are from Lebanon and went fulltime after he retired. We had a nice visit comparing gate guard notes and hearing about some of their travels. Hard to believe that there are 3 gates being manned by people from the same small town in Indiana within a 20 mile radius of each other here in South Texas :-).
The crane pulled out mid morning along with the operators. This left us with only the company man back at the well site. He came out for supper and said he would return and spend the night but he didn't anticipate any other traffic. I needed to take the trash back to the dumpster on the pad and since it was slow Rudee grabbed the clipboard and we both hopped in the truck to take a little ride. The pad is only about 1/2 mile from the gate and this ranch is wide open so we could see if anyone was coming in while we took our little tour. There really wasn't much to see but they do have the "frack tree" attached to the well pipe, all we need now is the crew and all their equipment. They use a mixture of sand, water and chemicals under very high pressure to fracture the underground rock. The water is provided by a reservoir they made here on the ranch but the sand and chemicals are all trucked in.
Sure enough the company man was the only one we checked in the rest of the evening. We enjoyed the quiet time watching TV and ended up going to bed shortly after 10:30 and the next thing I knew it was getting daylight outside. It sure felt good to sleep the entire night with no interruptions.

Sunday has turned out to be another lazy day. As of this writing (7pm) we have only 4 entries on our sheet. That is the slowest day we've had since arriving at the gate. I took a nice walk down the county road that runs adjacent to our gate. I guess I was all tuckered out from the walk because I took a 2 hour nap after getting back! :-)

They are still saying the frack crew will not be arriving until Tuesday so we are anticipating another slow day tomorrow. I'll keep you posted.

ps: Maximillion, Thanks for your comments on yesterdays entry but I accidently deleted it when I tried to add it to the post ....... sorry :-(

another crew out

2012-01-14T09:23:00.005-05:00

As predicted the temperatures were downright COLD overnight dropping into the upper 20's. I had disconnected the water supply and drained the hose. Once the sun was up Friday morning the temps rose at a steady pace and I was able to hook everything back up before I laid down for some rest.

Friday afternoon was my "going to town" day. Rudee had made a list of the groceries we needed and I made a stop at the post office before heading to the super market. I really shouldn't go to the store when I am hungry. I got everything on the list but also some candy, chips and few other "unhealthy snacks" somehow found their way into my cart :-).
I stopped at McDonalds and picked us up some supper and headed back to the 5th wheel. OK, I hear ya, not good having snacks and fast food but I can be bad just once a week can't I?
Once I got back I unhooked the water once again since the temps were heading down below 30 degrees again. Hopefully this will be the last time for at least another week :-)

Early Saturday morning the crew working on the well all started filing out of the gate. By 8:30 there were only a couple of workers and a large crane left on the pad. Another process completed and another crew heading out to their next job. We are expecting the fracking crew to arrive any day now. Last time they all arrived in one big convoy and since it is the same company doing this second well we figure they will all show up at once, just not sure when that will be but I'll keep you posted!

more up and downs

2012-01-12T08:33:00.006-05:00

This time the up and down is the temperatures! Yesterday the high was 80 degrees and nice, now that's the kind of weather we like in January. Last evening though the wind picked up as a front moved through and the temps dropped down to 40 degrees.

The wind howled most of the night and the 5th wheel rocked back and forth with each gust. The wind causes some things to go "bump" in the night and several times I was awake trying to figure out "what's that noise?".

Today is supposed to be in the low 50's and they have issued a freeze warning for tonight with lows in the low 30's or upper 20's. Brrrr!

I was treated to a nice sunrise this morning.

The work continues on the back pad getting ready for the fracking crew to arrive. I have had a steady stream of people arriving this morning. We have heard the coil tubing crew will be back in as early as today and the fracking crew sometime this week end. I know we will be extremely busy during the fracking and frankly am ready to get it started so we can at least see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'll keep you posted!

hurry up and wait

2012-01-11T01:14:00.005-05:00

We have had some interesting activity here at the gate in the last couple of days. Monday evening the company man left and we were all alone here at the site. We didn't expect to have any activity so I decided to try sleeping upstairs again. We had no more gotten in bed and was just dozing off when someone knocked on the door! We have infrared driveway sensors that pick up 99% of any movement going past the sensors as well as the bell alarms that ring when driven over. The first thing we thought of was "illegals" looking for a hand out. I looked out the dining room window and there was a semi truck parked out by the highway and the truck driver was lost and needed directions. I'm not sure why the sensors didn't pick him up when he walked by and I had no idea where the ranch was he was trying to find so I had to send him on down the road still lost :-(.

We have had a few crews in that were "prepping" the back pad. I'm not sure what kind of prep work needs to be done but this morning a convoy of trucks came in with "coil tubing" written on the sides. This is the first stage of the fracking process and they were not happy campers. I guess they were told to get here this morning and get set up at the well site and start their work. On their way here they were told to just park the equipment on the front pad and leave because the back well was not ready yet. I talked to the supervisor and he said they did not even have the well capped yet and there was just a "pipe in a hole in the ground". He said they would be back in a few days.
There have also been several of the oil company reps in and, judging by their demeanor, they have not been happy. I think someone has dropped the ball somewhere because equipment keeps arriving and they are putting everything on the front pad until they can complete their work on the back pad. Last word we have gotten is the fracking may not start until Monday. Guess we will just wait and see.

We got a phone call from our friend Jimmy Owens who lives in Indiana. They are in Texas staying with family while Jimmy gets some medical issues taken care of, He was just diagnosed with cancer that was found in his thyroid. They are still trying to determine the extent of the cancer and course of treatment but Jimmy sounded upbeat and ready for the fight. Good luck, buddy we are with you and ready to help out any way we can.

I am enjoying the quiet nights but know they will end soon and we will be back to our busy selves again. I'll keep you posted.

Calm before the storm

2012-01-09T11:38:00.004-05:00

Sunday was another busy day with the big trucks passing in and out of our gate all day. Finally around 5:00pm they said they were making their final trip. Shortly afterwards the crew all came parading out the gate. Since the rig is being moth balled the crew is being scattered to other rigs to work. We sent them each away with a small treat and I think they were all a little sad to be leaving us. Funny how you can get to know some of them in just the few minutes you get to talk when they check in and out of the gate.
Rudee made a home made pizza for supper and we enjoyed a quiet evening watching TV and catching up on blogs. We did not have a single vehicle after 7pm and the only one left at the drill site was the company man.
Since it was such a quiet evening I decided to try and sleep in the big bed tonight hoping there would be no vehicles overnight. That turned out to be a pretty good decision and we both slept well.
I got up around 6am this morning and had a crew come in shortly afterwards to do some work on the pad preparing for the fracking crew.
The gate has been pretty slow so far today with a few caliche' trucks coming in. They are also moving the housing units out today and we have had a couple of trucks coming and going to get that accomplished.
The rain they were predicting has not materialized here. The radar shows rain around us but we have been lucky so far with just a few sprinkles.
We have not heard for sure when the parade of fracking equipment will arrive. On one hand we are enjoying the quiet but on the other hand the quicker they get here, the quicker that circus will be over with. I'll keep you posted.

saying goodbye to our "nabors"

2012-01-07T19:59:00.011-05:00

Sometime during the day on Friday they lowered the rig to the ground so our skyline is changing. No more "lights in the sky" although there is still the normal glow of all the ground lights the night crew uses.

Friday night was a slow night which has been a rare occurrence on our gate. I did not have any vehicles between midnight and 5am and got some quality sack time in the hide-a-bed :-).

Saturday morning started as a typical day with a couple of the commuting workers arriving. Then the flood gates opened and semi trucks started arriving towing low boy trailers. The rig move was on!

I quickly filled a page of arriving trucks and personal involved in loading and moving the drilling rig. At one point Rudee, still in her pajamas, poked her nose out the door to see what all the noise was about :-). I'm glad I got all that rest, I needed it for this flurry of activity!

The trucks were loaded and started exiting the gate late in the morning. They would make several trips in and out today. Here is the main control room of Nabors 768 heading out.

The trucks returned again late in the day and all the drivers left in pick up trucks. The crew will load the last pieces of the rigs tonight and the drivers will return to take the last of the rig away in the morning.

We did get some good information. We can stay put here for at least another month. Fracking is supposed to start right away with equipment moving in as early as Monday. Should be a busy week next week but then will slow down significantly once the fracking is done. Gives us something to look forward to :-). This should work out very well for our time table and we are grateful for that.

The downside to the fracking crew arriving on Monday is they are predicting a 60% chance of rain :-O! The rest of the week is supposed to be dry with sunshine so maybe whatever gets wet will dry quickly. We are keeping our fingers crossed because you know how we just love the caliche' mud!! I'll keep you posted.

trip to Cotulla

2012-01-05T23:37:00.006-05:00

The gate has been extremely busy the last 2 days as expected. The rig should be coming down soon and there are several companies here doing their thing to prepare for the big move. We have been filling 4 pages a day since Monday and it shows no sign of letting up soon. The front pad has slowed down however and the crew working there is moving out. The big birthday candle that has been burning for the last couple of weeks has been blown out. I hope Rudee made a wish because I missed the party and she didn't save me any cake either! :-)

I drove into Cotulla today for our weekly grocery run and mail drop. My paycheck was there but our mail packet from Indiana has not arrived yet so we will have to drive in again and pick that up. We call the UPS store and request our mail to be forwarded every Monday and so far it has arrived on Thursday. Since a lot of people were off Monday that could have slowed things down this week. I'm not sure if the post office was even open Monday since we don't see a lot of mailmen out here in our neck of woods :-).

We got a little information today on the rig move. Looks like they will be fracking the new well as soon as they can, possibly as early as late next week so it is likely we may be staying put for a little while longer. We are not looking forward to the hub bub of the fracking but it will only last for about a week and then they will move on. We are hoping that the process will be similar to the front well and they will have a small crew here to regulate the flow for a couple of weeks after fracking. That should put us close to our target date to hitch up and move out for some R & R. We are keeping our fingers crossed.

The weather has been pretty nice with temperatures in the upper 60's during the day and into the 40's at night. They are predicting even warmer temps for the next few days which makes us both ready for a nice long motorcycle ride! Hopefully next month will be even nicer and we can get the bike out experience Texas on two wheels. I'll keep you posted.

ups and downs

2012-01-04T08:25:00.009-05:00

The life of a gate guard has a lot of ups and downs. I don't mean the emotional ups and downs of mood swings (although Rudee may disagree LOL) but physically hauling your butt up and down. Seems like I check in one vehicle, get back inside the 5th wheel, sit down and "ding, ding" another one shows up. Jump to your feet, back out the door and down the steps. There does seem to be a pattern though, 5am to 8am is usually a busy time and noon to 3pm is another. There is always a rush shortly after 6pm when the shifts change and the crew heads to town for groceries, dinner or "liquid refreshments". We are out in the open here and I have gotten in the habit of checking both directions for vehicles before heading back inside the 5th wheel. Often I can cheat an "up, down" by spying approaching headlights and sometimes I just get funny looks from the occupants of the vehicles wondering why I am standing outside with a clip board in my hand watching them pass by on the highway :-)!

The drilling is done here and there has been a flurry of activity at the rig. We have had semi truck tankers hauling "mud" in and out for the last couple of days. They will start tearing the rig down soon and I am anticipating the big cranes and low boy trucks to arrive soon. They use the large crane to lower the rig onto the trucks so they can move it on down the highway. Once everything is loaded the big parade starts.

No new news (or even new rumors) on what will happen here. I don't know if they will close this gate down or continue paying to have it attended. I am assuming it will depend on the fracking schedule. Should have some information soon, otherwise we will be the only ones left here :-). Talking with other gate guards this is not unusual and the notice to move is often given at the last minute. We can be ready to roll in fairly short order. Give us an hour and we can have this circus wagon pretty well buttoned up and road worthy. I'll keep you posted.

learning pains

2012-01-02T20:25:00.008-05:00

I'm a planner. I like to know where I am going and what I am going to be doing when I get there. I'm trying to learn to be flexible but it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks :-). This gate guarding life is not suited for a planner since so many things seem to be done or decided at the last minute. I'm doing my best to learn to "go with the flow".
I have been "working the beat" trying to get information on what the immediate future holds here at the gate from just about anyone who is patient enough to answer my questions. The rumors are running like wild fire and know one seems to have any firm information on what will happen. Rudee is my alter ego, she can "go with flow" and I think I am driving her nuts :-). I guess opposites do attract :-)
One thing for sure, there is still work to be had as a gate guard so there is no need for me to sweat it out trying to figure everything out before it happens. As Rudee reminds me, "patience big boy".

Sunday night and Monday morning are shift changes which keeps our gate busy. I had several of the workers coming in overnight. I'm not sure why they show up at 1am for their 6am start time, seems like they are making it a little harder on themselves than it has to be.

The temperatures are supposed to be near or below freezing tonight so I disconnected the power to the water pump and drained the hose that connects our 5th wheel to the large tank outside. We will run off our on board tank for the night. They are saying the rest of the week will be warmer with sunny skies. Now that's the kind of winter we like! I'll keep you posted.

TV woes

2012-01-01T23:27:00.003-05:00

During the night shift here I am able to catch a nap occasionally. I usually pull the the sofa sleeper out and snooze for however long I can between "dings" of our driveway bell. Friday night I had a few semi trucks in and out but for the most part it was quiet and I got a nice 2 hour nap in. When I got up around 5am there was no signal from our satellite dish. This is not uncommon when the nights are cool and the case of our tailgater automatic dish gets covered in heavy dew or frost. Usually all it takes is a quick wipe down of the case and it starts working again. I have the unit sitting on the roof of the 5th wheel at the top of our ladder attached to the back end. I climbed the ladder, with towel in hand, and cleaned the case off really good but I still could not get a picture on the TV. I tried all the suggested reset procedures and nothing worked so I gave in and called Dish Network for some help. They had me check a couple of things that showed I was getting a signal so the only thing they could suggest is to contact the manufacturer of the dish unit itself and gave me their number. Then they dropped the bomb the the manufacturer was only available Monday - Friday 9-5 and I would have to wait until Monday to call :-(.

I decided to check a few more things on my own since Sunday was a holiday and there was no guarantee they would even be open Monday. I climbed the ladder and brought the dish down to ground level. I then changed out the coax with a different one in case that was the problem. When I removed the coax I noticed the ends were not completely tight .... hmmmm. I then reset the system again and BINGO, we had TV again! Another disaster averted and it only took me two hours :-).

The drilling has now reached "TD" according to the crew. Took me awhile to figure out that TD means total depth :-). They are now ready to start cementing the well pipe in place and several semi trucks arrived last night hauling the cement. This usually takes a couple of days and then they will tear the rig down and haul it away later this week. We have not heard if the fracking process will start right away or at all. There are just too many rumors flying around right now to get a straight answer from anyone. Guess we'll just take it a day at a time.

No big New Years Eve party here at the gate. Rudee did stay up to watch the New Year come in and of course I kissed my bride at the stroke of midnight. You have to end the old year and start the new year on the right foot :-).

We have not made any New Year resolutions, guess we are trying to learn to "go with flow". We are looking forward to the New Year and new experiences. Should be a fun ride! I'll keep you posted.

2011, lots of changes

2011-12-31T21:07:00.003-05:00

We started the year out celebrating with our friends Steve and Trish. We went to the Four Winds Casino in New Buffalo, Michigan. We stayed out until the wee hours of the morning ringing in the new year and had a great time.
Little did we imagine that 365 days later we would be sitting in our 5th wheel 15 miles from the nearest town out in the giggle weeds of Texas :-). Life is funny that way I guess.
Living in our 5th wheel is nothing new to us. We sold our house in 2009 and have not regretted that decision at all. Being able to travel and see some different areas of the country has been our dream and we have been working hard to make that a reality. Our plans were altered in June when Rudee was laid off. Neither one of us anticipated this and were in a state of shock for several weeks. Luckily we were in a good position to "move on" but felt bad for some of her co-workers who had just purchased houses or had young kids and were doing their best to "get by". The layoffs were extra hard on them.
We took stock of our situation and "made lemonade out of lemons". I walked away from my job in October and we headed out for adventure, "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead"!
Thus we find ourselves in Texas where we are able to boost the bank account a little so we can continue our little adventure.
We do miss the friends we left behind in Indiana and look forward to seeing them again in the spring. We are not missing the Indiana winters and defiantly not missing our high stress former jobs!
Our immediate family have been very supportive and we thank them for that. Other family members and some of our friends have been a little confused as to why we are doing this and don't seem to understand why we want to follow a dream. I suppose this is not unusual since being a full time RVer is not their definition of "normal".
So what will 2012 bring? Who knows, but we are looking forward to a fun ride. I'll keep you posted.

left hand, right hand

2011-12-30T22:12:00.006-05:00

We are pretty settled into a routine here at the gate but of course that routine changes with each new process that starts. This week they have started hauling the crude oil from the original well. The trucks tend to arrive several hours apart and this usually occurs in the overnight hours which interferes with my beauty sleep. Lord knows I needs me beauty sleep! :-)
Seriously though I am starting to feel the pains of my sleeping in shifts. Seems like the longest I am asleep at any one time is 4-5 hours but usually less and it is beating me down. I'm looking forward to the time I can relax and get a good 8 hours sleep straight through.

One of the company men left this morning on his way to Houston for training on his new rig. He stopped and talked for a awhile and still wants us as his gate guards. He said his new rig should be setting up somewhere south of Cotulla on the 15th of January.
We had pretty much decided to just stay here but may keep our options open. He is going to email the new pad location to us as soon as he gets specifics and I will go and check it out. I can't see us leaving here to end up several miles down a dirt road in the middle of no where. We like our current gate but it is nice to have some options.
The ranch owners son was in today and confirmed they are moving the rig out as soon as they get done drilling. he said they will then move a new rig in and drill a 3rd well on another pad "back there". He said he hoped we would be staying put because he liked the job we were doing at the gate.
What?! That's the first we have heard of a new rig. I didn't even know there was a third pad.
Later in the day I decided to take a drive to find this mystery pad. I drove back to where they were drilling and there was no sign of another pad or even another road to reach another pad. Right now I don't know what to make of this info but one thing for sure about the oil drilling business. The right hand doesn't seem to know what the left hand is doing, at least at our level anyway :-).

We are still planning on taking some R & R after the first week of February. This will give us same time to decompress before we start working our way back to Indiana in the middle to last part of March. I plan on sleeping the first 2 days straight! :-)

The weather today was absolutely gorgeous. The high today was in the low 80's and we enjoyed spending time outside sitting on the patio in short sleeves. The last of the mud is almost dried up from last Saturdays rain. We still have one low spot in the driveway in front of our 5th wheel that we have to step around but that is only a minor inconvenience and with pleasant weather predicted for the next few days, it should be dry soon. I'll keep you posted.

big truck mechanic

2011-12-28T23:32:00.005-05:00

My morning was pretty busy after 6am checking in trucks that were bringing in more and more pipe. A crew also arrived with a large fork lift to unload the trucks. At one time there were a total of 13 semi trucks hanging around somewhere on the back pad. I'm sure it was getting crowded back there.

I was up shortly after 1pm and after a shower I started working on the Freightliner. I had the battery charger hooked up all night making sure the batteries would be at full power just in case I had to crank the engine a lot to get it started.

I removed both fuel filters and got the new ones out. They were a little different with the new ones being about twice as long as the old ones. I was not sure if maybe NAPA had sold me the wrong filters and instead of taking a chance on the new ones I decided to just fill the old ones back up with fresh fuel and re-install them. This is a messy process and there is no way to do it without getting soaked in diesel fuel. Maybe I should say that's they way it is with me, I'm sure there are professional mechanics that can do it and not even have to wash their hands afterwards. Me, well I had to take another shower! :-)

Once I got the filters back on and tight I started pumping the little hand pump on the side of the engine. I had been warned this could take a while so I pumped and pumped and pumped some more until I had a lot of resistance in the pump. I tried to start the truck and ........ no go, RATS! So here I go, pump, pump, pump and I kept pumping until I could hardly push the pump in because of the pressure. I tried starting it again ........ crank, crank, crank ..... vrooom! The big Caterpillar engine lives again! I let it run for quite awhile to smooth out the engine and to make sure all was well with it. Man I'm glad I got it going, all I could see was $$ heading out the door to get it running again :-(.

The company man stopped and talked to us for a little while today. He said they are about 2000' from being done with the drilling and should reach that by Sunday if things go well. Once they reach the desired depth they will set the casing pipe in and then tear the rig down. Probably going to be at least another week for all that to happen.

The weather continues to improve with highs flirting with the 70's but still getting pretty cool at night with the lows in the upper 30's. We do love the sunshine and can finally sit outside on the patio some.

One of the workers here gave us a 10lb bag of grapefruit. No way Rudee and I can eat 10 lbs of grapefruit so we divided it up and I delivered some to the surrounding gate guards. There is a new gate just west of us so I dropped some off there and met David, a single gate guard working this location. David asked where we were from and I told him Indiana. He said he grew up in Indiana and wanted to know where we lived at. I told him we lived in Lebanon while raising our kids and he got a funny look on his face. He told me he also grew up in Lebanon and left there when he joined the Army eventually landing in Texas. We knew a lot of the same people and had a good time comparing notes of our old hometown. Small world isn't it?

We had some bananas that were getting a little over ripe so Rudee turned them into a nice banana nut bread for us to enjoy for the next several days. She also made a home made pizza for supper. I'm going to have to start exercising soon or I'm going to need a new wardrobe! I'll keep you posted.

pipe dreams

2011-12-28T09:59:00.003-05:00

We have several semi truck loads of well pipe being delivered which signals the beginning of the end on drilling the well. We have also found out some more info on our rig here. Looks like this rig is being "released" and will not be moving to a new site according to several sources we have talked to. Rudee talked to one of the company men yesterday and he is being sent to Houston for additional training for a couple of weeks and he will be assigned a new rig when he returns. He said they should be done drilling here by mid-January and then the rig will be dismantled and taken away. I'm not sure where that leaves us but he did take our contact information and said he wants us at his new rig and well site. The problem with that is no one knows when or where this rig will set up. They will still need to frack the new well so we can stay here for the time being which should get us at, or close to, our ending date in February.
Fracking was our least favorite time here. We don't mind being busy but it seemed like the crew was not as friendly as the drilling crew. They seemed pretty put out that we were "bothering" them by writing down their name and license plate number and we quickly tired of their attitude. I'm not sure if the same crew, or even the same company, will frack the back well but who knows.

Yesterday I messed up in a big way :-(. The freightliner had not been started for a few weeks and I decided to fire it up. I opened the hood and checked the oil. I also opened the drain valve for the water/fuel separator and drained some of the fuel from it. This unit has a separate fuel filter and as the fuel passes through any water collects in the bottom of the unit and can be drained by opening the valve. I guess I let too much drain out because after starting the truck it ran for a few minutes then chugged like it lacked fuel and died. Now I can't get it to start again :-0! There is a small plunger type pump on the side of the engine to "hand pump" any air out. I pumped it some but still it would not start. I decided I would go ahead and change out the fuel filters and by filling them full of fresh fuel before installing them the truck should start once again with minimal pumping. At least that is the theory. I already had the filters on hand but it was getting late and dark so I decided to just wait until tomorrow afternoon to see if I can get the truck running again.
I guess if my fix doesn't work we will need to get the truck towed into a shop. That doesn't sound cheap :-0. I'll keep you posted.

Christmas day

2011-12-26T03:56:00.011-05:00

The gate was fairly quiet Christmas Eve and there were only a few of the workers who live close enough to make a mad dash home to spend the day with family.

Santa did find us out here in the middle of nowhere Texas :-) and we each a couple of presents to open Christmas morning. Rudee got some new "bling" and I got a Kindle reader that I had been hinting to Santa that I wanted.

I went to bed after opening gifts so I could get a little sleep after the night shift and when I woke up the 5th wheel smelled wonderful. Rudee had been busy cooking. She had turkey, baked beans, mashed potatoes, rolls, develed eggs and for desert we had home made pumpkin pie. UMMMMM, everything was delicious and we both ate too much :-).

Sunday evening we got a skype call from our kids and spent 45 minutes talking to all of them on the computer. We enjoyed seeing and talking to everyone. Skype is really a great tool for fulltimers to stay in touch with family and although our signal was not the greatest we could spend time with everyone and it helped ease the pain of being away during the holidays.

We actually had some sunshine today which was a welcome Christmas gift. The weather is supposed to clear up this week and we are looking forward to things drying up around here.

After dinner I downloaded my first book to my new Kindle. Nick Russell is a fellow fulltimer and publishes a newspaper from his motorhome while he travels. We got to know Nick and his bride Terry several years ago at a Life on Wheels Conference and have ran into them a few times since. He has written a mystery novel, Big Lake, that is available on line at Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Big-Lake-ebook/dp/B00522RM48/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1324891061&sr=1-1

I started reading it this evening and had trouble putting it down! What a deal, less than $1.00 for a first class mystery novel! He is currently writing the sequel and I am looking forward to it coming out.

Tonight is shift change and usually proves to be a busy time for me overnight as the incoming shift arrives for their week of work. They usually start drifting in around 9pm and this continues until the wee hours of the morning. Then there is the rush shortly after 6am with the guys getting off the night shift head out the gate to start their week off. Sunday nights and Monday mornings are busy times in the life of a gate guard :-). I'll keep you posted.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T08:23:00.005-05:00

Rudee and I want to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas!

We got word Friday morning that Rudee's Mom came through her procedure with flying colors. She stayed in the hospital overnight but is now at home recovering.

Saturday was another day of rain and we had a steady drizzle most of the day. The mud is getting difficult to work in but we are trying to make the best of it. I guess we are having a brown Christmas this year :-). They are predicting a warm up and sunny skies for next week. We are keeping our fingers crossed. I'll keep you posted.

"big, big, big"

2011-12-22T23:46:00.009-05:00

The company we work for provides us with a couple of light stands with two "construction" type lights mounted to each stand. I turn these on every evening and off again every morning and they light up our little world here in South Texas. :-)
The last few nights the moths have been really bad swarming around the lights. I'm not sure where they have been up to now but of course like every thing else "Texas style" they are fairly large.
The biggest moth I ever saw was in Indiana though. That was way back when the kids were small and we were camping in our little pop up camper. We were at a State Park spending the week end and had set up one of those cheapo shade canapies that you put over a picnic table. You know the kind that are just a tarp with a pole on each corner with an adjustable center pole. The ones that are a huge pain to set up and no matter how you tie and stake the poles down the tarp always sags way down between them. Well we did our best to get this saggy, floppy tarp up to provide us with a little shade and some protection should it rain.
One night we decided to play a game with the kids so I rigged up the laturn for some light and we had some good quality family time :-). The moths were attracted to the lantern but were not too big of a problem until "moth-zilla" showed up. This thing had a wingspan of at least 6" and I thought it was a bat. Mothzilla flew under the canapy towards the laturn and I guess changed its mind because as it tried to fly back out it got caught in the sagging part of the tarp and that is when it got interesting. The kids started yelling, the moth was flapping against the tarp and we were all trying to untangle our legs from beneath a wooden picnic table! All I could say was "big, big, big"! :-)
We all got out from under the tarp including mothzilla and were none the worse for the wear. The kids, all now grown and on their own, still like to remind me of my heroics that night in the campground when all their brave father could do was "duck and studder". :-)

We seem to be in a weather cycle here in Texas. We have 2 cloudy days and then a day of rain followed by 2 more cloudy days and then more rain. Last night was our "rain night" and it started around 10 pm. There was several times it came down so hard that we lost the signal on the sattelite. The steady rain continued, mixed with some heavy down pours, until the wee hours of the morning. Once again we are slogging through a mudhole here at the gate. :-(

The local bobcat made another appearance just before the rain started and Rudee got a chance to see it too. There used to be a lot of bobcats in Indiana and I remember my Dad telling me stories about seeing them when he was younger. I'm not sure there are any still around there.

Rudee's Mom is having a stint put in her heart tomorrow morning in Indianapolis. Rudee has been keeping in close contact with them and even though it sounds fairly routine there are always risks involved. We'll keep you posted.

1/2 done

2011-12-20T23:41:00.007-05:00

Yesterday we started our 8th week doing gate guard duties at the Hinkle Ranch. Rudee and I sat down and had a long conversation about what our future holds and made some decisions.

We decided to go ahead a move with the rig when they leave here in another 10 days to 2 weeks. We have no idea where the new drill site will be but it should be in the Cotulla area from everything we are hearing.

We will work that gate until the drilling is completed there and then we will call it quits. This usually takes about 30 days so we are looking to be done no later than February 13th. That would give us 14 weeks straight and we are both ready for some time off.

Our plan is to find an RV park near San Antonio and hunker down for a week or so to clear the cob webs out and get some quality sleep (read: no bells dinging!). After that we will move East toward Louisiana and I am eyeing the area around Vicksburg, Mississippi where we could spend some time seeing the sights and, if the weather is decent, taking some motorcycle rides.

The well they are drilling now has been a bit of a struggle for them. The rig shifted during the drilling and started leaning to one side. This caused some concern for a few days but didn't delay them much. They had a big review type investigation and one of the things they are changing is how we do our job here on the gate. We are now required to get full names of all the people inside each vehicle passing through the gate. Up until now they only asked for the first name of the driver and we could wave through any semi trucks. This will be a little more work for us but no big deal. One thing for sure though, I'm glad the fracking is over because everyday a shuttle bus would come with 8-10 of the workers on board and then at least one or two SUVs with 5-6 each. Thats a lot of names to write on one little line :-).

Yesterday the company man, Earl, drove up and handed us a package of Ribeye steaks. There were two, thick, 16 oz steaks in the package. We decided to freeze one of them for later and have the other one for supper tonight. I got the grille and small propane tank out of the basement and set it up on the back of the semi. Rudee made a salad and baked potato while I grilled the steak. The whole meal turned out great and we only got interupted one time to check someone in.

The weather did warm up some and we have even seen the sun :-) They are predicting the temps to drop again with highs in the 50's and lows in the lower 40's to upper 30's for the rest of the week. We'll take it though, beats the snow and cold up North! I'll keep you posted.

and then there's mud

2011-12-19T07:49:00.002-05:00

I guess the powers that be got sick of all the mud by the drilling rig because Saturday morning a steady stream of caliche trucks started through the gate. This continued until well into the afternoon with truck after truck coming in, dumping its load and then exiting. We heard a rumor that some big wigs might be coming and they were trying to "clean up" the place.

Unfortunately early Sunday evening the rains started again with a steady drizzle that lasted most of the night so once again we are slogging through the mess.

We get a lot of people stopping at our gate looking for other rigs. Some are not real happy when we are unable to give them directions on where they are supposed to be. I guess they just don't understand that we have little information on what rigs are moving in and out around us. I'm sure they are just frustrated on being lost but give us a break, it's not our fault :-(.

We do our best to keep as up to date with the locations as we can but these companies come and go fairly quickly. The sites here can have several different names for the same place which adds to the confusion. They go by the ranch name, oil company name, drill rig name, or gate name. Some of the truck drivers don't even have this basic information but only vague directions. No wonder they are lost!

The weatherman says it will warm up and clear off today so maybe we will see some sunshine soon! I'll keep you posted.

I taught I taw a puddy tat!

2011-12-17T01:51:00.003-05:00

Thursday afternoon I made a run into Cotulla for groceries and mail. I first had to to get the truck out of it's mud hole it was parked in. The ground was fairly dry around the truck, meaning I wasn't sinking to my knees :-) but it was still fairly soft so I was a little apprehensive. I had parked the truck there to get it out of the way of the "roach coach" and it was nice and dry then so I really never noticed (or cared) that the rear wheels were in a small hole and I would have to back out uphill. Now that everything was soft and slippery this turned into a big issue. I tried backing out in 2 wheel drive and the wheels started spinning immediately so I switched to 4X4 and still had to do some rocking back and forth. I was able to back it out but not before slinging mud everywhere. My son in law Ryan would have been proud :-).

Have you ever been sitting all alone and just get the feeling someone is watching you? I was sitting at our table the other night surfing on the computer and got this weird feeling I was being watched. I keep the lights down inside so I can see if anyone is turning into our gate as well as to not disturb Rudee while she is sleeping. Movement outside caught my eye and when I looked out there was a cat standing right outside the window next to our patio looking back in at me. What the heck is a cat doing way out here when the closest house is probably 3 miles away? That is when I realized I was not looking at a house cat but rather a bobcat! I grabbed the camera but it would not focus through the window. The bobcat walked under our 5th wheel so I decided to go outside and see of I could catch a photo of it. By the time I got outside and to the other side of the 5th wheel he/she was way out in the field past our utility trailers. No way to get a photo but pretty cool to see!

The fracking crew have all moved on to another job and the next crew has also finished whatever they were doing and they moved out Friday morning. There is a small crew still working and was told they are "regulating the flow" and sometimes this takes up to two weeks. There are also semi tankers hauling the waste water from the pad and they are in and out every couple of hours but it is a lot quieter around our 5th wheel now :-). I do miss the "roach coach" though :-(. Those guys eat well and it's probably a good thing they moved on or I would have had to go on a diet really soon :-)!

Things are starting to get back into a routine and we know most of the people passing through our gate again. The drilling crew are doing there thing at the back of the property and we are expecting them to be done sometime after the first of the year. We are still deciding if we are going to move to another site with the rig or just stay here for the remainder of time we had planned on working. We like our spot here and moving means tearing down and sitting up again with no guarantee the site will be as nice as this one. Decisions, decisions, I'll keep you posted!

TV is not all bad

2011-12-15T02:19:00.009-05:00

We have been extremely busy here at the Hinkle Ranch but are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. We started noticing a change in the flow of vehicles Tuesday afternoon. I asked one of the fracking crew how the work was going and he told me they were finishing up and would be done by midnight. Sure enough shortly after 11:00 the large diesel engines on the generators were shut down and they started packing up.

Today things have been a zoo with a lot of the fracking equipment moving out. We had quite the traffic jamb with semis and cars heading out as well as several trying to get in.

Several of the vehicles were stuck in the mud near the well so they called in a huge wrecker to pull them out. Needless to say it was quite a show watching the circus leave town. :-)

Tonight a new crew has taken over and they are drilling again to place a large vent pipe for natural gas which will be burned off. I guess we will have a large birthday candle to watch soon :-). They say they have about 1 1/2 days of drilling and then will do the "rig up" so looks like we will remain busy for a while longer.

My Dad always had the opinion that TV will rot your brain. He never had much interest (or patience) to watch any shows. I enjoy the newer reality programs and you never know what little tid bits you pick up. This evening one of the company men came out and asked if I had seen a D-6 delivered. I immediately thought of the show Gold Rush about several guys trying to strike it rich gold mining. One recent episode they were buying a bull dozer to use and wanted a D-7 but could only afford a D-6. They went into great detail of the differences and had lots of footage of both types of dozers. Well it just so happens I checked in a truck pulling a dozer and when he pulled by me I recognized the dozer from watching the show :-). I was able to tell the company man "yes, your D-6 came through and is sitting right over there". How's that for "gate guarding above and beyond the call of duty" :-).

Another show I like is Flying Wild Alaska" about a small airline in Alaska. They fly into the remote areas in all kinds of weather. The scenery is fantastic but the weather is brutal. They were flying a group of rock climbers to a remote rock face and one of the "stars" of the show asked them how they go to the bathroom while climbing. They were very honest with her and said they "just pee out onto space". They did say to be careful of the guys below you and sometimes even above you if there is an updraft. She had to ask the next obvious question though, "what about #2?" again they were very honest and said the same rules apply and referred to it as a "mud falcon". So there you go, TV as a learning tool. Now that is probably something every one of you has wondered about and now we all know the answer. I guess the name "mud falcon" is better than "holy crap" just not as descriptive! :-)

Rudee or I will be making our weekly run into Cotulla for groceries and mail. Hopefully the mud will dry up enough to get the Dakota out without using the 4 wheel drive! I'll keep you posted.

it's like ...... "puddin"

2011-12-13T05:14:00.006-05:00

Still getting off and on (mostly "on") drizzle here at the Hinkle Ranch. We are making the best of it and hoping for it will dry up soon.

I have a pair of "traveling" boots that I keep outside and change into when I have to venture away from the our little island surrounded by mud. I put them on yesterday and headed over to the "roach coach" to grab some dinner for Rudee and I. Good thing it wasn't a sunny day since I forgot my hat, would hate for the glare from my bald head to blind someone :-).

The rain water is just sitting on top of the drive way and mixes with the mud and creates a pool of what looks and feels like chocolate pudding :-).

The vehicles driving through put up a "chocolate fountain" and everything is a mess. Nothing we can do about it so we just have to live with it :-).

The areas not packed down are more like quick sand and if you stand still too long it will grab you and you will sink up to your ankles. The stuff is slick too, walk too fast and you might find yourself looking at the sky!

I was catching some sleep yesterday when Rudee put on her boots for a trip to the Dakota to fetch some water. I have the truck tucked away behind the 5th wheel so it is out of the way but there is about 20' of mud to cross to get to it. This was Rudee's first trip off the "island" and it didn't turn out too well. She was afraid of falling so she took her time and chose her steps as best she could. Every step she took more and more mud clung to her boots making her feet heavier and heavier. She stopped about 1/2 way and that's when the "caliche' monster" got her! Her boot sunk in and when she tried to take another step her foot came out of her boot and to keep from falling she had to take another step. Splat, down went her foot minus her boot. She bent down and had to pull and tug to get her boot unstuck and almost fell over pulling on it. The mud finally let go of her boot with a loud sucking sound and she was free! She decided that a gallon of water was not worth all this and turned around slogging back through the mud. I guess it was all pretty funny to see and some of the crew who were getting their meals got a good show. Rudee said she was laughing so hard at herself that she could hardly walk. I'm sorry I missed it :-).

I overheard one of the "white hats" saying they should be done here no later than Wednesday as long as things go as well as they have been. I doubt it will take them long to pack up and move which should be interesting to watch. I'll keep you posted.

no drought no mo!

2011-12-11T00:30:00.011-05:00

To say we have been busy is an understatement. We have averaged over 300 vehicles passing back and forth each day which is over double the amount of our busiest days up to now. The fracking crews arrival can best be described as a 3 ring circus! One big advantage is they have their own food truck and he is parked right across the road from us :-).

The head chef came over and introduced himself to us. He invited us to come over and pick up our meals whenever we wanted something. He is also a member of the Masonic Lodge so we have something in common. Friday afternoon we were treated to rib eye steaks, baked potato and salad!

The shift change occurs around 5am and most of the crew arrives by shuttle bus from their motel in Loredo. The gate is really busy between 5 and 7 with other contractors crews and supervisors arriving. Seems like there is always a steady stream of trucks going in and out as well as the traffic for the drilling rig on the back pad.

The crews take their meal breaks in shifts. The first to eat are what Rudee and I call the "grey ghosts" followed by the "blue birds" and then the "red heads". I guess each contracting company has different colored coveralls, or maybe the color varies by job performed. I haven't figured it out quite yet and hate to ask to many "rookie" questions :-). One thing I'm sure of though, they all listen to the guys in the white hard hats. This group was eating dinner and as soon as the "white hat" said it's time, they all followed him back to work.

This morning (Saturday) the rains came and the temperature dropped and it stayed cold and wet all day. Working as a gate guard is really miserable in the rain. Everything is a mucky mess :-(. We have not ventured too far off the patio mat all day.

I did catch another mouse in the trap I have set up in the basement storage area. That makes two for the 6 weeks we have been here. Hopefully that will be the last of them but somehow I think that is wishful thinking :-).

Tomorrow looks to be a carbon copy of today. The weather forecast is for rain and cool temperatures in the middle 50's but then warm up next week. Maybe things will dry up quick around here :-) I'll keep you posted.

trucks, trucks and more trucks

2011-12-09T02:04:00.007-05:00

We were warned that when the fracking starts the gate gets really busy and so far that has held true. We had several semi loads of equipment delivered to the front pad as well as additional trailers for offices and living space.

This was in addition to the activity on the back pad where they raised the rig back up and are preparing to start drilling again. We have people running in and out like crazy!

I did manage to sneak away to the post office and grocery. Monday was pay day and I wanted to get the check out of the PO Box and into the bank :-). Since we just stocked up on staples on the way back from San Antonio the grocery run was a light one this week. I did have quite a few water jugs to fill up though.

Looks like the weather may be warming up some and I can probably leave the water hooked up tonight. The temperature here dropped down into the 20's the last two nights and without unhooking and draining the hose our water line would have frozen. I have been heating the 5th wheel with our small electric heaters which do a decent job until the temperatures drop into the lower 30's and then they tend to struggle keeping it comfortable so we have to run the propane furnace some to help out.

A reader left a comment regarding that the River Walk in San Antonio was not really a river so I did a little more reading on it's history: http://www.thesanantonioriverwalk.com/history/history-of-the-river-walk/

Interesting reading and, in my opinion, the River Walk is a must see when in the area. We sure did enjoy the time we spent there.

Not a lot of nap time going on overnight :-(.

When I got back to the 5th wheel from my run into town there were 24 semi tank trucks lined up on the road waiting to get into the gate. They are being staged on the side of the road until the crew is ready to unload them at the fracking site. They started waving 8-10 of them in at a time shortly after dark. The unloading is taking about 2 hours per truck and now (1:30 am) they are down to just 3 more waiting to get in.

I'm not sure how long the fracking process takes and what the next process will be but I'll keep you posted :-) !

break is over, back to work

2011-12-07T00:59:00.007-05:00

I was able to catch a couple of short naps overnight between "dings" of our alarm bell. I'm already wishing I was back in San Antonio enjoying time off :-). I guess I'm starting to get a case of "hitch itch".

The gate started getting really busy around 6am and by 8am I had already filled the first page, it's gonna be a busy day!

They now have crews at both pads and should be raising the rig at the back pad Wednesday or Thursday. I am expecting them to start drilling maybe as early as this week end and we keep hearing that the fracking crew should be here and start their work Wednesday as well. The crew on the front pad has been working at a fever pitch to prepare for the fracking by spreading truck load after truck load of caliche. There have also moved travel trailers into place to be used as housing as well as some lighting units. Tomorrow looks like it will be another busy day!

The weatherman is warning us of a hard freeze tonight so I disconnected the water hose and turned off the water pump from our large water tank. We will use our on board tank for morning showers. I should be able to hook things back up tomorrow after it warms up again. The temperatures are supposed to drop into the 20's overnight. Brrrrr! I honestly thought South Texas would be warmer :-). I'll keep you posted.

Day off!

2011-12-05T20:35:00.009-05:00

The gate was pretty quiet Saturday night and I got some "quality nap time". There was a flurry of activity just after dawn when all the workers involved in moving the rig arrived and then it slowed down again.

We had our bag packed and were anxious to leave so once it slowed down we battened down the hatches, laid the stop sign down, put the "closed" sign on the door of the 5th wheel and headed for San Antonio.

The drive took us about 1 1/2 hours and the temperature did nothing but drop the entire way. We started out at 67 and it quickly dropped into the upper 40's. We ran through several showers and it was very gray and overcast but nothing was going to spoil our fun!

Rudee had taken care of the hotel and found a great deal on line at Hotel Contessa right on the river walk. For those that are not familiar, the River Walk is a unique park like setting. The river winds through the downtown section of San Antonio and there are sidewalks lining both sides. They have created a very unique shopping and dining area.

We checked into the motel and our room, well really it was a suite (COOL!), was ready and waiting. The hotel was gorgeous and with Rudee's shopping skills it cost less than the Holiday Inn Express :-)

Here is the view from our 12th floor room.

We decided to walk to the Alamo which was only a few blocks away. Taking the river walk, which is actually below street level, we were able to get fairly close without having to even think about traffic or crosswalks.

We toured the Alamo where several Texans made a stand against overwhelming odds against General Santa Ana and the Mexican Army. They were over ran and most were killed including, probably the most famous, Davey Crocket and Jim Bowey.

There is a large shopping mall near the Alamo and we spent some time browsing through the stores just trying to get warm :-).

Once we were warmed back up, thank you Starbuck's :-), we headed back down the stairs to the River Walk and did some more exploring. I could not get over how we were walking through a downtown urban area but, since you are below street level, you really don't hear any traffic or typical "city" noises. The walk is just beautiful and since it was a cold Sunday there were not too many people out. There are archways where you can cross from one side of the river to the other and stairways to access the streets above.

We explored for a couple of hours and finally made it back to our Hotel for a short rest before we headed for dinner.

We decided on Landry's Seafood but it was not an easy decision. You can find everything from sports bars to fine dining on the River Walk and deciding where to go can be a dilemma. None of the restaurants were crowded since the weather was not the greatest, we wished it was just a little warmer because most of the restaurants have outdoor seating with a view of the river and the people strolling by. I do love to "people watch" :-)

Our meal was very good, we shared fried shrimp, fries, salad and Crab bisque soup. We sat inside but did have a table with a view of the river :-).

I had noticed that most of the trees lining the river were wrapped with lights and by the time we finished eating the sun had set and the lights were on. Beautiful!

We took our time walking home and just enjoyed each others company and our surroundings.

We called it a night and turned in fairly early. No bells tonight, ahhhhhh! I actually got to sleep through the night uninterrupted. I slept for 10 hours straight!

This morning we had breakfast at the Hotel and checked out. I took a different route home so we could stop by the Super Wal Mart in Pleasonton on way home. I got the oil changed in the Dakota while we stocked up on supplies. Rudee likes to keep our pantry (AKA the sleeper in the Freightliner) fairly well stocked with staples and we were getting low.

Back at the 5th wheel the front pad was deserted and everything had been moved to the back. Wow, these guys had been busy yesterday! They tell us the fracking crew may arrive as early as Wednesday so we may getting really busy for awhile. I'll keep you posted.

feeding the troops

2011-12-03T07:08:00.002-05:00

Yesterday morning the fog rolled in just before dawn. I talked to one of the drivers coming in and he said it wasn't foggy 1 mile up the road and seemed to be just around our little area here, strange.

The fog did burn off after the sun came up so it did not last too long and it wasn't long before the sky clouded over and it looked like it would rain at any minute. The rain held off until late in the afternoon and we had a couple of periods of showers roll through. We got enough rain to hold down the dust that will be stirred up by the heavy trucks we expect to start arriving to move the rig :-).

Rudee decided to do some cooking for the guys working at the rig. She made a huge batch of her homemade Sloppy Joe's along with homemade mac & cheese. She took both big pans back to the company man's trailer around 4:00pm so it would be ready for the guys coming off shift. We have not heard anything from them so hope they enjoyed it.

The rig will be moved on Sunday if all goes according to plan. The set up at the other pad should not take as long since they are not taking the rig apart. When the rig arrived here the first of November it took a couple of days before they raised it to vertical and another couple of days to start drilling. I'm looking forward to the drilling to start again because the gate traffic is a lot more predictable. Right now we have subcontractors coming and going all hours of the day and night doing all sorts of things. Last night the big emergency was a flat tire on the "super sucker", whatever that is. Around midnight the tire guy arrived and after an hour or so got the "super sucker" sucking again :-).

Most of the workers here are content to do their shift and settle down for a meal and then to bed. They do this for a 6 days and on the 7th they leave after their work day for a week off. There is always one or two who do a lot of running in and out and you can pretty much set your watch by them. I don't know if they are going into town to eat or party or ?? bit they can't seem to be away from town too long because they rarely miss a day. One of these folks left yesterday saying he would not be back for at least 2 weeks, sure enough another contractor moved in and he has been wearing us out running in and out :-). I guess it's not all bad though because we quickly learn their names and memorize their license plate numbers :-).

Should have a lot more activity at the rig today as they continue the move. I'll keep you posted.

prepping for a move

2011-12-02T07:42:00.003-05:00

A crew and heavy equipment arrived early Thursday morning. Their mission was to bust through the large earthen berm that surrounds the well pad so an access road can be made to move the rig. They worked all morning with a bulldozer and road grader as semi after semi hauled in loads of caliche for the road bed. They finished their project shortly before dark.

Needless to say it was a busy day at the gate with several different companies arriving to perform a variety of jobs. Some were doing things to the casings, others were inspectors and still others were tank cleaners. I don't understand all the process' or what will happen next but with the flurry of activity my guess would be the rig will be coming down soon. Melissa, a salesman for the company we work for, Gate Guard Services, stopped in to meet with the company man. On her way put she told us that the fracking crew should be here next week for this well. I'm not sure what to believe on that, yesterday they said they will not do fracking until the other well is finished but now we get this information. I guess we'll just take it as it comes. One thing will be nice though, once they start fracking the daily pay increases since there will be two active pads on this gate. :-)

Rudee made a run into Cotulla to pick up our mail, pay our bills and restock our pantry. She even made a stop at Wendy's for our weekly fast food fix. :-)

Not much else to report from the gate. We are still hopeful that we can take off Sunday and return Monday for a much needed break. I'll keep you posted.

December already!

2011-12-01T07:42:00.003-05:00

Seems like the older I get the quicker time flies. My Dad, rest his soul, warned me about that a long time ago. Guess he was smarter than I gave him credit for in my younger days :-)

I'm sure my kids are in tune to how wise I am as I approach my senior years (sarcasm intended) LOL.

Rudee and I were talking about the holidays yesterday. Neither of us have gotten in the "holiday spirit" yet. We don't have a Christmas tree but do have a few smaller decorations and a really pretty hand painted antique manger scene that we display. I guess we will be decorating soon and maybe that help ring in the holidays. Don't get me wrong, we are not depressed, or homesick, it is more of a "tunnel vision" thing. We are concentrating on making money right now and looking forward to our time off between jobs. We will miss celebrating Christmas with all of our family, Christmas Eve at the in-laws has been an annual gathering and has grown into quite a production with several generations represented.

Tomorrow is the annual Christmas party for our Goldwing chapter. This is the first one we have missed in 21 years and will be thinking of all our friends while they gather to celebrate. We are a little sad to miss those times but will not miss the snow and bitter cold that is bound to arrive soon.

We had another fairly busy day at the gate as the cement trucks and pumps began arriving as well as crews to prepare the back pad for the rig. The well casings are still going in and then they will put a large valve assembly on the pipe before lowering and moving the rig. Henry, the company man, brought us a copy of guidelines for facial hair for the rig workers. He wanted us to remind the incoming workers that no long facial hair is allowed and if they have any questions to direct them to him. Mustaches are OK as long as they are shorter, can be bigger than Hitler's but shorter than Fu Man Chu's :-). They do not allow chin hair at all and Elvis sideburns are out too. I know of at least two occasions where workers have been sent to Cotulla for shaving supplies shortly after coming through the gate. He does not want us to be the "hair police" but just show them the guidelines if we see they are not in compliance and he will do the enforcement if needed.

One of the salesman that come to call her at the rig gave us some Boudain which is a Cajun sausage. He told Rudee how to prepare it so she fixed some for me for supper last night. She also made a pot of ham and beans since she wasn't sure if I would like the Boudain. The sausage comes prepackaged with two large sausages per pack. These were pork w/ Jalapeno' spices. They had a kick to them bit were very good! I think we will be looking for some more of these! I hear they make them from shrimp, crawdad and other cuts of meat as well.

Only 3 more days until a day off! Whoo Hoo! We are both looking forward to the time off even if it is only 24 hours. I'll keep you posted.

the pace picks up

2011-11-30T05:39:00.004-05:00

Now that the drilling has been completed there seems to be a million things going on at once here at the well site.

We were checking people in and out all day at a regular rate and in between all that they were moving large loads of pipe to the rear pad. I lost count of how many loads the 2 flat bed semi trucks made down the access road. They worked until dark when the trucks left for the night. I have a feeling they will be back again at first light to finish the job.

The "casing crew" came in last night. Unfortunantly they spaced themselves about 45 minutes apart starting about 1 am so no nap time for me :-). They will be cementing the well casing in place so we are expecting the cement trucks to start making their runs in and out sometime today.

Evan from Gate Guard Services arrived yesterday morning in place of Hunter. He had a new water pump for us and it only took him a few minutes to remove the old one and install the new one. Hooray, we have water again :-) !

We got a call from our son back in Indiana and they were having the first big snow of the season. He said they already had at least 3" on the ground and it was still snowing. I always hated the first snow because it meant a lot of crashes on the roads. I guess people just forget how to drive on slick roads, assuming they knew how in the first place :-). We called our daughter who works in Indianapolis and checked on her. She said her normal 45 minute drive home took her twice as long and there were a lot of people that had slid off the road. She took her time and made it home safely. Hopefully they will have the roads cleared for her morning commute.

Looks like it will be a busy couple of weeks here at the gate until they get the rig moved. Hopefully once they start drilling again things will settle back down, I'll keep you posted.

drilling is done

2011-11-28T23:55:00.002-05:00

Several of the crew left late this afternoon saying they may not be back. They all worked for one of the contractors and said the drilling is complete and they are moving on to other rigs. There is still a chance they could get assigned back here once the rig moves.

Yes, I said back here! Henry, the company man, showed up at our door and said they are going to drill the back pad and will be moving the rig later this week. Should be really interesting because he said they are not going to disassemble it. They will lower it onto two semi trucks, one facing east and the other facing west, and move it that way. I sure would hate to be the truck that has to go backwards all the way.

He said they will tear down a large portion of the fence so they can make the turn without doing too much maneuvering. This is the same fence they just finished building a couple of weeks ago!

The new well will probably just sit for a couple of months with little to no activity since the next stage would be to fracture the well. This process know as "fracking" actually fractures the rock surrounding the well pipe which allows the oil and gas to flow better. Since they are drilling another well in close proximity Henry does not think the fracking will start until the other well is drilled because one could interfere with the other.

Bottom line is we are staying put here until they finish drilling on the other pad and then will move with the rig to the next site. Well I guess we will move as long as they still want us :-).

We are having a problem with our fresh water system. I hooked everything back up this morning and kept getting leaks. The end of the hose provided by the company had some wear on the threads so I cut it off and used a repair kit to replace the end. This solved the problem so I went to bed. Turns out the end started leaking and Rudee had to shut the water off until I got up. Once I was up and showered (using the on board water) I replaced their hose with one of my own and it worked fine for a little while then would not flow. I tried different things but it would flow for a few minutes and then it would slow to a trickle. I checked their pump which is mounted inside the generator cabinet and it was almost too hot to touch. Rudee called Hunter, who services our equipment, and told him about our troubles. He said he will bring us another pump and hose first thing in the morning.

I guess this is another good reason to make sure we keep the tank on our 5th wheel full.

Henry said we would be able to take a day off while the rig is being moved and set up. He said Sunday and Monday would be the best days so we went ahead and made some plans. We will drive to San Antonio early Sunday afternoon, see some of the sites, spend the night and be back at the gate before dark on Monday. Should be a fun time and a welcome break. I'll keep you posted.

turn the heat back on!

2011-11-28T07:20:00.005-05:00

Sunday was as expected, slow all day until after dark when the traffic picked up and the gate was pretty steady for the next several hours.

I posted that I was wondering why they would not just move the rig to the pad in the back of the property. Well Henry, the company man, told me yesterday that they are probably going to do just that. He said they received the permits to drill on pad C but thought that pad was "B" and there was another on somewhere else on the property. He took off in his Jeep looking for "pad C". Once he returned he was as confused as we are. He said the pad in back has 4 holes in it that should not be there and he did not find any other pads. At this point I don't know what to think and will just "go with the flow" :-)

If they do decide to drill the back pad, this would mean 2 active well sites on our gate and we should receive additional pay. I'm not sure how that works but will be checking it out with our supervisor once the move is finalized. I felt like the first couple of weeks here we should have been receiving a higher rate due to the construction on the back pad. At least 1/3 of our gate traffic was the construction crews not associated with our rig.

Henry did say they are with in 1000' of finishing this well. I'm assuming they will be making a decision fairly quickly on where the rig goes next.

The night crew is leaving for their week off as I write this. I have talked to a couple of them and they tell me the company man is telling them to report to the new site that is closer to Cotulla. The bad thing is no one seems to know where this site is. The workers say they will just call next week end and get directions.

The cold weather arrived as expected. I disconnected the water hose and drained it to keep it from freezing. The temps are supposed to be above freezing the rest of the week so I will re-connect it after it warms up some.

I did turn the furnace on to help us stay warm and of course one of our tanks of propane ran dry. The 5er is equipped with an automatic switch that changes the flow from one tank to another so you do not run dry. I have a monitor hooked up to the LP tank regulator that flashes a light when one tank runs dry and it switches to the full tank http://www.shoprvparts.com/product.do?no=17493F&WT.mc_id=gb1&utm_source=googlebase&utm_medium=productfeed&utm_campaign=googleshopping

I also carry an extra 30lb tank on the semi and another 20lb tank for the grille so I have plenty of LP storage :-).

We do have several electric heaters and we use those the majority of the time but I do run the furnace (on a low setting) when it drops below freezing because our 5th wheel has a vent in the underbelly to keep the pipes from freezing. The weatherman says the lows will be in the 30's for the next couple of days but they are not predicted to drop below the freezing mark again :-).

I am expecting a busy week here at the gate with a lot of "tear down" activity and big trucks coming in and out. I'll keep you posted.

gotta move!

2011-11-27T08:45:00.004-05:00

Yesterday (Saturday) I decided I needed to do more than just sit on my rear end in between checking in the few vehicles coming through our gate now. My answer was to take a long "power" walk. There is a long access road that goes beside the blacktop road and ends at another pad on the other side of the ranch so that was my destination. I grabbed my walking stick and snake "persuader" :-) and headed out. The walk back to the pad is only about a 1/2 mile and there is also a reservoir they built between the two pads. Both the reservoir and the pad are fenced and gated so I didn't venture inside. When we first arrived at the gate there was a lot of work going on back here and that accounted for a large portion of the traffic at our gate. The work is completed now and I am assuming will be quiet until they move a drill rig onto the pad to start a well. I figured our rig would just move back once they were done on the front pad but that does not seem to be the case. I'm still trying to figure all this drilling stuff out :-)

The walk back to the 5th wheel was into a fairly brisk wind and I got a little bit of a work out. I just need to keep this up to keep my girlish figure :-)

Friday while driving to the store I passed a wild hog that had been struck and killed on the highway. This things was BIG! I have watched the show on TV where they hunt wild hogs here in Texas and the majority of them on the show are not even close to the size of this one and it was laying down! I took a picture of it to show Rudee but I'll spare you guys the gore. One thing for sure, I would hate to run into that guy in the middle of the night (or even in daylight!) out here in the middle of nowhere!

They are still calling for a decent freeze tonight so later today I will disconnect and drain our water hose. We will just use our on board tank for tonight and until it warms up a little tomorrow. The days are supposed to be mild but each night this week they are predicting lows into the 30's except tonight when it will drop into the 20's. I guess it's time to dust the cob webs off the furnace :-). I'll keep you posted.

black Friday

2011-11-26T07:54:00.003-05:00

Rudee used to take part in the shopping frenzy known as "black Friday". I don't like fighting crowds or standing in long lines so I was very happy to stay home :-). She would get up in the wee hours of the morning in order to get to the stores and wait in line for the doors to open, sometimes as early as 5am. This year several store chains are opening at midnight and some even earlier than that so they can get a jump on the competition.

This year Rudee would have to be content spending the day at home with me.

I did venture out yesterday afternoon and drove to Cotulla to pick up our mail and stock up on some groceries. I'm happy to report there was no long lines, pushing, shoving, or fighting for deals at the Super S grocery store :-).

Hard to believe some of the news stories of Black Friday around the country. What are these people thinking?! One woman was mad because, even after she cut in line to get a video game system, she still felt she was not close enough so pulled out her pepper spray and attacked those in front of her to clear the way. I have to wonder how long she stood there trying to count the number of people divided by the number of games. I bet she had both her shoes and socks off trying to "cypher" :-).

A New York TV station was reporting that a crowd had lined up outside a store waiting for it to open at midnight, bad thing was they were not opening until 6am. I guess this was not acceptable to the crowd who broke down the doors and looted the store before police could arrive.

It's the same every year, people acting like animals just to get a good deal on some electronic gadget or toy, pitiful.

The gate was fairly quiet again until just after dark when there was a flurry of activity coming in. Some kind of pump on the rig had failed and its replacement arrived shortly after 8pm. This was followed by a crew to install it and then a large crane with escort vehicles arrived to hoist it. They worked into the night to prepare it and then lift it onto the rig. They started drifting back out the gate around 1am and they were finally all gone shortly after 3am. Needless to say it was a long night for me.

The weatherman is still saying we are in for a cool down and there is a "freeze watch" for this area tomorrow night. We have a full tank of water on board and I will disconnect our water supply line and use this if the temps get down too low. I'll keep you posted.

free food!

2011-11-25T07:13:00.008-05:00

We had a nice, slow Thanksgiving Day here in the giggle weeds of Texas. Around 1pm the new company man, Henry, drove out and let us know that the food would be here soon. Rudee asked him lots of questions about the move coming up. He does not have a firm commitment on the location yet but says it will not be too far and is pretty certain it will be closer to Cotulla. He said tear down will be starting soon and they will know more about the location by the first of the week. She also asked about us working out a day or two off between gates and he seemed to think it would not be a problem, cool!

The caterer arrived shortly after Henry went back to the rig. We checked them in and they gave us a whole pumpkin pie before driving back to the housing units. About an hour later Brad, our safety man, brought us out 2 styrofoam containers full of food and the feast was on!

We each had ham, turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, a roll, cranberry sauce, more pumpkin pie and a container with gravy. The food was all cold so we had to warm it up before digging in.

The food was tasty but a little disappointing. The turkey and ham was sliced deli style meat, not fresh cooked. The whole meal was more like "cafeteria" food and not what we would call a "catered meal". I missed my Mother-in-laws noodles, Rudee's stuffing and my sister-in-law's home made rolls. The price was right though, and we enjoyed the variety :-).

The rest of the day was spent watching TV and connecting with family and friends.

The past few nights I have not had any traffic at the gate so I skipped the hide-a-way bed tonight and headed for our comfy bed hoping for another slow night. Well it was not to be :-(. I had a car come in at 3am and another at 5am that had to be checked in ...... well poo! I guess that's just another routine day in the life of a gate guard though :-).

We have a heavy fog hanging around this morning but it should burn off pretty quick once the sun rises. Supposed to be another 80 degree day here but they are predicting a big cool down for the week end it may even dip below freezing :-O ! I'll keep you posted.

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T07:31:00.002-05:00

Pipe dreams?

2011-11-23T08:20:00.004-05:00

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!

new faces

2011-11-21T22:23:00.005-05:00

Sunday was another slow day here at the Hinkle gate but as predicted things picked up shortly after 6pm. The shift coming off duty waisted no time throwing their weeks worth of laundry and whatever food they had left into their cars and headed home. We wished them all "Happy Thanksgiving, see ya next week".

The new day shift crew started arriving later in the evening to begin their week long stay here at the rig. There will be another mass rush shortly after 6am when this new day crew relieves the night shift and they head home.

Monday morning the wind started blowing with a vengeance. Rudee and I had to put some more weights on the outdoor carpet so it wouldn't blow away. We gave up trying to keep the stop sign from being blown over :-).

Hunter from Gate Guard Services arrived in the middle of the afternoon to change the oil on our generator. This takes him about 20 minutes and it sure got warm in the 5th wheel with the a/c shut down. Seems like it took it several hours to cool it back down to the point it was comfortable again, of course using the a/c in Novenber is a lot better than having to run the furnace like we had to do last year at this time :-)

Now that we have all new faces in the bunkhouse I am hoping for another quiet night so I can get some sleep :-). I'll keep you posted.

Wally World

2011-11-20T08:29:00.006-05:00

As predicted I had a slow night Friday. There were a few of the crew heading into town for some food and fun but, happily, they all arrived back at the gate before 11:00pm and the gate was quiet the rest of the night :-)

Saturday morning I drove the 70 miles to Pleasonton, Texas to the Walmart Supercenter. Rudee had made up a list of items and I had a few myself so it took me about an hour of shopping. The store was not too crowded since it was still early but, typical Walmart, they only had a few cash registers open and all of them had a long line :-(

I heard a rumor that the Walmart in Pearsall Texas is a supercenter as well and is about 1/2 the distance to Pleasonton so I'll have to check to see if that's true. That would shave off some of the windshield time.

I filled the truck up before leaving Walmart taking advantage of their .10 off oer gallon by using a shopping card. I paid $3.04 per gallon which is the cheapest gas I have seen in a long time.

Rudee spent the morning cleaning the 5th wheel and it looked great! Once we leave here I will need to do a major cleaning on the outside so it looks as good as the inside :-)

Saturday was the slowest day at the gate we have seen so far. By Saturday night we only had 1/2 of a page filled out. We do have to turn some people away that show up wanting to come in. One guy was looking for work and then changed his mind and said he just wanted to see of there was any scrap metal he could haul away. The boss man has some strict guidelines in these situations so we are forced to turn these people away. I did tell the guy that if he did indeed have a service to provide he could come back on Tuesday or Thursday which is "salesman" days and talk to the company man then, maybe he'll be back.

Sunday is shift change so we'll have a bunch of the crew leaving in the afternoon and another crew coming in. The arriving workers either show up late Sunday night or early Monday morning. One thing for sure though, the ones leaving waste no time heading out. They have been here a full week and are ready to get back home to their families for their week off, can't say that I blame them :-) I'll keep you posted.

Another week down

2011-11-19T06:11:00.007-05:00

Yesterdays post was number 300, wow time sure does fly. I have enjoyed writing the blog, not sure why but I guess it is "therapeutic" for me :-).

I started writing as soon as we moved into the 5th wheel to document our trials and tribulations as we worked towards early retirement. Sometimes it is not easy to find things to write about. I'm sure those that have read for awhile got real tired of hearing the "got up, went to work and came home" stories :-).

I also went through a slow period where I only updated the blog every week just because nothing was going on that was "blog worthy". Well that seems to be behind me for now because "we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto"!

Rudee decided she wanted to make the run into town for mail and groceries. She has not left the Ranch since we got here almost 3 weeks ago and it was time for her to get some fresh air :-).

We are getting in the habit of starting a shopping list each week and adding to it as we find things we want or need during the week. This helps us make the most of our trips since the distance makes "running into town" a major trip :-)

The gate was a little slower than normal today. We filled in one full page and barely started a second one when the day ended. I like slow days because they usually mean slow nights too :-).

They have pretty sunsets here in Texas!

They have pretty sunsets in Indiana too, just never slowed down enough to really notice them like I should have :-(

I will make our first Wal Mart run tomorrow since arriving here. The nearest super center is about 70 miles one way. I'll keep you posted!

stop means STOP!

2011-11-18T05:56:00.007-05:00

Thursday was back to our routine here at the Hinkle Ranch, no more fires. There was some type of fire down the little county road next to us. The fire truck went by about 4pm with its lights flashing but we could not see any smoke and never saw them return so not sure what was happening.

The fire department was from Cotulla and I guess the economy prior to this oil boom was not good at this small community. Their truck was homemade using a large flatbed truck and strapping a big water tank on its back with a small pump hooked to it. I didn't see any ladders, hose or axes that are common on most fire engines. Maybe with the extra tax money coming in they will be able to afford some newer equipment for their volunteers.

We have had a few instances lately of workers running through the gate. The boss man wants us to keep the gate itself open 24/7. There is a cattle guard to keep the livestock in so the only risk is "people" getting by us. This has not really been a problem and 99% of them are courteous, stopping and waiting for us to write down their information. Tuesday evening I chased down one fellow who said he was just "turning around" and then proceeded to park out behind the rig and got out of his truck. I went back in the Dakota and made him drive back out to the gate and register. He was from a company hired by the rig so if he tries that trick again I will let the company man know and he will not be allowed on the property anymore.

Wednesday evening I had one of the rig workers blow by us, didn't even slow down. I started walking towards where he was parked and he got in his truck again and came back to the gate and apologized, said he was in a hurry and wasn't thinking.

Then last night one of the workers left and just did a "California stop" at the sign. By the time I opened the door he was pulling away and blasting out the gate. I was able, with Rudee's help, to read his license plate and we checked him out that way. This morning he came back through at 4am and did the same thing! This time I walked back to where he was parking and told him if he blew through the gate again I would be turning his name into the company man! I'm sure that is not a discussion he would want to be having with the boss.

I don't know what they are thinking, maybe prior gate guards have let this kind of stuff slide but not on our watch! More than likely it is just a matter of seeing how much they can get away with. Well I have raised two kids and was a cop most of my life, I have seen the tricks and heard the stories so don't think you are going to get one over on me :-). I'll keep you posted.

Fire!!

2011-11-17T00:15:00.004-05:00

The week is moving pretty fast here in the Texas oil fields. The rain predicted for Monday did not arrive until just before dawn Tuesday when we had a thunderstorm move through the area. The rain turned our little piece of the world here a mucky mess. The Caliche stone/gravel mix they use here does not soak up any water at all. The rain water just sits on top or runs in little rivers to the nearest low spot. When you have to walk through the muck it sticks to your shoes like wet cement and then dries just as hard. Makes working the gate a little tougher.

We are both getting into a routine and have had a little boredom set in at times. Today was not one of those routine, semi boring days :-).

I was able to sleep almost the entire night undisturbed so I stayed up all morning this morning. I took advantage of the time and replaced the clearance lamps on the back of the semi. There are three of them on the back that were all damaged when we had the blow out last month in Florida. While doing that I started our portable generator and plugged in the block heater for the truck. They say to run the generator under load for 30 minutes at least once per month. The block heater draws quite a few amps and provides a good "load" for the genny.

I finished that up just in time to greet the "honey wagon" who was leaving after pumping out all the black tanks from the housing units. Talking to the driver confirmed he had another trip to make and he would pump our tank out when he returned later today. As he was leaving I noticed a compartment door on his truck was open and I was able to get him stopped and the door closed before he pulled away from the gate.

When I turned around after closing the door I saw this

Yikes, Fire! I yelled at Rudee to come outside and told her to call 911. The fire was right next to the highway and as black as the smoke was it had to be some type of petroleum fire. My first thought was that a tanker truck carrying crude oil had crashed and was burning. Rudee gave the 911 dispatcher our location and then called the company man to let him know about the fire. I hopped in the Dakota and drove down to see if I could help. Turns out the fire was in a pit next to a storage facility. There was no real danger that I could see since it was confined to the pit and all the workers were across the road at a gathering point. I did drive back to a nearby well so I could check on the gate guards there. They were doing fine so I headed back to the 5th wheel.

The Fire Dept arrived about 20 minutes later (told you we were in the boonies!) and the smoke soon disappeared. Whew, that's enough excitement for our day.

Earl, the "company man" stopped by to talk with us after the fire. He invited us to have dinner with the crew on Thanksgiving. They are have a catered meal brought in, sounds good count us in! He also mentioned that he would like us to follow the rig when they move to another site. I guess not every gate guard is asked to do this and we feel privileged that we were asked. Guess it means they like the way we are doing things. This gate will need guarded for awhile and we could probably stay here for several months but I think a change of scenery might break up the monotony and we really like "our" crew so we are faced with a decision, do we stay or do we go? I'll keep you posted.

gate guarding at the Hinkle Ranch

2011-11-14T20:01:00.003-05:00

We have pretty well settled into a routine here in the giggle weeds of Texas. Sundays are typically the slowest day of the week the busiest time on Sunday is shift change. Once the workers end their shift they make a mad dash for the exit and the gate gets pretty busy for about 30 minutes.

Sunday night I had a few of the next crew checking in but most arrive just before dawn. I was able to get a few hours of sleep though :-)

Since Friday was a federal holiday I drove into town today to pick up our mail that was forwarded to us from the UPS Store in Brownsburg. So far we are happy with the way things are working with the mail and the folks here at the Cotulla post office have been super friendly and helpful.

While in town I mailed some bills and made a grocery run. You might remember I told you about the Pizza Hut semi trailer restaurant that is set up in the parking lot of the grocery store. Well they had the window open so I ordered a pizza to take back for supper. They offered the same deals that a "normal" Pizza Hut offers and after ordering I had time to run into the grocery while the pizza baked :-)

I picked up the few items on my list, paid for them and picked up the pizza and headed home. Rudee was waiting for me when I got back and we enjoyed our Pizza Hut treat :-)

I have to admit it was tough smelling that pizza on the long drive home.

The weather has been pretty warm here. We have had the a/c running overtime and have even had the second air conditioner on during the warmest part of the day. I guess it doesn't help that we are running in and out all day letting the cold air out :-(

The weatherman is predicting rain and maybe some storms tonight. They could sure use it around here but it makes life at the gate just that much harder. I'll keep you posted.

busy night

2011-11-13T01:04:00.002-05:00

Friday night was a little rough. I had less than an hour of sleep when I usually get 5-6 hours. The gate was not overly busy but the traffic was spread out to the point I was up about every 45 minutes so sleeping consisted of small cat naps between bell dings.

The drilling was at a point where they put in well casing and had a crew in to cement the casing into place. I read on the internet that this could take place several times before the finish drilling.

Friday morning Rudee said her knee was 90% better. She does have a bruise but we both feel fortunate given the circumstances.

There are several drilling operations going on in this area. Just southwest of our site is another well where they have a huge chimney burning off natural gas. The flame lights up the sky at night.

The gate was fairly steady today with a large construction crew working on the reservoir at the rear of the property. They are spreading out large sheets of plastic to make the reservoir water tight. The owner of the property, his son and daughter were each in and out several times. They are not too happy with the way the reservoir is being completed and were taking pictures and talking to the higher ups.

Sundays are typically slow in the gate guard business and I am hoping this turns out to be true for tonight and tomorrow. I'll keep you posted.

Fast food fix :-)

2011-11-11T23:46:00.004-05:00

The gate was quiet last night between 11:30pm and 4:45am so I got a little bit of sleep :-). The plan for today was for me to sleep awhile and then go into town to run some errands.

Rudee was up by 7:30 so I made us some breakfast, bacon and jelly sandwich on toast, ummm good. I was able to get the TV working, seems like there was a coating of frost on the satellite antenna case. I cleaned it off with a towel and the dish locked onto the signal pretty quickly. I'm not sure how to prevent this in the future. Any ideas?

I crawled into bed around 9:00 and fell asleep pretty quickly. We have the windows pretty well blacked out in the bedroom and I use ear plugs so I can sleep peacefully. A little after 10:00 Rudee woke me up shouting that she needed my help. My first thought was there was a snake and she had found it :-O

Turns out she was stepping outside and missed the last step falling hard onto her left knee. She was back up but hurting pretty good. I checked her knee and got her an ice pack and she spent the rest of the day on the couch. Looks like she will have a pretty large bruise and will be stiff and sore for a few days but we don't think it is anything more serious.

I headed into town around 3:00pm and stopped at the post office to pick up our mail. I was able to get to our P.O. Box even though the main part of the building was closed for Veterans Day.

I got my first paycheck :-) and promptly mailed it off to the back to be deposited into our account. Feels good to have some more $$ coming in. I have a small pension and we get a monthly check for the rental property down in Florida but we still need a little more to make ends meet.

I also made stops at the hardware store, gas station and grocery store. Before leaving town I picked up our supper at Mc Donalds (for the fries) and Wendy's (for the sandwiches). The whole trip took me a little over 2 hours and I was able to cross off everything on my "honey do" list :-)

We bought 20 gallon jugs of water for drinking and cooking before arriving at the gate. Each trip to town I take the empties and refill them. There is a kiosk at the grocery where you can refill your bottles for .25 cents per gallon or $1 for the larger 5 gallon containers. We both drink a lot of ice tea so we go through a lot of water. This trip I refilled 11 gallon jugs so we are good to go until I get another list :-)

Hopefully it will be an uneventful night on the gate. I could use the some sleep. I'll keep you posted.

taste of winter

2011-11-11T06:22:00.004-05:00

The temps dropped like a rock as soon as the sun went down Thursday evening. There was a full moon and clear skies so that didn't help.

The temperature right now is 36* outside ....... brrrrr.

Yesterday morning I checked all the mouse traps and ....... drum roll ............. SUCCESS! The trap I out in our basement area had caught the little s.o.b. :-)

I cleaned the trap out and reset it in case he had friends that moved in with him.

This morning I have no TV :-(

We are on Dish network with our automatic Tailgater antenna but can't seem to get a signal. Nothing has changed since I turned the TV off last night (except it's colder). The thing goes through all the checks but can't seem to acquire the signal. I'm going to wait until it warms up some and see of that helps any and then I'll mess with it some more :-(.

I plan on heading into town later today to pick up our mail. Rudee has a list of things for me to pick up at the grocery and hardware store. I will probably plan my trip around meal time and bring home a treat. I think we have decided on Wendy's sandwiches and Mc Donalds french fries :-) I'll keep you posted.

you asked for it Big Boy!

2011-11-09T23:08:00.006-05:00

I enjoy reading other RVers blogs as they travel around. Many are filled with stories of their encounters with wild life, deer ambling through their campground, bald eagles swooping down and plucking a fish from the lake adjacent to their site .... well you get the idea.

I figured being out here in the middle of nowhere Texas surrounded by hunting ranches we would be privy to some sightings of wildlife. So far I have seen 2 butterflies, a preying mantis and a cow that I miss took for a deer :-).

That was until my "close encounter" last night.

With the gate being fairly slow after midnight I have been pulling out the hide-a-bed and catching a nap. Last night I turned the lights and TV off and laid down around 1:30am. I'm not sure what time it was but I sat straight up in bed because something had just crawled across my arm and I woke up brushing it off me! I turned the light on and there was nothing there ..... whew it was just a dream. All this talk about snakes has me a little spooked I guess :-).

I couldn't go back to sleep since my heart was racing from my bad dream so I put the bed away and turned the TV back on. I decided to make a pot of coffee and went into the kitchen. Next to the coffee pot on the counter was a banana whose end had been 1/2 eaten through. There was remnants of the banana peel all over the counter. Looks like we have mouse. Then my brain kicked in and I put 2 and 2 together ............ ewwwwwww! That wasn't a dream! I not only had a mouse in my bed but it used my arm as a highway ...... double ewwwww!! I guess it could have been worse, it could have been a Squirrel gathering his winter meal :-O

OK, bad joke but the guys can relate :-)

I baited up some traps to catch this gutsy little trespasser. He messed with the wrong guy! Nobody does a sneak attack on this guy and gets away with it. This means war!

The gate was a lot slower today and Rudee got in the mood to clean. She dusted the entire rig as well as mopping the floors and sweeping all the carpet. Our house is spic and span once again.

A couple of days ago I checked in the only female employee staying here at the rig site. She said she is a "mud tester" and just got the job. She had been a gate guard and decided this job sounded interesting so thought she would try it. Today she came back out to the gate and said that her and another "mud tester" had been let go as a cost saving measure. Needless to say neither her nor the other guy were too happy about it.

Later today the rental company showed up and they took away two of the portable light systems and a skid loader. Not sure what is happening but looks like someone is trying to shave some $$ on this drill site.

Hunter from Gate Guard Services arrived around 2pm and refilled our water and diesel tanks. He also changed the oil and filter on the generator. We are back on full hook ups, yay!

The temps were a little cooler today and it looked like it could start raining at any time. We did get a few sprinkles and this evening even had a light shower. Things are really dry around here and the moisture is appreciated.

Hopefully the gate will be slow tonight, I have a mouse to catch! I'll keep you posted.

Black gold .... Texas tea ....

2011-11-08T23:28:00.002-05:00

The drilling has begun. They fired up the big diesel engines that power the rig and started the drill spinning. We now have the steady roar of the rig running as well as our own generator.

The gate quiets down after 10:00pm or so and I can usually hit the sack for a few hours. Last night I had several vehicles dinging my driveway bell and they were all spaced about an hour apart. Doesn't leave much time for snoozing :-(.

No more snake reports today. Yay! Rudee doesn't like snakes and I can do without them. We came prepared with a small scoop shovel with a long handle that sits on the patio right next to the front door. I would rather get a gun and shoot these things but guns are frowned upon at drilling rigs so the shovel will be "weapon" of choice. Let's hope it doesn't come to that!

Tuesday and Thursday are "salesman" days and these are the only days the Company Man will take sales calls. Several salesman came in offering their companies services. I guess to be "politically correct" I should say "sales persons" since at least 1/2 of them were women :-)

Rudee was trying to wash dishes tonight and the flow of water slowed and then stopped. What's up with that? Since it was dark I grabbed a flashlight and headed for the water tank. Oh oh, tank is empty :-( I guess we were using more water than we thought or, more likely, the tank wasn't completely full when we left the yard last week. I called our supervisor Roger and told him we were a little thirsty and needed filled up :-). He said someone will be here tomorrow to top up the tanks. Our diesel fuel tank for the generator is down to about 30 gallons which shows we are going through about 10 gallons of diesel per day.

Our fresh water tank in the Montana was still 2/3 full so we will just use it until they fill the other one.

Yesterday was pay day! Whoo hoo, happy dance :-) My check is mailed to us so we rented a P.O. box in Cotulla the first day we were here. We have already gotten our first mail drop from the UPS store in Brownsburg and they are forwarding another batch to us this week. I'll probably go into town Friday afternoon to pick up the mail and some grocery items. Pizza Hut has a portable kitchen set up in the parking lot of the grocery store and they open their doors, well actually it's a "window", around 4:00pm so I may time things so that I can bring a hot pizza home for supper :-)

Cotulla is a small town in the middle of an oil boom and is trying to keep up. The grocery store is large and has a nice selection. The prices are a little higher than we are used too. Not a lot higher but 50 cents here and 75 cents there adds up pretty quick.

There are a couple of restaurants that some of our crew has been to and said they are pretty good. For fast food there is a Wendy's, McDonalds and a Dairy Queen.

The Ace Hardware is well stocked and is where we got our "snake shovel" :-). There are a couple of gas stations and that is about it for Cotulla.

There are all kinds of rumors flying on the RV forums that there is a large number of gate guards sitting around waiting for assignments. I have heard upwards of 30 just sitting in RV parks or at the company storage yard. I don't know if this is accurate or not and if it is, I have no idea how long it will be before they get a gate. Makes us feel pretty fortunate we are settled in here with a gate to guard.

The weather has been in the mid to upper 80's during the day and in the upper 60's at night. This is supposed to all change tomorrow with a predicted high of 66 and the low tomorrow night of 39. Brrrr. Guess I better keep my long johns handy! I'll keep you posted.

shake rattle and ......

2011-11-07T23:56:00.002-05:00

The gate exploded with business today. The rush started around dawn and didn't stop all day. We had a shift change at the rig so we also had guys rushing out to start their time off.

There are several companies represented here and more arriving since the drilling is starting. One guy came in and warned us that he had just killed a fairly large rattle snake at the site he had just left. For proof he opened his tool box and pulled this out

Rudee wasn't too happy with this news and even more unhappy when we got a report that another one had been killed on our site! There are several mobile home type bunkhouses that the crew lives in during their week long shifts. The snake was found between two of the mobile homes.

The "safety man" here divides his time between this rig and another one nearby. He was gone most of the day and when he returned this evening he said they had also killed a 5' rattler at their site today. Guess we better be a little more careful moving around outside!

Looks like I will probably have a busy night tonight. I am hoping the "rush" is just from shift change and the fact they are starting drilling and things will not be as hectic as they were today.

The weatherman says we are in for some cool weather for the middle of the week. Highs are only going to be in the 60's and Wednesday night the lows are predicted to be in the high 30's. Maybe the cold will keep the snakes at bay! I'll keep you posted.

Fall back

2011-11-07T00:57:00.005-05:00

The gate was actually pretty quiet last night and I slept for several hours straight. I did remember to move our clocks back an hour to adjust for daylight saving time, guess I got an extra hour of sleep, according to our clocks anyway :-).

I have been wanting to see some wild life out here in the boonies. There is a hunting ranch next door to us and I am always on the look out for deer and wild hogs.

This morning I stepped out of the 5th wheel just after dawn. Looking around some movement from the ranch next door caught my eye. I could make out a large tan colored shape and knew it was a pretty large deer. I went back inside and grabbed the camera telling Rudee to come out and see the big deer.

Back outside the trophy Buck had run off and in its place was a large brown cow grazing on grass :-) Whoops, guess I had "buck fever" there for a second :-) if you don't know what buck fever is, ask a hunter and they will tell you all kinds of stories, of course none of it ever happened to them :-)

I had to tell Rudee " never mind" and we both got a good chuckle at my screw up. I passed on another cow photo.

I did take a photo of our "utilities" here at the gate.

The back trailer holds our fresh water (round black tank) diesel generator and fuel. The water is pumped from the tank using an RV water pump connected to the 12v battery for the generator.

The other trailer holds our waste tanks. I leave our grey tanks open and only dump the black tank when it is full. The waste first goes into the small tank in the foreground that contains a sump pump which pumps it into the larger tank on the trailer. The company should be out sometime next week to refill the water and fuel tank and we will be good for another 2 weeks.

The gate was slower than normal today. When a vehicle comes through our gate we log in the drivers name, company name, reason for their visit, license number, date and time. The log sheets provided for us have 24 entries per page and we have been filling 3 pages most days. Today we only filled 1 1/2 pages and had a bit of down time between vehicles.

We have been here a full week now and are enjoying ourselves. The people are great to be around and are some of the most polite people I have ever encountered. Lots of "sirs" and "mams" spoken here :-).

The latest update on the rig is that they should start drilling late tomorrow or most likely Tuesday morning. I'm not sure how deep the oil is or how long it will take to get to it but they are welcome to take their time, I'm kinda liking this gig. I'll keep you posted.

Up, up and we're away!

2011-11-05T15:55:00.007-04:00

We are settling into a routine here at the gate and are learning a lot of the "regulars" names and which white pick up truck they drive. Texas has lots and lots of white pick up trucks. I have never seen so many!

Now I'm a car guy but more specifically a "truck" guy and I'm having trouble telling the difference between the Dodge/Chevy/Fords that run through our gate. You have to picture the trucks. They are all white, have at least one tool box and have a big brush guard attached to the bumper so they all look the same.

Gets a little confusing at times but such are the challenges of a professional gate guard :-).

The company man, Tim, came to the gate early this morning and told us to close it down. "No one in or out, period"! He told us they were raising the rig to it's vertical position and for safety reasons have to limit the movements at the site.

I closed the gate and sure enough several vehicles arrived in just a few short minutes. They were not too happy to have to sit outside and one guy was downright p.o.'d saying it was "b%llsh#t" and he was calling the company man! He turned around and drove off! Funny thing was about 5 minutes later we were told it was safe to open the gate again :-). He got all worked up for not wanting to wait 5 minutes! Oh well, not gonna ruin our day by acting like a jerk :-)

The rig is now vertical and dominates our view in front of the 5er.

up we go:

a little higher:

we have a rig!

The business at our gate has been pretty steady with around 60 entries per day. Of course most of those 60 come back out. That's a lot of dings per day!

I'm not sure what to expect when they start drilling. Guess we are about to find out though, I'll keep you posted.

Windy!

2011-11-03T23:26:00.002-04:00

Wednesday night the wind picked up to a steady howl and rocked the 5th wheel most of the night, we even had some rain! Luckily I had already rolled the awning up being warned by the weatherman that a change was coming. The wind blew our patio rug around some. I normally stake it down on all four corners but the pad we are parked on is as hard as limestone and I could only get one stake to go into the ground :-0

I had large rocks on the other corners but they were not large enough :-)

I was a little worried about my cell phone signal booster antenna that is mounted on a telescoping pole. I use the small ball bungees to attach the pole to our ladder on the rear of the 5th wheel. I checked it several times during the night and it never budged. Good deal!

The drilling rig finally arrived on site and now all they gave to do is put it back together :-). The rig is spread out all over the pad and there are two very large cranes waiting to move all pieces into position and then hoist it all into the air so the crew can start drilling. They are anticipating "spading in" Sunday or Monday.

Tim and Earl are the boss' at this rig and they are called the "company men". Tim left early this morning and didn't return until well after dark, He was at the old drill site lighting a fire under the crew there to get the rest of the rig moved over to this site. He always stops and talks to us and fills us in on the activities of the day. He patiently answers all of our questions about oil drilling and life around a rig. He told me this evening that once they are drilling he will come and get us one at a time and give us a tour of the rig. How cool is that! I'm really looking forward to seeing and learning all about it.

Rudee made chicken wings and fried green tomatoes for supper. She even tossed my wings in Hooters hot sauce! I couldn't talk her into wearing short shorts and a low cut top while serving them though :-)

There are several generator powered portable lights at the drilling site that the drilling company has rented to illuminate the work site. The company that own them had people her all night last night setting them up and making sure they were all working properly. I was talking to one of them and he asked me if I knew we had a visitor last night. I guess there was a coyote sniffing around our 5th wheel around 1:30 this morning.

I was outside several times during the night but never saw the coyote which is probably a good thing :-).

Tomorrow they start raising the rig but it will take a couple of days to get it put together and vertical. I'll make sure and get some photos and I'll keep you posted!

Meeting the neighbors

2011-11-03T05:03:00.003-04:00

Wednesday was another hot and dusty day here at the Hinkle gate. I had a little business overnight, mostly people turning into our site and being in the wrong place.

The water truck did arrive as promised and made a couple of passes and as predicted the dust was back within a couple of hours :-( Oh well, the effort was appreciated.

We had a surprise visit from Lou Minichino who, along with his wife Lil, are guarding a gate a few miles from us. I was grabbing some sleep and didn't get to meet him but we have already been corresponding by email. He and Rudee had a nice visit. They are rookies at this gate guarding thing too and have only been on their gate a few days longer than us.

I needed to make a run into town for a few supplies so took care of that late in the afternoon. There is another gate about 3 miles from us that I pass by on my drive to town and on my way back I saw the guard outside so I stopped in and introduced myself to Fay. She is a widow who is gate guarding alone! She works this gate 24/7 all by herself. That has to be tough when things are busy. I have no idea how she gets to leave to get her groceries and other errands done.

Once I made it back to the 5er I started our supper. Salmon Patties with roasted potatoes and a salad. Turned out pretty well even though I was just "wingin it" for most of the meal. We had 2 patties left over and Rudee froze them for a future meal.

The gate got busy right when we were wanting to eat so we took our salads outside in the shade to eat between checking vehicles in and out.

We both had the feeling we were being watched. Ever have that feeling? Rudee found out we have more neighbors :-)

I talked to the "safety man" and the only part of the rig is here. The rest of it should arrive sometime Thursday and he said they would probably start drilling sometime this week end. The drilling will last for around 3 weeks and then they tear down and move on. Sometimes they take their gate guards along to their new site if they like them.

The drilling crew came in late this evening and moved into their housing units at the well site. Looks like Hinkle A-2H will be more than just a gravel spot on the side of the road soon. I'll keep you posted.

busy day at Hinkel A-2H

2011-11-01T22:43:00.005-04:00

I was up and down most of the night. I only had one vehicle enter our gate and he was lost and looking for the adjacent rig. I just couldn't sleep, afraid of missing an alarm I guess. I got up for good shortly after 3am and watched TV trying not to disturb Rudee.

Once daylight hit the gate got busy fast. We were only checking in the pick ups and 4 wheelers. The semi trucks we just waived through per the boss man's instructions.

We ended up having over 60 in and outs logged on our sheets and easily three times that many semis coming in and out.

The rig pad is taking shape and the actually rig is due in tomorrow. I'm not sure how long it will take them to raise the rig but it should be interesting :-)

The work is really easy. When a vehicle arrives we simply log them in getting the drivers name, company and license plate number. We log the date and time they arrive as well. Then when they leave we mark that time too.

Most everyone is friendly here and we are enjoying ourselves. The worst thing is probably all the dust stirred up by the traffic. Lots and lots of dust covering everything.

We were excited to see a water truck show up and start wetting down the road but they stopped when they got to our lane :-(

The company man Tim has promised us that a water truck will be here for us in the morning. That should help keep the dust down for an hour or two :-).

We saw two large birds across the road from us and once I was able to get on the internet we ID'd them as Common Black Hawks. They were busy hunting for food near the highway. Our only other wild life sighting was a small preying mantis and a butterfly :-) but we have been warned of the scorpions and rattle snakes. Let me tell you, that got Rudee's attention! I had to go purchase a long handled shovel in case we have to go on the defensive :-)!

We have gotten used to the constant hum of the generator. I expected it to be a lot louder then it is and now I hardly notice it at all. The rest of our utilities are continuing to work as they should so life is good here at the gate. I'll keep you posted

Gate guarding at Hinkle A-2H

2011-10-31T22:41:00.008-04:00

We had to be ready to leave for the gate by 8:00 so we were up early getting things packed up and "road ready".

Hunter showed up at the yard and hooked onto the two flat bed trailers that held our generator, fresh water tank, black water tank and all of our other supplies. We followed him out of the yard where we turned east to head towards Cotulla.

The drive took us a little over an hour and we pulled into "our" gate. We are the first gate guards at this site as it is a brand new pad with no well as yet. The "company man", Earl, met us and showed us our spot and I backed the 5th wheel in and got leveled and unhooked. While Rudee and I got the 5er set up Hunter worked to get all of our utilities up and running.

The whole set up took him over an hour but once he was done we have 50amp service thanks to our large diesel generator, running water from our own "reservoir" tank and our tanks drain into what I describe as a portable septic system.

We have virtually no cell signal without the Wilson Cell Phone Booster I purchased before leaving Indiana. The booster unit is inside the 5er and I mounted the antenna to a telescoping pole that I attach to the rear ladder on the back of our Montana.

Once I got the booster set up we went from 1 bar of service to 4 bars. The downside is the range of the booster is limited so you only have to go 20-30' from the booster and you are back at 1 bar (or no bars!).

Our site is adjacent to the well pad so we will be able to keep and eye on all the action.

We didn't have to actually start working today, the boss man said he didn't want us checking people in and out until the rig arrives and gets set up for drilling. Right now we are just doing a lot waving :-). I'll keep you posted.

We got a gate!

2011-10-30T19:48:00.003-04:00

I was up early this morning even though this area gets really really quiet at night. Rudee likes to sleep longer than me so I make a pot of coffee and catch up on blogs while she snoozes.

After we took our showers I decided to take a walk around the storage yard and check out the flat bed trailers with the "gate supplies". I checked out one the trailers with a big diesel generator on it and my new boss, Roger, drove up in his pick up truck. He told me that he had a gate for me if I wanted it. Heck ya I want it! That's what I came here for :-)

We will be moving out tomorrow morning to a gate near Cotulla, Texas. Roger will be meet us here at the lot and lead us over there and help us get set up.

We are a little nervous since this is all so new to us but I'm sure we will do fine.

I have followed Kit and Jerry Bertlesen's blog http://www.kitandjerry.com/index.htm for a few years now. They are gate guards too and are deployed at a gate about 10 miles from here. They have been keeping track of our progress and gave us directions to their place so we could finally spend some face to face time together.

We made the short trip in the Dakota and pulled into the drive to their gate. The company provides an alarm bell that is activated by a hose pulled across the drive. Remember those bells that dinged in the gas stations when you ran over the hose? Same thing here.

Jerry came out of their motorhome and opened the gate for us showing us where to park. Kit joined us outside and it was hugs all around!

Before we left Carrizo Springs we stopped into McDonalds and bought 2 large diet cokes. By reading their blog I knew they loved their diet fountain cokes and didn't want to show up empty handed :-)

We talked for quite awhile and they showed us the ropes as well as giving us some great advice of things they have learned along the way. Rudee took lots of notes! :-)

Before we knew it we were having to say "see ya later". We had some things we wanted to pick up at the store before before being "tied to a gate".

Thanks guys for a great visit and helping out a couple of rookies!

Corrizo Springs has a small Wal Mart but what we needed was a super center. The nearest one is in Eagle Pass about 40 miles away so we headed over.

Thus area of Texas is really not very scenic. Lots of short scrub trees, sand and cactus. The good thing is the speed limit in most of the rural areas is 75 mph so you can make good time between towns :-)

Eagle Pass is a boarder town right on the Rio Grande. We drove down to the boarder to take a look. There was no good place to park so we just did a drive-by and headed to the store.

Wal Mart was a total zoo! I guess Sunday afternoon is "shopping day" for people from both sides of the boarder.

We wound our way down the aisles and found most of what we needed and got the heck outta there!

They had a gas station there so we filled up using our shopping card so we could save an additional .10 per gallon. With our tank full and our card empty we headed back to Carrizo.

Before arriving in Texas I expected to see a lot of the border patrol out looking for illegals. Today was our first contact with these fine folks. There is an inspection station/road block set up between Eagle Pass and Carrizo Springs. I was not sure what to expect but when I stopped and rolled my window down the young officer just made small talk while another officer with a K9 did a quick walk around our truck and that was it. Guess we don't fit the profile of human smugglers :-)

Back at the 5th wheel we put the groceries away and will probably go to bed early since tomorrow is a work day! I'll keep you posted.

taking a day "off"

2011-10-29T19:44:00.002-04:00

We decided to stay an additional night here at Gulf Coast RV Resort. The sites here are all pull through full hook ups with a nice patio. They are part of Passport America so we get a 50% discount on their rates making our site $17.50 including tax. Pretty good deal!

I checked out attractions in Beaumont on the computer and found a couple of museums downtown that sounded interesting so Friday morning we played tourist. :-)

Our first stop was the Texas Firefighters Museum housed in a restored Beaumont fire station. My Dad was a fireman for many years and my Brother is a career firefighter as well. I even started down that path for 5 years before becoming a cop. Both my brother and I grew up in and around the firehouse so walking into one is a trip down memory lane for me :-).

There is no cost to visit and they have 2 floors of displays. The engine bays have several pieces of apparatus including an early aerial truck and some of the old horse drawn pumpers.

On the walls were patches from Departments all over the U.S. We found several from Indiana including Lebanon and my old department, Plainfield.

Next was the Texas Energy Museum just around the corner. We had to pay $2.00 each to tour this one which traced the first oil discovery in Texas to present day drilling methods. The displays were nicely done but contained a little too much chemistry for me. I got lost a little with all the talks of molecules and strings of something or other.

We made a stop for a late lunch at Mike and Terri Hamilton's Catfish Kitchen. The special was barbecued crabs, a little pricey for us so we settled for fried Crawfish tails and crawfish ettouffe'. We tried their soup of the day based on our waitress' recommendation. I have no idea what she was calling it, she was talking southern and I was listening in northern :-)

The soup was a type of seafood stew and was really good.

Back at the 5th wheel we settled in for the remainder of the day and watched some TV. The weather was not particularly great today with the temperature barely breaking 60 degrees and the wind blew hard most of the day. I was sure glad we decided to stay put rather than try and travel in bad weather.

Saturday morning we got up early and got everything ready to hit the road once again. Today would be the last leg of our our odyssey to get to the oil fields where we will be working this winter.

We pulled out shortly before 7am and headed west on I-10 once again. The traffic was fairly light and we had an easy drive, even through downtown Houston with all of it's ramps and overpasses.

Our next big hurdle was San Antonio where we turned South on I-35. We stopped for a picnic lunch just south of San Antonio at a rest park. We turned off the interstate and onto SR 85 in Dilley Texas. Our destination was Carrizo Springs where our company, Gate Guard Services, has a storage yard. We met our supervisor, Roger, at a gas station and he led us to the yard about a mile out of town and showed us where to park.

We will be here for a few days until we get a gate assigned to us. There is one other guard couple here whose well was shut down due to a faulty piece of equipment. They will go back to the same gate as soon as parts arrive to get things back up and running again.

We have made contact with Kit and Jerry Bertleson, http://www.kitandjerry.com/index.htm fellow Hoosiers who are guarding a gate a few miles away. We made plans to visit them tomorrow and they invited us to ride along with them next Tuesday when they head back to their home park for a quick visit. Sounds like fun and will give us a chance to get to know them, of course this could all change if a gate opens up and we go to work. I'll keep you posted.

badda bing, badda "BOOM"... AGAIN!

2011-10-27T21:41:00.002-04:00

Tuesday afternoon we took our last ride on the bike in Florida for awhile and once back at the 5th wheel I loaded it onto the semi. Our plan was to head for Texas and start our work for this winter so we can fill up the money barrel again :-).

Wednesday morning we hooked on and pulled out of Dade City and headed North on I-75. We made good time and soon made the turn west on I-10. Hard to imagine this interstate goes virtually from coast to coast. We will be taking it all the way to Houston Texas and I'm sure we will have our fill of it by then :-).

I had scoped out a possible stop for the night in Alabama and thought the timing would be about right. That is until we got to the 174 mm and a rear tire on the semi decided to expell it's air "forcibly". KABOOM! I had my window open and my arm hanging out enjoying the ride and just about soiled my underoos when that thing let go. Rubber was flying everywhere and the noise sounded like the truck was coming apart.

Rudee followed me as I eased off onto the berm and we stopped to survey the damage. Not too bad, some paint missing on rear panel of the semi, 3 clearance lights, some black marks on the front of the 5er as well as my side to side level was broken. :-(

There was an exit ramp less than 1/2 mile away so we limped along the the berm. There was a gas station with a large lot at the end of the exit ramp so we were very fortunate for that.

I called our emergency road service and since I did not have spare they would only offer to tow the truck leaving the 5er sit. Nope not gonna do that when a tire store can do a service call and mount the tire right here.

I got the number of the wrecker they would use, called him and he gave me a local road service dealer, called him and he had the correct tire and would be there in 30 minutes. Fantastic!

Rudee pointed out that the license plate on the truck was no longer "on" the truck. I hopped in the Dakota and went back to the scene of the "Ka-blewey" and looked around but could not find any sign of the license plate or any of the clearance lamps.

I was only gone about 15 minutes and when I got back the tire guy was there and had the tire already off the truck!

He made short work of changing things out and we were back on the road about an hour after pulling off.

We paid the road service tab and will send a copy of the bill to our provider and see of they will reimburse us or not. I was not too impressed with them on the phone, she did not seem to know what a 5th wheel RV was. Not good for a place that markets to Rvers.

Back on the road we decided to boondock at Wal Mart and ended up in Crestview Florida at a super center. There was an Applebee's nearby so we had their 1/2 price appetizers as our evening meal. We also rented a Red Box movie which we watched before turning in for the night. The movie, Hall Pass, was a real hoot but there are a couple of graphic nude scenes so be warned.

Thursday we were back on the road headed west on I-10. I was still a little rattled by the blow outs and was hearing every creak and rattle the rig was making. I finally settled down some only to read a sign in Mobile Alabama that said "tunnel ahead" .... hmmm wasn't aware of a tunnel, Oh well no biggie, just drive on through.

I entered the tunnel and this thing goes straight down. As in, into the gates of H. E. double toothpicks down! Yabba! On top of that we no more get into the tunnel and Rudee calls me on the CB and says she is having a panic attack and needs out of here. NOW!

Well no where to go but up .... and out. Thank goodness the tunnel was not too long, I don't think Rudee would have made it. OK, note to self, no more tunnels for Rudee.

We actually ended a long travel day with the same tires we started out with! Seems like a first for us so far. :-)

We are set up at Gulf Coast RV Resort in Beaumont Texas a very nice Passport America park ($17.50 per night). We paid for one night but will probably stay tomorrow night as well. We need a break :-). I'll keep you posted.

Fishy business

2011-10-25T18:31:00.005-04:00

Sunday we took a ride South to meet Keith and Marcia Russell.

We met at a restaurant near Lake Wales Florida and caught up over lunch. They were on their Goldwing so we followed them as they showed us around some of the area. We spent the afternoon riding throughout the countryside before we finally had to part company and head opposite directions for home.

Monday we drove the truck to Largo Florida near the Gulf. My Great Uncle, Max, lives in an Assisted Living apartment there and we had made arrangements to spend a little time with him. Max and my Dad were almost the same age even though he was my grandfathers brother. They lived in Montecello Indiana and we stayed in regular contact while I was growing up. I used to spend part of my summer vacation at their house and my cousin would spend time at our house as well. We used to have a great time.

Max is doing very well and we enjoyed our short visit with him. Here is a photo Rudee snapped of us before we left.

Max had to get to the Dentist and I just happened to have brought my fishing pole along ...... :-)

Rudee had no inclination to fish but was content to watch me as I tried to land something. We went to a pay fishing pier in Reddington Beach. I initially thought about just fishing from a public pier or even just off the beach. I researched and found that the non resident salt water license was going to cost $17 and if you go to the pier no license is needed and only costs $12. Of course the pier was only for 1 day of fishing but since we are leaving Florida Wednesday this was the best deal for us.

We paid our fee and bought some frozen squid for bait. The pier extends over 1000' into the Gulf and has benches to sit on every few feet on each side. We found a nice bench and settled in for some fun!

I was getting a few bites but they must have been pretty small because I could not hook anything.

Others around me were catching things pretty regularly. The lady a few feet away from us reeled in a stingray. No thanks, don't want one of those on my line!

We moved further down the pier and I started getting some more serious bites and it wasn't too long before I caught a small sea bass.

The wind was pretty brutal but we stuck it out and I caught several more fish over the next few hours. By 4:00pm we were both tired, hungry and I was out of bait so we called it a day and headed home.

We have decided to go ahead and head west towards Texas on Wednesday. We will spend most of tomorrow running any last errands and getting the circus train ready to roll again. I'll keep you posted.

"Hello, my name is Pehhggy"

2011-10-23T06:59:00.007-04:00

A few weeks ago I purchased an automatic satellite dish and receiver to use in the giggle weeds of Texas while gate guarding. The dish is a Tailgator from Dish Network and is advertised as the simplest dish to set up and use, The directions included with the unit are very straight forward. Just follow a few easy step, call the 800# and "poof" you have TV.

I decided to set it up Saturday morning. Our 5th wheel is prewired to hook up to an RV parks cable system or, by moving a couple of wires, can be adapted for a satellite dish. I decided that since the new dish has only one outlet for 1 receiver/TV combination I would install its own outlet on the outside of the RV. I had already purchased a protected outlet from Camping World and Rudee and I installed it last Thursday in anticipation of today.

I followed all the directions setting up the dish and connecting it to the receiver and then to our TV. Easy as pie!

I turned everything on and none of the screens I was supposed to see, according to the instructions, were coming up. I was getting a screen showing that I was not receiving a signal from the satellite but nothing else so I called Dish Network for help. That is when the fun started!

I explained my problems to the first customer service rep that answered the phone. He transferred me to a customer service rep that could help me set up my programming. I talked to her, she said no way to get a signal with out an account number. I read her the directions on the paperwork I had that said the signal needed to be "in the green" on the little built in meter and then you call to purchase programming. "Not so" says "Pehhggy" gotta buy first, so I bought. She wanted to "interview" me to help me select a package. No thanks, already know what I want and told her.

She had no idea what the "RV to Go" service was. Told her it was a package offered by her company for people to have their TV "on the go" in their RV. She put me on hold to ask a supervisor.... Oh oh.

Rudee, hearing all this, got on line and started a chat with their tech support to try and get the signal working that way. So Rudee was "computer chatting" with Jordan and I was pulling what was left of my hair out with "Pehhggy" on the phone.

I ended up getting the programming purchased but not after several "I need to talk to my supervisor" moments.

Jordan told Rudee that once we had our account number he could get us set up in a few minutes. Well all righty then, that's what I was wanting to hear.

He had us run tests, move the dish, shut things down, reset things, move the dish again, unhook the dish, hook back up, move the dish again ..... well you get the idea. Nothing worked, "no TV for you!"

After 3 hours of this ordeal I had enough and called it quits. Jordan also said there was nothing else he could do and referred us to one of their local technicians for a service call.

Rudee made contact with the technician and he knew right away the problem. The receiver needed a new update down loaded from Dish and to bring it to his shop and he would do it.

I disconnected everything and we drove to Tampa and met Bill. He hooked our receiver up to his satellite dish and downloaded the update. He told us that the update should have already been on our receiver when shipped since it was a new unit but was apparently not done at the factory. He hooked up out Tailgater and got everything working. "That will be $100 please" ..... ouch!

Back at the 5th wheel I hooked everything back up while Rudee cooked supper. Yes it is now supper time, we started this ordeal right after breakfast and it has taken the entire day!

I followed "$100 Bills" instructions and "poof" we had TV, see just like they advertise, easy as pie :-(

Rudee called Dish and complained about the charge of the service call and they agreed to credit our account for the $100 charge which was a happy ending to a frustrating day.

Zephryhills was having a Halloween festival downtown so we drove down and checked it out. There were lots of booths and the kids all had their costumes on. We enjoyed seeing the kids and browsing the booths.

We are meeting Kieth and Marcia Russell Sunday for lunch. They are longtime motorcycle friends who have retired and snowbird in Sebring Florida each winter. I'll keep you posted.

day at the beach

2011-10-22T08:02:00.005-04:00

The weather has been a little cool for Florida the last few days. The temps have been in the low 70's and the wind has been blowing strong. Even with the weather like it is we decided to head for the beach on the motorcycle. We had to ride through the city to get there and decided to stay off the interstate and soak up some "local flavor".

We ended up in Indian Rocks Beach just across the bay from Tampa.

In the past we have stayed here when the kids were smaller renting a condo right on the beach. We had lots of fun playing in the sand and water with our kids so we have great memories of this area.

We saw several really nice homes that sit right on the beach. I couldn't even guess what it costs to buy and maintain a house like this but I am guessing a retired cop who now works as a work camping gate guard does not live here :-)

We did find some parking and walked out onto the beach. Rudee said the water felt really warm when she touched it. The weather is supposed to warm up some more and we hope to do some more "tourist" things. I'll keep you posted.

Sunshine State?

2011-10-21T07:01:00.002-04:00

We were up early Wednesday morning and decided to take advantage of the free waffles in the lobby here at the KOA. The host handles the cooking and they had rolls, juice and coffee as well. We were eating our waffle when Rudee got my attention and pointed out that the owners cat was inside the office and walking around on top of the tables where he was cooking the food. YUCK! Needless to say we didn't eat anything else after that.

What are these people thinking! I'm not particularly fond of cats to begin with but that is beside the point. You don't have animals be it cats, dogs, hamsters or whatever, crawling around on the same table you are preparing food for your guests.

Our destination for the day was Dade City Florida where we are staying for at least a week or more. The skies to cloudy and there was a pretty stiff wind hitting the side of the rig but at least there was no rain. Where is that famous Florida sunshine?

We arrived at Grove Ridge Carefree Resort in the middle of the afternoon. The office was just closing up and they told us to go ahead and park and settle up in the morning. The park is very nice with large grass lots with 50amp/30amp electric, water and sewer hook ups. This is more of a snowbird type of park with a lot of permanent park model units. There is a nice clubhouse with a large outdoor pool. They are a Passport America park and the rate is $16 per night for members.

We parked in the same spot we were in on our last visit in 2009, a large space on the back row where we can spread out some. I unloaded the bike and we took a quick ride into Zephryhills to visit my parents grave site.

Thursday we were up early again thanks to the rooster at the home behind us. I forgot about the neighbors across the road having chickens :-)

Oh well we had things to do anyway.

I called a tire store and found a replacement for our tire that blew and made arrangements to drop it off. Rudee called our future tenets and made a lunch date with them so we could finally meet face to face and get all the paperwork out of the way.

Heading into town we made a quick stop at Wal Mart and then to the tire store where we dropped off the wheel. They even gave me a discount for being a retired Deputy, cool.

We met our new tenets at a small restaurant and got to know them. They are a very nice couple who had to sell their home in Dade City a few years ago and move into an apartment because he just could not take care of a big house anymore. They are both looking forward to the extra space our place offers as well as living in a seniors only neighborhood.

They did decide they want to move in right away. I told them that if they do that I would not have a chance to make sure things are cleaned and ready for them. They said that they have already been in the place a few times with our current renter and all is up to snuff so they will move in the day after our renter moves out. We reminded them to change the utilities over into their name and they said they have already done that and have scheduled the cable installer as well!

With all this done we may not be staying here as long as we thought. We decided to only pay for 1 week and can add to that if we need to. Our thoughts are to head for Texas and get back to work so we have some money coming into our account instead of just going out :-)

We do have several friends and relatives in the area and hope to see them before heading west. Plus I want to do some motorcycle riding here in the "Sunshine State". I'll keep you posted.

badda bing, badda "BOOM"

2011-10-18T19:31:00.001-04:00

Sunday was a tough, tough day. Rudee and I were in tears several times throughout the day as our friends departed one at a time. Rob and Jany Runion gave us a card as they were pulling out. They had to leave early to go to the hospital because Rob's Dad had taken a turn for the worst. We opened the card as they were driving away, it was one of those musical cards and played "thank you for being a friend". Needless to say I was reduced to a sobbing idiot ..... damn, I wasn't prepared for this!

The worst goodbye was to our kids and grand kids. They all left late in the afternoon and we were virtually the only ones left in the campground :-(

We did get a call from Craig and Joanie Isenhower who live nearby in Sheridan, Indiana. They wanted to get together so we met them at the Pizza King for supper. Craig and Joanie are a great couple who we were just getting to know well.

Thanks to all of our friends for a great week end, we'll see you again real soon.

Monday morning we got a slow start packing up. We were dragging our feet waiting on news from Rob about his Dad. When Jany called and told us there were no real changes we decided to go ahead and get packed up and on the road.

We pulled out at 10am and pointed the circus train South.

Rudee followed me in the Dakota and we communicated by CB radio. The trip through Indianapolis was not too bad since we avoided the morning rush hour. Rudee needed gas so we stopped at a Flying J just south of Indy. We got off just in time because we could see a large back up forming just past the exit. Once we got the Dakota filled up and us emptied (too much coffee) :-) we hopped over onto US 31 and bypassed the traffic jamb on the interstate.

The rest of the trip went well and we ended up spending the night in a Wal Mart in Athens, Alabama. We rented a movie from the Red Box kiosk and I fired up the generator and we settled in for the night.

This morning we were both up early and, after showers, we returned the movie and hit the road. The drive through Birmingham was just as I remembered it, rough roads! In Montgomery we cut over to US 231 down to Troy where we took the State Road 167 "short cut". This road bypasses Dothan which has become its own traffic nightmare.

We stopped at a closed and abandoned gas station in Enterprise for a picnic lunch on the tailgate of the Dakota.

Back on the road we were soon crossing the state line into Florida. Then the rain started, just some sprinkles at first but it soon turned into a steady downpour. That's when I heard it .... BOOM. I checked the mirrors but nothing seemed wrong. I have a camera pointed at the bike and checked the monitor screen, nothing wrong there. I called Rudee on the CB, she said she heard it too. We were on a four lane so I had her drive beside me to check things on the 5er and truck. All Ok on the drivers side so we swapped lanes and she checked the passenger side, nothing wrong there either .......... hmmmmm.

We drove on and kept a close watch on things and eventually saw that the left rear trailer tire looked funny. I pulled over behind a gas station right away, in the rain of course, and saw where the side wall had come apart on the tire but it was still holding air. Weird.

We have a roadside assistance plan but in the past they have taken anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours to show up so I decided to go ahead and change it myself, in the rain of course :-(

Swapping the bad tire for our spare took us about 20 minutes and we both got so wet we had to compltely change our clothes. Our undies were even soaked :-)

One of the advantages of having an HDT truck is that you can install a retractable air hose and use the air compressor built into the truck. I also carry a small air powered impact wrench and sockets making removing and installing the lug nuts a breeze.

We decided that we had been through enough for one day and started thinking about where to land for the evening. We had hoped to get a little further and stay in another Wal Mart but since it was still fairly early (2pm) we didn't feel comfortable doing that. We decided to head for a KOA we have stayed at in the past. I headed onto I-10 to make the 90 mile last leg of this long, long day.

We no more got on the highway when the rain worsened, it got so bad at times and we had to slow down so much to see that we ran with our emergency flashers on.

We came upon 2 serious accidents where the cars had apparently hydroplaned and went flying off the road. The lack of visibility and the accidents just added to our stress levels and we were both more than ready to park this thing!

That's when it hit me .... this isn't a vacation and you don't have to be out here risking both of your lives just to get somewhere!

I decided right then and there that we would not be doing this type of traveling again. Weather gets bad, STOP. Things start going wrong, STOP.

We did make it to the KOA where Rudee was able to do all the laundry while I heated up some left overs for supper. Teamwork, gotta love it :-). The rain is still falling but they are calling for sunshine tomorrow, if not we'll STOP until it does shine :-) I'll keep you posted!

Movin Out

2011-10-17T07:36:00.006-04:00

Thursday morning Rudee did he normal shift of volunteering at the food pantry in Crawfordsville. She started doing this once per week since she got laid off. Today will be her last shift there and she will miss it.

While she was working I got the rig ready for travel. I was hooking on and a couple came walking towards me in the campground. I thought they looked familiar and as they got closer I recognized them. Ron and Mary are fellow Montana owners and were overnighting at the KOA. We had met at the Montana Owners Rally a couple of years ago and they recognized our truck. We visited for a few minutes before they had to pull out and get on the road.

Rudee made a stop at Mickey D's on her way home and we shared lunch in the cab of the Dakota since the house was all "folded up" :-)

We pulled out of the KOA around 11:30. It was a little sad to be leaving but exciting at the same time. We had lived here for the last 2 1/2 years and it had a "comfortable" feel to it.

Our destination was White River Campground which was only 1 1/2 hours away. With Rudee following me in the Dakota we made the short drive and arrived just as the rain started :-(

We got checked in and found our site. Rudee and I both got pretty wet backing in and setting up but hey "a guys gotta do what a guys gotta do". Right? :-)

This week end is their annual trick or treat week end. We have always enjoyed this week end and have had a standing reservation here for the past several years. Several of our motorcycle buddies come as well. This year we have 10 rigs here for the week end. The sites are mostly full hook up with a mix of 50 amp and 30 amp sites (we had a 30 amp). Each site had a cement patio and have plenty of space between the sites. Our son, Matthew and fiance' Mandie, set up their tent beside our 5th wheel.

This is our last week end with the kids and grand kids before leaving for the winter. I know Sunday is going to be tough on us emotionally as we say goodbye to all of our friends but the worst part is saying goodbye to our grand kids :-(.

I will leave you with some photos from this week end. We will be pulling out on Monday and heading South! I'll keep you posted.

Getting ready to go

2011-10-10T05:12:00.003-04:00

The weather this past week has been absolutely perfect with temps in the mid 80's and plenty of sunshine. We decided to take advantage of it and do what we love, ride our motorcycle!

Friday evening we picked the bike up from our friend Grumpy's shop. We had new tires installed and the oil and filter changed. We rode to Brownburg to meet up with Runions for dinner. On the way there Ron and Sandy Mendenhall called to see what we were up to and we invited them to join us.We all had a nice dinner at The Pit Stop Barbecue and we all made plans to meet in the morning for another ride.

Saturday morning we headed out early and all met at Flapjacks restaurant for breakfast before heading North. Our destination was Greentown Indiana and the Howard County Fairgrounds. Our state GWRRA staff were hosting a get together for everyone. We made the ride in about 1 1/2 hours and got there just in time to line up for lunch :-). I guess we ride to eat and eat to ride! :-)

They served vegetable soup and PB&J sandwiches. The entrance fee was canned goods for a food bank. We made our donation and enjoyed sharing lunch with our friends.

The trees are sporting their fall colors and the ride home was beautiful. We made it back to the 5th wheel shortly after 5pm, days like this are the reason we love to ride so much.

Sunday was a work day for us :-(. There are several things I wanted to get done to the 5th wheel before we head out onto the open road. The first item was giving the entire rig a bath! We hauled out all the stuff we would need and headed up the ladder to the roof. Washing the roof is never a fun job but has to be done. We use a car wash style brush and non-citrus dish soap. When we attended the Montana Rally a few years ago one of the seminars was from the makers of the rubber roof material and this is what they recommended. They told us if you use a citrus smelling soap it attracts squirrels and they will actually chew on your roof!

The roof took us a little over an hour to wash and then we started on the sides. I washed while Rudee rinsed and we were able to knock it out pretty quick. The whole rig took us about 3 hours not counting a lunch break and an occasional sneak peak at the Colts game.

Sunday evening all the grandkids came over and Rudee made us all a spaghetti dinner. We are both gonna miss seeing our kids and grandkids whenever we want :-( Next Sunday is going to be rough when we say goodbye to them for several months.

I still have several more things on my "honey do" list before we pull out Thursday. I guess I'll be a busy guy on my first full week of retirement :-). I'll keep you posted.

ready ... set ... JUMP

2011-10-08T06:45:00.002-04:00

I remember it very well, it was early in 2005 when I first envisioned living in an RV full time and traveling. The more I read about the lifestyle the more I was hooked. I kept it to myself for quite awhile before introducing the idea to Rudee.

She was open to the idea and we started planning. We both knew it would be several years before we could even think of hooking up and pulling out, but we dreamed of that day. A plan was hatched to achieved our goal and we put it in motion. Bills had to eliminated as well as purchases made always keeping our end goal in mind.

In December of 2006 we purchased our full time rig, a new 2007 Keystone Montana. I actually had tears in my eyes when we picked it up. This was "our" rig, our magic carpet ride to reach our dreams.

We kept "working the plan" and I'm sure some of our friends and family thought we were nuts. I followed others blogs that were already full timing and the fire inside me kept burning.

2008 was the year for the house. We painted and pruned and cleaned up. The house was going on the market ....... "work the plan".

December 28th our realtor planted his sign in the yard. We didn't expect anything real fast, figuring it would be summer time at least before we would move. Wrong!

Deal was signed and we moved into our 5th wheel in March of 2009 and started this blog.

We have lived here at the KOA since that time but I never really felt like a full time RVer. We still were tied to our jobs 5 days a week. We took our vacations and did some week end camping trips but nothing had really changed, just our address but we were "working the plan".

Rudee's company offered subsidized health care insurance in their retirement package and Rudee would qualify for it in March of 2015 so we made the decision to extend the plan a couple of years. I would retire in December 2014 and her day would be her birthday, March 7 2015.

May of 2011 we got the proverbial "curve ball" thrown at us and Rudee was laid off from her job. We changed "the plan" again bit this was the first forced change. I don't like forced changes but you have to roll with the punches.

The plan was for me to work until December 31st and then retire and try to find a work camp job. Well friends, I didn't make it :-). Plans change.

Thursday I told my boss that I was retiring as soon as possible and yesterday was my last day at work! Wow that went quick!

Lately the stress at work has gotten unbearable. I was a miserable grumpy man and I hated that. I'm sure Rudee and our friends and family didn't like it much either :-)

So today is my first day of being a houseless, unemployed, happy full time RVer!!

The journey to this point has been 6 1/2 long years but WE MADE IT!

We are staying here at the KOA for a few more days before moving to White River Campground in Cicero Indiana. They are having a Halloween week end and our kids and grand kids are all coming to trick or treat. We are then pulling out and heading South towards Florida where we need to take care of some business with our rental property.

The plan is to be in Texas by mid-November where we are going to be gate guards in the south Texas oil fields for the winter.

We have to be back in Indiana the first of April to start our work camping gig at the KOA in Terre Haute.

So there you have it friends, big time changes are happening here. We would like to have a little more in our savings, my 401k is only a 200.5k LOL, it would be nice of our pensions were a little bigger and our 5th wheel was completely paid off but it is what is and we are "working the plan"! I'll keep you posted.

Folding the house in

2011-10-03T19:09:00.002-04:00

This past week was cold and wet, yuck. Work was ....... well .... work, double yuck. Enough about that! :-)

Friday we packed up the Circus Wagon and headed for Charlarose Campground which is a whopping 10 miles away. I waited until I got off work Friday to load the bike up and of course work sent me running all over the state so I didn't get home until late.

Rudee had been busy though and had everything ready to go. All I had to do was pop the bike onto the back of the semi and hook on the 5er.

We were meeting Rob and Jany at the campground. They were spending their first week end in their "new to them" Raptor Toyhauler.

They were already there and finishing setting up when we pulled in. We had adjoining pull through sites and were able to face each other so our awnings formed a nice covered sitting area.

We got set up pretty quickly and, after unloading the bike, we rode to a small restaurant nearby for supper.

Once we got back to the 5er's we joined Rob and Jany at their place for a game of Spinners which is like Domino's but has wild pieces.

Jany even served apple cake for dessert .......... ummmmmm good!

Saturday morning we got a slow start since the temps had dropped into the 30's, yikes!! I'm not ready for cold weather yet!!

Rob said his hot water heater was only working on gas so we decided to replace the electric element to see if we could get it to work on 110v. This meant a trip to the local RV shop :-).

There is a small dealership not far from the campground so we all bundled up and headed out on the bikes.

The shop was open but this place had sure seen better days. The showroom was dark, dingy and smelled like cat pee. Nasty!

They did have the parts so and we grabbed what we needed and got the heck outta there!

We made a quick grocery run while we were out and then headed back to the campground for some RV maintenance.

I had the special socket needed to replace the element from when I did ours last year. I got out the tools and we got to work draining the water heater and removing the old one. Thankfully everything went pretty well and we got it swapped out and new anode rod installed as well. We filled the tank and I switched it on ........ nothing happened..... that's good though because nothing is supposed to happen :-)

We had to wait for 30 minutes or so before the water heated up enough to determine that the electric element was working like it should. Mission accomplished!

Saturday evening we built a campfire and I cooked us all a "Hobo dinner" over the fire. Rudee had put them together. Rudee and Jany had hamburger, potatoes and carrots in theirs while Rob and I had Smoked Sausage, peppers, onions, potatoes and carrots in ours. They turned out great!

After supper we went to BINGO held by the campground in their shelter house. Our son Matthew joined us and he won a game! Got $4 for his effort. :-)

Sunday we spent the morning being lazy. I did start another fire to use up the rest of the firewood we brought. Our daughter Amanda stopped by and dropped off the 3 grand kids. She was going to a tupperware party and Ryan was working.

I already had the bike loaded when they got there and they all helped us pack up for the trip back to the KOA.

I was outside with our youngest, Olivia, when Rudee started bring the slides in. She looked at me and asked " What are they doing in there Papaw?" I told he I didn't know and asked her if she knew what all that noise was? She said "I think they are folding the house in"!

This cracked me up and we all had a big laugh about it. :-)

The kids loved riding in Papaw's big truck on the trip back to Crawfordsville and helped us get the 5er set back up in our site.

Sunday evening Rudee picked up some Chinese take out and Amanda and Ryan joined us for dinner. We had a nice evening spending time with our kids and grand kids.

Back to work again on Monday but stay tuned for a major announcement :-). I can't let the cat out of the burlap right now but should be able to by the end of week so check back and I'll keep you posted!

wet week end

2011-09-26T06:47:00.003-04:00

This past week end was pretty much a wash out. Saturday we loaded up and drove about 15 miles to Thorntown where they were having the Festival of the Turning Leaves. We met our daughter Amanda there and walked around looking at all the craft sales. They have a parade that started at 1pm and we found a nice curb side spot to watch. Both of our grand daughters were in the parade. They participate in a tumbling/dance team through their school. They were so cute in their little purple out fits :-).

Right after the girls went by the rain started. Amanda drove over to pick up the girls and Nick, our grand son, hopped in with us. He wanted to spend the night and Rudee wanted to spoil him some more so ........ ;-)

The rain continued off and on the rest of the day so we decided to take Nick to a movie. We saw "Money Ball" which is a movie about the California Angels baseball team. Pretty good movie but really long, we were all ready to get up and move around some when it it ended.

Sunday we fired up the semi and drove Nick home in it. When we bought the truck it had 2 spare tires mounted on steel rims behind a home made diamond plate "box". I decided to chuck the worst of the two along with the box to free up some storage room on the bed. When I looked the tires over I decided neither were worth carrying anymore. One had a large split on the sidewall and was a no brainer. The other one was a re-capped tire and had never been on the road but the rubber had deteriorated on the side wall and just did not look reliable. I am not too confident on using re-caps anyway and of course you can't use them for steer tires anyway, so decided to chuck them both.

Son in law Ryan had some steel to take to the recyclers so I was able to add them to his "pile" so the rims will eventually be recycled.

Back in Crawfordsville (in the rain of course) we stopped at Wal Mart and put some fuel in the truck. Still have a little way to go to get it full but it's a little hard on the pocket book to fill it up all at once .... ouch!

Looking ahead to another week of work. Hopefully the rain will quit and Peyton Manning will recover so the Colts can win a game! I'll keep you posted.

curve ball

2011-09-23T15:27:00.003-04:00

Another week at work down .... yahoo!!

We got some news this week that our tenant is wanting to move out of our rental property down in Florida. She is wanting to buy a place in the same park and wants out of the lease 8 months early.

We are working to come up with an acceptable agreement to let her out of the lease. She has been a good renter and we are happy for her to be able to have a house of her own, but we still have to protect ourselves and our investment.

Looks like we may have to take a trip down to Florida pretty soon to take care of all the rental stuff. This kind of throws a wrench into our plans, but we need to learn to "roll with the punches" :-).

We have been checking into a rental management company and have even went so far as to get the paperwork needed to sign up.

This would cut into the monthly income the house generates when it's occupied but they do handle everything related to the house including advertising, interviewing and background checks on new rental prospects as well as taking care of all the day to day things that crop up. Looks like it might be a way to go since we may be several states away committed to a work camping gig when something needs handled.

The weather has turned a lot more "Fall like" around here. The farmers have kicked the harvest into high gear as well.

No big plans this week end, there are a couple of festivals going on in nearby towns and we may visit one or two. I'll keep you posted.

Back "home"

2011-09-20T05:42:00.002-04:00

Sunday morning I was up early and watched the sunrise behind the 5th wheel. What a pretty start to my last day on vacation :-).

Rudee was was shortly afterwards and I microwaved some bacon slices and toasted us some English Muffins for breakfast.

We started our individual routines of packing up the RV for travel. Rudee does the inside chores and I do the outside ones :-).

I had to add air to most of the tires since the weather has been getting cooler. The rear tires on the truck all needed between 5-10 lbs as well as all the RV tires were slightly low.

When we first got the semi I installed a retractable air hose to the onboard air compressor so filling the tires is a pretty simple process.

The fairgrounds RV sites were all on grass and that grass was now very wet with dew. Our truck does not do real well on wet grass and I was a little nervous that the truck would "spin out" trying to get in position to hook on. Once the wheels start spinning you are usually done and need to be pulled out.

I took it slow and backed under the 5er without any problems. Once we had hooked on Rudee helped me load the bike up and strap it down. We pulled out right at 10am and slowly worked our way through town to I-69 and headed South.

The drive home took us a little over 4 1/2 hours with a stop for lunch. We did run into some sprinkles but no heavy rain and were able to get set back up in site #4 at the KOA by 3pm.

We even took a quick trip around town after unloading the bike just to cool down after working hard sitting up :-).

The grand kids came to visit us Sunday evening and we had a nice time seeing them. Nicholas (the oldest) didn't make though, he was at a friends house.

Monday it is back to the routine of work everyday. YUCK! Don't get me wrong though, I like to be busy and don't mind working bit I am sure looking forward to being able to work at a "fun" job instead of the drudgery work I am doing now. To say I hate it is an understatement and I struggle everyday to stay focused to do the best I can do. It is defiantly time for a change. I'll keep you posted.

Rally - last day

2011-09-18T06:32:00.003-04:00

We got word Saturday morning that Rob's Dad made it through the surgery but it was touch and go for a while. He still has a long way to go and our thoughts go out to Rob, Jany and all their family.

We talked about riding the bike into town for breakfast but it was just too darn cool out .... brrrrr. We decided to check out the breakfast being offered in the registration building so we walked up there. We found Mike and Penny Kadinger sitting all alone so joined them and had a nice chat while we ate.

The weather warmed some later in the morning so we ventured out for a short ride. We were looking for two things. The first was a bent tree. Seems like years ago when this area was inhabited by the Pottawatomie Indians current US 12 was originally a popular trail for them to travel from Chicago to Detroit. They would mark the trail by bending over small Willow trees and somewhere in this area is a surviving tree that is bent like a pretzel. We rode for several miles but could not locate the "bent tree" :-(

The second thing we were looking for was Old Sam's grave. Seems like Old Sam was a horse whose owner, a local resident enlisted in the Union Army during the civil war. I guess Old Sam was enlisted at the same time as his owner :-). The two found themselves in the bloody battle of Chickamauga in Northern Georgia. Rumor has it that Old Sam was the only horse to survive the battle and that made him a local legend. Sam was returned to the Coldwater area after the battle by train. The story is that when Sam was unloaded from the train he broke free from his handlers and took off running. He ran straight to his former home, a barn on his owners farm where he lived out his remaining days. When Old Sam died some of the townspeople wanted to give him a proper burial in the local cemetery but this was against the law. They ended up doing it anyway in the middle of the night. Years later the grave site was revealed and a marker erected to Old Sam, Civil War Equine Hero, the only horse to be buried in the Coldwater Cemetery.

Downtown Coldwater was having their Applefest Festival and the downtown was lined with vendor booths selling their wares. We walked down both sides of the block checking everything out. Most of the booths were homemade crafts and food. We did purchase some homemade caramel corn but passed on everything else. Sure saves $$ living in an RV, no room to put a 40lb painted pumpkin or a Tin Man made out of soup cans :-)

We relaxed most of the afternoon and I even built a campfire to take the chill off. Some more of our Chapter Members road up for the day and we visited with them for awhile before they left to make the ride back home.

The last event of the rally is the light parade. All the motorcycles line up and parade through town after dark showing off all our pretty lights. I always thought of it as a way to say "thanks" to the town for letting us invade for the week end.

There was a huge line of bikes and the parade was a lot of fun. The citizens really turned out, many were sitting in the driveways and some even had campfires going to keep warm and watch the parade!

Sunday morning we will pack up and head for home. We are in no big hurry and will take our time packing up and leaving.

Monday morning will be back to work for me, now that is a depressing thought! Things are in the works though and we hope to have some plans finalized soon so I can actually set a date to pull the plug. Looks like things may happen pretty fast so stay tuned! I'll keep you posted!

Rally, day 2

2011-09-17T07:26:00.003-04:00

We started Friday morning a little slower than normal. I could really get used to this not working thing, of course that will not happen for several more years but we are looking forward to the adventure ahead of us.

Rob and Jany had laundry to do, so they spent most of the morning doing that chore. We had some work (there is that four letter word again!) to do so stayed inside and got all that done.

A couple of days ago Rudee made a large pot of clam chowder that was out of this world good. We have been eating it everyday for lunch since and sadly today's serving finished it up.

Once Rob and Jany were back we strolled through the vendors and basically just hung around. Rob was absent several times during the day and spent a lot of time on his cell phone. Late in the afternoon he got one final call and announced that they had just closed the deal on the toy hauler!

Congrats to you guys, it is one great looking unit!

We celebrated by cutting into a pumpkin cake we bought at an Amish bakery. We bought the biggest one they had anticipating having lots of friends camped around us and having pitch in dinners and ........... Oh well, more cake for me! :-(

The rally sponsored a pizza party for dinner followed by a block party in downtown Coldwater. They roped off all the parking downtown for motorcycles only and most of the stores were open. They even had a band and some street vendors. We enjoyed walking through the shops and sitting and listening to the band.

We started back to the fairgrounds at dusk and settled in for the night, or so we thought. Jany came over and said Rob had just gotten a call that his Dad had taken a turn for the worse and was being rushed into surgery and he had better come to the hospital as soon as he could get there.

We helped them tear down, hook up and watched them pull out :-( Good luck guys, we are praying for you.

We made it to bed around midnight but did not sleep well. We are both worried about Rob's Dad, he has been in the hospital since July with all but a few of those days spent in ICU. This time has been rough on their whole family and our hearts go out to them.

So now, here we are. I'm not sure what to do from here. Rudee has talked about just packing up and heading back to our spot at the KOA a day early. I'm not sure if I want to do that or not. GWRRA has been a part of life for a long time and this will most likely be our last rally. We always looked forward to attending when we could all camp together, ride together and have fun together. Maybe this rally just reinforces our decision to "move on" and change our lifestyle. I miss the old days but we are looking forward to new adventures, new friends and new fun. I'll keep you posted.

it must be me

2011-09-16T08:29:00.006-04:00

The rally officially started at noon yesterday when registration opened. We spent most of the morning being lazy. Rob wanted to run into town to fill up a propane tank so I grabbed our grille tank, which was getting really low, and we piled into his truck. He cranked and cranked and it wouldn't start. We could smell the diesel fuel so figured it must be glow plugs since it was pretty cool. I got my power cord out and we plugged the block heater in for about 30 minutes and it fired right up.

By the time we got the truck running the girls were ready to go to town so they joined us.

We stopped at a propane place that said to just leave the tanks and come back in 30 minutes and they would be full.

Stopping at Meijers we stocked up on some food stuffs and Jany found some deals on clothes.

We also stopped in to take another look at the toy hauler they are considering :-) No deal yet but maybe things will work out for them.

Back at the fairgrounds we had to stop and pick up our arm bands at registration so we could get back to the RV's, guess we are "official" now.

I did get the chance to talk to a couple of my fellow Chapter members about the camping spot selections. I am being told that the Chapter Director and his Asst. Chapter Director decided NOT to park with us. They could see us and it was suggested to them by the others in their group to come to the section we had saved for everyone but they refused. So I guess it must be me.

The message the four of you are sending has been received loud and clear.

Their actions remind me of High School where the kids would play these type of immature games. I refuse to be a part of it, those days have long since past and I am hopefully more of an adult than that.

The rally gets in full swing today. The temps are still cool but the skies are clear and we are looking forward to having fun with our friends. I'll keep you posted.

Frost??!!

2011-09-15T08:17:00.005-04:00

Sunday morning we were up before the chickens. We left the campground at 5am to make the ride to Indianapolis for the Ride for Kids which is a charity motorcycle ride that benefits the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation.

There was very little traffic at that hour and we had a nice 3 1/2 hour ride to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway where the ride was held. We checked in and and got in line. The ride was fairly short but enjoyable and we got to take a lap around the Brickyard when we got back. They served us lunch and had a short program afterwards. There was over $23,000 raised during the ride.

We made it back to the campers as the sun was setting and were all tired and went to bed shortly after getting the bikes covered up.

Monday was designated as "salvage yard" day. The Elkhart area is "RV Capitol" and most RV's are made right here. There are many business' that directly supply the factories also here. There are also several salvage business that sell the "surplus" RV parts. If you need a new appliance or are doing any remodeling this is the place for you!

We made a large loop through this area stopping at several of the stores. Rob got a new vent to replace one that has a hole in it for the roof of their RV. I found some cabinet door latches that match the ones in ours to replace a couple that are broken. No real big buys but we had a lot of fun looking through all the stuff!

Shipshewana has a huge flea market that runs every Tuesday and Wednesday. This is not your average flea market. This place is huge and is more like a festival than a flea market. We dropped the girls off so they could shop and Rob and I drove to Goshen In.

I have a Trailair hitch on the 5er and the airbag on it is now crooked. I took some photos and wanted to show them to the manufacturer to see if they could tell if something was bent or just needed adjusted. I talked to Russ at Trailair and after showing him the pictures he thought it just needed adjusted but gave me a new airbag (no charge!) just to be on the safe side. Great customer service!

We drove back to Shipshewana and the girls were all pooped out and ready to leave so we picked them up and headed into Shipshewana to check out some of the shops there.

We ended up in Middlebury Indiana where we had supper at Das Dutchman Essenhous where the meals are served "family style" . We enjoyed plates of fried chicken, baked steak and bowls of corn, stuffing, noodles and mashed potatoes. The food was good but a little on the pricey side at $17 a piece.

Wednesday was moving day. We loaded the bikes back onto the trucks and got hitched up for the big move 35 miles up the road :-). Our destination was the GWRRA Region D rally at the Branch County Fairgrounds in Coldwater Michigan.

We checked into the fairgrounds office and paid for our camping. $15 per night for full hook ups and they said they are open for drive up camping as well all summer long. Will have to keep that in mind as they are only about a mile off of I-69 and would be a perfect overnight stop.

We parked and got everything hooked up and was able to save several nice sites for the rest of our "gang" who were due to arrive later today.

Rob has got "toyhauler" fever and has been looking at upgrading to a 5th wheel. He found one he wanted to look at here in Coldwater so we road the bikes over to take a peek. We all really liked the lay out and it was priced pretty fair. They are talking about it pretty heavy so this one may be "the" one.

Back at the campers we waited for our friends to arrive. Rob called them and they were only 20 minutes away and he let them know we had sites saved and how to find us.

They arrived and headed our way but something changed their minds and instead of parking by us they parked several rows behind us. Not sure what is up with that. Guess we'll find out later today. I took a shower so don't think it's that :-).

The weather is due for a change here and they are predicting lows in the 30's and frost!! Yikes. Two weeks ago it was in the upper 90's and now it is going to frost??!! Looks like the furnace will be getting a work out for a few days. I'll keep you posted.

Looking ahead

2011-09-12T07:53:00.001-04:00

Friday was a pretty easy day for me at work. My assignments are sent to my computer from a dispatch center. The following days appointments start flowing in sometime the day before. When I logged off late Thursday I still had not recieved anything to do for Friday :-).

Fast forward to Friday morning and still nothing, I figured maybe they had shut me off since I would be off the entire next week so I could "clean" things up before leaving.

My boss called me in early afternoon and told me he had messed up and thought I was taking the day off! No big deal and he was laughing about it, so I got a little paid "down time"!

The plan for Friday was packing up to be ready to travel. Rob and Jany were heading to Crawfordsville and boondocking at the Wal Mart. Rudee suggested we go ahead and meet them there as well. "Sounds good to me". Our site at the KOA is not long enough to hook our entire "train" together and not block the road. This means that we would have to hook on really early in the morning and I'm sure our neighbors don't want to hear us clanging and banging at O'dark thirty :-).

I checked with the manager at Wal Mart and got the "okey dokey" and advice on where to park. Maybe we are getting the hang of this "boondocking" thing :-).

We both like to "surf the net" and Wifi is not always available. Neither of the parks we are heading to next week have it so we would be "out of touch". I have been looking into options and decided to try a Mifi Card through Virgin Mobile. They have mixed reviews but the thing that attracted me was the "pay as you go" function. There are no monthly contracts and if we are work camping in a park with wifi we can use that for free and not have to pay big $$ every month. Virgin uses the Sprint network and for $50 you get their version of unlimited access (they slow your connection from 3g speed to turtle speed if you use over 2.5gb in your 30 days). You can also buy 1gb for $20 that expires in 30 days and 500 mb for $10 that expires in one week. You can purchase "top up" cards at Wal Mart or just log on and purchase it on line through Virgin Mobile.

We plan on giving it a work out this next week and see how it does.

I was up early Saturday morning and went to McDonalds for coffee instead of dragging the generator and cord out. I bought Rob and I each a large cup and brought them back, neither of the girls drink coffee so they were on there own :-).

I led as we pulled out and headed North towards the Amish Country of Northern Indiana. Rob and Jany have a travel trailer and he puts his Goldwing motorcycle in the bed of his 1 ton dually Ford truck useing a loader similier to the one we have on the semi.

We made it to our "home" for next few days just in time for lunch. We are at Grandview Bend Park in Howe Indiana. The park is a Passport America, Coast to Coast, Campclub USA and Escapees discount park. The best deal for us was using our PPA discount and paid $12.50 for the first two nights and then $15 per night after that. The sites have water and electric only. They do have a dump station available. We are staying here for four noghts before heading into Michigan for a Goldwing Rally.

Sunday we have a charity motorcycle ride to attend and we are planning to hit some of the RV salvage yards as well as the large Shipshewana Flea Market. Stay tuned, I'll keep you posted!

Maytag Repairman

2011-09-08T19:55:00.006-04:00

We have a Splendide combo washer/dryer installed in the kitchen pantry in our Montana. Rudee loves not having to lug our dirty clothes to the laundromat. Our unit gets quite a work out and lately the clothes have not been getting dry no matter how long they are in there. She called the manufacturer and they said that a good internal cleaning was needed and should solve the problem. They emailed the instruction so we could "do it ourselves" and not have to pay a professional.

Saturday morning was designated "washer repair day" and yours truly was appointed "repair guy" :-)

I unhooked the unit and, with Rudee's help, got it out of the cabinet and carried outside under the awning for the big "operation". Reading the service instruction I quickly learned that none of the directions matched up to any of the things I was looking at on the washer. "Whoops, this aint lookin real good". I started taking out screws and removing panels :-O and still could not make head nor tails out the directions they had sent us.

I went ahead and unhooked every hose that I could unhook and made sure they were all clear. I did find a wooden Popsicle stick and 11 cents in one of the hoses. How in the heck did a Popsicle stick get in there??!!!

After cleaning everything we could get to I put it all back together and we positioned it back into it's cabinet. We did a test wash and still not drying, guess it's time to call the "Maytag Repairman", maybe he can understand their goofy directions.

I was off work on Monday to celebrate Labor Day so we decided to head to the small town of Clinton Indiana. There is a large Italian influence here and they have held the "Little Italy Festival" over Labor Day weekend for many years.

The street next to the Wabash River is open for pedestrians only and is lined with vendors for several blocks. We saw this really neat restored travel trailer that had been converted into a food vendors trailer. I am guessing it is 50's or early 60's model and really liked the windows and lines of the trailer.

The festival was mostly food booths selling typical "festival" food. We walked up one side of the block and back down the other side. Rudee did find a vendor that had a leather purse she liked (which is no easy accomplishment!) so she was able to "retire" her current purse with the broken zipper :-).

I have a short week at work this week and then we are heading to Shipshewana Indiana for a week to enjoy some Amish cooking and relax. We are going to attend a Goldwing motorcycle rally while we are up there as well. Rob and Jany Runion are joining us with their camper and we are all looking forward to getting away for a little while. I'll keep you posted.

where did the summer go?

2011-09-03T09:21:00.001-04:00

Hard to believe it's September already, this summer has flown by! Reminds me of days long ago when we were out of school for summer break. School would end the last week of May and start again around Labor Day and the summer months would fly by. These days the kids go back to school in the middle of August and have at least 2 weeks less vacation then we did. I guess it did pay off being an old fart :-)

The KOA started filling up Thursday night and by Friday evening there were only 1 or 2 open sites left. This week end is typically the last summer hoorah for the week end campers. They are predicting hot temperatures in the upper 90's for 1/2 of the week end and then rain and a big cool down for the other 1/2.

We are babysitting the grandkids Friday evening and Saturday morning so our little house on wheels will be pretty full! We have some activities planned so we can "spread out" some.

We have a few things in the works for a winter job but nothing written in stone yet but our future is looking bright!

I will try and get some photos this week end of our activities, I know blogs are pretty boring with out photos, just need to remember to take the camera! As always, I'll keep you posted!

"tossin rolls"

2011-08-27T17:24:00.007-04:00

We were up and out the door early last Saturday morning. This was the week end of our ride to Sikestom Missouri. We have organized this ride for several years and really enjoy the trip there and back.

Our meeting spot was the Forum Restaurant here in Crawfordsville and we wanted to arrive early enough to have breakfast before our scheduled 7:30 "kickstands up" leave time.

There were a total of 8 bikes (15 people) taking the trip with us and we pulled out of the parking lot right on time.

The weather started out great but they were predicting rain and storms for later in the day. My hope was to be safely at the motel before the storms kicked up :-)

We ran into a little construction on I-70 but the traffic was pretty light and we made good time. Our first stop was in Effingham Illinois where we took our first "butt break".

Rudee and I used to be able to ride 150 miles or more and just stopping when we needed gas. Now days we have to stop every 70-80 miles, guess we are getting old :-)

We left Effingham and the dark clouds started rolling in. The plan was to stop at Mt. Vernon Il. for lunch and it sure looked like we would be getting wet long before we got there :-)

The farther we rode the darker the skies became but about the time I thought the monsoon would start I saw the sign for the exit at Mt Vernon .... whew, we made!

I checked the radar on my Droid phone while we were eating lunch and it didn't look good. The entire 1/2 of Illinois was covered in shades of green, yellow and even some red! Oh-Oh, guess we better plan on getting the rain suits out.

We finished lunch and got everybody fueled up and back on the bikes. Still no rain, so out on the highway we went. "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" :-)

As we rode south we could see the skies clearing on the horizon. I kept thinking that if we could just get there we would stay dry!

Somehow, someway we managed to do just that. I guess the rain that was on the radar just "fell apart" . Hows that for being lucky?

We arrived in Sikeston around 3pm after riding a little over 320 miles.

The reason for our trip was to eat at Lambert's, "home of the throwed rolls". http://www.throwedrolls.com/

Our group got checked into our motel. Some of us went to the pool and others took a nap. I did both :-)

We all met in the lobby at 5pm and rode to the restaurant to put our name in for a table.

Lamberts do not take reservations and they are usually busy every night. In past years we have had to wait up to two hours for our group to get a table.

This year the wait wasn't as bad, even though the parking lot was pretty full we all got seated in neighboring tables in about 20 minutes.

Lamberts serves up "country style" food and lots of it! Besides your meal with sides they have what they call "pass arounds". These are big pots of fried okra, tomatoes and macaroni, fried potatoes and black eyed peas that are carried around the restaurant and spooned onto your plate at your table. The big draw though is the hot yeast rolls! They come out piping hot and when you hear the guy yell "hot rolls" just raise your hand and he will zing one to you! Better be ready because they come "hot and fast". The rolls are followed by a waiter with sorghum to drizzle on your fresh hot buttered roll ........... ummmmmmmm, makes me hungry just thinking about it.

Needless to say, you don't leave this place hungry!

Rudee and I shared a combo plate of fried chicken livers and gizzards. She chose mashed potatoes for her side and I got cucumbers and onions. Our meal was great as well as the service and the company! We had a great time.

Sunday morning we had a quick breakfast at the motel and lined up for the ride back to Indiana. Today was going to be a longer trip since we stay on the two lane roads coming home.

We wound our way through the countryside through Missouri, over the Mississippi River into Illinois for a few miles and then over the Ohio river and into Kentucky. We rode through several small towns and the larger city of Paducah. In Marion Kentucky we turned North and caught a ride on a ferry back across the Ohio and into Illinois at Cave-in-Rock where we stopped for lunch.

The afternoon ride took us North through the corn fields of Illinois before finally crossing the Wabash river back into Indiana. We made a quick stop for ice cream in Vincennes before riding the last leg of our trip.

We made it back to Crawfordsville at 7pm and were both worn out. We had a great time riding with our friends. I had reset my trip odometer before we left and it showed we had ridden just over 700 miles in the two days of our trip.

We were both pretty tired from being on the bike for the last two days and I sure wish I had an extra day to recover but Monday morning it was back to work :-(

My work week was a busy one and went by pretty fast, almost as fast as a week of vacation but not quite :-)

Looking forward to a lazy week end so we can recover :-), I'll keep you posted!

change in plans

2011-08-15T18:59:00.003-04:00

Friday evening I came home from work (ewwwww, four letter word!) to a great smelling 5th wheel. Rudee was busy baking fresh salmon for dinner. She did a great job and we both enjoyed our fish dinner.

After dinner we hopped on the bike and took a nice evening ride. I even stopped at a small ice cream shop and we treated ourselves to desert!

Saturday the weatherman was warning us of stormy weather but the skies were clear and the temperatures quickly warmed up. We decided to go out for breakfast and take another short ride while we could.

Once back at the 5th wheel we got some chores done and then headed for my brother and sister in laws home in Amo Indiana. Jon is a career Firefighter/Paramedic and has recently completed his RN degree. They are seriously considering full time RVing when he retires from the firehouse in a few years. That RN degree will come in real handy if they need to make a few $$ on the road.

Jon and Cheri's youngest, Ben, just graduated from High School and has enlisted in the Navy. They were having the family over for a cook out so we had a chance to send him off "in style". He reports for basic training next week, eventually he will be a Yeoman on a submarine. Needless to say we are all very proud of him. I would post a picture but forgot my camera :-(

Jon had slow cooked some pork for barbecue and it turned out great. Everyone brought a covered dish and, as usual, we had a lot more food then we could ever eat!

Around 8pm the storm clouds started building and we could hear thunder in the distance so decided it was time to leave.

We had to drive through the storm to get home and it packed a pretty good punch with some gusty winds and heavy rain.

We were relieved to find that all was well back at the 5th wheel once we got back. We had left the awning out and I kind of expected it to be ripped to shreds but it looked just like we had left it.

Our plan was to get up Sunday morning and head to Indianapolis and spend the day at the Indiana State Fair. The storm changed those plans though, seems like the same storm we drove through on our way home had hit the fairgrounds. The news was reporting that the wind had toppled the stage rigging at the band "Sugarland" concert. There were people trapped under the rigging and 5 people died in the accident.

We decided that even if the fair was open the next day we would not be able to enjoy an outing there knowing that people had been killed there the night before. Turns out they did close down for Sunday which was the right thing to do in my mind.

With nothing to do on Sunday and the weather being cool and overcast we decided to just be lazy. We spent the whole day just watching TV and relaxing. It's been a long time since we have done that and it felt pretty good just to relax for a day.

Monday is back to work for another week. We are leading a group of motorcycles to Sikeston Missouri this week weekend to have dinner at Lambert's Restaurant, "home of the throwed rolls". We are both looking forward to our trip. I'll keep you posted!

Now we're talkin!

2011-08-12T17:22:00.003-04:00

The heat wave seems to have ended! The last several days have been perfect! Highs in the low 80's and dipping down into upper 50's at night. We have opened the windows up and slept like babies!

I guess everyone can thank us for the break in the heat. When we need rain all I have to do is wash my car and BINGO the skies open up. We buy an air conditioner to battle the heat and it cools down! Oh well, guess we are ready for the next heat wave. :-)

Tuesday evening I started hearing some thunder in the distance. I checked the radar and there was a nasty looking storm coming at us! Rudee helped me get the awning rolled up and we put away our chairs and anything else that would blow away.

Sure enough about 15 minutes later the winds picked up and we had a huge downpour for about 5 minutes then it quit and the sun came back out. I guess the worst part of the storm was just North of us.

Amanda and Ryan were not as lucky. They live 20 miles south west of us and got the worst of the storm. The winds knocked down several power poles in front of their house leaving the wires strewn all over the highway. What a mess!

They were without power the entire night and most of Wednesday. They did come and spend the night with us because they are on a well and without power to operate the pump they have no water.

Let me tell you our little 400 square foot home was plenty crowded with 7 us sleeping in here!

Looks like we may try to visit the Indiana State Fair this week end. We have both lived in the area all our lives and have only been to the fair a couple of times. Seems like when we were younger raising our family we were always broke this time of year. In August we had to buy school clothes, pay book rental fees as well as renew our license plates on all of our vehicles. This was on top of all of our "normal" bills that were due. This didn't leave any extra $$ for any "fun" things.

They are calling for more storms this week end but hopefully the weather will cooperate. I'll keep you posted

adding a little "culture"

2011-08-09T13:59:00.002-04:00

There is a small theatre here in Crawfordsville that is home to the "Sugar Creek Players". They put on shows several times a year and Rudee and I have talked about going several times in the last 2 1/2 years we have been here at the KOA.

While at driving between assignments last week I had the Crawfordsville radio station on and they had a commercial advertising the opening for the musical "Chicago". I jotted down the phone number for tickets and gave them a call. I was able to get decent tickets for Fridays show which also happened to be opening night The tickets were only $10 each, pretty good bargain for a night at the theatre.

To make our date night complete I made reservations at the fanciest restaurant in town, or at least the fanciest that I know of :-).

Friday arrived and we got all gussied up in our Sunday best and headed out for a night on the town.

Our first stop was the Irongate Restaurant for dinner. The chef's special was beef wellington so that is what we ordered. Neither one of us had ever had it before but it is one of the main dishes on the TV show Hell's Kitchen and we always wanted to try it.

The meal did not disappoint and we both ate too much but had a great time. The restaurant and the theatre are only a few blocks apart so we were able to walk between the two. I picked up our tickets at the "will call" window and we waited for a short time in the lobby for the "house" to open.

I am assuming, judging by the marquee, the theatre was the towns movie house at one time. It was not real ornate but was nice and the workers made you feel very welcome.

Once the doors opened we found our seats which were row 13 center and made ourselves comfortable. The theatre was small, probably only 18 rows total, but it was tastefully decorated and you could tell they took pride in its appearance.

The show started right on time and was a real treat. I really didn't know what to expect since all the actors were "local talent" but they were all very professional. The singing and choreography was top notch and we both thoroughly enjoyed the show. I think it has to be the best bargain in town. Two and half hours of top notch entertainment for $10! We plan to go back again some day.

We finally had some rain here and the temperatures are supposed to drop back into the "normal" range. I'll keep you posted.

staying cool

2011-08-08T19:35:00.005-04:00

Wednesday we picked up our mail and had gotten the newest sale flier from Camping World. They had air conditioners on sale and we had been talking about adding a second a/c for about 2 years now. We talked it over and I did a little research on the internet just to make sure the price was decent. Saturday morning I called them and made sure the model I was looking for was in stock.

We wanted a low profile unit since it would mount over our bedroom and would extend our height and we both felt a full size one would cause some extra worry on low clearances.

Camping World is south of Indianapolis in the suburb city of Greenwood and sits right off Interstate 65. The drive took us a little over an hour and the parking lot was pretty full when we arrived. I was supposed to ask for Barbara who I had talked to on the phone and was holding the last Dometic Penguin they had in stock for me.

Babara had everything ready for us and we were able to avoid most of the crowd wandering the aisles. We paid the bill and drove to the back of the service area where they were waiting for us with the a/c on a fork lift. We got it loaded up and headed back home. Let the fun begin! Now we get to install this sucker!

The first step was to remove the crank up vent which the air conditioner would replace. I took the trim off the interior and then got the ladder out and headed up onto the roof. Of course I didn't bring the right tools with me but Rudee came to my rescue and brought up what I needed. The vent is about 18" x 18" and was attached to the roof with 32 screws! I guess they didn't want it falling off! :-)

Once the vent was off we cleaned the old sealer off the roof and then it was time to carry the air conditioner up. Hmmmmmm, this should be interesting :-).

I tied a rope around the unit and sent Rudee back up onto the roof. The plan was for her to pull with the rope while I climbed the ladder while pushing the unit up ahead of me. Now this thing weighs probably 50 lbs and is pretty big so it's not going to be easy.

With Rudee pulling I started climbing. The first 10' went pretty easy but then the higher I got the "bouncy-er" the ladder got :-O. Rudee kept pulling and I made it to the edge of the roof. Now we just had to hoist the a/c over onto the roof. I'm not sure exactly how we did it but somehow the a/c made it over the top of the ladder and was now sitting on top of Rudee who was flat on her back on the roof!

I was able to climb around her, the a/c and the ladder to get onto the roof we were able to move it off of her. Whew! That was a big job!

We got the a/c positioned over the hole where the vent had been and headed back down. All the rest of the installation could be done from the inside.

Our 5th wheel came "pre-wired" for a second a/c unit which means the factory had already ran the power wires and there was a breaker for them in the breaker box. That made my job a lot easier. I just had to hook up the wires in the ceiling to the wires in the air conditioner and attach the control unit to the bedroom ceiling. The a/c is held onto the roof by 3 long bolts that are inserted from the inside and compress a gasket which gives you a weather tight seal.

With Rudee's help I got it wired and bolted down. We positioned and attached the control unit and turned the breaker on. Hooray, no smoke or fire! Best of all the a/c works! Whoo Hoo.

We got the tools and ladder cleaned up and headed for the pool to get cooled down. We both felt pretty good about our accomplishment. We had never installed an air conditioner before and sometimes our little "projects" turn into nightmares :-). This one went really well and we make a pretty good team:-).

No big plans for this week, just working to get another week closer to retirement. I'll keep you posted.

Week end on the motorcycle

2011-08-01T18:21:00.002-04:00

Saturday morning Rudee and I hopped on the bike and headed to a local restaurant, Michael's, for breakfast. While eating we tried to decide where we wanted to ride to but really didn't come up with anything. I finally decided to just head south figuring their were more trees and hills in Southern Indiana and thus more shade :-).

With that big decision over I pointed the bike south and we headed out looking for curves and shade! LOL.

We headed south on SR 59 and passed through several of the small towns that Indiana is known for. Seems like you cannot go more than a few miles after leaving one small burg before having to slow down for another. Each one of these towns has it's own personality and several have signs at their entrance boasting of famous residents or achievements.

I enjoy these times where Rudee and I can unwind, talk, dream and just be together.

We stopped for lunch in Clay City Indiana where they boast to be the "Mayberry of the Midwest". We ate a small restaurant in the middle of the "downtown" block of business'. The place was not busy, partly due to the road construction going on that detoured most of the traffic away from the "main drag". We enjoyed our lunch and talked about not wanting the day to end. That's when I suggested we just keep on going! We had enough points built up on our Choice Hotels membership that we qualified for a free night at any of their chain of Comfort, Quality, Clarion etc hotels.

We decided that Evansville Indian would be a good destination and should have a number of hotels to choose from so I got online with my phone and searched for a room.

I was able to book a room for the night at the Clarion and we fired up the bike and continued our ride.

We took our time and stayed off the main highways for the most part. We ended up arriving in Evansville around 4pm. Now remember we were only planning on a day ride, we had no toothbrushes, toothpaste or deodorant so we stopped at a CVS pharmacy and bought some trial size "supplies" before checking in to our room.

You know people give you some funny looks when you are checking in and your luggage is a small plastic bag! :-)

I still had a gift card to Red Lobster that Amanda and Matthew gave me for Fathers Day so that turned out to be our restaurant of choice for dinner. We had a nice meal and since Evansville is on Central time (1 hour behind us) we were able to beat the Saturday evening rush.

We did take a stroll through the Casino Boat but really didn't have a lot of interest in it. We played some of the slot machines but they seemed a little out dated and the place was crowded and smokey.

Walking back to the bike in their parking lot we stopped at an overlook for the river where we sat and watched a big barge hauling coal pass by. Sometimes I forget to stop and smell the roses because work and other commitments get in the way. I'm looking forward to doing more of this once we hit the road as full time RVer's.

Back at the motel Rudee made me get undressed! Whoo Hoo! :-)

No it's not what you think, she was hand washing our clothes. Remember we didn't pack anything for this trip? Yep gotta wear today's clothes tomorrow and it's been in the 90's ..... ewwwwww. She turned the sink into a washing machine and since I was already undressed I took a shower :-).

We hung our clothes near the a/c fan hoping they would dry by morning and called it a night.

Sunday we ended up putting on clammy clothes :-). Guess they were still a little damp :-) No worries though, the weather was going to be in the 90's again so they will dry in less than 2 miles of riding :-)

We took a long route home following the river for several miles before turning North. The temperature climbed pretty quickly but we took frequent breaks and we always try to drink plenty of water to help us stay cool. The last 50 miles was the worst though. We were both getting pretty hot and all we could think about was how nice the pool was going to be once we made it back home.

When we did make it home I didn't even park the bike in it's normal place, just park it where it stopped and jumped off! We changed into our swim suits and were in the pool in less than 5 minutes after pulling into the KOA ....... ahhhhh that pool felt good!

Rudee will be in Plainfield for the next couple of days helping her parents. Her Mom may get released to come home this week. I'm sure she is ready to leave the rehab facility! No big plans for me, just going back to work so I can be another week closer to retiring. I'll keep you posted.

Staying warm

2011-07-24T17:39:00.004-04:00

Summer has arrived with a vengeance. We have had temperatures in the upper 90's and even flirted with triple digits.

The a/c unit in our 5th wheel has been struggling to keep up and pretty much runs the entire day trying to keep the inside cool. We have been using fans to help circulate the air and that helps it feel cooler. So far we have been weathering the heat pretty well.

Our new generator arrived at the UPS store Monday morning so Rudee dropped by and picked it up. We bought a Boliy 3600 with electric start. We would have liked to have had one of the Honda generators that are favored in the RV community but they are pretty high $$. I did some research and the Boliy provides the necessary power to run our a/c so we can keep cool while we are boondocking and it is 1/2 the cost. The generator is also very quiet which is important when boondocking near others. Here is an internet photo of the one we bought.

When Rudee brought it home we unpacked it, filled it with oil and gas and fired it up! I was very impressed with how quick it started up and how quite it is. The unit already has a 30amp plug in that matches our RV cord so all we have to do in plug in. I think this will be a winner and we look forward to having power whenever and wherever we need it.

The week just trudged along here as far as work is concerned. I'm looking forward to getting "short timers" disease but that is still a few months down the road I think :-).

Friday was our 33rd Anniversary and we celebrated with dinner at Red Lobster in Lafayette In. We drove over in the truck since it would have been a really hot motorcycle ride. On the way to the restaurant we started hearing a strange sound when I was turning and braking. The truck would "pop" and I thought it may be either a shock or the brakes. The truck needed an oil change so Rudee called Big O tires in Lebanon to have that done and since we bought our tires there they will rotate and balance them for free so we figured they could check the noise out while they were doing that. She was told we wouldn't need and appointment and to just get there early Saturday morning and they could have it done later that day.

Saturday morning we were up early and I followed Rudee to Lebanon on the motorcycle where we dropped off the truck. After a quick breakfast at Flapjacks we headed to Indianapolis. Rob Runions Dad has been in the hospital so we stopped in to visit and see how he was doing.

Rob was there and we got to meet his sister from Florida. We didn't get to see his Dad who had been taken from his room for dialysis and was not due to return for awhile.

We ended up taking a ride through Indianapolis and ended up in Plainfield where we met up with Rudee's sister and brother in law, David and BJ. They hopped on their Goldwing and rode with us to Stylesville Indiana where we had an early supper and a nice little bar/restaurant on US 40 the "National Road".

We parted company at the restaurant, Rudee and I rode North while David and BJ headed the opposite direction towards their house.

Sunday we picked up the truck in Lebanon. They had changed the oil, rotated the tires and found that the brakes were worn out and needed rotors as well. They also found a problem in the steering rack that was causing the "popping" noise. They told us that Dodge had a recall on the problem and we needed to make an appointment with them to have it looked at. They said it was safe to drive so we paid the bill and Rudee headed for Plainfield. She will be staying with her Dad the next two nights to help out. She says her Mom is doing a lot better at the rehab facility and hopefully will be home soon.

I guess tomorrow starts another week at work :-(. I guess I need to look at it as one week closer to retirement rather than just another week at work :-).

No real big plans for next week. The Brickyard 400 Nascar race is next week end in Indy so the campground here may fill up with race fans, should be a fun time. I'll keep you posted.

Planning ahead

2011-07-17T11:51:00.001-04:00

We have started planning for our first year "on the road" as full time Rv'ers. I wish it was just as simple as deciding which sites to see next and "where are we camping tonight?" but in our case our finances just will not allow us that much freedom. Yep, like many others, we gotta work :-(. We are planning to work camp the majority of the year to supplement our meager pensions and support ourselves. We have figured our budget on paper over and over and over again trying to reassure ourselves that all is well but we really wont be comfortable with the numbers until we are actually "living the budget". Does this make sense or am I just being a "fraidy cat"?

When Rudee's job went south I joined Workamper News and KOA Work Kamper. These sites list open jobs at RV parks around the country and I wanted to see what was out there for us.

We have had some long discussions about our immediate future and have decided we need to stay in the Midwest for at least the next year due to Rudee's parents health issues.

I found a new job listed for next season at the KOA in Terre Haute Indiana. The terms seemed fair, not the best pay/site combination I have seen but far from the worst. Yesterday morning we decided to take a bike ride over and check out the park.

Terre Haute is only about 60 miles from Crawfordsville and is only an hour from her parents home in Plainfield. The park, like most KOA's, is right off the interstate but, after getting off the bike, we noticed the park was far enough away that we could not hear any highway noise at all.

We went into the office and talked to the worker on duty who was a work camper herself. She said she really liked working there and this was her 5th season but she was going to "retire" after this year and She said she would be happy to introduce us to the owner.

Keith came right over to the office after her phone call and we talked for a long time getting to know one another. We were up front on our rig since we are bigger than most and sometimes this causes some surprises when we pull into a park not expecting it. Turns out Keith is not only familier with our type of rig, he tows his 5th wheel with a semi as well! He even hauls a motorcycle on his and is wanting to add a smart car as well. Is this "karma" or what?

He explained the job, hours, pay and benefits to us and we told him all about our previous experiences and what we were looking for. The job would be to help in their small cafe so he was real excited when he heard me talk about my previous job as a grille cook. It was a long time ago but I remember really enjoying my job cooking on a "flat top".

Before we knew it he was showing us around the kitchen and offering us jobs, all we had to do was respond to his job posting on the KOA website and it was ours! We both had good feelings about the place along with Keith and his wife Mary who we only got to meet briefly.

We left there and talked about it most of the day while riding the bike. We even did the budget again on a napkin while eating lunch! Man oh man does that ever stop :-)?

We decided to accept his offer and responded on the website to him this morning. This is not the way I had envisioned our first "adventure", I figured we would be in Yellowstone or maybe the Grand Canyon or eevn the Rocky Mountains, not Terre Haute, Indiana. I guess it's all good though because this is a change of lifestyle, not a vacation right?

We have to be back in Indiana the 2nd week of April to start work and we are still looking for jobs for the first couple of months of 2012 (someplace warm!). The search continues ......... I'll keep you posted.

Quick week.

2011-07-11T18:06:00.009-04:00

Why do vacation weeks fly by and work weeks seem to drag on forever?? Kinda sucks if you ask me :-).

We enjoyed our time in Knoxville and at Wing Ding. Sunday we took a long ride with friends and rode the "tail of the dragon". This is what they call 11 miles of US 129 near the Tennessee/North Carolina border. The road has 366 curves in those 11 miles and riding it is on most bikers bucket list. We have ridden it before so knew what to expect. Some intrepid entrepreneurs have set up camera stations along the route and photograph everything going by and then post the photos on the Internet for purchase. Pretty cool idea and they probably do a pretty good business since there were three seperate companies doing this.

Monday we decided to be lazy and slept in We did venture out to Wal Mart for some grocery with Rob and Jany Runion. We took their truck which turned out to be a good decision as a fairly large storm blew up and we got some lightning and rain while we were out.

Tuesday we did some more riding and eventually found our way to the convention center to pick up our arm bands for the rally. There was not a lot of action there today but that will all change tomorrow when the rally kicks off at 8am. We ended up going to the local zoo which was open late for the rally attendees and we got in free by showing our arm bands. The zoo was nothing spectacular and a lot of the "areas" were under construction. We were both disappointed in it.

Wednesday morning we were up really early. We had all volunteered to man the registration table at the rally. We arrived there and starting working shortly after 7am handing out packets for the the pre-registered members. We were steady busy all the up until our relief showed up at 11am. I had packed us a lunch to avoid the high costs at the rally and Rudee and I found a nice quiet table and took a long break and enjoyed our lunch.
The rest of the day we explored the rally checking out the vendors. The place was pretty crowded since this was the first day so we decided to head back to the 5th wheel and save our shopping for another day.

Thursday we wanted to do some more riding so headed for The Smokey Mountains National Park. Once we made it through Knoxville we were able to stay off the interstate and enjoy the scenery entering the park through the "backdoor" in Townsend Tn. The park road between Townsend and Gatlinburg follows a winding creek with some great views. The temperatures were pleasant and we had a nice ride. Once we got to the main park entrance I turned right and we headed over the mountain to Cherokee North Carolina 30 miles away.
The road climbs and twists for the first 15 miles and then you drop twisting and turning into Cherokee. The ride was great but we did run into some wet roads. We were lucky though and always seemed to arrive right after the rain had quit so we didn't get wet, just got the bike filthy dirty. :-(

Friday we spent our last day attending the rally. The crowd was not as bad and we were able to take our time and browse all the vendors. We ended up buying a new cover for the bike and a couple of small trinkets for each of us. We did walk to a nice Mexican restaurant in a neat area in downtown Knoxville called Market Square. There were several restaurants to choose from and we were lucky to get a table at Soccer Taco because shortly after arriving the line was out the door! We soon found out why. The food was really, really good.
Seemed like every day around 2pm the dark clouds would build and today was no exception so we made a quick retreat to the 5th wheel to beat the storm.
Once back at the campground we loaded the bike back onto the semi for the trip home and settled in for the night.

Saturday morning we hooked on and pulled out. The campground was right off the interstate and we were quickly headed North towards Indiana. We had driven about 10 miles when we heard the news on the CB radio that both lanes of the interstate were closed ahead of us due to a bad accident with a hazardous material spill and we would be diverted onto a very twisty 2 lane road :-O. Not good! Rudee grabbed the map and started planning an alternate route to the detour. The back up on the interstate was about 3 miles long of stop and go traffic we were directed off an exit and onto the 2 lanes. Leaving the CB on channel 19 to listen to the truckers we heard of a better detour than following all the thousands of people taking the "official" detour so off we went following a couple of semis in front of us. I have to say the CB paid off in a big way because shortly after leaving the crowd we heard of a big mess on the detour route where a semi had run off into the ditch and now it was closed as well! The route we took was a very nice 2 lane road with very little traffic that eventually put us onto US 25E and through the tunnel at Cumberland Gap before returning to the interstate far enough North to avoid all the chaos. The bad news is our "little" detour added about 3 more hours to our travel time. We decided to spend another night at the casino parking lot and continue home Sunday.

We slept a little better boondocking Saturday night than we did the week before and woke up refreshed and ready to go. I still want to get a generator so we can enjoy some of life's little comforts when we do this boondocking thing :-)

We made it back home and set up at the KOA shortly after noon. We both had a great time and are looking forward to our next trip.
Monday will be back to work for me and Rudee will be at her parents house helping out but hopefully we can stir up some excitement later on in the week. I'll keep you posted.

taking a break

2011-07-04T06:16:00.002-04:00

Rudee spent most of the last week helping out at her Mom and Dad's house. Her Mom is having some back problems that landed her in the hospital so she has been splitting her time between there and helping her Dad at home.

Friday finally got here and we were sure ready to pack up and leave! I had to finish the day at work while Rudee caught up the laundry and got the 5th wheel ready to travel.
As soon as I got home and changed my clothes we started disconnecting all the hoses and cords. I had loaded the bike up Thursday evening so as soon as I hooked the truck onto the Montana we were ready to go.
Traffic through Indianapolis was very heavy coupled with all the road construction they are doing around the "loop" made for a nervous drive. Once we were through the city though, things settled down and I was able to just set the cruise control and relax some.
We decided not to go too far tonight and stopped after a little over 125 miles at the Hollywood Casino in Lawrencenburg Indiana. When the built the Casino they opened it before building a parking garage so they have a huge parking lot up the road from the main casino and they would shuttle all the guests back and forth. The garage has been open for several years now and the parking lot does not get used so that is where the park over sized vehicles. The lot is huge and sits right off the interstate. We arrived around 7pm and the parking lot was virtually empty so we had our choice of spots in the 300 acre paved lot :-).
The signs in the lot have a phone number listed to call for the shuttle. We wanted to go to the casino and have dinner so we called the number and asked for a ride. The shuttle showed up in about 2-3 minutes and picked us up right at our 5th wheel. Now that's service!
We had a nice meal and played some of the penny slots before catching the shuttle back "home".

We have never "boondocked" (going without hook ups) in our Montana. We followed the proper etiquette and didn't set up "camp" by leaving the slides and awning in and the jack up. The weather was a little warm and it would have been nice to have a fan blowing. We both woke up several times in the night but we did get some sleep. I can see where it would be nice to have a generator so we could at least run a fan.

Saturday morning we showered and walked over the Burger King next door and had breakfast before heading back out to the interstate.
We headed south on I-75 and the traffic wasn't too bad. I set the cruise control on 64 and the miles clicked away pretty fast. We only had another 250 miles to Knoxville which would be home for the next week.
The truck did a great job on the trip down and we had no problems. The truck has a "jake brake" which is an engine retardant device that slows you down. Without this these, when going down hill, these big trucks just keep picking up speed. You can adjust the jake brake to keep your speed at a consistent level and don't have to keep using your brakes to slow you down on the downhill grades. With the cruise control set and the jake brake on I can relax and let the trucks computer do most of the work. :-).

We pulled into the Volunteer Family Campground just north of Knoxville in Heiskell, Tn. and stopped to register http://volpark.com/. We didn't even have a chance to get out of the truck when a guy on a golf cart said to follow him to our site and we could come in a register after getting set up. That's not the usual procedure we see at most places but it felt good that they were not just wanting their $$ up front.
We were led to our site which was about the same size as our site at the KOA. We were able to navigate the roads pretty easily with our rig but the sites were not long enough to leave your tow vehicle hooked up. There was not enough room at our site to park the semi so they showed us to the long term storage area and told us we were welcome to park it there.
The park is a Passport America park so we got our site at 1/2 price. When we went to register they had us in a "premium" site and said it was not a "discounted" site because they didn't know we had PA. I reminded them that when we reserved the site we made it very clear that we were PA, they said they had just recently purchased the park and had run into some problems with reservations set up by the previous owners. In the end they gave us our discount but seemed a little miffed that they were losing some income.

We are here to attend "Wing Ding", the national GWRRA motorcycle rally. There are several of our friends camped here with us and we are looking forward to the rally starting Wednesday morning. We will have a few days before the rally to do some riding through the mountains, relax and just enjoy life. I'll keep you posted.

back from "la-la" land

2011-06-26T11:00:00.004-04:00

I flew out Sunday evening to Los Angeles to attend some company training. Rudee dropped me off at the airport in Indianapolis for my evening flight. I was scheduled to arrive around 11pm Pacific time and I figured maybe an hour to collect my bags and get to the motel. Kind of a late night for me but not too bad. That was until we approached our only stop, Denver.
I didn't have to change planes and the stop was only scheduled for 35-40 minutes. I could tell something was up when we kept making slow turns and not loosing any altitude. I could see clouds and occasional lightning below us, Oh Oh! Sure enough they announced we were in a holding pattern because they had closed the airport due to a storm.
We circled for about an hour and was eventually cleared to land. Once on the ground they unloaded and re-loaded the plane quickly. Then we sat, and sat, and sat. They eventually made the announcement we were waiting on connecting flights to arrive and unload because we were 2 passengers short! They held us at the gate for almost 2 hours of course once they finally arrived we had to wait for their luggage to be transferred.
The only good thing about the wait, the thunderstorm was long gone when we took off.
I eventually made it to the motel around 2 am and had to be in the lobby ready to go at 7am. I only unpacked my shower stuff and clothes for the day and hit the sack!

The class was a lot of review for me with a couple of new twists. I really didn't do much outside of class. They only had a few cars assigned to us and I really didn't feel like trying to find my way around in LA traffic to see the sights. Speaking of the traffic, I would hate to try and pull our 5th wheel around on those highways in that mess!

I arrived back in Indiana Friday night after a short delay in, you guessed it, Denver. Rudee was there to pick me up at the airport when I arrived about 20 minutes late. I was sure glad to be back in my little home on wheels again.

I got a nice comment from Kev on my last post and if you wouldn't mind sending me an email I can reply with some info for for you. My email addy is in my profile (click on the link by our photo). Thanks for reading.

Rudee has reached the end of her commitment with her employer and had to pack up all of her office equipment and turn it back into them on Friday morning. She has mixed emotions about this whole turn of events and Friday was hard for her to go around the office and say goodbye to everyone. The rest of her now former team all got together and went to lunch since they were all there turning their stuff in as well. They all kind of helped each other get through the day.

We are planning to leave on Friday for a short vacation. We are traveling down to Knoxville with friends for the week to attend the GWRRA motorcycle rally. We are both looking forward to getting away and relaxing. We are really looking forward to being able to get away "for real" and start our full time "adventure" which is looking closer and closer. I'll keep you posted.

being prepared

2011-06-18T15:44:00.005-04:00

We have still been really busy at work trying to catch up from all the storm damages, enough about that though. I'm sure you don't want to hear, again, about how boring and busy my job is :-).

Speaking of storms, when you live fulltime in a rolling box you need to be prepared for bad weather. We have a weather radio and have a place to flee to should the storm get bad so we thought we were pretty well prepared. Well, we were not, at least until yesterday :-).

My employer gives out "atta boy" points when you do something above and beyond or get a good report from the public and things like that. The points accumulate and you can use them to "purchase" goodies from a catalog.

I had several points built up and decided to do some shopping so this is what I bought:

Not sure we will ever use it but I'm sure the grand kids will get a kick out of it and it didn't cost us anything.

So now, like Noah, we are prepared for the flood, as long as we don't spring a leak :-)!

Rudee and I both have lap tops (actually mine is a netbook) that we use. Wednesday night her Toshiba took a dive and would not come on. All we got was the "black screen of death".

The computer is 4 or 5 years old and has been getting slower and slower the last couple of months. I blamed it on her being on Facebook playing games everyday. I guess I was wrong and there was a more serious issue.

Last night we went to the UPS store to pick up our "yacht" and stopped into Wal Mart to look at laptops. They had a bare bones, bottom of the line, Compaq for under $300. We decided to stop in at Best Buy and see what they had. Big mistake. We headed for the laptops and looked them over. They had the same one as Wal Mart for the same price. We decided to go ahead and get it so asked one of the "kids" that work there to get us one. He kept asking us what we planned on doing with it. We told him we just did a little internet and email type stuff, pretty basic for today's computers. He then started explaining how this computer wouldn't work for us and we needed "dual processors" and a lot of "other stuff". I told him we didn't need that stuff for what we do but he wouldn't let it go so we finally just said forget it and walked out! He just stood there watching us leave when all he had to do was unlock the case and give us the computer we wanted. Hopefully he learned a little life lesson here, or at least maybe he has a topic for his next report in economics class this fall when he goes back to High School :-)

This morning we drove to Lebanon to go to the Post Office and apply for our passports. I had gotten on line and researched the process so we had all the forms filled out, had our birth certificates as well as copies of our drivers license's. We were ready. Unfortunately the camera at the post office wasn't working right so they sent us to the local CVS where we got the photos done and made it back to the Post Office before they closed. We should have our passport cards in 4-6 weeks.

There are 2 types of Passports these days. The traditional book style and the passport card which looks like a drivers license. The card is a lot cheaper but is only good for land or sea travel into Mexico, Bermuda, Canada and The Bahamas.

We doubted that we would ever be flying into or out of any of these countries (or other international countries) so opted for the card and saved a few $$.

Tomorrow I fly to Los Angeles and have a week of training with "Professor Burke" at the "University". The classes end on Friday before noon and I fly back in Friday night. Rudee is dropping me off and picking me up so she will get to spend some time with her family both days since they live just a few miles from the airport.

We are looking forward to our week long vacation coming up. We are going to the GWRRA 'Wing Ding" in Knoxville Tennessee. The rally stars on the 6th of July bit we are arriving the week end before so we can get in some riding in the Smokey Mountains. I'll keep you posted.