2016 Has Started Out Good.

We left a gate  the first week in January and headed to Mission, Texas.  We planned on staying there a month so I could spend time with my sister, Thela.  There is not much to do in Mission. It's where the snow birds hang out in the winter.  So one day Thela and I decided to go to some local museum.  They were small but we enjoyed them.  We left the husbands at home.  Not something they wanted to do.

The rv park at Thela's has an orange grove.  We went out to
pick oranges.  The whole line of trees were bare except
2 trees at the end.  We picked quite a few.  When we
got home and cut them, found out they were grapefruit.
Neither one of us like grapefruit.  

Ed was impressed with this horseshoe,  Although this does go into
someone's house.  But you know Ed, he just had to have a
picture.  I'm glad they weren't around.

Quinta Mazatlan, adobe mansion plus
nature and birding center.  They had
trails but we didn't walk any.  It was
cold and rainy

beautiful building, developers wanted to
demolish it and put something else here

Was a residence at one time, can't imagine
it as a home but is was beautiful.

Can't imagine anyone tearing this down

we enjoyed the walk thru

I don't know if you can tell how uneven
the tiles are.  We stayed at a place here
in Mission that the bathroom was tiled like
this.  I thought it was just a bad job, guess it
was done this way on purpose.  lol

Thela, Linda

This was at the Texas Natural history museum
Small but we enjoyed it

Texas Natural history museum

Thela asked if I wanted to do this.  I thought we
both were going to do it, she opted out.  You
 were suppose to line the picture up with the
background,  We didn't quite do that.

This was the setting, well at least we got
part of the background in.

After Mission we headed over to Port Isabel, Texas for a month.  This move was so I could hang out with my other sister, Stella.  At least in Port Isabel, Ed could fish.  Plus we paid a little more to be on the canal, so we had a nice spot.

Ed relaxing and fishing.  Can't get any better than this.
Well it could, he could have caught some fish.  haha

This was in behind the Motor Home, nice dock.
There weren't any fish in canal.

This was on the opposite side, but this was how close
we were to the canal.

This is the beach on South Padre Island.

There was a bar just above this.  They had
live music, so people just came here to
hang out and listen to the music.

They had a kite festival, very nice.  Never been to
one before.  Amazing how many types of kites and
what people can do with them.

Was told this was brought all the way from China,  They are
going to scrap it out.  Sat and watch it one day for about an
hour.  The barges below were moving it back and forth,
but from what we could tell, it never went anywhere.

A month later we are heading back to San Antonio, Texas to gate guard.  They  said there was one other guard ahead of us, so  we thought we better head up that way.  We stay in J & G's yard when we are waiting for a gate, so it saves us money.  We were there for 2 weeks before we got a gate.  So we have been here since March 10th.  We are going on our 6th week and not sure when we will be released.

This is where we stay when we are in the "yard".  See the
overhanging tree limb.  Ed knows to watch for it, but there
was another one down a little ways he didn't know about.
He hit it coming in, took our our horn and cover over
the fan in the bathroom.  He had to duct tape the opening.
 Guess we will have them
fixed when we get to Elkhart.  

This has been one of our best gates.  They have a nice pad for us so we didn't have to deal with mud or getting stuck.  They started out fracking, which lasted about 8 days.  But they pipe in the water so all we had to deal with was sand trucks.  One of the things we thought was going to be horrible but it wasn't that bad.   They did a couple of other things and for the last week they have been taking out equipment.  This weekend we have been running about 20 vehicles a day.  We are spoiled.  They have one more well to frack but if they don't do it we will probably be released in a few days.  Just not sure.  That's just one thing about this job, you just don't know what you will be doing from day to day.  You just go with the flow.  Sometimes that is easy and sometimes not.

This is a buzzard, a really ugly bird but when
they soar, they are beautiful.

One of the two road runners that visit us every day.  They
throw the bugs up and catch them.  Thought it was neat I was
able to get this shot.

Was told they are very friendly birds.  One guy said he has a couple
in his back yard and they will jump up in his lap.    These aren't
quite that friendly, but they do get pretty close to us.

These are the scissor tail birds, about half the
size of the road runners.   They are really pretty.

This is our spot.  Just about perfect.  We did have to come
down a couple of dirt roads  to get here.  With the rain
one of the roads has a couple of deep ruts in it.  Hoping
we don't have any trouble when it comes time to leave.

Well, there is our life in the last 4 months.  We will be heading home to Indiana when this gate is done.

 Actually I feel blessed.  We were able to spend the winter in Texas away from the cold and the snow.  I was able to spend time with both sisters and we also made a little money.  Life is good.

Ed and Lyn

Working Our Last Gate For 2015

We should be leaving this gate in about 1 week or less.   After having been on this gate for 2 months, we are ready for a break.  Originally we were planning on going to Quartsite, Arizona but now I think we are heading south to Mission, Texas to hang out with my sisters.  Well, actually Thela is in Mission and Stella is in Port Isabelle.  I think 80 miles separates them.  Than in February we will come back and gate guard for 2 or 3 months before heading back north. Well, so now you know our itinerary.

Me, taking a nap

I have never been one to wear hats, but I'm starting
too.  Ed had me turn it backwards for the picture.

This is our rig at night.  Reminds me of an
apartment building only skinny.

This gate has been a fairly good gate, as gates go.  Since we started working for J & G Security, most of our gates have been  busy gates.  The traffic on this one has been steady but not overly busy.  The worse part is we have to shut the gate at dark.  They have deer in here and the company man said he thought it should be shut.  At first we thought we were going to have to shut it all the time but later it was agreed upon to shut it only at night.

Isn't he pretty and no Ed hasn't
been hunting

We have 2 males but he is the larger one

This is in front of the MH.  We have  4
females that hang out here and sometimes
the males

And we also have the cows but they are across
the road

This is the walk to the gate.  At night it seems a long way

When we first got here the weather was pretty nice.  It was nice enough to sit outside during the day.  We are both up from 12 to 5 pm.  So we can sit outside and just relax and usually take turns checking in the trucks.  But after several weeks the weather turned cold and rainy.  Makes for long days.  I have had two really bad rain storms in the early morning hours when I took over.  The mats outside our door blew away,  Ed eventually nailed them down.  The wind gusts in one storm was so strong, I was surprised Ed was able to sleep.  It was probably some of the strongest we have been in.  Well maybe except for our first year.  We were in a popup camper and the wind was so strong, I thought we were going to fly away.  Stella said we could have came over to her place. Being that it was a fifth wheel, how much safer would that  have been?  I told her if we had left the ground I would have been coming.  Although I think the bath house might have been a safer place to be.

Our first year.  We had so much stuff in there Ed had
to get on top so we could latch it down.  lol  

Well, last night was another cold, rainy night.  I think the rest of the week is suppose to be nice.  I hope so.   This morning I got a visit from a dog named Bruce.  He belongs to one of farm houses near here.  They came by here a couple of weeks ago in an atv, that's how I know his name.  So I went out and gave him a treat and took his picture.  Well that was probably a mistake because he comes walking in the gate and I don't know how to get rid of him.  Giving him the treat didn't help.  Right after that I get a truck and Bruce follows him all the way down the road barking and running around the truck.  I hope the guy didn't think he was mine.  Plus the sign outside the gate says "no dogs allowed."  They don't want them chasing the deer.  I didn't know how he was going to get out because the fence is all the way around the property.  He eventually did come out, for which I was thankful.  I stayed in the rv because I didn't want to encourage him to stay.

Bruce, very pretty dog

Well everyone have a MERRY CHRISTMAS and A  HAPPY NEW YEAR.


Ed and Linda Gillespie

Where Have We Been?

Can't believe that summer is over.  After the gate we headed to Virginia.  Met up with the kids at Ed's sister Carm.  We had a great time.

By a water falls in Shenandoah State Park

Going was easy, it was downhill, coming back was really hard

Everybody had a great time

enjoying a water park

"The Gillespie family" well sort of, some of
them are Lehman's plus one friend.

We even had time for games.  

We picked up this girl in town at the post office.  She came in to
pick up a package and was going to hitch hike back to the
park.  She was part of a Veteran's group that were hiking
the Appalachian Trail.   

A neat tunnel in the Park

We park at a friend of Carm's.  We did this the last time with no problem but this time he had us park on the grass.  The last night we were there it poured all night.  As soon as Ed tried to pull out we sank in the mud.  What a sinking feeling as you see your tires up to the rim in mud.

This is what the yard looked like after we got out.
We had to call a tow truck.

Than Ed tangled with a boulder.  Another sinking feeling.  More like horror as I stood there and watched him run over it.  When he finally stopped it was up underneath the motor home.

Rock under coach

At first we weren't sure how we were going to get it out.

This happened with the tire.

We used the motor home back jack to lift up the rear and than
put a strap around rock and pulled out with the Jeep.  This
was the tow truck drivers idea.  But realized later we should have
used both jacks.  This make the windshield lose it's seal.  

 After the tow truck guy got us off the rock and we started down the road, Ed realized there was rain coming in through the windshield.  When he jacked up the rear end of the motor home, he only did one side and it made the windshield come out of the seal and caused a gap.  At least it didn't break it.


That evening we had a blow out on the inside back tire.  We figure the rock must have punctured the tire and made it blow.  After waiting several hours, our road side service, Coach Net, was able to bring us a new tire and put it on.  The service call was free but the tire cost $800.  It was a week end so you take what they can find.

What a split

 We got to Elkhart and called the insurance company.  Found out we had vanishing deductible so no out of pocket expense  We had a tire hazard warranty on the tires and they paid for the tire.  We were thinking maybe the repairs would take about a month to do.  Wow, were we wrong.  It took a month to get the bay doors and side panel from Tiffin and another  5 weeks to get the repairs done.  We have spent the whole summer in Elkhart.  Our original plans were to go to South Dakota.  We were going to do some site seeing and hopefully some gold digging.  Oh well, we are trying to be flexible and go with the flow.

side looks good.

Well the motor home is looking good, my only complaint was how long it took.

While we were in Elkhart, we were able to get solar panels on.  This is something we have been wanting to do for some time.  When we first started traveling, we were told solar would cost about 5 to 6 thousand and that you would never recoup your cost.  Ed did it himself with the help of a friend for a little under 3 thousand and there is a tax rebate on it right now.  So that was at least something we got accomplished while in Elkhart.

So here we are, heading back to Texas.  I wanted to get there before October, so we could work a gate before heading to Arizona.   Still trying to be flexible.  


Safe Travels and see you around.


:Love Ed and Lyn