The Last Gate Before Leaving Texas

 

Before heading north for the summer we decided to do one last gate guard job.  We waited in Medina Thousand Trails RV park.  This time of the year, a lot of people are heading back up north so we thought we would find a job pretty easy.  But, we were wrong.  There didn't seem to be anything available.  I called about 10 different companies and we just waited and waited.  Our first call was for a 12 hour gate.  This is one where you don't take your rv and you work out of your vehicle.  They are usually pipe line gates and they are short term.  The short term didn't bother us because we didn't want to work that long anyways.  We were not sure how working out the Jeep was going to work.  The first thing I asked was where you go to the bathroom.  They bring in port-a-pots.  So there was one thing I didn't have to worry about.   I just didn't want to have to use the bushes.  So we took the job.



Me working the gate.

Since we didn't take the rv to the site, we had to find a place to park it.  I looked on the internet and found several places in Cotulla, Texas, which is where we were going to be.  The company didn't know the exact spot but said when they got more information they would let us know.  Well the place we picked was 3.8 miles from the gate.  I considered that a "God thing".  It was so nice being close.

This was the road to our gate.  We had 2 miles of this
everyday.  There were a few spots we wouldn't have
made it without 4 wheel drive.

The more the road was traveled the looser the dirt became and
the harder it was to drive.

Ed closing the gate.  The only problem was I was on one side and he is on the
other side.    I was just waiting for him to catch it and he didn't
until he had it closed.  It was a long day, anyway that was his excuse. 

Our first day on the job we found out we had to wear hard hats and jump suits.  The first couple of weeks weren't bad but the last couple the temperature was in the 90's so they were very uncomfortable.  If you have never worn one, you can't imagine how hard they are getting off to go to the bathroom.  You struggle and struggle to get the arm off.  Than being in the port-a-johns, you don't have any room.  When I first started, I found my sleeve in the urinal, another time down the toilet. (Thank God it wasn't full, but it still seemed nasty).  So after that I tucked my sleeves inside the suit and when I was putting it back on I made sure the toilet seat was closed, and I stood sideway to keep it out of the urinal.

This was our corner, when they put the gate up we were able to
move into the corner, thus getting a little farther away from the johns. 

Don't we look official.  When the temperature hit 90, these suits are extremely hot.
The soil really isn't this red, must have been the sun or camera.

 

When, the job started they didn't even have a gate there.  The rancher wanted the guard there on the first day so we just sat there and watch them build the gate.  Now a 12 hour gate can be manned by one person but we decided to do it together.  That way one person can go to the bathroom, eat or take a nap and not worry about the gate. 

This is the machine that cleared the land.  Amazing to watch.

 

The area they were clearing.  The chipper is behind the tree

The chipper just runs right over the tree and chops it up.



The land being cleared of trees and brush.

How many men does it take to put up a gate.  There were so many times
there were so many people standing around while a couple men worked.

 This was an unusual gate because the rancher wanted every vehicle coming on his property to be washed off.  He didn't want any contaminates from somewhere else coming on his property.  Not quite sure how he kept the wind from blowing it over, but they had to appease him so they set up a wash station.  When they started they were washing the vehicles about 20 to 25 minutes.  By the time they were done they were taking about 2 minutes.

This was the platform into the gate.

The guy in the gray hat was the boss.  It was funny to watch him.
He was right there watching them and a few times he even
took the sprayer away from them and did the washing himself.  So many times
he was right there taking over.

They took some big machines in .

They had to wash them down from front to back.

When we got there Ed set up our easy up tent. There were some days in the 90's so the jeep got pretty hot, so it was nice sitting outside esp. if we had a breeze.  We were told we would work from 6 am to 6 pm.  But it ended up being 7am to 7 pm.  But there were days we were able to get off early.  I think there was one day we worked until 7:30.  But most of the time it was between 5:30 and 6.

We have thought about whether we would do this again, and we came to the conclusion we are not sure.  lol The pros about it are you only have to work 12 hours and make the same amount of money.  Which means you are only dealing with traffic for 12 hours. We get to spend the evenings together and not pass each other in the hallway while one is going to bed.  Also there were days we didn't even work 12 hours.  Those were nice.  Also sitting outside on the days it wasn't extremely hot, was nice.  It was like sitting in a park eating lunch.  The cons about it was we had to drive to the site every morning, even though it was only 4 miles.  I had to pack a lunch every day, and that had to be enough to last us 12 hours.  Wearing the jump suits weren't fun.  I don't know if that is required on all pipe lines.  Since they are short term gates, you could end up losing a long term one while working it.

We had some cows come to visit us on a regular basis.   It was sad when we heard one fell in the pipeline trench.  It happened at night so the next morning when they found her, she was dead.  Plus she was with calf.  I heard they had to pay the rancher $20,000.  They also found some wild hogs in the trench but it didn't kill them.  They put in some planks and let them out.

The little ones were very curious

Notice the burro in the middle.

The were very friendly

 Well we are done and heading our way back up north.  Plan on taking our time and being there in June.  We are meeting up with the kids at a Thousand Trails Park in Tennessee.  Looking forward to that.

We visited my sister and husband.  This was the morning we went to
church.  They must have all been on the same page because
they all had on orange.  Dave and Ed's shirt was the same shirt.
We both shop Sam's Club. haha

 

Happy Trails.   Love Ed and Lyn

Carlsbad, New Mexico

We stayed at an Escapees park called The Ranch.   I called several parks closer to the caverns and they were $39 a night.   So even though it was  further away we decided to go with the Escapees park.   It was $14 a night but we decided to just dry camp since we were only going to stay 2 nights.    It's $5 a night and they gave us the first night free so it only cost us $5 for the 2 nights.  They have a big area for dry camping so we didn't have to unhook the trailer.

On the way to the caverns we saw a road up the side of the hill.  We decided to follow it just to see where it went.  It just kept going up and up.  Seemed like a long way but it was just a mile. 




This was coming back down the road

when we got to the top, there was an oil container

This was looking out over the valley

We got to the Park and it was almost 5 miles  back to the cavern. There were a few places to pull off for a scenic look but otherwise it's just a drive there.

Driving back to the Cavern



you can see there is not much here but hills and road

 

These were pretty, don't know if they had this color
or if it's just the camera

Still more of the road leading up to the cavern

Some of the pictures have a lot of color or it's looks like there are bright lights.  That's because I had to lighten the pictures with the computer because the pictures were so dark.  So it was actually a lot darker in the cave than it appears in the pictures. 

This was called the "totem pole"





 

one of the formations, there were so many





These are almost ready to meet
Stalagmite, Ed remembers this by "mighty strong
from the bottom up"



 

Columns

Ice Crystals, the colors were not there, that is the camera

Stalactite, Ed said he remembers this by " they have to be tight
to hang to the ceiling"



Looks like an ice cave

 

this was a fat one

thought you might like an illustration

This one still had water dripping on it, also had
a space under it

The place was big

We really enjoyed the Cavern.   It is just a big room with a walkway all the way around it.  It's the first one we have ever went in that we didn't have a tour guide.  So we were able to walk at our own pace.  There were places to sit down and rest or stop and take pictures.  The distance around was 1 and 1/2 miles.  There was a lower level that is still being explored but it is not open to the public. 

As you can see it's big, like being on another planet



There was so much to see, it was nice not having to stay
with a guide

So many different formations

 

 

 

One of the best caves we have been in

 

This goes down to the lower level, this is
the ladder that the explorer  used
to go down to that level

Not a very good picture but this is the way the people use to come
in to the cave and also leave the cave.  Now they have an elevator
and a very nice walk way

We were told when we got our ticket that the line at the elevators are very long in the evening, so the woman suggested we take the elevator down and walk out.  So not knowing the details we decided to do that.  Maybe we should have known since when you go in, you go down, thus the walk out would be up.  Duh!  The walk up was 1 and 1/4 mile and it was up.  As we were going up, people were coming down.  They were saying things like, "you still have a long way to go" and "we really admire you for deciding to walk out."   We had no idea what we were getting into.  If it hadn't been for the railing, which I used to pull myself up, I don't think I could have made it. 

Around and around we went

When we saw the light we thought we were close

We still had a long way to go, still more levels

We had heard about the flight of the bats in the evening.  But the bats are in Mexico at this time so we didn't get to see it.  When we got to the opening we thought we were seeing the bats but they are cave swallows. 

One of them found Ed

He was at the wrong place

people sit here to watch the bats come out of the cave
in the evening, called the
"flight of the bats"

Ed collapses

We were in the cave about 4 hours, walking about 3 miles.  You can see we took our time.  We had a good time and really enjoyed it. 

This is the cave

This is the big room

This shows the winding path coming out.

We are back at Medina Lake, a Thousand Trails park.  We have decided to gate guard a few months before we start heading back up north. 

Happy Trails    Ed and Lyn