Not the Best Day Gate Guarding -- Mon., June 25

Cotulla, Texas:

The tables have turned. Bob used to have all the traffic on day shift. For the past three days/nights the night shift traffic has exceeded the day traffic. I've had many tankers coming and going to Pad B. 

Pad B ground to a halt late tonight. There is no wind so they can't fill the tankers. Three tankers that arrived earlier are camping out on the road until the wind picks up. (Update Tuesday, 1:15 a.m.: The wind must have picked up as the tankers are now loading up.)

Just found out today that Pad A goes into production tomorrow. Tonight they've been bringing in huge tanks and a big command center, tarps, and lights. Tomorrow morning Bob is going to be a busy man.

For the past four days our site has had H2S gas releases and the red flag has been up continuously. We are downwind and downhill from the releases so it comes right at us. Our throats and eyes hurt. The inside of our 5er smells horrible when we come in from outside. With no breeze, I can't open the windows to air the 5er out. What to do? What to do? This is not good.

Weather: The temperature today was 102. Our air conditioners are working hard to keep indoors 78 degrees. The next few days are supposed to be hotter.

Black water tank: We don't know what happened, but the company that is supposed to empty our black water tank every other week quit coming. The company used to come automatically. For the past two cycles we've had to call our supervisor to make sure they send someone out to empty it.

The refrigerator: Absolutely no clue what's wrong with the fridge. Bob noticed today that the food didn't seem cold. The display panel on the front had a symbol that looked like a lower case n. We looked it up in our owner's manual. The manual instructions said to turn the refrigerator off and turn it back on, which we did. It seemed to be getting colder, but when I checked it a few minutes ago only the top shelf is cold. The rest of the refrigerator is warm. The freezer, on the other hand, seems normal.  Hmmm. I'm going to try repacking and rearranging the fridge. Maybe the cold isn't circulating properly.

What was good about today, you may ask. 

1. I had enough sleep.
2. Our mail came on time from our mail forwarding service.
3. We had tostadas for dinner. Mmmmm.
4. Not very many bugs rode in on me tonight.
5. The gate kept me busy.
6. We saw sable antelope grazing at the ranch across the road.
7. The scissor-tail flycatcher is now one of the regulars at our generator bird buffet. Hopefully it will be back tomorrow and will let me take a picture. It's skittish.
8. I finished reading "One Ranger: A Memoir," by H. Joaquin Jackson. Imagine a Texas Ranger tracking killers and thieves through the Texas brush, hear the stories and history of the Texas Rangers, their code of honor, and learn about their lives and their weapons...that is what this book is all about. Bob said it's almost like reading Ann Rule true crime books. Both of us enjoyed the walk back in time to a different era.
9. Hershey's Kisses milk chocolate is melting on my tongue.
10. It's cool inside, but I already mentioned that didn't I?
11. Had fun playing with the cats.

Oh, I forgot to mention. Last night Bob got up at midnight to run/walk for two hours. He's training for the Honolulu Marathon in December. At midnight it was 92 degrees. By the time he returned at 2:00 a.m. it was 86. Ugh!