Chappy Trails : Activities on First Gate

We don’t have internet out here on the gate, so I’m writing the blog post throughout the week and then drive into Tilden to publish it.

Sunday we spent the day and night staying up with the permanent gate guards here to get trained before they take off in the morning for a 2 1/2 week vacation to go home to Montana for the holidays. They use an iPad on this gate, so it was learning the form …not hard, just lots of steps.

Monday-Wednesday was learning the tricks and solving the problems with the iPad. We met the two different ranch owners on this property…friendly and nice. Jim went to find the garbage wagon and it took him 20 minutes there and 20 minutes back.

Thursday Jim got up early so I could get to sleep and then wake and go into Pleasanton to meet with other lady gate guards for lunch. There were 15 of us and it was really nice. We swapped stories, locations and comments on life as a gate guard. I had a good time. It seems most of the ladies and their husbands do this full time with only short breaks during the year. That’s too much for us. Three or four months is plenty.

Linda Mossman was there along with Monica Ray, who worked with us at Brainard Recreation Area the summer of 2013. She and Rick are gate guarding pretty close to us. Here is my second selfie. Still can’t seem to master looking at the camera and clicking all at the same time.

Friday we were informed that there is a drilling rig coming in this weekend, so told to hold-on, it was going to get busy.

The permanent gate guards here thought it had been postponed to mid-January….things change. Some of the equipment came in Friday.

Saturday Jim and Linda came out to visit as yet another gate was closed on them…this time after only two days. Jim and I are so grateful they are so close to us.

I asked one of the ranch hands is we could borrow a shovel so Jim could dig out some of the dirt around the outside grey/black tank first receptacle (I don’t know the proper term) as it was too high and you know what doesn’t go up hill.

Instead Scotty brought over a bob cat and dug out a spot for us…pretty nice.

A Goodyear repairman came by to bring in a new tire and he had the cutest double dappled miniature wiener dog (can’t properly spell dash hound). He is white with black and white spots and also brown and white spots.

Sunday started off with a bunch of drilling equipment coming in and it didn’t stop until after 7 p.m. Up and down, up and down all day long in and out of the chair to bring in and check out traffic. These are pieces of the drilling derrick which are huge!

Monday and Tuesday we continued with a lot of incoming traffic. Jim said Saturday we had 250 to 300 vehicles come in the gate…of course, they had to be checked OUT as well. Sunday and Monday we had about 150 each day. It took both Jim and I to run the gate with Jim using the iPad and I wrote down the license plate numbers of the outgoing traffic.

The hardest part is just trying to cook meals and get something to eat. One day we just grabbed peanut butter sandwiches and heated leftovers, eating separately as someone had to be outside.

It slows done after 7 p.m. so I usually have a quieter night than Jim has during the day. I’ve been knitting most of the night usually finishing a project each night…mostly hats.