Our Final Night in Odessa

Well, it's finally happened, we're free to go. The final part arrived at 1 pm and it was installed within 45 minutes. Test drove the RV and it's like a new machine. Very happy with the result. Although the repairs were unexpected and expensive, it didn't cost as much as last year. Here is a picture of the replaced pipe along with some shots of the holes. Amazing those small holes could keep us from getting full power.

We had three things we wanted to accomplish before we left: fuel up, dump our tanks, and get the RV washed. We thought that we'd start with the wash and go from there as each place we needed to go was across the street from each other. We sat at number 16 in the line at Blue Beacon (the truck and RV wash) for 50 minutes and only moved three truck lengths, so when we got to the"last chance to exit" road we left. We had to get everything done and back to Cummins to pay for the repairs before 5pm when they closed.  If we couldn't pay we'd have to stay the entire weekend. So we went across the street to Love's, fueled up and dumped the tanks. When we were done, we looked across the street at the line and if we had stayed we would still be number 8 in line. But two out of three ain't bad. We'll check the wash in the morning, and if there is a long line we will try in El Paso.

Here is a shot of the blue sky in Odessa and what gets pumped into the sky, pretty much all night and day.

Here are two pictures of a "small" fracking machine. (I had to blackout the company name before posting).

It cost $1.2 million dollars, and the company uses almost a dozen of them at once when fracking. (Fracking is the process of injecting liquid at high pressure into subterranean rocks, boreholes, etc. so as to force open existing fissures and extract oil or gas.) 

Cummins creates the engine for them and they are maintained here. This one is a 50 liter engine. They currently have 78 and 96 liter engines. The newest one they are creating is 120 liters. Here are some stats on this "small fracker". Then project what the larger ones are capable of.

50 liter engine

Uses 120 gallons of coolant

Uses 154 gallons of oil (see the two 50 gallon drums in the picture)

Operates at 1900 RPM

Is 16 cylinders (equivalent to 16 of the engines in our RV)

Produces 2850 horse power with 7000 pounds of torque.

WOW!!