Sci Fi Story

I'm still in Deadhorse. Staying at the company camp for the next couple of days. The camp is situated on the main road east-west not only through Deadhorse, but also across the entire Prudhoe Bay area. There are a couple of roads which parallell Spine Road in town, but out of town it is the only road. All other roads outside of town go from drilling sites to the Spine Road.

Anyways, I was sitting there at the camp when a security vehicle came to a stop outside of our front doors. The guards were flagging vehicles to make room for a drilling rig. The drilling rigs are enormous, and fill the entire two lane road. They must be escorted by a group of three security vehicles, which prevent traffic from encountering the rig on the road. All traffic is diverted. Its hard to comprehend the size of these rigs. Imagine a three story building 20 yards wide and 45 yards long with a 120 foot derrick tower on top. They travel very slowly, and turn even slower.

We had a good laugh when the receptionist came out to see what we were looking at, and she thought that the rig was a building that had always been there. It took us awhile to convince her it was moving.