Short note

I just wanted to add some pics I took in the Poconos yesterday....

Also, we delivered in Massachusetts last night, so we got to take another state off our list!!

Semper Fi

Meet Pvt. Matthew Mair, USMC. Matt is the son of Mr. & Mrs. Joe Elliott of Loraine, OH. We met Joe one year ago this month at truck driving school and count him among our good friends. (We haven't had the pleasure of actually meeting Mrs. Joe yet LOL).

Matt just completed basic training at Parris Island, SC and we want to thank him for volunteering to serve and protect our great country.

Another hero has stepped forward.

Enough is Enough

Enough of NJ already!! We loaded Monday at McGuire AFB with two stops. One was north in PA and the other south in MD. We drove across the flight line to get loaded.

We headed north (as directed) and arrived only to be told that because our truck was loaded not only with their explosives but also with larger explosives for the other base, that we could not enter the base for delivery. Um, you'd think someone would have known this and planned better, but hey, we're paid to drive, not think, so we called dispatch and awaited plan B.

Plan B: proceed to second base in MD, unload and return to shipper. Ok. We made it to MD, and since we were past open hours, we had to put our truck into secure hold. This base does not allow you to stay with your truck so the police drove all four of us to the local Super 8. My first ride in the back of a police car!!! Whoo hoo! At least we had a shower, TV, and a nice clean, cool room. The next morning brought my (hopefully) last ride in the back of a police car back to base to unload.

We unloaded and headed back to McGuire wondering why they didn't have us just return to PA to unload, but again, we aren't paid to think. We arrived to the bewilderment of the transportation department who also asked why we didn't just return to PA. Our answer, "we just go where dispatch tells us." They understood. Now, the question was....do we keep the load, unload, or what? We needed fuel and really didn't want to spend the night in secure hold (we preferred to go to the local truck stop for a good meal at the restaurant and to use Idleaire * instead of having to idle the truck all night for a/c.

*Idleaire is a system you may have seen at truck stops with long yellow tubes that hang down from a scaffold structure and provides heat or a/c as well as satellite tv, internet connection and phone service. It's cheaper to pay for that than idle the truck and its also better for the engine.

Finally a decision was made to unload us and have us return the next morning to reload and go to PA. We hit the truckstop, had a good dinner, slept well and now we are back at McGuire waiting to load. The security police at the truck inspection station at the gate told us we should buy a house nearby since this was our third day in a row going through inspection.

Meantime, I caught Sosa being cool:

Quick update

Just an update....we spent a quiet weekend in Wisconsin. The Cheese festival was a couple miles from us in Colby, WI but we didn't attend. It just sounded a little cheesy. LOL We did hear about some of the planned events like the cheese curd toss and the tractor run..you know like a poker run on motorcycles...they use tractors.

Anyway, the weather was beautifully mild and so we cleaned the truck and just relaxed. We picked up a load last night and delivered this morning to the Dana Corp in Lima, OH. We are now sitting in line at the truck wash. Genie just got an oil change and now she needs her monthly bath. We are then going to head to the house to pick up mail and shower.

Here are the pictures I promised:

What a week!

Well, we have had a busy week! Monday we left Nashville and headed for Detroit. Monday night was Detroit to Chicago and Tuesday was Chicago back to Detroit. We headed to a truck stop in Ann Arbor (you know how we feel about that!!!) After a much needed shower, we came out of the building to see the "Girls Gone Wild" bus in the fuel lane. Everybody was snapping pictures and asking the driver where the girls were. What a job!!! LOL

Wednesday afternoon we loaded in Detroit again to head to Alabama and had to reroute due to the explosion on Interstate 75. You may have seen footage on the news of the tanker truck that crashed and exploded. We could see the smoke from 10 miles north of the accident and had to exit I-75 about a mile north of it. We had to drive through the residential neighborhood trying to find our way around back to the interstate south of the accident. The residents didn't like the trucks going through their neighborhood and the police were too busy to help with rerouting. It was not fun. Here are our pictures:




We made it to Alabama and delivered early even with our issues at the beginning. We got a nap and then a load offer. We headed to west Georgia, toward Atlanta to pick up a load going to a suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota. We made the 1150 trip in 24 hours and 5 minutes, delivering 1 hour and 15 minutes early. Talk about tired!!


We saw the Mall of America while driving through Minneapolis and thought about visiting but we were the fifth truck on the board and they only get about three loads a day so we accepted a paid move to Wausau, Wisconsin and headed east.

We made a stop in Eau Claire for supper. We went to the Green Mill Restaurant and had a delicious dinner. We hit the road again to move to the board area we needed and found a truck stop where we could spend the night and be the first truck on the board. We figure we won't get out until Monday, but that's ok. We've now moved to a bigger truck stop (although sparsley populated compared to what we are used to) this morning, got a shower and I've got the laundry in now. They only have two washers and two dryers compared to the one in NJ where I did laundry last...they had eight of each! They do have a nice lounge with satellite TV and clean recliners so I don't mind the laundry taking a couple of hours. I'm also using their internet and enjoying typing on a desktop with a regular keyboard for a change. Sure don't miss doing this 8-12 hours a day, though!!

Stay tuned!!! I'll try to get the pic of the GGW bus loaded from my phone to here for you.

So, there's a mexican restaurant next door so I believe that will be where we have dinner tonight.

Hot Hazy Humid Summer Days

Well, it's been almost two weeks since I last wrote....so here goes.

We ended up outside Pittsburgh on July 2nd and knew we wouldn't move during the holiday so we headed home since we were only a little over an hour away. On the 4th we headed out to visit Mom and Dad Clark for Mom's birthday. We had a great visit with them, as well as Melissa and Randy, Jack and Juanita and Elouise. Even Schultzie finally made up with me...what a cutie; here's a picture:

We got a load offer Monday to leave Tuesday and ran a few short runs between Indiana, Cincinnati, Kentucky and Alabama and landed in Nashville on Friday. Freight seems to be running slow so we figured we would sit all weekend so we spent Saturday afternoon downtown Nashville. It was fun to just wander in and out of all the shops and drinking establishments. One of the shops had a little Charlie Daniels museum.

Alex, do you remember going to this Hooters after trying out for Jeopardy?

So today, we found a Walmart and did our grocery shopping and came back to the truck stop to watch movies and the thunderstorms.

Happy Birthday, Olivia!!