Great Florida Visit

We had a great visit with Mom and Dad!! We unloaded our truck early Wednesday morning and headed to Lakeland. We got there a little after nine in the morning. It was wonderful seeing Mom and Dad and Brody got really excited when he saw Zeke! Zeke was happy to be out of the truck and recognized Grandma and Grandpa's house and promptly ran laps through the house with Brody trying to keep up! Sosa also loved seeing Grandma and Grandpa and got along with Brody even better this visit than last.

After a cold beverage (it had to be noon somewhere) Dana headed in for some much needed sleep and Mom and I hit the pool. It had rained the day before so the water was nice and cool. Mom and Dad's friends are all really nice and it was fun talking to them.

When we went back to the house, I put Dad's OSU skin on his pink phone. LOL Later I helped Mom get a photo on her profile for Facebook...it's a really good picture. We had some more pool time while our laundry was in and then opened a bottle of wine. It wasn't too bad, just a little dry for me but Mom liked it . Then we headed to Smoky Bones for dinner. It was DELICIOUS.

After dinner Mom and I convinced Dad to stop at the dollar store so we could shop (that's all we could afford...hee hee) and then headed home. I was then so tired I was in bed at 9!

Panther called us at 8:30 this morning with a load offer. It was picking up at Patrick AFB near Cape Canaveral at 4 in the afternoon and going to Alabama, so we accepted. We headed back to the pool one more time before lunch and then loaded up and left. Dana was completely out of drive hours when we got in yesterday so we had to sit for 24 hours and where better than our parents' house?

So, here we are, on the road again...heading north. We need to be near Nashville by Tuesday for some truck maintenance and then we're going home to move Alex back to Athens. THEN on Sunday we are driving to Lake Milton to visit my favorite aunt and uncles. Then we'll hit the road again.

No pictures this time...the visit was too short. Hopefully we'll be back soon...who knows when......

Miss you already, Mom and Dad!!!

It's been awhile..........

I knew it had been awhile, but didn't realize it's been almost two weeks since I've been on here!! So....back to Denver..we spent the week running short loads around Denver and on Saturday headed to Lodi, near Sacramento, CA. We had an easy run there and it was nice seeing the west in the summer time instead of covered in snow and ice!

We unloaded in CA on Monday morning and found a truck stop. It was in the 90's in the afternoon, but we had trees behind the truck so the dogs and I laid on a blanket in the grass. The breeze was beautiful and we weren't stuck inside the truck! Tuesday morning brought a problem...we were first on the board to get out but our serpentine belt broke. Dana walked to two small repair shops near us but they didn't have one. We started calling Freightliner dealers and they didn't have one...they could have it in a week or the next day for an additonal $20 (kinda weird to pay for expedite freight when that's what you do!). We gave our owner a call for suggestions and it turns out he's orginally from the Sacramento area and still had family there. We found a belt at a Napa store and a friend of our owner's nephew picked it up and drove it down to us.

So now we were third on the board with only about two loads a day going out. Anyway, long story short, we had two loads that didn't pan out and one load offer that weighed more than we could haul. We also decided we like California much better in the winter...it's much greener overall, but we did like seeing all of the crops and vineyards.

Finally on Friday we got a mini....only down to San Jose, but hey, we needed the work. After we unloaded, we headed back to the truck stop and were going to get some dinner (it was 9 pm PDT) and were planning to go to the California state fair the next day. We figured we wouldn't get out til Monday. Five minutes later we got a load offer....we needed to go 810 miles to Seattle, WA to pick up the load and then take it to Greenville, SC. We had to head out immediately to make the pick up time.

So, now here we are in SC, 3600 miles later that we drove in 76 hours. We only stopped for fuel and bathrooms. We fueled the truck, found a parking spot and headed in for breakfast. We didn't even get to order when we got called for another load!! It was a little less than our regular rate, but it's going to Orlando and we can see Mom and Dad and if we're lucky, Scott, Robin and Lexi! We finished breakfast, got a MUCH NEEDED shower and Dana is sleeping. We'll leave soon to load and head out again.

I'm putting my photos in a slide show again...it's just a little easier. I have some more on my phone, but can't find my micro SD card adapter....I hope I didn't wash it!! LOL

Stay tuned and I'll try to get online more often!

Wild Ride

We ran a short load yesterday in Denver just because we had planned to move there anyway for Idleaire and the run paid for our move. No big deal, just 1300 pounds of electrical detonators for explosives out to an explosive manufacturer. It was a pretty ride and we got a "first out," meaning we went to the top of the list of trucks in our area for the next available load.

Around 6 pm we got a call for another fairly short load, going from Denver to Cripple Creek. Have you ever looked at the map for that area? There's really only one main road there and it goes past Pikes Peak, meaning high elevations. What a trip!! We delivered a 4300 pound engine to a gold mine operation. The road was so curvy and narrow that after we delivered at 10 pm local time, we decided to stay there for the night and not drive back down the mountain! We went downhill to Cripple Creek to get something to eat and then some sleep. The elevation at Cripple Creek is 9494 feet and like I said, we went DOWN HILL to get there!!

Cripple Creek is pretty cool....historical gold mine town and the main street is lined with casinos. We were so tired we didn't even hit the quarter slots!! We took a few pictures on the way up and a lot more on the way back to Denver so I'll put them in a slide show. Hope you enjoy them!!

We are back in Denver, loaded with tires going to Costco about 150 miles from here tomorrow morning. Who knows where we'll go from there!! (And that's half the fun!)

Wide open spaces finally!

It's so great to be out of the northeast!! We left Virginia Friday afternoon, headed to Minnesota. We arrived at Camp Ripley in Little Falls, MN in the wee hours of Sunday morning and went into secure hold. The weather was beautiful and we stayed there until Monday morning. We didn't have to run the AC at all, we just opened the windows and back doors and enjoyed the beautiful breeze.



We unloaded there Monday morning and headed for Fort Carson, Colorado. It was an uneventful drive and we enjoyed having open roads, no cities and decent roads and speed limits! We made it to Colorado Springs early this morning and had to wait to unload, but the breeze and the sun rising and shining on the mountains was awesome.



We are now sitting at a small truck stop waiting for a load. It's possible we won't get out until tomorrow, but that's ok. We've had a nap, are getting ready to get a shower. It's supposed to go down into the 60s tonight, so we should be able to sleep good. We're also hoping to catch the Persied meteor showers tonight.

Stay tuned....

You can't fix stupid

And you can't drive in it either!! We've been running MA, CT, NY, NJ and now Virginia all week. I swear, the roads are horrible, the people are rude and it's dirty most places.

The high point of our week was delivering equipment for a Paul McCartney concert to Fenway Park in Boston. Kinda cool. Boston isn't as bad for driving as NYC but still isn't Dallas!

We then delivered bullet-proof windshields for Navy ships to the shipyard where they are buildig the ship. Next was some moulding to Bloomingdale's. You just never know what we're going to haul. Right now we are sitting in Virginia waiting to get loaded and finally heading west of the Mississippi. I'll update you after delivery!!