Heading back east

So I spoke too soon....our Texas odyssey is over for now. We picked up our load at Fort Sill, OK and headed south to Temple, TX. It was a decent drive, only a little stormy along the way. If you ever wonder where we are, just watch the national weather and where it's bad...we've either just been there, are on the way there or are there! We now refer to ourselves as Chaos and Mayhem! We were in most all the bad winter weather, so I don't know why we thought summer would be any different!! LOL

Anyway, we delivered our load and headed to Texarkana to meet another truck the next morning. We escorted that truck to Oklahoma on Tuesday. Along the way, we stopped for a bathroom break and it started raining cats, dogs and small ponies. I got soaked to the skin getting back across the lot from the bathroom to the truck and had to change clothes completely before driving again! I told you we attract extreme weather!!

Dana commented the other day that we needed a load to Georgia; we hadn't been there in awhile. I replied that we needed one to Florida because I hadn't seen my parents in over a year. We got just that...both! A load offer came through while driving to Oklahoma asking if we would drive back to Fort Worth to load and go to Marietta, GA. We said yes immediately. Then a message came across that if it was ok with us, they wanted to add another stop after Marietta and it was in Florida. Hell yess!!! So, we are on the road to Georgia, scheduled to deliver on Thursday morning and then on to Florida to deliver Friday morning.

We made a stop after crossing the Mississippi River to change drivers and the rest area/welcome center had such a beautiful view I had to share:




See you in a couple days, Mom and Dad!!

Establishing residency

Just kidding, but we do seem to be spending some significant time in Texas. Mind you, we are NOT complaining!! We like Texas. We headed out last Wednesday after a few days at home doing yardwork. We picked up a load in Columbus and headed to Kentucky. Nice short run to get back in the groove. The next morning we picked up a load in Elizabethtown, KY and headed south to Arlington, TX, which is a suburb of Dallas/Fort Worth. It was a pretty easy drive getting warmer and more humid as we moved south.

We were scheduled to deliver at 9 am but arrived and delivered about 4 am, and found ourselves a spot at the closest truck stop so we could get some sleep. (I think we took the last open spot!) About 7:30 we got a call to go to Shreveport, LA to recover a load and bring it back to Arlington, so...off we went.

Getting the load picked up wasn't too bad....getting it delivered was MISERABLE. Apparently the company has moved but it's vendors keep shipping loads to the old address. It took 2 1/2 hours of multiple phone calls to get it straightened out and get us a few miles away to the right address. Talk about two unhappy drivers!! Anyway, we headed towards a truck stop but stopped at a WalMart with a Chili's next door. We had a good dinner, cold refreshments and retired to the truck to sleep well. We had already accepted a new load for pickup on Monday in Oklahoma, so we knew the weekend was ours.

Today we watched intense weather come in and experienced our first hail storm in the truck. What a trip!!! LOL It was so freaking loud!! At least it has cooled off and we can have the windows open for awhile instead of having to run the air.

Dana took some pictures after one round of storms....

We're bringing sunshine east!

Well, we're back at our regular Cheyenne truck stop. We feel like regulars and even the dogs seem to recognize it! We picked up our load in Utah on Monday and headed east.

The drive through Wyoming was much more enjoyable this time than some of our recent trips. We stopped at a rest area and I walked the dogs to the top of a small hill where Zeke kept trying to catch a prairie dog! Their holes were everywhere and they kept popping out and whistling at us.

We also saw a pair of bald eagles, a coyote, more antelope and some elk. It really was an enjoyable drive. We arrived in Cheyenne in early evening and went into secure hold at the air base.

While waiting for our escort to the other side of the base to unload this morning we got another load offer and are leaving tomorrow morning headed to Long Island. Thus the title of the blog today....it's been beautiful out here and this weather is headed east.

Here are some pics of the drive...the areas with the snow were in the higher elevations.

Patience my @$$!! LOL

Obviously, patience is not one of MY virtues! We delivered our load Wednesday morning, found a truck stop and had a good breakfast followed by some much needed sleep. Since we were third on the board with only one load a day going out in a 300 mile radius, we settled in for a wait.


Thankfully, we had several TV channels thanks to our free digital box, so we just chilled the rest of Wednesday and Thursday. Thursday evening I started to get restless so I started looking for freight so we could maybe broker a load ourselves to at least get to a better area.


This morning we got a load offer going to Cheyenne again but we can't pick up until Monday so we got online and found a hotel that accepts pets and isn't overly expensive. I do have to admit the view isn't bad:

By the way, Dana gets all of the photo credit today. Stay tuned!

We're baaaaccckkkk

Well the southern visit sure didn't last long. After we delivered in Kentucky, we deadheaded home for the weekend. While there we got a load offer picking up late Tuesday night in Burbank, Ohio. We didn't even know there WAS a Burbank in Ohio! We picked up the load and headed to Fort Worth. Then we got a short run taking something to the Dallas airport on Friday and then a load offer picking up Monday at Fort Polk, LA. We took our time getting there over the weekend and enjoyed the warm weather. We had outrun the possible tornadoes in northern Texas and saw the smoke from the wildfires. The full moon was orange!

So, Monday morning we loaded up at Fort Polk and headed to Pocatello, Idaho. Mostly the weather was calm and enjoyable until the last few hours; Then we hit snow on the summits. We delivered our load yesterday morning and moved south to Logan, Utah. We're the third truck on the board and the average is 1 load out a day. Unfortunately, that is the average for a 300 mile radius so I guess we might have to broker a load out or just deadhead to a better location. We're not in a big hurry to move...it's still snowing in the higher elevations so no matter what direction we head, we're bound to hit bad driving conditions. Maybe we'll drive over to town and see a movie!! LOL

Anyway, stay tuned!!

What a long strange trip it's been......

Well, here we are 10 days later...Let's see if we can catch you up. Before we delivered in Salt Lake City, we got another job picking up across town and heading to Raven, Kentucky. We picked up Wenesday evening and had to have the piece of equipment there by 1 pm Friday.

The weather got rough that night driving through Wyoming. We had a couple of slides on ice and then traffic came to a standstill because the ice was so bad the trucks couldn't get over the hill about a mile ahead of us. So we sat on the highway for three hours with a couple hundred of our closest friends watching the salt truck try to make his way through the trucks to the hill. We finally moved on for a couple of hours but once we got to the top of the mountain, the 45 mph winds were blowing the truck and the snow so bad we pulled into a rest area to wait for daylight. Once the sun came up, the winds were still blowing but at least it was possible to see a little more. This is what it looked like:

When we saw this, we were glad we had chosen to take our time.

The rest of the trip was easier if not exhausting. We saw some beautiful scenery.

We finally delivered our cargo to a coal mine. We drove right to the mouth of the mine.

We have lots of other pictures to share and will try to load them into a slide show for you. Stay tuned...

Mountains!!

Ok, I'll try to catch up....we got stuck in Idaho Sunday night trying to get to Montana. The roads were closed because of the snow. We delivered Monday afternoon and immediately got another job for the next day. But first we had to secure shrink wrap and pallets!!

We drove Tuesday morning to Helena, MT and hand loaded 114 boxes of financial records going to storage and moved on to Billings, MT. There we hand loaded another 38 boxes and headed out toward Rock Springs, WY. We drove through Worland, WY (recognize that name, Shell?) on our way there. We drove through an awesome canyon with the mountain straight up on one side and the river on the other side. We hope to go through there again sometime in the daylight!

After a few hours sleep in Riverton, we hit the road again with snow coming down and blowing all across the road. The pass through the mountains was fun..we were the 3rd vehicle through and it hadn't been plowed!

We finally got to our destination and hand loaded another 56 boxes and headed out to Salt Lake City for delivery. On the way there we got a load offer going from Salt Lake City to Raven, KY. We are now loaded and headed east! We have to be there by 1300 Friday.

Who needs sleep?? LOL Anyway, I have lots of pictures to share, but need to sit in a location with 3G long enough to get them uploaded. In the meantime, here's one: