Here we are again

So, we had a week off during Thanksgiving, which we didn't actually celebrate this year. Got Alex moved out of the dorm, had a better than expected doctor visit and got to see lots of friends. We left Sunday night for a Monday morning pickup in Haymarket, VA and then headed out to Utah.

Dana hit some really snowy driving during the night going through Wyoming. After we delivered in Utah, we drove another hour, loaded up again and headed for Camp Pendleton, CA.

After delivering in CA, we immediately loaded again and headed for San Antonio. I was so excited....my very best girlfriend, MaryAnn lives there and we haven't seen each other in five years. We made it almost to Las Cruces, NM when the highway patrol began stopping traffic. Not only was there snow and ice covering the road, but there was also a truck jack-knifed. We ended up sitting on the highway for six long hours. I was asleep when we got there, so I slept a little longer and then got up and Dana went to bed. Of course we alerted the company, because our load was not going to get delivered on time but was listed as a "hot-shot" and must be delivered on Friday the 4th.

When we finally started moving we alerted dispatch and they assured us the customer knew and we were to be careful but get there as soon as we could. We arrived about 10:15 pm local time (original delivery was 8 pm) and were informed that receiving closes at 5. Not happy at this point. We spent 3 hours waiting for someone to figure out what they were going to do with us and finally were released to go to a truckstop for the night and return in the morning. And imagine this...when we arrived they said they didn't think they were unloading that morning. Dana started to get an attitude and one girl finally came over to unload us.

So, finally we headed to San Antonio and tried to get an oil change only to find that the last place that changed it had messed up the oil plug and they couldn't get it out. We decided to keep the oil issue until Monday and since we were about out of hours, we checked into a hotel for the weekend.

After a much needed shower, MaryAnn picked us up and we headed out for fabulous mexican food. Mom, La Hacienda reminded me of Abuelo's! Then we headed to her house, saw the kids and met the dogs.

On Sunday, she picked me up and we headed out to find me a new pair of boots. Found a great pair really quickly. Here they are:

We had lunch at "Dum Hoes" (hee hee) and some more shopping. Then we picked up Zeke and took him to meet his cousins, Tony and Fannie Mae. He had a blast running around their back yard and chasing and being chased.
The next day Mikey joined us for lunch. We had delicious Texas BBQ.

Now we're headed to Nogales, AZ. Had a great time guys! Love ya! Hope to see you again soon!

AARRGGHHH

This stupid aircard is making me crazy!! I ordered a new one and hopefully will have issues resolved soon and can blog more often. However, if you miss me here, (I KNOW you are just dying to keep up, LOL) catch me on Facebook. I can easily update my status from my phone.



Anyway, where have we been and what have we been doing? This blog may not have my usual chronological order since it's been so long and I started writing it while at BW3s drinking and waiting for the OSU game to start. We got in around 4: 30 Saturday morning after leaving Eglin AFG, FL. We were hoping to meet our friends but it appears everyone has bailed on us!! Ah well. Last time I leave Florida for you guys!!



So, we left St. Paul, MN Thursday morning about 9 am and went to Eglin and back to Ohio by Saturday morning. Gotta love it!



About a week ago, we had a new camp site (Cap'n. Mejier's is very hospitable! Also open 24 hours with even easier access to restrooms. Might check them out more often. Super Targets look good too. We didn't do too badly this week....worked four days and made our weekly goal financially. Even paying our own fuel to come home wasn't too bad.



We picked up some chrome earlier this week from a shop that would make any man drool and delivered it to a Polaris plant. I had a beautiful drive through Minnesota the other day...took a lot of state routes, two lanes, through beautiful farms. It was hilly and winding...reminds me of southeastern Ohio.



I really didn't want to leave Florida Friday...it was sunny and 73 degrees. But, again, had to go to that doctor's appointment on today and then get Alex on tomorrow, so we'll just have to hit the beach next time.

Anyway, my BP was back down today...I really think last time it was incidental stress (worrying about getting recertified and sitting in the waiting room with hacking, sniffling, sick people for 2 hours past my appointment). I'm going back to see the doc over the Christmas break and get my physical done again...if I can keep the BP where it was today, I'll be able to get a two year certification.

So now I'm in Newark to catch up with some friends then we are going to see our tattoo artist's newest shop in New Philadelphia. Well, actually going to get some ink, it just happens that he will be in the new shop today! LOL

Plans for dinner with another great friend and his wife and son for Wednesday and then who knows. Should really call my sister....I'm pretty sure my nieces have not passed along my messages!

Everyone have a wonderful Thanksgiving! I'm thankful that I have a job I love, I spend everyday with my best friend and my family is healthy.

Cornhusker Country

Well, we're back in Nebraska for the second weekend in a row. Since my last post we've done a bit of travelling. LOL I'm also dealing with aircard issues. Anyway, let's see if I can get caught up. As of the last post, we were in Oregon and had delivered and had some great local seafood. From there we headed to Sunnyside, Washington to pick up 7700 pounds of frozen raspberry puree to take to Chicago. Forty hours later we delivered still frozen product. Dana drove through our first snow coming out of Idaho into Montana. There is one place on the highway where trucks must only drive 35 mph because of the steep decline down the mountain. As it was also snowing he used the engine brake to slow the truck down. I happened to be asleep, but on my side and apparently near the edge of the bed and almost rolled right out!! Had to grab the table to hang on!! That was a wake up call! LOL

After delivering in Chicago, we headed to Rockford, IL to pick up 3 pallets of stuff used to make rubber. We delivered it 12 hours later to Goodyear Tire in Norfolk, NE. Norfolk happens to be the hometown of the late great Johnny Carson. We drove down Johnny Carson Boulevard.

We spent Halloween weekend in York, NE, the nearest Idleaire location and watched a lot of football. On Sunday we headed to Oklahoma to pick up a military load going to Arkansas. Kinda weird to drive over 500 miles to pick up a load only going 108, but they paid.

Once again, there was some paperwork confusion and it took over four hours for them to get our truck loaded. The directions we were given to the consignee were COMPLETELY wrong and thankfully the soldiers were kind enough to wait on us and unload us so we wouldn't have to wait until the next day.

Later that night we picked up a load of paint in Little Rock, Arkansas and headed to Mobile, Alabama. The paint was for a ship and goes on the hull below the water line and helps prevent the growth of "critters." It was cool going into the shipyard. Unfortunately we weren't allow to take any pictures.

By this time we were both pretty tired so we just slept and watched TV te rest of Tuesday. On Wednesday, we headed for a PetSmart to get dogfood and then found a place called Felix's Fish Camp Grill. It sits next to the water and was FABULOUS!! We started out with sauteed crab claws:

After lunch we went over to see the USS Alabama. We decided not to take the tour because it was such a beautiful day outside.

We soon got a load offer and headed to Garyville, Louisiana to pick it up. We saw a lot of Katrina damage still in New Orleans but also saw a lot of repair and rebuilding. We picked up one barrel of some kind of corrosive and headed to Nebraska. We delivered the barrel two hours early to Tyson Hide and Tanning facility. Did you know Tyson also does beef?? I didn't but apparently they do and I watched cow hides moving around on the hooks inside the factory.

So here we are back in York, NE. We figure we'll be here until Monday. Thanks for checking in!

Pacific Northwest

We rested up in Utah secure hold and unloaded Monday morning and headed to Hawthorne, Nevada. We spent another night in secure hold and unloaded around noon Tuesday (eastern time). We were the only truck in the area with only one load out a day so we headed to Sparks, which is outside Reno to refuel and shower. We were almost there (about 100 miles) when we got a load offer to pick up the next afternoon back in Hawthorne! We accepted but went on to Sparks.

The Alamo truck stop is not a bad place to have to hang out. It's a casino, truck stop, restaurant, bar. We met some really fun people and hung out til way too late! The next afternoon we headed back to Hawthorne and loaded up to head to Oregon.

We made it to Clackamas, Oregon for an early morning (pacific time) delivery only to find that there had been some miscommunication regarding the destination and we really needed to go another 100 miles northwest to Warrenton, Oregon, which was on the coast, in the corner of the ocean and the Columbia River. It took about 2 1/2 hours to get the paperwork straightened out and then we headed north. It was a beautiful drive....the pines, the river, even the fog.

We unloaded at the Army National Guard unit and asked the sargeant where to get fresh seafood. He recommended a place called Bell Bouy. It was a really tiny, simple place, but was FABULOUS. They own a small cannery, next door is a retail outlet for fresh and smoked salmon, etc., and then next to that is the little eatery. Each order is prepared individually after requested. We had a whole dungeness crab, prawns, and the best clam chowder ever!

We spent the weekend at a truckstop in Portland. We accepted a job Friday that was picking up in southern Washington this afternoon and going to Chicago. We got to watch the Buckeyes win Saturday, met some fun people that work for Atlas moving. I learned that movers call themselves "bedbuggers." I really don't think I could refer to myself as that!!

We loaded up today with 7400 pounds of frozen raspberry puree and are headed to Chicago to deliver Wednesday morning.

Here we are

So, after NC, we got a load offer to Groveport, just outside Columbus and took it. I needed to get a physical anyway, so it worked out. We got to meet our friends Dave and Bev at Garfields. It was great getting to see them again. Going from every Friday night to once a month at best has not been fun! Miss you guys!

We spent the weekend doing the usual..laundry, clean the truck, groceries. We got a load offer Monday picking up in Indian Head, MD and going to Long Island. They made sure to call us as they knew if we just saw that we would turn it down, but they already had another load for us, picking up just north of Philadelphia and going to Reno, NV with stops in Indiana and Utah along the way.

So we got ready to leave Monday afternoon and found that someone had stolen our brand new GPS out of the truck while in our driveway! It has truck routing and we had only had it about a week! Muskingum County Sheriff's office won't do a report over the phone and we had to get on the road, but they said there was no time limit. Can't file an insurance claim until I get the report made and who knows when we'll get home with time to do the report. We drove through Zville on the way to Indiana but couldn't take long enough to wait for a deputy to come out.

Anyway, we delivered in Indiana Friday morning and then headed west. We'll get to Utah tonight and stay until Monday and then head to Nevada. We never get to stay long enough to go to any casinos; maybe this time!

Moving Along

We got the laundry finished on Sunday while talking to a driver from Columbus. After that, we moved down to a Walmart about three miles from our shipper. We walked to a chinese buffet and then settled in for the night. "Camping at Walmart!" The sunset was beautiful! Take a look:The next morning before we left to pick up our load, we got an offer to run escort for another truck going to North Carolina on Tuesday afternoon and we agreed. We delivered our load to Toyota in Georgetown, KY Monday night and headed to a truck stop for the night. Tuesday morning we slept late, showered and headed to the pick up to meet the other truck. As soon as we got there we found out the load was really supposed to be scheduled for Wednesday so we agreed to a layover.

We followed the other team to the closest truck stop and spent some just chatting with them. We got another good night's sleep, this time with the windows open...the autumn air was beautiful! Here's a look at the trucker's sunrise:

We are now on our way to NC and should be there in the wee hours. Dana's driving and I'm headed to bed. Check in later for more or follow us on Facebook!

Middle America

Well, we've not done too bad since we hit the road again. Tennessee, Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, Missouri. No long runs, but enough to keep us occupied and mostly out of trouble.

It was soooo cold in Nebraska....rainy, in the low 50's and wind gusts up to 50 mph. We were glad for the last load of almost 8000 pounds...it helped keep the truck on the road! We spent Thursday night parked outside Omaha and walked a couple of blocks in the freezing cold to a hotel pub. We only spent a couple of hours there, but met some fun people. A driver named Jay asked where we were parked and when he found out we were in the same lot he was, he decided he was walking back with us so he wouldn't get lost! Along the way, we stopped at a convenience store to buy Powerball tickets and he decided a cold beer would be good for the walk....silly boy!! LOL Anyway, we all made it back to our trucks; we were parked two trucks over from his.

Right now we are outside St. Louis and have a job for Monday going to Kentucky. We were hoping to see the Buckeye game, but the stupid BigTen network has it so we won't be able to. Oh well. At least the team up north lost today!!!

Tomorrow is laundry day. So fun....stay tuned or get updates on Facebook. I LOVE my new phone...I can send updates to Facebook with it.