Springfield,OH

As you can see we apparently made it out here from Salinas,CA. :) It was quite an uneventful trip but both of us felt a cold coming on so it was a long couple of days. I actually started feeling a little bad after we dropped that last flower load in Chicago. I think it was getting in and out of the reefer doing the unloading at night when the temps were in the 40's. Anyway, I got some Dayquil for when we were driving and some Nyquil for at night. It seems like we caught it before it turned into a full blown cold for either of us so we are thankful for that. The last thing we wanted was to get sick when J is going hunting next week and while I will be driving solo with my dad with me. I wouldn't be much company sick and I definitely don't want to get my dad sick!

We ended up with about 12 hours of extra time on this load and we were routed through Springfield,MO so it was a perfect time to get our TWIC stuff done. This is a new Homeland Security program. Anyone entering any water port has to have a Transportation Workers Identification Card. I even noticed a few weeks ago a sign in Baltimore (I believe or maybe it was Boston....anyway) but the sign said "As of November 8 TWIC cards required for entry to Port". And from the sounds of it other companies are looking at this as an industry wide type of identification card and will be requiring it for admittance to their plants. Not that Homeland Security can enforce it in that manner, they can only enforce it on the Ports, but I kind of think it is a good idea. So many places we deliver want some identification, and they won't accept our company ID, so we have to give them our drivers license. I am thinking that if this identification card becomes industry wide, they will start accepting that as ID and not requiring our drivers license. Coming from a law enforcement background, I have issues with giving some random security guard or company worker my drivers license. Do you know how easily your identy can be stolen??

Moving along.... We got that done last night there at Prime and from there we only had 586 miles to go and an appointment at 1730 today. So we ate dinner there and spend the night. I got up and headed out around 0330 this morning. I managed to get us to the Petro at the Indiana/Ohio border where we grabbed some lunch and then J took over driving to get us the last 59 miles. We made it here right on time. Luckily we had been here before so I knew right where to go. While we were sitting here they already sent us another load. I guess things are slowing down a bit because this next load doesn't pick up until tomorrow evening at 1800. When J was looking at it he was hesitant to accept because I mean, really, 24 hours to be reloaded? I know things are slow, but come on. But after looking at it, it pays like $1700 and is under 700 miles. So we decided we didn't mind waiting for that. It will be a quick overnight delivery. Pick up at 1800 and deliver by 1100 the next day. That also puts us in a good area to get something that we can hopefully deliver back to Texas for our time at home. Or at least drop off to another team there in Texas so they can take it to the final destination.

So, for the moment we are just sitting here getting unloaded and then I think we are going to head about 20 miles up the road to a TA that is at exit 70 on I-70 here in Ohio. Then we will just kill some time until our pick up tomorrow evening. Plus they have a truck wash there and I am sure that we will need it after they unload this lettuce we are carrying.

I will post more later. Sorry I haven't been as religious with this as I used to be. Some days I am just so darn tired! But I will try to get better for you guys. I know some of you guys follow this, and I am really glad that you do, so I will be more diligent for you!