America through the Windshield

New Blog, New Thoughts

2011-12-09T16:30:00.001-06:00

www.everydaythoughtsandramblings.blogspot.com I have started a new blog since I am not OTR any longer. Click on the above link if you would like to follow along!!

Cooler weather!

2011-09-08T14:12:00.002-05:00

I am loving this cooler weather!! Here in Texas this summer we have had over 45 days of 100 degree temperatures and something like 34 of them in a row! Wow! This past week has been wonderful. Lows at night in the upper 50's and highs in the low 80's. Now that is what I am talking about!

Work is going good. I talked to my boss and I think he is going to be able to work it to where I can have every Friday off for a few months so that I can get my internship done. Our classroom work only has about another month but I have to get 50 hours of massage in before I can be finished.

We also have a semi at work now that we will be using every other week for one of our customers that will be ordering anywhere from 18-30 pallets of product each day. We have a 53' trailer also. Joe and I are the ones with the most experience driving the semi so that means we will usually be the ones that are taking that run. It is only up to Amarillo so we can be there and back in about five and a half hours so it is easy but we will have to find something else to do to get us our 40 hours. I took it up there on Tuesday and I have to say it sure was nice to be in a "big" truck again! Although it is going to take some getting used to the fact that it is a day cab! I'm not used to having a window behind me in a truck!!

We did some more work on our master bedroom. We got all of the trim stained for the walls and doors. We got some beadboard up on the pony wall that is separating the bedroom from the bathroom and we almost have the shower to the point that we can start laying down the tile. We haven't done tile work before and this shower is 6'6" long by 3'4" deep. We have decided to use big 20x20 tiles and will have to make some cuts. I guess we will figure it out and learn as we go. :-)

Today was a pretty easy day at work. I went up to Amarillo but I only had 9 stops so I was back and done by 1300. Granted I left Lubbock at 0500, but this was definitely a short day. I met Joe (he took the big truck and was back by 1030) and we got both of the vehicles inspected and now I'm back at the house. I have class tonight. Fun Pathology! (..<--- insert sarcasm there). I am thinking a nap is in order. I don't usually get one of those but I almost feel like I may be coming down with something. My eyes are itchy so definitely need to get a nap. I think I will do that now.......

Another new post!

2011-08-24T19:13:00.002-05:00

Two days in a row! I think I am on a roll here!!

Ok, so I still need to give you more updates. We still have the houseboat and are still working on getting it finished. It is still in Atlanta and we are working on getting it moved to Texas. We will move it to Lubbock and then get the rest of the work done and then move it again to a lake. Still thinking about Lake Lewisville in the Dallas area but we will see what happens when the time comes for that. It is still quite a ways off.

I mentioned that I am going to school for Massage Therapy. I found a great school here in Lubbock. I have been taking the night classes which are every Tuesday and Thursday from 1800-2200 and then every other Saturday from 0800-1600. The night classes take a year so I have about 3 months left. Some nights it is all I can do to concentrate since I get up at 0330 for work. So nights that I have class are usually 18-19 hour days. I get home and get in bed by 2230 and am back up at 0330. This girl needs more than 5 hours of sleep a night! but I keep telling myself that it will all be worth it in the end.

One thing that I learned about Massage Therapy is that is is WAY more involved than I thought it would be. I mean, I thought, "Hey. I'm gonna go to school and learn how to give an awesome massage. No Problem!" Boy, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I probably would never have attempted this if I had known ahead of time how involved it was. But, here I am. Since you have to have a license from the state to be a Massage Therapist (or LMT Licensed Massage Therapist) you have to be licensed through the health department. A massage therapist is part of the medical field. So, I have to learn Anatomy and Physiology, Pathology, and Kinesiology. Holy Cow! And of course the business classes and technique classes and different types of modalities of massage. There is the most common, Swedish Massage. But then there are other things that you can do such as Thai Massage, which is more of a stretching type of massage, or you can do hot rocks, Reiki (which is energy work), Myofacial, Trigger Point and the list goes on. Crazy! So far we are all taught the Swedish, which is what all LMT's do. But then we can specialize in other modalities. I am really interested in Energy work and Thai massage. Both have to to with realigning your body. But there is more to it than that. It is aligning your energy and Chakras and auras. I find it all fascinating but a little out there. Kinda New Age-ish. But it is still interesting and I will say that I am skeptically optimistic about the kind of work that can be done in the Energy fields.

Well, I had class last night, Kinesiology, and I worked this morning. I delivered in Amarillo and Plainview today. I got up to the Hastings Distribution center in Amarillo around 0730. I had 10 pallets for them. In Amarillo, we usually have two drivers. It is divided into East and West routes. Today I had West but it was a short day. After Hastings I only had 5 stops in Amarillo. then I headed back to Lubbock stopping in Tulia for fuel and in Plainview for my last 3 stops. I was back to the warehouse by about 1225 and doen with cleaning my truck and doing my paperwork by 1245. That means I made it home by 1300 and my short day was only an 8 hour work day! Usually they are 11-12 hours, so I will take an 8 hour day whenever I can.

Tomorrow they have me doing what they call the Shuttle Run. I will be going to Turkey, Silverton, Floydada, Ralls, Crosbyton, Lockney and Petersburg. Turkey is about 2 hours away so I think I am going to leave Lubbock around 0700. I have one of the new guys riding with me tomorrow. He isn't the newest and he is kinda already trained but tomorrow is a slow day so I guess they are just trying to give him hours to make his 40. Joe will be going up to Amarillo with Jason. Joe hasn't done Amarillo a whole lot so it will be good for him to go with Jason. I don't think it is a lot of stops, or they could have split it up and given Joe West and Jason East, but I guess they figure it will take longer if they go together and do all the stops instead of splitting them so they can get their hours. Sometimes I wonder why I bother guessing why they do what they do. Because they never do what you think they will do when it comes to scheduling.

One thing I do really like about this job though is that I don't have anyone watching over my shoulder. I was dreading having to report to someone after being my own boss for the last 4 years. But they really don't do that here and it is nice. For instance, each evening I line out my stops for the next day. That means I put my tickets in the order that I want to make my deliveries, and then that night the warehouse loads the truck. They next day I show up, get my truck and go. When I am done, I come back, clean out my truck, do my paperwork and leave. Of course I get the occasional calls but I don't have anyone telling me how to do my job. It is really nice.

I guess that is all for today. Hopefully there will be more to come tomorrow. I do have class so whether or not I blog will depend on my schedule. Have a great evening!

I'm back!!!

2011-08-23T17:12:00.002-05:00

Ok, not back out on the road, but back to blogging! I can not believe that it has been over a year since I last posted! A lot has changed in that year and we are not OTR drivers any more. Let me start at the beginning and go from there.

Last year I had decided to come off the truck in October after our vacation in Honduras so that I could go to massage therapy school. I came off the road and settled down here in Lubbock,Texas. I started school November 1st. This coming November I will finally be through! I am taking night classes and working full time during the day.

I am still driving a truck though. Although not a semi. I got a job with a local company doing delivery. It is called Empire Paper and we deliver mainly paper products, but really anything from Bic pens to 55 gallon drums of chemicals. Having a Class A and my Hazmat has come in real handy! Even though it is considered "local", we usually cover an average of 350 miles a day. I usually deliver in Amarillo every day and every other Monday and Tuesday I go to New Mexico and deliver in Tucumcari, Santa Rosa, Santa Fe and Albuquerque. That trip I spend the night in Albuquerque. I don't have the hours to legally drive back home. It has been quite an experience. I am the only female driver they have and the first they have ever hired. Mainly because it is a very physical job. It is all hand unload and I can have up to 30 stops a day dealing with full pallets or one or two items. And boy has it whipped me into shape. I have lost all the weight I gained sitting behind the wheel of the semi and I'm now down to 118 pounds! It sure beats going to the gym. One thing that does suck though is doing these deliveries in temps over 100 degrees in the summer and below 0 in the winter. Oh, we did have some runs to some schools a few weeks ago that I got where I actually got to drive a semi again. It was a lot of fun! :)

Joe finished our lease with Prime at the first part of May and he came back home. We bought a house here in Lubbock where we are planning to stay so that we can be closer to my parents. Dad's health isn't great. Joe also got on with Empire Paper. About 2 weeks before he turned in the truck we had a driver quit and my boss hired him over the phone. Of course, he had met Joe before, but what a blessing that Joe didn't have to go hunt a job. And the supre great thing about this is that it is a Monday-Friday job. Off weekends and holidays. Granted it is usually a 12 hour work day and I get up around 0330 and leave town around 0500 to get to Amarillo by 0700, but it is a nice gig. Lots of overtime and I only work 4 days one week and 5 the next. So every other week I get a three day weekend. :)

I have lots more that I can post, but I have to get ready to head to school. I have to be there in about 30 minutes. I can't post a lot about being over the road anymore, but if you are interested in what we are doing now, stay tuned!

Oh, Smokey is doing well and says "Woof!!" :-)

Springfield,MO

2010-07-17T16:34:00.002-05:00

Another day with the truck in the shop! UGH! But as soon as we are done with this we will be back on the road again. We had to bring the truck into the shop Thursday night for an 0800 appt with the APU shop on Friday morning. It is too darn hot out here to be without an APU. Especially when we are at shippers/receivers that don't allow you to idle the truck while we are being loaded or unloaded.

We also had to get a PM done, which we are getting now, and get two new drive tires. Picked up a nail in one that must have had a slow leak because it never actually went flat. Just lost enough air that it caused both tires on that side to wear extremely fast. So now that we have that taken care of, I am hoping that we will be good and ready to roll.

We have a load that we broght with us and we will hook back up to that one and deliver it out to Apple Valley,CA on Monday. From there we aren't sure where they will send us. We are supposed to be in Lubbock,TX on Saturday July 24th. That gives us about 5 days. I don't know if they will send up to the east coast and then to Lubbock or maybe something to the Chicago or Midwest area and then on down to Lubbock. My birthday, the big 4-0 is Sunday the 25th so we are celebrating on Saturday the 24th. So we HAVE to be back for that!!

Not much else going on. We have been fairly busy. I just keep forgetting to blog. I have to tell J that he needs to start reminding me! After almost three years of daily posting, I have seriously fallen off the wagon!

LasVegas,NV

2010-06-21T09:40:00.002-05:00

Do you see my location?? Finally got the truck fixed and got the heck out of Atlanta. We were there a total of 20 days and only 9 of those were working on the boat I think. UGH! Small blessings though, I did find out that I was getting breakdown pay so we will about break even, even with the down time, so I am very thankful about that!

Once we had the truck back last Thursday evening, we picked up a load in Calhoun,GA and ran it up to Plainview,TX and dropped it off Saturday morning. We picked up a load in Plainview fron EXCEL but I had to make a stop in Lubbock because the reefer was having issues. Luckily that was a 2 hour fix and we were on the road again. We have two deliveries on this load. We delivered the first in Casa Grande,AZ on Sunday morning and now I am sitting in Las Vegas,NV waiting to drop the last of it here at Sysco which is about half a mile away from the Petro that we are parked at.

When we delivered in Casa Grande yesterday, they unloaded 32,ooo lbs of beef which left me with only 3 pallets weighing about 3,000 lbs. I am so glad things worked out that way and that I was super light, almost empty, because losing that weight saved me from being in an accident yesterday and most likely saved me from killing some people.

I was driving west on I-10 on the west side of Phoenix. It is a really long stretch of road for at least 60 miles I bet without a single curve in the road. There was a truck on the right shoulder that was broke down and he had his triangles out. There was a black Camry and a brown Toyota Tundra passing me in the left lane and as soon as they passed me, I got in the left lane to pass the broke down truck. As soon as I got passed the truck, I signaled to get back in the right lane and out of nowhere, a black Honda comes flying up to pass me on the right. So I stay in the left lane to let the idiot pass. I swear he was doing at least 90 mph. Anyway, he goes to the shoulder, even though I am still in the left lane, to finish passing me. Meanwhile, the Camry, which was in front of the Toyota, signals to come back to the right lane. As far as she can tell, the lane is clear because the idiot in the Honda is still on the shoulder. At this point, they are about 100 ft in front of me and I start to merge back to the right again. Well, as the Camry comes to the right lane, to let the Toyota pass, the Honda decided to swerve into the right lane behind the Camry, but he is going to fast. So he jerks it back to the shoulder to pass her on the shoulder! He gets a little loose and tries to get in front of her but he clips her on the right front quarter panel and he comes over. This basically means the Camry did a pit maneuver to the Honda which sent him spinning into the left lane. The Camry bounced to the left, and hit the Toyota, which then made the Camry go spinning onto the right shoulder down a ditch. The Honda was now spinnng in front of the Toyota and the push from the Camry into the Toyota had the Toyota and the Honda spinning, side by side, into the center median. And all of this was no more than 100 ft in front of me!

Anyway, I manage to get stopped and pulled to the right shoulder just past where they went off the road. In my rearview mirror, I couldn't even see the road because of all of the dust and sand from the wreck. I was sure that all three cars had rolled. I grab the CB and tell everyone to slow down and that the lanes were clear, even though they couldn't see, because of the sand, and that the cars had went off the road. Then I call 911 and jump out of the truck while I am still on the phone to go check for injuries. I don't know how, but the good Lord was watching over everyone, because none of the cars rolled and there were no injuries. Amazing. But like I said earlier, if I had not unloaded that 32,000 lbs earlier that morning, there is no way I could have stopped and I would have rammed right through those three cars when they got together. When I say the Honda slip in behind the Camry and slam on his brakes, I started shutting the truck down because I just knew this was going to be bad. Since I was almost empty I was able to get slowed down enough to not hit anyone.

So, lesson for the day. Don't be an idiot and try to pass on the shoulder!! Get your head out of your ass and pay attention. Slowing down for 5 seconds to let someone slower that you pass BEFORE you go around them, in the left lane, could save your life or someone elses life!

Atlanta,GA

2010-06-13T13:49:00.002-05:00

Trying to be optomistic, this is our last day in the hotel. We are keeping our fingers crossed that they will give us the release tomorrow so we can get the heck out of Dodge.

So for our last day, we are being extremely lazy. Went to bed last night around 0300 and got up around 1100 today. Had some coffee, warmed up some left over pizza and now we are enjoying and NCIS Marathon on tv. It is shaping up to be a great last day! Now to just get a nap in at some point. :)

Atlanta,GA

2010-06-12T19:22:00.002-05:00

Nothing much new to report. Unfortunately we are still in Atlanta waiting on the truck to be released. From what I can gather they have torn it apart and replaced the DPF (something to do with the regen system on the 08 and newer models) and are still waiting for Detroit Diesel to give them the ok to release it. After they replaced it, the had to run more tests and send the results to Detroit. Now we are just waiting to get a response back from them. The bad part is that Detroit is closed on the weekend. So here we sit for another two nights until they open back up on Monday. I am really hoping that we get a response back by then. We have got to hit the road. Now we will get going on two weeks without a paycheck and that means two weeks in the hole. It isn't looking good and I think I am about to start developing ulcers!! LOL

Atlanta,GA

2010-06-10T10:18:00.002-05:00

Hello everyone! We are currently stuck in Atlanta,GA. UGH!!

We took time off starting on May 29th so we could work on the houseboat. We got a LOT done this trip. We got the upper deck done, got it joined with the lower deck and we got the roofing material on. We also decided to go with aluminum siding, in 4x10 sheets and we got the siding on. Now the boat is completely dried in. YAY! Next trip we are hoping to get the electrical wiring done and get the plumbing in. We were exhausted and sunburned, but after over a week, we completed everything we could for this trip.

We were available this Monday for a load and then ran into problems with the truck. It started shaking real bad so we had new drive tires put on and that took care of the problem. It is still pulling to the right some so we need to get it in for an alignment as soon as we can before it starts wearing these new tires. After we got that done, we took it to Freightliner to have them look at the regen system. Our check engine light was on and the regen light was flashing, but it wouldn't let us do a manual regen. So bright and early Tuesday morning we got it to Freightliner and now it is Thursday and it is still in the shop. They have the regen system torn apart and have sent pictures to Freightliner (corporate I guess) and are waiting for them to look at the pics to figure out the next step. We also had an air leak, but they found out it was an airbag on the cab yesterday and have already gotten that fixed.

So, here we sit. Tomorrow will be two weeks that we have been off counting the vacation time to work on the boat. That means two weeks that we haven't been working. The first week wasn't bad because we got paid since we came in on Friday and had trips that we delivered after payroll cutoff. But now we aren't getting paid. So they need to get this fixed so we can get back on the road!

Carlisle,PA

2010-05-14T16:23:00.002-05:00

Today we stopped in Carlisle,PA when I finished my shift. After we made the run up to Lathrop,CA and delivered our next load picked up in Salinas,CA and we are bringing it to Florence,NJ. They gave us two and a half days to go 3000 miles. Yep, as you can guess, it wasn't happening!

We have ran so many loads lately back to back that were rush rush rush to get there. I put my foot down on this one and decided I wasn't going to waste fuel to make the appointment when that just means more money out of my pocket and less profit. So we told our FM that we would need another appointment. It looks like this receiver is open 24 hours because they told us basically to get there when we could based on the eta that I gave them. So that worked out.

Of course we ran into the usual problems getting out of California. Rush hour traffic meant that J made a whopping 180 miles in about 6 hours. That included getting pulled into a scale house for a Level 1 Inspection. Passed with flying colors. Unfortunately, J wasn't as lucky earlier in the day when a box truck decided to go 50 mph in front of us. J jumped out in the left center lane to go around him and got pulled over for it. :( In California trucks have to remain in the right two lanes. This was a 4 lane road and he got in the wrong lane and got a ticket for it. Not sure how much it is going to cost yet as the court makes that decision and mails us the info. And knowing how strapped California is for money, it probably isn't going to be cheap. But I didn't give him a hard time about it. He was mad enough at himself. Lesson learned.

After all of that, he only made it to Sacramento since we got loaded around 2000 hours. I took over and it took me another 4 hours to go the next 120 miles. You gotta love climbing Donner Pass when you are extremely heavy. I had also heard on the news that the Rockies were expecting a foot of snow. I figured I better check the weather and see what it was doing. If you have kept up with me for any length of time, you know that Wyoming is my nemesis and always gives me problems. Sure enough, it was snowing across the WHOLE state, I-80 was a mess all the way across and was closed between Laramie and Cheyenne again. Thankfully by the time J made it there they had cleared up. When I took over in Rawlins, I only had a little ice on the top of the mountail between Laramie and Cheyenne so I was pleased.

The rest of this trip has been uneventful. Hit a little rain just as J was leaving Carlisle,PA. Pretty nasty looking clouds according to the National Weather Service radar. I think we are about to come out of it though.

We have our next load already. After we deliver this we are heading over to Phillipsburg,NJ which is about 100 miles away and we are picking up a hazmat load going to Chandler,AZ. This works out really well for us since J is almost out of hours. He can pick it up tonight and get it scaled and then he can park. Then I will get up and cover around 550 miles tomorrow and J will get the afternoon off. That will give him a reset on his hours. Then Sunday we can both cover around 550 miles each and that will leave me around 250 miles or so to do Monday morning. piece of cake since our appointment is at 1000 Mountain time.

Now for the SUPER FUN information! We have some friends that are going on vacation in October for her 40th birthday. J's birthday is just 6 days before hers. They invited us to go along and after pricing flights (which are running about $300 less per person than what they usually pay) we decided what the heck and bought the tickets!

Well now you want to know where we are going, right? Roatan,Honduras!! The couple we are going with is Misty and Riaan. Riaan worked on Roatan for about 3.5 years as a dive instructor and they were married there. This is their old stomping grounds. So it is going to be a LOT of fun! We are going to stay for 7 nights. Did you know that rentals are REALLY REALLY cheap there? We can get a 1 bedroom cabin, complete with kitchen and all the dishes and everything for $175 for the WHOLE WEEK!! Check out www.hiddengardencabins.com to see some pics.

We will finish getting our dive certification and then spend most of the time diving while we are there. We have been before when we went on cruises but you don't have to be "certified" for that. Riaan is going to finish getting us our open water certification and we are going to have a blast blowing bubbles!

So there is the fun exciting part! Now I just have to seriously get in shape so I can put my bikini back on!!! At least I know have good motivation. :)

Tornado east of Oklahoma City and Highway I-40 is shut down - Loves Truck Stop gone

2010-05-11T11:18:00.001-05:00

Tornado east of Oklahoma City and Highway I-40 is shut down - Loves Truck Stop gone

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Gustine,CA

2010-05-11T11:00:00.002-05:00

I actually have a day off! WooHoo!! Now what am I going to do with myself?? Let's see. Slept in? Check. Had breakfast? Check. Took a nap? Check. It has turned out to be a great morning so far!

While I was getting the truck washed yesterday our FM called with our next load. There wasn't any freight in SoCal so he had us pick up a load at the drop lot in Fontana that delivers today in Lathrop,CA at 1300 local. It was a short overnight run of about 350 miles. Since it doesn't deliver till this afternoon, that meant that J drove us up here and I get the day off.

I only had about 23 hours left on my 70. J got to reset his hours in Flint,MI so he has plenty. That worked out great for us. He is going to start about an hour early today and deliver this and then we are going to Salinas,CA to pick up our next load. This load will deliver in NJ on Friday and I would have been pushed on my clock to make that if I didn't get a restart.

I was looking at our next load and I am hoping that we can make it there on time. There is no pick-up time in Salinas, just today sometime after we deliver this. I sure hope that they get us loaded fast so that we can get out of there and on the road. It delivers in NJ, 2900 miles away, on Friday at 1500. So here is to hoping that we can get in and out of there quickly.

On a side note, there were so bad storms yesterday and a tornado hit the Love's Truck Stop in Oklahoma City,OK. I pray that no one was seriously hurt or injured. Our FM told us that we had a truck at the location that had all of the windows blown out of it. I sure hope the driver was somewhere safe. They said the tornado also ripped the roof off of the building. I am definitely keeping the people that were there in my thoughts and prayers.

I guess that is all for now. Have a great day!

Rancho Cucamonga,CA

2010-05-10T11:05:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I couldn't get a signal after J started driving across Iowa, so you had to wait until today. So far this has been an uneventful trip aside from the wind that we have had to deal with. We picked up this FedEx load from Flint,MI and headed out with it around 0930 on Wednesday. We made good time and I got here about an hour early. That includes stopping for a nice Mother's Day lunch yesterday where I got to use real utensils and drink out of a glass that wasn't a "to go" cup. I also got wished a Happy Mother's day from the kids, J, my mom whom I also wished a Happy Mother's day, along with many well wishes from all my friends on FB.

On top of that, I was able to enjoy an absoultely beautiful drive across I-70 in Colorado. I started driving up on I-80 in Kearney,NE then cut down I-76 and hit I-70 in Denver. The I-80 and I-76 part is really boring, but once you hit I-70 and start the drive through the Rockies, it is simply breath taking. I took some pictures with my phone but for some reason I am having problems sending them to my e-mail. If I can get it to work, I will come back and post some pics.

Right now I am just sitting here waiting for them to get me unloaded. From here I am going to go get the trailer washed out and get the truck washed also. With all the storms and snow and salt we have been through lately, it looks like I have taken this truck mudding! I will let ya know where we are headed next. Until then.....

Grand Rapids,MI

2010-05-07T14:29:00.003-05:00

Well, no, I didn't forget to post the last two days. See! I actually remembered, I just didn't post! You know we team drive and work 12 hour shifts. The past two days I have went to bed pretty much as soon as my shift was over. They have been LONG days, and I managed to barely cover a combined 640 miles. Slacking you say? Nay I say! It all has to do with the weather.

Now, I know this is May, because I have consulted my trusty calendar on my dash and double checked my BlackBerry and both are saying that it is indeed May. I am beginning to think that somehow Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Wyoming have all somehow misplaced the memo, that I am sure they have received, stating that it is Spring and not winter. Or as another driver calls that part of the country, Southern Canada.

We enjoyed a nice night off in a hotel to reset our hours and when we were available Monday afternoon, we got our next dispatch. We headed out to Yakima,WA to pick up a load of frozen french fries for Buffalo Wild Wings that was headed to Grand Rapids,MI. Wouldn't you know it that when I woke up that morning I saw on the local news that Snoqualmie Pass, just outside of Seattle on I-90, had received 7 inches of snow and they chain law was in effect. Now keep in mind, this was Tuesday, MAY 4th. Luckily by the time we got there, they had removed the chain restriction and it was just wet and slushie. Thank you Lord! From there J makes it to Yakima,WA and gets us loaded with no problems. He woke me up around 0430 and I signed the paperwork and headed out.

My route for that day was to take I-82 down to I-84 and head across Oregon and Idaho. Of course it started snowing in Oregon and that made for slooow going and I only managed to make it to Boise,ID a mere 311 miles from where I started. Not one of my best days out here, but hey, I can't control Mother Nature. I wake J up and he jokingly gives me a hard time about how I suck at this job :) and he heads out.

J did great and got across Idaho, through the top part of Utah and picked up I-80 and got me to Rawlins,WY. It was raining, but I figured if it was raining, that is better than snow. I take off and about 30 miles down the road it turns to snow. That is what I get for figuring, huh? I hit the rest area at Wagonhound (Yes, I couldn't make that name up) and decide to take a nap for an hour until the sun comes up so I can see better.

A short 50 minutes later I wake up and see that it is getting light outside so I take off again. The roads are mainly wet, with a little slush, but the important thing is that I can actually see the road now. I make it a short 100 miles further and stop at the Petro in Laramie for Smokey and I to both take a restroom break. Got that done and on the road again and before I get out of Laramie I start seeing a bunch of brake lights. Hmm Time to turn the CB on. About that time I see one of the WY DOT overhead signs advising that I-80 is shut down. Sure enough, I get another 1/4 mile up and they have the arms across the road shutting it down and traffic is turning around. Sheesh! There is a pass between Laramie and Cheyenne and aparently it was snowing pretty bad up on the hill and trucks couldn't make it up. They were spinning out and coming to a stop either blocking the lanes or actually wrecking. So, I turn around with the other traffic and head back to find a place to park.

Luckily they had just shut it down and there was plenty of room to park. When I took the exit I saw that the Pilot had a ton of room so I pulled in there instead. I talked to my mom on the phone for a few and checked the map to see if there was a way around. I was planning on taking US287 down around the south way but there was a guy on the CB that had just came that way and he said that way was completely ice covered. Okay then.

At that point I ran into the Wendy's to grab something to eat to kill some time. Finally we get word that they have opened the road. I was surprised to hear that they weren't advising chains. I guess once they got the trucks and wrecks removed that gave the salt shakers (plows with sand or salt) room to get up the hill and get the road in better condition. It worked because it was mainly slushie when I went over along with a convoy of other trucks that were waiting for it to open.

That was Thursday and I managed to get to Big Springs,NE. That was right at another 300 miles. I woke J up and he REALLY gave me a hard time about sucking at driving, in a joking manner of course, and then he headed out. When I was on my way to Big Springs I called our FM to see if we could get more time to deliver since we had been held up by the weather and the road closure. He got us until 1300 today and that worked good. I got there around noon which was still later than the original appointment of 1000 but earlier than the new appt time.

Today all I had to deal with was rain across Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan. Rain isn't so bad as long as it isn't a torrential downpour. The only thing I really hate about driving in the rain is when other trucks pass and they get back in the lane right in front of me. There is so much spray coming up from the back of their truck it makes it difficult to see. I usually slow down and let them get some distance on me. I just wish they would give me at least a truck length before coming back over, any little bit would help. When I pass someone, if no one is behind me, I give them probably two truck lenghts before I get over. They probably don't know why, but it is just my way of being nice so that it is easier to see.

Anywho, I delivered and am now sitting at the 76 St Auto/Truck Plaza on US131 at x75 here in Grand Rapids. Our next load picks up tomorrow morning at 0730 in Flint,MI and it is going to Rancho Cucamonga,CA (I probably spelled that wrong). It is a FedEx load. Doesn't pay great, but at least gets us in a good freight area for produce and it is a dry load so I won't have to pay for reefer fuel.

That is my happenings for today! What are all of you doing??

Ferndale,WA

2010-05-04T09:13:00.003-05:00

I'M BACK!!!! Did you guys miss me? I feel like all I have been doing on here lately, when I post, is to apologize for not being on here. I told J yesterday that he just had to remind me to get on here and start blogging again. I really enjoy it. Things have been so crazy for us lately with other stuff that I just haven't been on here. I have gotten e-mails from some of you and Iwant you to know I really appreciate the concern. I sometimes forget that I actually have people that read this and follow me and may start to worry when I don't post. :) I will try to do better from here on out.

We have had so much going on that I don't even know where to begin. I guess I will start with what is going on now and work my way back. Right now we are in Ferndale,WA taking a night off. Last Monday we left Clackamas,OR and picked up in Yakima,WA. We delivered that load to Norfolk,VA and then went to Miami,FL and picked up a load that we delivered yesterday to Blaine,WA. That load was actually going to Canada but we dropped it with a driver that was able to go to Canada. So in this past week we have travelled 7500 miles. We were worn out when we delivered yesterday so we decided it was time for a night out of the truck. The last day we took a week off was two weeks ago, so we were overdue.

On our way up to Blaine,WA we had to drive through Nashville,TN and deal with the torrential rains that they were having this past week. I am sure that everyone has seen the news coverage of the flooding. I am also sure you saw the picture of I-24 in Antioch just south of Nashville where all the cars and trucks were submerged and where the portable building was floating down the road. What a mess! Well, we drove right through that. When we got to that part of I-24, traffic was stopped because of water over the road. Several cars had tried to cross and stalled out. Some of the drivers of the stalled vehicles got out and were helping each other push the cars out of the way. By this time, the water was about 3 feet deep and about 500 feet across. There were 3 other semi trucks in front of us. When they got one of the cars out of the way and cleared a path for us we decided to attempt to cross it. We only had two choices. Try to cross, or end up on the news with the other vehicles. The water was just rising too fast. So the first truck took off, then the second, then the third and then us. We were pushing water with our hood and water was coming up over the wheel welds. That is some deep water. Thank God that our trucks sit up higher and our engines are higher so we didn't stall out. We managed to make it through and then got the heck out of dodge. Looking back I wish that we had maybe stayed to help some of the other people. But then again, other people were out helping and there is no way that we could have known how bad it was going to get.

The next time we have off will be at the end of May. Our anniversary, thirteen years, is at the end of May. So we will spend a nice romantic week off working on our boat in Atlanta. LOL! We are hoping to get the top deck rebuilt and then get it comletely dried in and get an exterior put on. We aren't sure what to use on the exterior though. Ideally we would use the filon panels that are used on boats and RV's, but at a cost of close to $7500 that is out of the question. We are looking at aluminum because it is weatherproof and can be painted. Plus, I don't want seams on the exterior. We just need to find a manufacturer so that we can get sheets of aluminum that we can cut down to fit. But I am having a problem finding those places. What we need is something that we can get in any length but with a height of about 6 feet. Anyone have any suggestions?

I got to thinking that we have been driving now for three years. By the time that we finish our lease it will be four years. I can honestly say that we have enjoyed 99.9% of the time we have been driving. Of course that .01% of the time we didn't enjoy would have been the times that we have had to drive in the snow, throw chains, deal with extremely high winds and other extreme weather conditions. All in all, it has been a very enjoyable experience. But we are thinking that we will not drive any more once this lease is up. We are missing having a normal schedule, sleeping in the same bed and eating home cooking. We are looking at what our next adventure is going to be after this last year is over in the truck. We are currently looking at going to massage therapy school. We have been thinking of that for a while. We have decided that we really don't want to work for someone else after being our own boss the last few years. So our plan right now is to get the boat finished before our lease is up. Then we will go to school and then probably work for someone for maybe a year. At that point we are wanting to open our own spa. Something small with maybe 4-6 massage rooms. Our son's girlfriend is a massage therapist and she wants to come work for us. So we are hoping we can start a small spa and kind of keep it as a family business. We shall see, but that is what we are looking at now. We are actually really excited about it. :)

But, until then, I will continue to keep you updated with our adventures and I will continue to vent when need be! Like having to drive through the worst wind yesterday that I have driven through since we have been driving. They were even talking about it on the news this morning. So until I post next time, take care out there!

Springfield,MO

2010-03-08T14:58:00.002-06:00

Well, we have had a nice couple of days off here in Springfield,MO. We had to get back here and get our drivers side windshield replaced due to a small chip that had decided to run. We also had to get our Hazmat recertification done and our annual review done. Now the only thing we need to get done by the end of this month is our DOT physical. We just ran out of time here so we will have to get it done somewhere else. We had planned on being in Atlanta this coming weekend to do some work on the boat, but there is rain in the forcast so we are going to go to Lubbock instead and see the family for a few days. Hopefully we will be able to get the DOT medical done while we are there and then that will be all taken care of.

Not much else to report. Now that we are back moving again, hopefully I will have more to blog about!

Ontario,CA

2010-02-25T13:48:00.002-06:00

Howdy folks! Been busy, busy, busy! Not so much work related, but busy with personal stuff. We are super excited to get back to work on the boat and get it finished. While we were taking out time off, we found the perfect marina to put the boat at there on Lake Lewisville. Now I have to figure out what to buy for our 14'x18' deck! FUN!!

Anyway, we did have a productive time off and then unfortunately we had to get back to work. We headed out Monday with a produce load out of Garland,TX and we had two stops. One in Los Lunas,NM and the other in Temecula,CA. We hit a snow storm in the Texas panhandle all the way to Albuquerque,NM. The road was probably the worst ice I have driven on, except for maybe when we picked up in Schuyler,NE after being stuck for three days over Christmas this year. We shut down and because of that both of our appointments were rescheduled. Because of that we didn't deliver our last drop until this morning.

On a positive note though, we did have our next load before I could make it to get the trailer washed out. I can't say where we are heading, it is top secret, but it does look like we will be dealing with snow again. Thankfully this is a drop at the receiver and we have until Monday at noon to get there. It definitely won't take us that long, but we won't have to push it if the weather turns nasty on us. We technically should be able to be there by Saturday night, and that is what we are going to push for, but it nice to have that cushion.

Not much else going on right now. It will probably be a few days before I post again since I can't really tell you much about this load or where we are going. So everyone take care and I will be back in a few days! Keep your fingers crossed that we have good weather!

Miami,FL

2010-02-11T12:37:00.002-06:00

Sunny Miami! As I sit here I can hear someone playing Tejano music, which I can't understand a word of, but it makes me think of Cancun and that makes me happy. :)

So here is the deal. We dropped this morning at UPS. We actually made it directly to the place, no thanks to anyone helping us. Prime did not have directions on file and the receiver didn't open until 0900 so we couldn't call them for directions. Streets and Trips showed the street but didn't recognize the address on that street. So that was no help. Thankfully a while back I downloaded Google Earth and that is what saved us. It actually showed the address and showed semi's parked there so we figured there was a good chance that was correct.

J stayed up with me to make sure I got there and so he could give me directions off of the computer. At one point I had to pull over because it looked like the road dead-ended. I couldn't go any farther because there was a runway there. Yes, a runway with planes! We were adjacent to Miami Int'l Airport. But I went ahead and went down the street because there was a sign showing the road turned. Thankfully it did and once we made that turn we were only a block away from our destination. When we got there the first Prime truck was there that left UPS in LA before us. We were both there at 0700 (him earlier) because we were told our appt was at 0800. Come to find out they didn't even open until 0900. Sheesh! Anyway, they finally open, I get a dock and by 1130 local I am unloaded and pulled away from the dock.

After I pulled out of the dock I parked along the side out of the way so that I could shut my doors and sent in my depart call. I planned on staying there as long as possible since I didn't know where I was going next and there is basically no where in Miami to park a semi if you are not at a shipper or receiver. I took time to take Smokey for a walk and when I got back, I had my next work assignment. I had been hoping for a flower load and not a juice load, but I actually got both.

As I was reading the work assignment, my FM called and told me the plan. I need to take the flowers up to Prime Floral in Pierson,FL and drop them there but there were no other flower loads. After that, I am to head over to Bradenton,FL to pick up a juice load going to Los Angeles for Monday morning. I'm not happy with the juice load, because I know it will be heavy. BUT. It does deliver in Los Angeles on Monday and that will put me in a good position to get freight out of there. And it does give me good revenue for the week and I-10 is a good road as far as not many pulls on it. Oh, and it keeps me out of the northeast where all the storms are at.

But here is the funny part. I just checked the weather and there is a 90% chance of snow in New Orleans tomorrow and an 80% chance in Mobile,AL tomorrow with accumulation of 2-4 inches! What the heck??? You go any farther south than that and you will be in the Gulf of Mexico!! It isn't supposed to snow that far south! Ahhhh I guess that is why they call me the Snow Queen. If it is snowing, then that is where I am going to be going!

Cantonment,FL

2010-02-10T15:35:00.002-06:00

Whew! What a day! I didn't get much sleep night before last so last night, or rather yesterday afternoon, when I was finished driving, I went straight to bed. How wonderful over 10 hours of sleep felt last night! This morning I woke up ready to face the world.

When I woke up this morning, J had stopped at a Petro in San Antonio,TX and that is where I took over driving. We usually go fairly slow, depending on how heavy we are, so we can get the best possible fuel mileage. This trip we are fairly light, at only 22,500 in the box, so we have been able to kick the speed up some and still manage to get over 6.8 mpg. Now that isn't as great as we like, and we usually do better, but if we can go 65 and still get 6.8 then I am going to go 65.

Today was a good day and I was just driving along, admiring the beautiful sunrise and the scenery of East Texas and Louisiana when I realized that by going 65 all day, I was going to get some serious miles. The most I have done in a day to this point is 689 miles. It was one of those rush rush rush jobs only to find out about 150 miles out that they can't get us until Monday (that was on a Friday) so at that point I called it a day. So as I was driving, I thought, hmmm, I wonder if I can get 700 miles today. Well, I had a good rest so it was something to shoot for. J has done 714 in a day, driving 72 all day basically with just one restroom stop. I knew I couldn't beat that, but I was going to strive for 700.

Off I go and make it close to the 300 something miles I had left to go in Texas. Damn that is a big state! Then I cruised through Louisiana. Next came Mississippi and then Alabama. Wow! I am moving today! Next comes Florida. Well, you know that is about as far east as I can go on I-10! I actually only made it to the Welcome Center right past the Agriculture Inspection Station and the Weigh Station. But that was good enough for me. That was 702.9 miles from my starting point this morning! And right as I pulled into the rest area, my Qualcomm beeped that I was officially out of hours. Talk about cutting it close! On paper logs, you can fudge a little here and there. Not on electronic logs though. But, as Larry the Cable Guy would say, Git 'er done! And that is what I did!

Now J is driving and we have about 695 miles to go. When we left Los Angeles, we didn't have a delivery time. We have been driving for two days and still hadn't gotten one. Of course about 1430 this afternoon I get a message asking if we can be there by 0700 in the am. Thank goodness I did over 700 miles today or it wouldn't happen. Not that we can't get that far by tomorrow morning at 0700, but we are talking Miami here. Rush hour traffic on I-95 that goes for about 100 miles through all the Beach cities. But we should make it.

So that is where things stand right now. We are hoping for a flower load coming out so we will see what happens.

Los Angeles,CA

2010-02-08T19:13:00.002-06:00

Yay! We finally made it to California! We did drop down from I-80 to I-40 to avoid the snow over I-70 in Colorado only to run into snow in Arizona. It snowed off and on from just east of Flagstaff to Kingman. But it was a wet snow and the roads were in good condition, so I am thankful for that.

We delivered last night in Apple Valley,CA and were told we wouldn't have a load until this morning. We were liking that news so we headed to the Motel 6 in Hesperia, which has truck parking, so we could catch the highlights of the Super Bowl. What a great game! We listened to it on the radio which was a lot of fun. Reminded me of when we were kids and would listen to the games on the radio. I had a feeling of nostalgia. :)

Anyway, we woke up this morning and had a load picking up down in Los Angeles at UPS so we took off to get the trailer washed out and then J headed to the bunk to get to sleep and I headed to go pick up. I got there right on time, noon Pacific, but it took them about 4.5 hours to load us. I think they were waiting on stuff from LAX or something. But we are not loaded and fighting rush hour traffic to get out of here.

This load delivers in Miami,FL and I can't even explain how happy I am that we are going somewhere warm that doesn't have snow! I have been hearing on the news that the New England area is going to get socked again with another storm. Yep, thankful to be headed to Miami! This is also finally a good paying load and our FM said that we will probably get a flower load out of Miami after we deliver. That rocks also because those pay well also, other than the fact that they are physically tough loads. All hand unloads with multipls stops. But I don't mind the work. It is good for the body after sitting basically all the time!

Peru,IL

2010-02-05T14:57:00.002-06:00

Well, my tire fiasco was not over! I thought I was finished with the situation, but it again reared its ugly head down in Crossville,TN!

After we left Pittston, I took off and got us down to Strasburg,VA and then J took over and got us to Knoxville,TN. This left me with about 180 miles to go to deliver in Murfreesboro,TN. After we switched, I made a it stop about 40 miles down the road in Crossville,TN. J got out to guide me into a tight spot and when he did, he noticed that the same tire had gone flat again. UGH! So he heads to bed and I hang out till 0700 when a shop on the opposite side of the highway opens. I head over there and tell them what I need and they get on the phone with Prime who tells them to put a trailer tire on it! Ok, now didn't the Prime shop in Pittston tell me to get the trailer tire off and get a matching drive tire put on??? So why is Prime in Springfield now telling me to put a trailer tire on it? I could have just blown a gasket!! If that is the case, then why was I told to take the trailer tire off, that I had just purchased less than a week ago? So this makes three tires I have had to buy all in the same week because of differing opinions on what is best. Now, stay with me just a minute. Wouldn't you think that a company would have all of their employees on the same page when it comes to what information is given out. Shouldn't the advice they give us be based on FACTS, what is best for the performance of the truck, versus each persons personal OPINIONS? Or does that just make too much sense and would be too easy?? Anyway, I am not happy about it and I am going to see what can be done about it on Prime's end. Because of their differing opinions, from Road Assist and the Shop, I have spent over $1000 on tires and labor this week. Yeah, you read that right. Over $1000. I realize that I need to do what is best for my truck and my "business", but I am the person that DRIVES the truck. I am not trained as a mechanic or on tires. That is what the shop is for and what I assumed that Road Assist was for.

So, on to something more pleasant before I put myself back in a bad mood again! :) We finally made it to Murfreesboro and delivered that load and then got our next assignment. I headed to Cleveland,TN where we picked up at the Mars Plant and delivered that this morning to Manteno,IL. (I love that Mars Plant. The air smells like chocolate there. It is heavenly!) After delivering in Manteno,IL I went and had the trailer washed out and then we got another load assignment. We picked up this afternoon at a Walmart DC in Spring Valley,IL and are taking it to Apple Valley,CA. It has to be there by Monday and we figure we will have it there sometime Sunday afternoon. It is Friday and it is only 1800 miles so we should make it there easily.

It has been snowing outside here in IL today, but so far the roads are just wet. Even though it was coming down pretty hard earlier, the roads are just wet. Actually right now it has quit snowing. According to the radar we will be fine once we get out of Iowa. Iowa has some storms and showing some possible snow, but it doesn't look like there is going to be any accumulation. I just really hope it has stopped raining in CA when we get there. I could really use some sunshine right about now!

Pittston,PA

2010-02-03T08:57:00.003-06:00

Here we are back in Pittston,PA again. J took off last night from the service plaza that we had stopped at and had plans of getting further than he did. However, we didn't plan on snow! He came across the tail end of a storm that dropped over 6 inches in parts of MD, or maybe it was MA. I'm not sure. LOL Either way, when it started getting bad he decided it was time to call it a night when he got to our yard here.

We got up this morning and grabbed a shower and some breakfast, which was pretty darn yummy, then got ready to head out. As we were walking back to the truck we got a call from the trailer shop wanting us to bring the trailer in so they could do the annual inspection. What the heck, no biggie. We have plenty of time on the load.

I dropped the trailer in the bay for them to do the work and then decided I would go check with the shop so that we could get the drive tire fixed. This is the one that went flat on us when we were in IL but they didn't have any drive tires so they put a trailer tire on. It got us by, but it is a different tread pattern and a different tread depth. That means that if I don't get the right tire on there ASAP that it is going to eat up my good tires. So now I am sitting in the tire shop while they change out the tires.

I can tell you that Smokey isn't liking this one bit! There are too many people walking entirely too close to his truck and he is letting everyone of them know it by barking and growling. I have to admit that he does a wonderful job of protecting the truck. It just isn't a good thing when J is in the back trying to sleep!

Hopefully we will be done here in short order and I will be able to hit the road so that we can get on down to Murfreesboro,TN. We will get there sometime in the middle of the night as it stands. I figure we will end up parking until morning after we drop while we wait for our next load. I just hope that they have an empty trailer for us when we get there. They are always behind on getting our trailers unloaded. That means that there are a ton of loaded trailers waiting to get unloaded but none of them are empty yet. I am keeping my fingers crossed that we don't have to play the "hunt and empty trailer" game in the middle of the night.

Hopkinton,MA

2010-02-02T16:15:00.002-06:00

Aren't you guys lucky! You get to read two of my posts on the same day! LOL

After sitting for a few hours this morning, we finally got a load assignment around 0830. I was surprised to see that they were sending us down to Methune,MA instead of up to Easton,ME which is what I was figuring they would do. I guess that is what I get for figuring, huh?

As soon as they sent the info to me, I knew that there was no way I could make pickup on time since I still had to get fuel, send in our trips to be paid and I had to find a washout. Now I know what you are thinking. Why didn't I do all of that stuff while I was just sitting around this morning doing nothing? Well, I will explain that to you. The little truck stop, the Circle K with truck parking, is not a fuel stop and they don't do the Transflo scanning which we use for our payroll. Now, there was a Pilot about 60 miles north, but you know my luck. If I go north, I will get a load where I needed to have went south. Or if I headed south, I would have gotten a load that would have sent me north. Then the 60 miles one way would have turned into 120 miles out of my way once I back-tracked. So, I have learned, the hard way I might add, that I don't get EITHER direction until I have my next load assignment.

It turned out that it wasn't a big deal though because my trailer was already pre-loaded. When I saw where we were picking up at, I figured it would be pre-loaded since it has always been that way whenever we have picked up there. Knowing that, I didn't have to stress about getting there on time. Since we are in the Boston,MA area there are basically no truck services or trailer washouts anywhere close. I had to go south about 40 miles past my pick up to get a washout and then drive the 40 miles back to pickup. That made for an extra 80 miles that I didn't need to drive, but that I had to since our previous load was a meat load and those HAVE to be washed out before the trailer is loaded again.

I got there with no problems and went inside to get my paperwork then set out to find my loaded trailer. I was picking up trailer 26538 and wouldn't you know that particular trailer was parked right next to trailer 26358. How confusing is that?? Of course when I started backing up I went to the wrong trailer, since I was looking at it in reverse in the mirror. Figures, right? LOL I knew something was wrong as soon as I got out because the reefer wasn't running like it should have been. I glanced at the trailer next to it and that is when I actually realized the two trailers 26358 and 26538 were parked next to each other and I had hooked up to the wrong on! And of course the pin got stuck so I had to have J get up and pull the pin to unhook while I had the truck in reverse taking the pressure off of the pin. I hate when I have blonde moments like that!

It is a really heavy load at over 43,500 lbs. I am stopped at this Service Plaza but as soon as J takes over, we will hit a Pilot about 40 miles down the road where we can hit a scale and make sure we are legal. I think we should be, but we may be a little heavy on our steers since we have a full tank of fuel. But we definitely should not be over gross weight. We shall see.....

Auburn,ME

2010-02-02T07:18:00.002-06:00

Since I posted yesterday, I really don't have much to add. LOL :)

Last night I got us to Hazleton,PA and got hooked up to our load of beef that was going to the Walmart DC in Lewiston,ME. I sat there until 1800 and then woke J up. He didn't get much sleep yesterday since he was up to help me find our drop in Pittston. But he got a good nap so he was ready to roll.

He had a really nice run up here to Lewiston since our load was only 7,500 lbs. I LOVE a light load like that. We got well over 7.5 mpg on the way up here and that is money in our pockets. He made it to Lewiston around 0300 and it was a drop and hook which is a rare occurance at a Walmart.

After hooking up to an empty we headed about 5 miles back south to exit 75 where there is a Circle K truck stop and that is where we are currently sitting. I figure they are going to send us up north to Easton to pick up but you just never know what they are going to do. So we just sit and wait.

Hazleton,PA

2010-02-01T17:22:00.003-06:00

This past week has not went like I was hoping. Well, other than the fact that we stayed north and avoided the messy storm that hit I-40 from New Mexico to the Carolinas.

When I last blogged, we were in Ontario,CA getting a restart after delivering in Carson,CA. We were available Wednesday morning and didn't have a load right away. Our FM finally calls and says for us to head towards Salt Lake City because they were WAY short on loads in Southern Cal. So I said sure, just pay me some fuel money. Off we go and we get a dispatch to pick up by 1700 on Thursday in Rigsby,ID almost 800 miles away. No problem since we are all rested.

Off we go and I head to bed that afternoon and J wakes me up leaving me about 400 miles to go. He ran into snow and after watching a FedEx truck go off the road, he decided he better stop. So he stops for a few hours and gets me up and I decide to take off and see how the roads are. They actually weren't bad since J seemed to get out of the worst of it, but the fog was very very heavy. I make it about 80 miles and decide that is enough until the sun comes up. I stopped for a few hours and took off again when the sun came up and I made it into Salt Lake City where I stopped at our yard to get fuel. Boy was that I bad decision!

I pull into the yard and then go to the inspection bay before heading out because I needed a windshield wiper. I got my wiper but it appears that there is some damage to the roof of my trailer that they want to fix. I didn't know it was damaged since the interior on the top was fine and it isn't like we carry ladders and check the roof of the trailers when we pick them up. Anyway, they have an empty for me so I just switch trailers and go BACK through the inspection bay because I now have a light out on the new trailer I picked up. Ok, get that fixed but they dropped the trailer dirty so now I have to go through the wash-bay to get a washout. Would you believe that I pulled in there at 1100 and wasn't done with all of this until 1430??? Three and a half hours to get all that done. Mainly it was waiting in line to get INTO the inspection bay and wash bay because of the trucks in front of me.

By this time I realize there is no way I am going to make it by 1700. No problem since I have four days to deliver this load a whopping 2200 miles. I notify dispatch and they let them know we will be there Friday morning. We go ahead and head out and stop about 80 miles short for the night on Thursday night. Friday morning I get up and drive the rest of the way in with no problems, get loaded, get scaled and I am heading out of town by around 1130. I get back to north of Salt Lake City and J takes over and off we go to Pittston,PA.

We are doing find driving across I-80 until J gets to the west side of Chicago to get fuel and he realizes that one of our drive tires is flat. He calls it in and they send us to a repair shop where we have to wait for the oncal person to come out since it is around 0300. We get that fixed and I head out from there and then later that evening around 2000 hrs J gets us to the yard in Pittston where we spend the night. That left me getting up this morning at around 0800 to go grab a shower and BS with the drivers until I had to leave to deliver which was a 1200 appt about 5 miles away. We managed to get that done and head back to the yard where we grabbed some lunch and then we got out next load assignment.

Right now we are sitting in Hazleton,PA where we are picking up at Cargill and we are making a short overnight run up to Lewiston,ME. My FM gave me a choice of this run or a run to California but I picked this one. I prefer the California load normally, but with only having the one load that we delivered this morning on our check so far, I decided to take the overnight run because that would get on our check when our payroll cutoff is tomorrow afternoon.

Other than that, we are still plugging along. I can't believe the complete mess that the storm created down south this week. I normally HATE running up north in the winter, but I sure enjoyed it this week. Beautiful days, a full moon at night and clear roads the whole way. That doesn't happen too much up north in the winters!

Ontario,CA

2010-01-26T07:39:00.003-06:00

We made it in last night and are now about to enjoy a well deserved day off. :)

When we picked up the load we delivered last night we were worried about the weather across Arizona and New Mexico and it turns out we were worried for no reason. Yesterday as I drove across the western part of New Mexico and all of Arizona it was a beautiful day. I did run into some fog in western New Mexico and the road signs said "WINTER DRIVING CONDITIONS AHEAD. DRIVE WITH CAUTION." It turns out the roads were 100% clear. I think they forgot to change the signs from the last stor. that rolled through.

We were worried about making it on time so I kept on going and used all but 30 minutes of my allotted time yesterday to get as far as I could. When we stopped, J only had 230 miles left to go to the receiver so I knew that we would make it on time. We actually got there a few hours early. This receiver was supposed to have three of our empty trailers so that we could drop and hook. I don't know what happened, but they didn't have any empty trailers so we had to wait for a door. Once we did get a door though, they must have had another Prime trailer emptied out in the mean time because I felt J unhook the trailer and hook up to another one. Sitting in the drivers seat typing this, I just looked in the mirror and sure enough, the trailer we are attached to is a different one than we delivered in. At least we didn't have to wait around to be unloaded once they had a place to park our trailer.

After that was done, J headed back over to the TA here in Ontario,CA where we will spend the next 24 hours or so. Actually 34 but we have already been here for a while. We were both really low on hours so we decided to do a restart here and get our 70 hours back. This place was packed when J got here. At first he just parked anywhere he could find a space and security ended up having us move a total of three times. This place is just a mad house right now. I have never seen this many trucks before. When I got up this morning though, there were finally trucks heading out to make their morning deliveries so there were actual spaces open. After some maneuvering, I finally got into a space. Anyone that has ever parked here will tell you that the rows are extremely close together and backing in can be very difficult. But hey, I AM a professional truck driver, so I managed to get backed in. :)

Oh, that reminds me. When we delivered up in Danvers,MA before we picked this load up, it was an EXTREMELY tight back. J got out of the truck to guide me in. While he was doing that, there was a car waiting to get by but I had the road blocked. This was one of those days where I was on my game and I have to admit, it was a beautiful backing job. As I got backed in, the car went past me and gave me a "thumbs up" and them parked in front of the truck that I had just backed into. Turns out that was his truck and he must run locally for that company. He was old enough to be my father, or a little older, and he came over and told J that he had an excellent chauffeur. LOL Meaning that I did a great job backing in there. It is kind of funny, because I can almost guarantee that if I was a guy driving, he wouldn't have said a thing. It is nice getting compliments from guys like that because he looked like one of the old timers that had been driving for decades. Most of them, not all, but most think this is a mans profession and that a woman has no business doing a mans job. He was very sweet though and it is nice to get complimented like that.

Anyway, we are just chilling out here in Ontario and will be available again for a load at 0600 tomorrow. I guess today I should do the domestic stuff like laundry and cleaning out the truck. *sign* If I must.......

Marengo,OH

2010-01-23T17:32:00.002-06:00

Good afternoon folks! Today was a LONG day for me. I didn't get to bed until around 2200 last night after all the messing around we had to do in Boston and I really didn't want to get up this morning. But with the help of a 5-Hour I made it awake and hit the road.

I started off at a service plaza up on I-90 in New York around Danube I think. The weather was really nice today other than being overcast the majority of the day. The sun came out for a while but luckily while it was overcast there was no moisture. I was thankful that when I hit the Buffalo,NY to Cleveland,OH area that there wasn't any lake effect snow. The way the sky was looking I thought I would hit some snow, but turns out it was just cloudy.

We are really pressed for time on this load and I don't think we are going to make our appointment time. We are going to try though. If we don't run into any delays then we should be fine, but I am still worried about road conditions over in Flagstaff. I just looked at one of their traffic cameras and it looks like it is still snowing. Hopefully by the time we hit that area around 0300 on Monday that storm will have blown on out and the roads will be clear. I am also wondering about our hours. It is going to be cutting it close for us on hours also. I think if we can make it that we will have to do a restart on our hours once we make this delivery.

You would think with a team you could run all the time and not run out of hours. But that isn't the case. And we have run hard this past week. We left out of Springfield last Friday morning and delivered in San Bernardino. Then we headed over to Brawley,CA and picked up a load that we delivered in Shelbyville,IN. Then we picked up in Paris,KY and delivered in Danvers,MA and then we picked up in Haverhill,MA and now we are heading back to Carson,CA. That is 8089 miles since last Friday evening, January 15th. And that isn't counting the excess miles we have driven trying to find trailer washes. No wonder we are tired!

On that note, I am hitting the bed. Now that I have seen exactly how much we have done, I am pooped!

Boston,MA

2010-01-22T17:11:00.002-06:00

Well, when it rains it pours! Things have been so hecktic for us lately. Too much to go into to catch you up so I will give you the very abbreviated version.

After coming out of Lubbock for our late Christmas/New Year's vacation we have had nothing but problems with the truck. We got a PM done, had an alignment done, two new steer tires were put on, the drive axle seal was replaced where it was leaking, our temperature sensor was replaced, the drivers side road lamp was re-wired and the assembly replaced from corrosion and som other wiring underneath was replaced due to corrosion. It seems like we have been sitting more than we have been moving. We spent two days in Laredo waiting on a load and having work done and them another two days in Springfield getting more work done. My momma always said that if I didn't have anything nice to say to not say anything at all. I suppose that goes with blogging!

But I am back and I am hoping things are starting to turn around. Luckily today we got paid, although a VERY small amount, but after being in the shop it was nice not to be in the hole. This next week is shaping up to be MUCH better. We are currently up in Boston after we delivered in Danvers a few hours ago. It was a hazmat load, so now we are having to drive about 50 miles the wrong direction to get a trailer washout and then driving back about 80 miles up to Haverhill to pick up our next load. Decent paying one considering we are hauling out of this area.

The one thing I am worried about though is the weather. I-40 is currently shut down in Arizona and with all the rain in California, I am sure that means more snow. I am going to look at the map and see how far out of route it would be to drop down to I-10 to get into Carson,CA with the load we are picking up. I drove through some snow a few days ago in Arizona on the trip out here and I figure driving in it once in a 7 day period is enough! haha

But that is where things stand with us. To the people that e-mailed me checking up on me, I would like to say "Thank You". I sometimes forget that people out there that I don't even know in person read this and that they are concerned when I go MIA for a while. So again, thank you for worrying about me. It is really nice to have you wonderful people out there watching over me!

Lubbock,TX Still...

2010-01-03T13:20:00.002-06:00

Today is our last day here in Lubbock. We are set to head out tomorrow depending on when we get a load. Today we have spent the day doing laundry and just getting ready.

My mom is looking for a new place to live so we are waiting for a guy to call us back about a house we saw for rent yesterday. We went and looked at it and it coud be fixed up real cute. It is a small 2/1 with a nice big back yard for Bandit. Right now we are just waiting on him to give us a call back so we can go look at it again. When we went yesterday it was just mom and I and J didn't go. So we would like for him to go over today and have a look at it and see what he thinks. They guy renting it seems very accomodating and even asked if there was anything that we didn't like that he could change that would make us like it more. We mentioned the tile in the bathroom and he said he could fix that without a problem. So I think if we look at it one more time with J that Mom will probably go ahead and rent it if he hasn't rented it by the time we can get ahold of him.

I am not sure where we will be heading next. I am guessing that they will probably send us up to Plainview,TX or to Amarillo,TX to pick up a load, just not sure where we will be taking it to. I am anxious for us to get off to a good start to this new year. We have a lot of things planned this year. We want to get our boat finished and moved to Texas. We will finish our lease on the truck this year, probably around July or August and we are deciding whether we want to sign another lease or whether we want to come off the road and find a local driving job. We have been talking about a lot of options. It has been great fun out on the road and it has been a wonderful adventure that we have shared together, but we have seen all 48 of the lower states and been places we never thought we would go. It is turning into more of a job than the adventure that it was the first few years. Plus, we really miss sleeping in the same bed at the same time. LOL We have worked different shifts now for three years. We don't really know for sure what we are going to do, but we are mulling things over. You can guarantee whatever we do decide will be something fun!

Lubbock,TX

2010-01-01T15:37:00.002-06:00

Happy New Year everyone!! We FINALLY made it to Lubbock for a late Christmas celebration and to ring in the new year.

We ended up being stuck up in Elm Creek,NE for three days while we waited out that bilzzard that hit the midwest. Once we were finally able to get on the road on this past Sunday morning, with I-80 opened back up, the roads were fine up until we had to get off an hit US30. I think that road on US30 was by far the worst ice covered road that I have ever driven on. My trailer got away from me a few times and the lady following me got a little sideways also. Her trailer swung far enough around her that I could see the Prime logo on the side. The road was extremely greasy to say the least. I really think they should have kept that road closed because the conditions were really too bad for them to have it open.

I persevered though and made it to our pick-up in Schuyler,NE and then took off towards Springfield,MO where we were dropping this trailer. I stopped just north of Kansas City where J took over and got us into Springfield,MO. As soon as he dropped the trailer there he was given a load to Terrell,TX and he took off. Since we were trying to get to Lubbock, this paid for us to get about half way there. I got us into Terrell on Monday afternoon and then we just had to worry about getting to Lubbock.

We lucked out and were able to get a load out of the Sam's Club in Dallas to deliver in Lubbock but first we had to run by the Saginaw drop lot and do a local delivery at 2100 that night. We were running behind since our drop in Terrell took forever to unload. But we got it all done and J got us almost all the way to Lubbock on Tuesday morning. I took over around 0800 and got us the rest of the way in. Unfortunately they wouldn't let us deliver until 2100 on Tuesday night so we just parked at the Sam's Club and had my mom come get us and J went back that evening to make the delivery.

We had a great Christmas with my mom, our daughter Jessica and my brother and his family. We surprised my mother with a laptop which she is super excited about. I am really happy that we were able to pull that off. She is in the process of moving to a different apartment so now all we have to do is to find an apartent with wi-fi and she will be all set.

Last night for New Year's Eve we went right down the road from my Mom's house to a little neighborhood bar that we used to always go to when we lived here. It was just J and I and we were really surprised to see a familiar face there. Actually 3 of them. They were all people that we worked with at the police department when we were living here. So we had a really nice time ringing in the New Year with old friends.

Elm Creek,NE

2009-12-25T20:07:00.003-06:00

Merry Christmas everyone! I wanted to get on here real quick and say that to everyone. I hope each and every one of you out there has had a wonderful day with family and friends. And if you are like we are, stuck in a truck stop somewhere, I hope that you at least are safe and warm and were able to talk with your family today.

We took that load out of Denver and delivered it and then got another load going back to Denver. We dropped that trailer at our yard there and then were dispatched to Schuyler,NE to pick up our next load. Last night around midnight or so the high winds had J pulling off the roads into the Bossleman's here in Elm Creek. Along with the high winds came snow and now we have been here for close to 24 hours. We knew we would spend Christmas out on the road, but we didn't plan on being stranded in a blizzard!

We are supposed to have this load picked up by 0800 in the morning but that isn't going to hapen. Although we only have about 130 miles to go, we aren't going anywhere until the wind dies down and we have some visability. So today we enjoyed a nice Christmas dinner that included a tuna sandwich and Fritos. YUMMY! Ok, I love tuna sandwiches, but not my ideal Christmas dinner. But I can't complain. I got to spend the day with the person I love the most in this whole world. What more could a girl ask for?

Oak Grove,MO

2009-12-22T16:50:00.002-06:00

Yay! We made it out of Denver after a false start. Yesterday morning we were available at 0700. Even though we were fairly sure we wouldn't have a load right then, we went ahead and got up and got the truck loaded and headed out from Colorado Springs up to Denver. Since we had the truck in the shop, we didn't have a trailer, and we knew that we would have to go back to the yard in Denver to get one.

We got up to Denver around 0930 and still didn't have a load so we headed to one of our favorite restaurants, McCoy's, to have some breakfast. Yummy Huevos Rancheros with green chile. Delicious! About the time we were done my phone rings and it is our FM asking if we had an empty. I tell him we don't but we are only about 3 miles from the yard and are about to head over there. He tells e to let him know as soon as I have an empty so he can dispatch me on a load. It is starting to look good for a load so we book it over to the yard, hook up to an empty, send in a message letting him know what trailer we have, and we wait. And wait. And wait.

Finally around 1400 I get the load assignment. We desperately needed fuel, so with a current trip number in hand, I stop at the TA to get fuel and then wake J up to let him know he is about to start his shift. He gets up and I drive the remaining 5 miles to Safeway where we are picking up, which is there in Denver. I checked into the gate and start heading around towards the back to the shipping office and my qualcomm beeps. Wouldn't you know it? The message says that our load was cancelled. Just great! Off we go back to the yard to wait on another dispatch.

It only took about an hour and a half but we finally got another dispatch. We had to deadhead 300 miles over to Kansas for a load going 600 miles to Montgomery City,MO. This load was supposed to be on a pre-loaded trailer so J takes off to KS and I hit the sack. J managed to get the load picked up and get scaled then he parked so I could get a few hours of non moving sleep. This load wasn't scheduled to deliver until 0500 on Wednesday so we knew we had extra time. Once I got up and got on the road today, I got a message from our FM saying that we can drop this load anytime. That works for us, so I told him our eta would be 1900 tonight.

I was quite surprised when around noon we got a message for a pre-plan. We don't get those a lot. But I think with Christmas right around the corner, a lot of places are loading up all the trailers they have so they can afford to take the day off. The plan is for us to drop this then head over to St Louis to pick up another load that is going to Aurora,CO. Now for the bad news. Have you been watching the weather? Major snow storm hitting the mid-west and that means we will have to drive right through the middle of it on I-70 to get back to Denver. YUCK!! And to think we have been pretty lucky so far this winter not hitting snow but once! I guess we will just take is slow and take our time, as we usually do when we hit bad weather. Keep your fingers crossed that we make it safe and sound!

I did ask our FM about a load out of Denver. The pre-plan we have delivering in Aurora delivers on the 24th, Christmas Eve. I was worried about delivering and then getting stuck there until the 26th when people are back to work. He didn't seem to worried about finding a load. There are a lot of drivers going home for Christmas so he thinks we should be able to get a load off of our yard or get another load that is pre-loaded somewhere. I hope that is the case so we can keep moving. We have plans to go to Lubbock on the 29th to have a late Christmas with family, so I don't want to be sitting for two days the week before we go home!

Denver,CO

2009-12-20T18:50:00.002-06:00

We have been running fairly hard and have had some problems with the truck since I posted last. On top of that, I have just been in a funk and haven't posted lately. I apologize to you guys and wanted to let you know that we are indeed alive and well.

Too much has happened since I last posted so I will give you the short version. Our of Pittston we got a load out to California. We delivered on a Saturday, got our next load Sunday afternoon. Got to our first of two pick-ups on Monday morning for our scheduled appointment time of 0800 and they didn't have the produce for us until 2300 Monday night. That meant we couldn't get our second pick-up until Tuesday morning. Managed to get that and we headed out to Kirkwood,NY. This was the weekend that Flagstaff and Colorado and the Great Lakes region was getting tons of snow. We ended up and went the long route and made it to delivery on time with about 30 minutes to spare.

From there we drove down to Pittston to get our trailer an alignment. No freight in the area so we dropped the trailer and bobtailed to Indiana to pick up a new trailer from the Wabash factory in Lafayette. Then drove back to Ohio to pick up a load going to Atlanta. Delivered in Atlanta and it took FedExalmost 12 hours to get us unloaded. From there we picked up in Atlanta but we took that load to a drop lot for another driver and then went back to the same place and picked up another load that we took to Sterling,IL. From Sterling we drove up to Sturtevant,WI and picked up a hazmat load that we delivered down to Brownsville,TX. Delivered that and then we had the air dryer go out on the truck. Road assist sent someone out that by-passed the air dryer so that we could keep going for the moment.

From there we got an overnight load up to Garland,TX. Delivered that and then they sent us up to Waldron,AR to pick up a Tyson load going to Grandview,WA. Unfortunately at this time we were out of hours and couldn't make it all the way to Grandview,WA and be ontime. What we did was take the load as far as Denver,CO were we dropped it at our yard. Since we were out of hours this was the perfect time to put the truck in the Freightliner shop to get the air dryer fixed. We have a friend down in Colorado Springs, so when we dropped the trailer last night, he drove up to Denver to pick us and and we have been at his house since last night.

About an hour ago we found out that the truck was ready so J and Kevin just took off to head back up to Denver to pick up the truck and head back down to the Springs. I at the moment am finishing up our laundry so that we can load the truck back up when they get back so we can head back out in the morning. We said that we would be available around 0700 in the morning except that we aren't going to have a trailer. We will probably have to drive back up to Denver in the morning to get a trailer, unless they can find us one somewhere down here in the Springs. But if we waited until our laundry was all done, that would be too late for Kevin to take us back up to the truck since he has to work at 0600 in the morning. Meh, we will deal with finding a trailer in the morning. LOL

So that is where we stand at the moment. We will only be back out on the road for about 9 more days before we go to Lubbock for a late Christmas celebration with family. Then we will keep our fingers crossed that we can stay busy through the slow season of January through March!

Pittston,PA

2009-12-01T19:09:00.002-06:00

Hello there from a nice comfy hotel room here in Pittston. We have been pretty busy since Thanksgiving and running ourselves ragged so I haven't posted. I will give you the shortest rundown of what we have been doing.

After my last post, we continued on to our drop that load in Lewiston,ME. We made great time and J was able to get us there a few hours before appointment time. He got us docked and then woke me up so that he could head to bed. Around 1000 hrs local, I was unloaded and headed out except that I had half a pallet of persimmons that they rejected. After placing a call in to our claims department I headed down to the closest truck stop to wait for word back on what they wanted me to do with the product. It took several hours but they finally told me to dump the product and sent me our next load. Unfortunately, getting rid of that many cases of persimmons is easier said than done.

Luckily we didn't have to pick up our next load until 2200 hours that night (Sunday) so we had some time to figure out what to do. I let J sleep until around 1500 then we got up and figured out what to do. Where we were parked would not let us dump them in their dumpster so we had to move on to find another place. We found a service plaza in Kennebunk,ME and the attendants there said that we could dump them in their dumpster so we lucked out.

As soon as we did that, we headed to Haverhill,MA to pick up an overnight load going down to Jersey City. This was a nice easy load with only 266 miles to run overnight. On the down side, J ran out of hours before midnight so he had to park for a while. He got me up the next morning and I drove the last 90 miles or so into Jersey City to make that delivery. We got there on time, even though you know how much we hate going into that area, and we made it to a dock in pretty short order. It did take a while to get unloaded, but once I got my paperwork back I found out that this load also had product that was rejected. This time is was 68 cases of Pillsbury busquits. Only a few of the cans had exploded but they refused all the cases on that pallet. Soooo, here we go again. This is one of the reasons that I don't like picking up pre-loaded trailers. When we do that we don't know what condition the product is in.

Anyway, once I called claims, yet again, they tell me to take the product to a Salvation Army in Perth Amboy,NJ. Talk about some small streets and low clearances! We even had to park in the middle of the road blocking traffic with cars having to go in the oncoming lane to get around us while we were unloading. But it was worth it to know that at least this product was going to people that could use it instead of having to throw it in a dumpster. When we left, we managed to follow our directions, which were wrong, and had to turn around at the entrance to an apartment complex because the road dead-ended. Whew, that wasn't fun! But we got turned around and from there we had to go find a trailer wash.

We managed to find the trailer wash and get that done and then we headed over to Tropicana where we were told to drop our trailer. Finally! We were getting a few days off! Well, only because we had to put the truck in the shop. LOL So we drove to Pittston,PA where we have a yard and put the truck in the shop. We were having problems with the air compressor. When we got here we found out that we couldn't get the truck in until this morning, so last night we checked in to a hotel and this morning J took the truck up there and waited while they got it fixed. Not knowing when we checked in how long it would take to get the truck fixed, we had gotten the room for two nights. So instead of heading out this afternoon when the truck was ready, we decided to stay until in the morning. This way we both will get a restart on hours and we needed a rest.

Now we are all rested up and ready to go back out until we take a few days off right after Christmas!

Flagstaff,AZ

2009-11-26T19:16:00.002-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone out there! This has been the third year in a row that we have spent Thanksgiving out here on the road. It really isn't as bad as you may think. I would much rather spend Christmas with my family so that is the holiday that we try to get home for.

For those of you that haven't been reading my blog for very long, Thanksgiving is a really unusual holiday for us out here on the road. Thanksgiving of 2007 found us stuck up in Bozeman,MT where we had blown the transmission in our truck. We were stuck there and the people that worked at the hotel invited us to their Thanksgiving dinner at one of their houses. That year we were especially thankful for the kindness of strangers inviting us into their homes to share the holiday with them. If you get a chance, go back in my blog in the archives to November of 2007 and read the entries around Thanksgiving. It is way to much to type on here, but it is worth the read. They were extremely nice people that I still think of till this day.

Thanksgiving of 2008 also found us in Montana. This time however, we were about 100 miles west of Bozeman. I was going to try to make it to Bozeman so we could eat there, but I ran out of time. At that point I was beginning to think that we were about to start a tradition of spending every Thanksgiving out on the road in the state of Montana!

This year however, we ended up eating our Thanksgiving turkey dinner in Flagstaff,AZ. We stopped at Little America and had a wonderful turkey dinner. We have eaten there before and knew that they had great food. It did end our streak of spending Thanksgiving in Montana though darn it!

This year I am thankful for a lot of things. I am thankful for my husband, my wonderful step children, my family, our friends, our jobs and even my blogger friends that post on here and keep up with our travels. You really make me smile when I see a comment on a blog entry. :) It has been a tough year, financially, as it has been for so many people. The economy is in the toilet but I am hoping that things are starting to look up. Even with the economy the way it is, this past year we have been able to take two wonderful vacations and we purchased our houseboat that we are working on when we have the time. And money. LOL Eventually that will be our residence so it is a project that we have put a lot of time and love into.

This year our son has finished his schooling in the Navy. He is on break now but he reports to his permanent Naval Base the first week of December. Our daughter graduated high school and has started college with the hopes of getting into a Nursing program. We are so proud of them, as any parent would be.

I hope each and everyone of you out there has taken this time today to reflect on this past year and let those around you know how thankful you are that they are in your lives. I hope you had a wonderful day and I will update you more on our progress. As for now, we are off to Maine!

Menomonie,WI

2009-11-23T16:28:00.004-06:00

Another day down! Still not feeling really well, but I am feeling a little better, so that counts for something.

Last night we delivered our top secret load to the airport and then headed to the Flying J just south of Milwaukee,WI to spend the night. We got our next load right after we dropped at the airport and we saw that we were able to sleep in a little this morning, so that was great news.

Knowing that I could get some extra sleep, I set my alarm last night to wake up this morning at 0700. We went ahead last night and idled the truck since it was quite cold outside. We have the auxilary heater in the truck, but it is extremely hard to regulate that thing. It goes straight to about 95 degrees in nothing flat and then it is just miserably hot. Since we both haven't been feeling better, we decided to idle so that we could control the temperature in the truck a little better and get a good nights sleep.

With that in mind, I headed to bed at around 2130 last night and woke up feeling a little more refreshed. My nose was a little more stuffy this morning, but I felt better than I did the day before. I ran inside to do my business and grab something to drink then came back out and took Smokey for his morning walk. Since we were parked at the Flying J, and they aren't a fuel stop for us, I had to drive across the street to the Pilot to get fuel. By 0810 I was driving out and hitting the highway.

The load we picked up today in Menomonie,WI had an appointment time of 1430 and it was 267 miles away. I ended up and arrived there at about 130o and they were able to get me right in to a dock and they started loading me. It was a tiny place in that there wasn't a lot of room in front of the docks to maneuver around. They had a big grassy area about 15 feet wide that went to the road with no curb around it. It sure would make it easier for us trucks if they took out that grass and paved that area. It took me several tries to get the truck straight with the dock because I didn't have much room up front. I was thinking that maybe it was just me having a hard time until the next truck came in and had the same problem. It wouldn't have surprised me if it had just been me since you never seem to be able to do anything 100% when you aren't feeling well. So either it was just a hard back, or the other driver wasn't feeling well either. haha

Anyway, we got that loaded, went and scaled and grabbed some lunch. We were a little heavy on the trailer tandems so we had to slide the tandems one notch to get legal. We didn't have much leeway since we are going to Victorville,CA with this load and we can't have the trailer any further back than the 6th hole to begin with. But we got it all set and took off.

As soon as we hit the road I pulled up the National Weather Service website to check the weather. We were routed to drop down to I-80, then take I-76 into Denver, then I-70 over to UT and from there hit I-15 down to Victorville. When I checked the Colorado website there was snow up on I-70 and it was not looking good. The road around Eisnehower Tunnel was snowpacked. Not good. So I look at an alternate route, taking I-80 all the way over to Salt Lake City,UT and then hitting I-15 to go south. It was only about 70 miles further but there was snow, icy roads and high winds across Wyoming. Ok, that doesn't look good either.

Well, I decide to check my last alternative which was to hit I-35 in Minneapolis,MN and take it all the way down to I-40 in Oklahoma City,OK and then hit I-40 across to I-15. This route is about 120 miles further. However, there are less mountains, which means much better fuel mileage, and no bad weather. We still may spend a little more on fuel going the extra miles versus what we would spend pulling the mountains in Colorado or Wyoming, but we decided we would rather do that than to have to fight the snow.

Now that we have a plan, we are pointing the truck in that direction and off we go. We are currently trying to see if we can drop this load around 1500 on Wednesday there at the receiver in Victorville,CA or if we are going to have to stay with it and wait until the appointment on Friday morning. Our hope is that we can drop it on Wednesday and that we will be able to get something out of CA that evening so that we won't be stuck somewhere over Thanksgiving. We really want to keep moving until Christmas or New Years. So we will see what happens. We may get there and deliver and not be able to get anything until Friday so we may be stuck anyway. But I guess it is better to get there and be ready for another load just in case we luck into something.

Franklin,IN

2009-11-22T11:01:00.002-06:00

Haven't posted in a few days because I have just been feeling icky. I have been arguing with a cold for the better part of 4 days and so far the cold seems to be winning. I have been running a pretty low graded fever for about 3 days and that just zapps all your energy. Thank goodness it hasn't gone into my chest yet. I always seem to get upper-respiratory infections so I seem to be holding that off at least.

When I last posted we were heading to Tolleson,AZ which is a suburb of Phoenix. We made that delivery and from there I went to Yuma,AZ to pick up a load of lettuce that we delivered in Springfield,OH. Now we are on another load but I can't tell you where we are picking up or where we are going because it is another one of those high value top secret loads. :) Needless to say, people will be happy though when we get this delivered!

From what Michelle posted on my last entry, my old bosses daughters funeral is set for today. It is going to be an extremely rough day for her and all of my old co-workers. Thank you for those that have posted and to those that didn't but have had that family in your thoughts and prayers. It is appreciated.

Brazil,IN

2009-11-17T15:55:00.002-06:00

I covered some ground today! I'm worn out!

Ok, so after Iposted yesterday, I sat for a while there at the receiver, US Cold Storage in Bethlehem,PA while my travel agent, aka Dispatcher, decided what he was going to do with me. Since they didn't have any empty trailers there, I was stuck until they emptied one or until dispatch sent me somewhere else to go get one.

Finally around 1000 hrs, I get a message from dispatch to go about 60 miles to pick up a trailer, preferably an older one that still runs when the back doors are open, for a load he was looking at giving me. As soon as he sent me that message, the yark jockey came over and let me know that door 46 was empty and I could have that trailer. Sweet! So I go over and hook up to the trailer, do my pre-trip on it and pull out away from the dock and parked next to the curb in their yard. As I was parking there, I got my new work assignment. They wanted me to go about 720 miles for right at $600. I sent a message saying, "Under a $1 a mile???" to which I get a response of "That is the normal rate from this shipper".

I decide to run into the restroom before I commit to the load because I am seriously debating refusing that load. On top of the crappy pay, it is also a hazmat load. When I get back to the truck I am about to send a message a message refusing the load and I get a message back saying "Hold tight. Don't leave yet. Checking on another load". Good thing since I wasn't going to take that one. LOL

A few minutes later I get a new work assignment picking up at the place I am currently at, US Cold Storage, at 1400. THAT is more like it! It goes 2300 miles to Phoenix,AZ and pays about 4.5 times as much as the first one. Momma is happier with that now. :) So I send in a message accepting that load. After I do that I go find the yard jockey and tell him that I don't need the trailer anymore since I am picking up the trailer that is being loaded in dock 49. He has me go drop it and then as soon as I pull away from my empty I see that he has told another Prime driver, who was also waiting, that he could now have that trailer.

After I got that all figured out, I headed over and backed under the trailer in door 49 and sat there to wait for them to get it loaded. Since they knew I was there waiting, they got it loaded pretty quickly and I was out of there a good two hours before my actual appointment time.

I headed out with plans of stopping in Carlisle,PA for J and I to switch. He woke up a bit before we got there and we came up with a plan. We went in and got a shower, ate dinner and did laundry. Then we decided to stay there the night. We are both low on hours. We figured if we stayed there the night, he would get a restart on his hours. Then hopefully when we deliver this load, I will be able to get a restart on my hours then we will be good to go for a while.

Having made that decision, I got a good night of non-moving sleep and got up this morning at 0230 and by about 0330 I was headed out. We stopped and switched in Brazil,IN which gave me a 590 mile day. I could have made 600, but I really had to go to the restroom! :)

Currently the weather is rainy and dreary here on the eastern side of IL that we just now crossed into. I need to go check the weather and see what is in store for J tonight while he is driving!

Also, not that anyone that reads this will know this person, except Michelle, but I would like to ask for prayers, thoughts, well wishes, whatever it is that you do. I found out from Michelle this morning that my old boss, Brenda, lost her daughter last night in a traffic accident. I believe her daughter, Allison, has just graduated or was about to graduate, from college. It looks like she swerved to miss a deer and lost control of her vehicle. She was driving alone and a passerby saw the wreck after it happened and called 911. Brenda is single, this was her only child and she lost her mother this past year. I just ask that you keep her in your thoughts and prayers. I can't even begin to imagine what it wouold be like to lose a child. Especially your only child. This has been a very tough year for her and she has so much more to go through. So thank you in advance.

As a side note, because of what happened to her daughter, DO NOT SWERVE to miss an animal. NEVER do that. Hit the animal. I know it is reflex or instinct to want to swerve and not hit them, but don't do it. Your car insurance will replace or repair the damage to your car. Your life insurance will NOT replace your life. Once you are dead, you are dead. That is the cold hard facts. If you are ever in that position where an animal runs out in front of you, take your foot off the gas pedal, apply the brakes GENTLY, aim for the opposite lane if it is clear and you are able to, but don't jerk the wheel. If you see that you are going to hit them, just hold steady, lock your elbows if you need to so that you don't swerve, and just continue to slow down at a steady rate. You don't want to slam on your brakes because you have to remember there may be traffic behind you. I have hit a deer before, I felt so bad, but I just plowed the poor thing over. There was only going to be one of us survive that encounter and I was going to make sure that it was me. Ok, end of my preaching. Just don't swerve!!

Bethlehem,PA

2009-11-16T07:11:00.002-06:00

After sitting for a few hours at the Pride Truckstop in Chicopee,MA on Saturday afternoon, we finally got a load. We considered refusing it, but since it was a Saturday, if we refused that one we probably wouldn't get loaded again until Monday. So we went ahead and took it.

We had to deadhead all the way up to Easton,ME which was about 450 miles. UGH! We headed out from the Pride Truckstop around 1700 hours. By around 2045 we had made it to Kennebunk,ME where we stopped for the night. The rain that was hitting the NE had made it to Maine and we were right smack in the middle of it. There were cars all over the road. The road is also that really black asphalt with faded pain so it was really hard to see the lines. Since we knew the trailer was preloaded and not due at the destination until 1900 on Monday, we decided to just stop and I would take off Sunday morning when we could see.

I got up and hit the road about 0530 (o630 local) and it was just starting to get light outside. I wouldn't say the sun was about to come out because we didn't see it all day. Pretty much like the past two days. I got about 10 miles up on I-95 and they had two of the three lanes shut down due to water being over the road. A good 4 inches from flooding. I would bet that at some point Saturday night they completely closed that road due to high water. Probably a good thing that we stopped.

Around 1230 local I made it into Easton. I checked in and was told where to pick up the trailer. But first I had to go to Danny's and get a trailer washout for the trailer we were dropping. Super nice guy but he lived down a dirt road. For a few minutes I was wondering if I had missed a turn and was lost! But I topped a hill and there was his sign. It is a good thing that he only does washouts, because if he did truck washes, the trucks would be dirty again before you could hit the highway!

Got that done and went back and dropped the trailer and headed back towards I-95 to get scaled. I was at an even 79,000 lbs and had to slide the tandems back two holes to get legal. It was all good so we were ready to roll. From there J took over and off we went!

J got us to a Service Plaza in CT about 15 miles north of the NY state line. I took over there and had J stay up with me until I got through The Bronx and Newark and managed to get on I-78 without getting lost. It is such a cluster through there! I haven't actually gotten lost going through there before, but I did have to take the exit for US-1/US-9/I-78 and if you read my blog, you know that anytime I get near that stupid US1/US9 that I will take a wrong turn and get lost!

I made it through though and made it to our receiver, US Cold Storage here in Bethlehem,PA around 0600 this morning. As it turns out, they do not have any empty trailers here. I was told that as soon as they get them empty that they are reloading them to go back out. But one Prime bobtail that I was parked to had a yard jockey come tell him about a trailer that was empty that he could have. So I don't know what the deal is. Dispatch told me to stay here and we an see if they can get us a load coming out of here, which would be nice since I wouldn't have to go hunt down an empty. Or the other option is that the yard jockey may come tell me when they get an empty and I may take it and run. Maybe we will just have to see which comes first?

Hatfield,MA

2009-11-14T11:15:00.002-06:00

Boy, what a dreary rain filled morning I woke up to today! UGH!!! After a week on the cruise I am NOT liking this weather! LOL

When J took over last night he only had 567 miles to go to our receiver. I sent off for directions and wrote them down for him so that he would know where he was going. The directions also said that we could park there overnight so we didn't have to worry about finding a place here in Massachusettes to park since we knew we would get there long before our 0700 appt. As it turns out, J got us in around 0230, even though he had to deal with driving in the rain the last 150 miles or so.

Around 0700 they had him back up to a door and since he couldn't hang anymore, he woke me up and he crawled into bed. C&S Wholesale Grocers, where we delivered at, is a busy little place. I don't think they even started unloading me until around 0800. But by about 0915 they were done and I went in and got my paperwork.

Since I figured we wouldn't have a load right away, I pulled back around the building to the staging area and sent my depart message and then took Smokey for a walk. I waited about an hour with no message from dispatch other than sales was trying to book some loads. So after that hour I decided to move about 25 miles south down to the Pride Travel Center off x6 on I-90. The directions to the receiver said the lot was only open till 1300 so I knew I would have to move before then. I figured the sooner tha I moved, the better chance I had of getting a parking spot as close to the truck stop as I could. Normally that isn't a big deal, but when it is pouring rain outside, I want as close as I can get.

I probably do need to go do laundry, but I am just not motivated to get out in this rain! Maybe I will get around to it if the rain slacks off here a little later. It is about 1230 local time, on a Saturday, so I am really beginning to wonder if they are going to find us a load today. Or over the weekend for that matter. I hope we aren't stuck here until Monday. Yuck! Keep your fingers crossed that we get moving soon!

Girard,OH

2009-11-13T15:31:00.002-06:00

Folks, I don't have much to report today! J got me to a rest area about 50 miles west of the IN state line just outside of Chicago and that is where I took over.

We have plenty of time on this load, about an extra 30 hours. Yesterday our fill-in FM said that he would try to get the appt moved up for us. Finally around 1200 today we got a message saying that they will take us at 0700 in the morning instead of having to wait until 0500 on Sunday morning. So that makes us really happy. Right now it is about 1540 hours and we only have about 550 miles left to to so it should be a breeze. The directions say the yard is open and we can park overnight so we are going to head on in and see if by some chance they can even unload us early.

The one BIG thing I do need to report today though is that our son Justin graduated from his final class in the Navy before being assigned to his permanent submarine. He graduated from Nuclear Missle Tech school, meaning that he will be working on the missles on a submarine. He will have some much needed time off to spend with family and his fiance before he reports to his base on December 9th up in Bangor,WA. I can't even begin to describe how proud of him we are. For those readers that are ex-military or have children in the military, you know exactly how we feel. He had grown up and matured so much in the last year and a half since he joined. He went in as a boy and we have watched him become a fine young man. It is amazing to watch that transformation in your children!

So that is where we are right now. We are going to be out on the road until around Christmas and then we will take about 10 days off to spend with family in Lubbock and then go to Las Vegas to ring in the New Year with our friends there. IF we can get a load to Vegas that is in between Christmas and then. If not, then we will just either hit the road again or stay in Lubbock. We don't want to drive that far unless we get paid to!

Greenwood,NE

2009-11-12T15:58:00.003-06:00

Sorry it has been a few days but as soon as we left out the damn charger for the computer went on the fritz! UGH! It was torture not being able to get on the laptop. Luckily we both have the internet on our phones, but you can only do so much on a phone. No way would I try to blog from it! LOL

Time to catch you up. After making the local delivery we got a pick up in Fort Worth at Kraft going to Denver. We picked it up on Monday evening and off we went. It had a Thursday delivery but it is only around 700 miles to Denver. No way we needed all the time they were giving us. We were able to get them to move our appointment up and we made it into Denver around 1230 on Wednesday.

I sent our depart and we headed to our yard there to grab a shower. While we were enrt they sent us a message to deadhead to Salt Lake City,UT and they would load us out of there. So they got a nice message back from me saying that we weren't deadheading that far without a load assignment. They like to deadhead us there and then try to find something once we get there. I'm not driving 600 miles without a load. Plus, I want to make sure it is worth it to drive that far just to pick up a load. When we came back out from our showers, they had given us a load up to Rexburg, ID to pick up the next morning.

Here is what is irritating. If we had just driven to Salt Lake we would have gotten there and then maybe been assigned this load. However, we would have driven about 200 miles out of the way to get there. So I am glad that I told them we werent moving until we had a load picking up that direction. What could have been about a 770 mile trip ended up being only a 580 mile trip. Roughly. You have to be smarter than the average bear when dealing with dispatch and sales. I know they are just doing their jobs, but my bottom line isn't their priority. But it is mine.

We headed out and J got us into Rock Springs,WY where I took over. We headed up US191 then took US89 over to Alpine,WY where we hooked into US26 that took us into ID and our destination. It was an extremely windy road for about a third of the way. I figured it was a beautiful drive, but it was dark when I passed through there so I couldn't tell.

I was about 30 minutes late to my first pickup because I had run into some ice on the road over in WY and had slowed down some. But I made it there by 0730 local time and was loaded pretty fast. From there I drove the 14 miles to our second and last pickup and repeated the process. I was talking to a Stevens Transport driver while getting loaded and we were both headed back to the East Coast. He wasn't familiar with the area and mentioned that as soon as he was loaded that he was going to figure out how to get out of the area. I knew where to go since I was backtracking the route I had driven in. Once I got scaled and had my paperwork in hand, I hollered at him on the CB and he followed my lead. I know I looked smart leading the way, but really, it is easy when you have just driven that route. Oh, and a GPS is nice. :) LOL I did lose him somewhere along the way because he pulled over in the mountains. Probably had to take a break for the restroom or something. But we stopped in Alpine,WY to get a coke and I saw him make the turn onto the right road. So I felt good that I had at least helped him get to the right road.

We really enjoyed the drive back through that part of ID and WY. The portion that I missed that morning was beautiful drive coming back during the daylight. I wouldn't mind living up there. The road we were on followed the Snake River and we drove right along the Palisades Reservoir and Palisades Dam. Beautiful, beautiful country.

I had been up since around 0130 on Wednesday morning to drive us into WY and by the time we got back to Rock Springs,WY (J was driving by this time) it was almost 2000 hrs. I was exhausted. We stopped at the Flying J and grabbed some dinner and then I hit the sack.

J woke me up this morning in Sydney,NE where he had stopped at around 0300. He stopped at a Walmart and had went in and was able to find a charger with the right connection for the laptop. YES!! Then he chilled and watched a movie and let me sleep in. He got me up at 0600 and we meandered around Walmart doing some grocery shopping. By 0720, we had the truck loaded back up and I was pulling out of the parking lot.

Since I hit the road so late this morning, I only managed a mere 363 miles. Yep, I was slacking! But we have been driving 55 mph since we picked up this load because it is heavy. Our fuel mileage has sucked since we got the 8 new tires. I really wasn't sure if it was the new tires or the winter blend fuel. Or maybe just a combination of things. But going 55 mph now, we are averaging 7.52 for the whole trip since we left Denver to go pick it up. So I don't know what the deal is. But I am happy!

Today I stopped at the Greenwood Travel Plaza in Greenwood,NE on I-80 at x420. From here we only have 1409 miles to go to our destination in Hatfield,MA and this load isn't due until Sunday at 0500. Sheesh. This is Thursday. We could easily be there by around midnight tomorrow night. That is FRIDAY night. We are going to see if we can get the delivery appointment moved up. If not, then we will head on in and we will both be able to get a restart on our hours.

That is where we stand folks! More to come tomorrow!

Fort Worth,TX

2009-11-09T16:52:00.002-06:00

We FINALLY made it back out on the road today! We got up this morning and were running around like chickens with our heads cut off. Which makes me wonder. Has anyone actually ever seen a chicken running around with it's head cut off? Hmmm

So we were up and on the road at 0640 this morning to go pick up the truck from our storage facility. Once I dropped J off there he headed to pick Smokey up from the kennel and I headed back to Michelle's to finish rounding our stuff up. J got there about 30 minutes behind me and we got everything back in the truck and we were off. Our first stop was over in Saginaw,TX to pick up a loaded trailer so we could make a local delivery. We made it, just barely, but then sat for about three and a half hours while they unloaded us. That is one of the longest unloads we have had in a while.

As I was sitting there we got a pre-plan which has us picking up at Kraft here in Ft Worth tonight at 1800. It is only about 3.5 miles away so we will start that direction in about 30 minutes. This load will be going to Denver,CO and we will deliver it tomorrow afternoon at 1400. It is nice to get a short run out of here because it will make our payroll cutoff tomorrow afternoon. After that, who knows where we will be going!

Cruise Pics 2

2009-11-07T11:48:00.002-06:00

Progreso,MX

One of my favorite pics of the sunset

No mas Tequila!!

Acting like tourists LOL Cozumel,MX

Taken from Senor Frogs in Cozumel,MX

Cruise/Halloween Pictures

2009-11-07T11:37:00.003-06:00

Joe looking all groovy....Love the wig!

Our Cabin. We upgraded to a Penthouse Suite. Super nice.

Another view of bed and sitting area.

Michelle, Joe and Me. Rocking the disco look!

Standing out on the balcony before we left Galveston.

Allen,TX

2009-11-07T11:22:00.002-06:00

I have COMPLETELY been slacking! But I have been thoroughly enjoying myself. We just came back from a cruise and I'm so relaxed it isn't even funny. I think if I stood up right now that I would just fall down like a wet noodle. And I'm not kidding!

I am going to post some photos that we took while we were on the cruise. We left on Oct 31st so there were a ton of people dressed up for Halloween. We went with friends and we decided to go with the 70's Disco as our costumes. OMG they were hilarious! I think you will enjoy those pics when I get them on here. I will probably add another post with just the pics.

Tonight we are going to go to the Guns N Hoses fights. They have it annually here in Mesquite,TX. It is boxing between the Police Departments (Guns) and the Fire Departments (Hoses) in the area. If anyone is in the Dallas/Ft Worth area, it is at Resistol Arena I believe in Mequite. It is always a lot of fun. I will also get to see quite a few of my officers that I used to work with that I haven't seen since we have been out on the road so it will be great seeing them and getting to catch up. I also know of one of my officers that is boxing so I hope he kicks some serious Fire Department ass! LOL!!

We are planning on heading back out on Monday. Last time we went on a cruise we were ready on Sunday morning but the didn't have any loads over the weekend. We figured no since in getting all ready just to sit and wait so we decided to be available on Monday. I will let you know on Monday where we are headed!

2009-10-17T15:47:00.002-05:00

It has been a while. With everything we have going on right now, I just keep forgetting to get on here and keep my peeps updated.

Ok, so after we delivered in Fort Smith, we had the privilege of deadheading 500 miles up to Crete,NE for a meat load. Nice. We hit some awful rain around Joplin and pulled it over for a few hours. We didn't make it there by the time they wanted us there, but it was a pre loaded trailer so it didn't really matter when we got there. But we managed to get there and get it picked up and then headed out for the Los Angeles area. We had three stops on this one. One is Barstow and the other two in Vernon. We even had an extra 24 hours on this load.

Normally I don't like having all this extra time, but it did allow us to stop and see our friends in Las Vegas and spend the night with them. They have an empty lot right outside of their subdivision that we were able to park the truck at, so that worked out really well. Plus, Smokey got to play in their pool again and he REALLY enjoyed that. LOL

Once we got unloaded in CA, I headed to the TA in Ontario to wait for our next load. Finally around 1500 we got a load but didn't have to pick up until the next moring about 300 miles away. So we went ahead and stayed the night there so that J could get a restart on his hours. We had 4 pickups on this load. I headed out around 0400 local towards our first stop in Livingston. I got there and we got loaded then J took off for the next two over in Salinas. Finished up there around midnight. I headed out again at 0300 for Lamont for the last pickup of the load. Lamont is right outside of Bakersfield so I went up to Bruce's Truck Stop to get scaled and then off I went! I made it to the TA in Barstow where I had a PM done on the truck and had them fix a light on the trailer. From there J took off.

J got me to Holbrook,AZ that night and I took over and got us to Amarillo,TX. When J took over he got us into Springfield,MO to the yard. We had about 12 hours extra on this load so while we were in Springfield we had 8 new tires put on the truck, all except the steer tires, and had them install a security pad for the ignition. Since J got a restart on his hours in CA, I was able to get a restart in Springfield and then J headed out again last night.

We are headed to Albert's in Chesterfield,NH with a variety of organic produce. I am actually really excited about this load! We have been driving for over two and a half years and we have never been to Vermont. Because of the way we are routed and where Chesterfield,NH is, we will FINALLY be going through Vermont! Granted, we are only going to Exit 3 and then crossing the state line over into NH, but the point it that we will physically be in Vermont! Now we will be able to say that we have been to ALL of the lower 48 states! I'm loving this!

Now, if they would only build that bridge to Hawaii..............

Fort Smith,AR

2009-10-08T16:04:00.002-05:00

We made good time on this current trip and were very lucky with the weather as we drove out of the northwest. The pears that we picked up in Yakima were headed to Fort Smith,AR to the Gerber plant where they were destined to be mushed up and packaged for baby food.

After stopping yesterday afternoon on I-35 on the north end of Oklahoma, J and I switched places. We grabbed a shower and some BBQ and hit the road with him only having about 250 miles to go. Our appointment wasn't until today at 1100 but we called and they said that they could take us the evening before. We ended up and got there around 2100, after passing the entrance gate the first time. It wasn't wel lit at ALL and luckily on the second pass, J saw a Tyson truck back in there so we figured this was the place that we needed to be.

It was interesting the way that they unloaded us. The pears were in the floor, loose, just piled in there, not in bags on pallets. We were thinking that they would have us unhook the trailer and raise it up on a lift to dump them out. Turns out, they just had us back up, open one door and then they flooded the trailer and put a conveyor ramp next to the door and they just flooded out onto the conveyer belt. It was really pretty cool.

After that J headed out and we went back to a Pilot a few miles down the road where we parked for the night. I woke up this morning around 0900 and we didn't have our next load yet. Boy it sure felt nice to sleep in! I passed the morning playing on the computer and finally around 1330 we got our next load. The bad thing is that we have to deadhead almost 500 miles up to Crete,NE to pick the load up. The good thing is that it delivers in the Los Angeles area on Monday. That means it goes on this paycheck AND it puts us back in a good freight lane. So hopefully we will get something from there back to the east coast that will give us a good start for next paycheck.

We have hit some storms as we have been heading north to get to Nebraska. At the moment we are in Joplin,MO where we are getting a trailer washout and we have decided to stop and have some lunch and see if some of this storm will pass over us. The rain has been really heavy and we have already passed one accident due to the wet roads. I have sent a message to our FM asking if the shipper is open 24/7 to load us because we probably won't make it on time with this weather. And, as it should be, our lives are worth more than this meat load we are scheduled to pick up!

Evanston,WY

2009-10-06T16:08:00.002-05:00

So far so good! We have been lucky and had really great weather.

After we picked up yesterday, J drove us to Baker City,OR where he stopped for the night. I went ahead and got up this morning and got us into Evanston,WY which was only about 515 miles. I had a little bit of gloomy weather across the southern part of Idaho, but not snow or rain. Just some yucky looking clouds. By the time I popped out of them close to the UT border, the skies were sunny. That made me extremely happy! It looks like the weather will hold and we will make it with no problems.

We don't deliver this load until Thursday at 1100 in Fort Smith but we will be there tomorrow evening. We only have a little over 1200 miles to go from here. If we are feeling lucky, we may call the consignee and see if they will unload us early. If not, then we will get a good nights sleep tomorrow once we reach Fort Smith and get parked somewhere.

Not much else going on. My friend Michelle sent me some pics of the Halloween stuff they bought to wear on the cruise. We decided to go 70's disco. The clothes they got at a vintage shop are a riot! And they are getting platform shoes to go with them. When we come back from the cruise that we will be on over Halloween I will have to post some pics of all of us dressed up. J and I still have to go get ours when we get to Dallas though. The shop they went to is HUGE and Brian said there was no chance of them running out of clothes. So I am keeping my fingers crossed that they will still have a great selection when we get to town!

Yakima,WA

2009-10-04T19:32:00.002-05:00

Well, a load out of the north today just wasn't meant to be. After I posted this morning, I headed out to get to our drop over in Hillsboro. I got there about 40 minutes earlier than I intended to. Being out on the road you really get your days mixed up. Here I was leaving early to miss the morning rush hour traffic and it was Sunday! Oh well. I guess it is better to be early than late.

This is a place that we had delivered to before so that made things go smoothly. Although because of the way they had the trailers parked that were not in the docks, it made it really tight for me to get backed in. I am sure I cleared the front of my truck with a parked trailer by no more than maybe two inches. But I managed to get backed in without waking J up and they had my measley load of four pallets unloaded in about 10 minutes.

Knowing that we wouldn't have a load right away, I took my hazmat placards off and headed out to the TA on I-5 at x292. It was either there or go back to the TA in Troutdale. The one on I-5 was maybe 10 miles closer so that is the one I chose. Of course after sitting there about two hours I got our new work assignment and it had me heading to Washington so I had driven the wrong way. Just my luck!

As I headed out of the parking lot, J woke up wondering what was going on. I told him we had our next load. The bad thing is that it doesn't pick up until tomorrow between 0800-1600. The good news is that I drove us all the way to Yakima,WA today so J will get a restart on his hours since he won't have to work today. And then tomorrow, he will pick up the load since we have until 1600 and that means I will get tomorrow off and I will get a restart on hours. So even though we have to wait to pick the load up, it works for the best.

OH! Something I forgot to tell you. I think. Did I mention that we went in and volunteered for them to put us on electronic (paperless) logs? We did this a few weeks ago and I absolutely LOVE it! I can see how it could be hard for a solo driver to get some loads delivered "legally" given the time constraints that we sometimes have, but for a team it is wonderful. I am really glad that we went in and had them switch us over.

Now the only thing we have to worry about tomorrow is what the road conditions will be like. I heard that Idaho was getting so much snow that it was white-out conditions. I am going to have to get online and see what part of the state is getting hit. With our luck, it will be the exact part that we need to go through! Welcome to Winter!!

Troutdale,OR)

2009-10-04T06:20:00.003-05:00

It seems that we just left Summer a little over a week ago and welcomed in Autumn. I was looking forward to the cooler weather and the changing of the colors. What we got instead was WINTER! Holy cow!

After picking up a high-value load in FL that I couldn't talk about (haha) and getting that delivered, we picked up a hazmat load that we are delivering up here in Hillsboro,OR this morning. I am about 3 hours early so we are stopped at the TA here in Troutdale to kill a little time.

As J was driving last night through Oregon, on the eastern side of the state, he ran into snow. A lot of snow. So much, that he was stuck behind snow plows for about 20 miles. Isn't that completely crazy?? So much for Autumn! We just plunged head first into Winter. I am wondering where we are going to head out to next. There is a big snow storm up here in the Northwest that is going to be dumping between 2-4 feet of snow. I hope we get out of here soon before the weather gets bad. Maybe if we are lucky we will get a load to deliver down in Southern California. Then we can get a produce load out of there headed back east. At least that will get us down to the souther half of the US and out of the path of the snow storms!

Longwood,FL

2009-09-30T09:50:00.002-05:00

Good morning everyone! What a beautifu day it is down here in sunny Florida! I was lucky enough to get to sleep in until 0500 today so I am in a great mood!

Yesterday afternoon we finally got a load out of GA. I had to bobtail about 125 miles to a Walmart to get an empty trailer. You would think that would be easy enough, but you know me. It had to be difficult! When I pulled in, there were two other Prime bobtails that pulled in behind me. I checked in with the guard and he said they didn't have any Prime empties at their location. So I tell the other two Prime trucks and we headf bak to the small truck stop on the corner to call in to our FM's to see what the deal is. Turns out there is a communication problem between their shipping/receiving office computers and the computer at the guard shack. They sent all of us back and told us to go look for our trailers on the lot. I never did find mine, but I did find another empty which I was able to hook up to.

At this point, it is 1730 and J takes over and we head west across GA through some tiny roads to get to Perry,GA where we are picking up at Perdue Farms. We let them know that we would be a little late since we had issues finding an empty trailer. Seems that they already had an empty Prime at the location that they backed up to a door so they could start getting our load ready. That works for us since we won't be holding them up. I guess this place is usually a drop and hook anyway and we didn't know. We got there about 30 minutes late but still had to wait over an hour for our load to be ready so it all worked out for us in the end.

This was a short run from Perry,GA to Orlando,FL. We made our delivery up here this morning and now we are just sitting here at a rest area waiting for our next load. We are hoping for a flower load so keep your fingers crossed for us!

Atlanta,GA

2009-09-28T19:22:00.003-05:00

Back out on the road tomorrow but first to catch you up to date!

We have spent the last week here in Atlanta working on our houseboat. We were so worried about all of the rain they had last week. We were wondering if we were even going to be able to get any work done. Since it has been a few months since we have been here to do any work, the tarp was not still completely covering the boat. It did help quite a bit, but the inside still got wet. We had previously put the new sub-floor down and cleaned the bottom inside of the hull. That helped water drain out which meant that the new floor was not standing in water. YES!

The first day we got here we just checked in to the hotel and chilled. By the time we dropped our load, fueled the trailer and dropped it off at a customers, then got to the hotel it was mid afternoon. Too late to get started by that time.

Friday we were up and headed up towards the boat to get started. We didn't do much but clean up from the storms. Friday night our son Justin came in so we were able to have his help on Saturday and Sunday. We were up at the crack of dawn on both days this weekend working our asses off! We were able to get the plywood up on the roof, most of the plywood up on the walls and about 4/5ths of the roof fiberglassed. We really wanted to get the rest of the lower deck roof done, but we were just too worn out to get it finished. That and we just flat ran out of time and money. LOL So we just put the tarp back up, added extra covering and called it good enough for now.

I'm not sure when we will be able to get back here but it is nice to see things take shape. This is only the second time we have been down since we bought the boat. The first time we completely gutted the whole lower level, got the sub-floor, wall studs and ceiling joists in. Now this trip getting the roof and walls done. Definitely making progress. Next trip we are going to try to replace the ceiling on the upper level where the deck, helm and living room is and then connect the new addition on the lower level to the remaining upper level that we didn't tear down during demolition. We have had a lot of fun on this. Hard work, but fun. We love working on projects. I can't wait to see the final finished product.

I sent a message to our FM today asking him about our lease. Our lease is a 3 year lease or X amount of miles. I can't remember the mileage and I don't have our copy of the lease with us. When our lease is up, we have 59 days to decide if we want to sign a new lease on another new truck. We also get our lease completing bonus. We are thinking that we will hit our mileage limit next summer. If that is the case, we are hoping to take close to the 59 days off and use the lease completion bonus to finish the boat and get it moved. Of course we are still going to try to get down here every 6-8 weeks to keep working on it. But you all know how much easier it is to finish something when you have the time and the money. And both at the same time!

So that is our update. Back on the road tomorrow! I am not sure where we will be heading from here, but we shall see!

Vernon,TX

2009-09-22T15:11:00.002-05:00

Wow, how time flies! Let me see if I can catch you up.

After our foray into the NJ area, we got a load headed out to CA but we ended up dropping it at our yard in Springfield,MO. You got it, the A/C went out again. We ended up being there for 2 days but I have to say, a week later, the A/C is still working!!!

When we headed out of there we got a load to Amarillo,TX. We had to make a stop in Lubbock to pick up our snow chains so we were able to see family. After we delivered in Amarillo, we took a load from another driver that was broken down and made a delivery to Casa Grande,AZ. Out of there we deadheaded to Vi ctorville,CA and picked up a load and delivered it to Waco,TX yesterday afternoon. This morning, after playing the "find an empty trailer" game, we headed up to Vernon,TX which is where we are currently sitting. This load goes to Atlanta,GA where we will spend the weekend. We are hoping to work on the boat but they have had an unbelievable amount of rain so I don't know what we are going to be able to get done, if anything. Either way, Justin is driving over from Kings Bay Naval Base where he is stationed so we will get to see our son. That will make it all worth while!

Jersey City,NJ

2009-09-13T06:03:00.002-05:00

Once again, here we are in our FAVORITE state, not! Well, J got me to the NJ state line this morning and that is where I took over at. I only had a short 59 miles to go and after checking Google Earth yesterday, I felt confident that we could make it to our destination without getting lost.

So I took off this morning feeling good about where I was going only to have my good mood turned bad. The directions were good, but unfortunately the bridge that we needed to cross was closed for construction. Now, don't you think it would have been a good idea for someone to let us know that a few miles before it was shut down instead of right at the bridge? ARGH!!!

So we exit as directed only to find that we can not go much further because there is a bridge clearance of 13'4". Now since we are 13'6" this is going to be a problem. :( Well, I stop and throw my hazards on (thank goodness I was paying attention and noticed the bridge clearance) and tried to figure out what the hell we were going to do. Luckily I could turn left and pull into a small parking lot. There were some people showing up for work I guess and J got out and asked them where we needed to go. After getting some help with our directions, J directed me so I could back out on the street and turn around. So back the way we came.

Luckily when they sent directions to this location, they sent them for coming in two different directions. One was from I-280 (which we were on) and the other was from I-78. So we headed back to I-95 via I-280 and headed south to get to I-78. From there we were able to hit US 1&9 and approach our destination from the southern end. Luckily after we decided to do this, I knew where we were going. Last night I had looked at directions on Google Earth and we had decided to come in on I-80 instead of I-78. Going I-80 we saved a ton on tolls. To get to I-78 we would have had to take I-70/I-76 through the southern part of PA which is a toll road and has a lot of hills. Going I-80 was less than 30 miles farther but well worth it in the money saved on tolls and fuel going over the larger mountains.

So since I had checked the route out for the last bit coming off of I-78, I had a feel for the layout. We were able to drive directly to our destination. We got here about an hour ago and dropped our trailer but they didn't have any MT's for us to take. So now we are just chilling here. They are in the process of unloading two our our other trailers that were here so they should have one emptied here in a few hours. Since it is a Sunday, and Sales isn't in yet, I didn't figure we would have anything waiting on us anyway. Once we do get an MT there is a small truck stop down at the end of the street. That is a rare occurance here in NJ, to have a truck stop, so I will head down there to wait when we get an MT trailer. I noticed a spot that was open when we drove by and I am thinking that when a few more drivers wake up and take off there will be a few more spots. Plus, it is Sunday so I am hoping that it won't be too busy there. Hopefully anyone that needs to park for the weekend is already there and I can grab a spot from someone that leaves.

So that is our daily update! Here is to hoping we get a load and don't get stuck here until tomorrow!

New Lisbon,IN

2009-09-12T15:47:00.003-05:00

Problems Problems Problems!!! ARGH!!! I swear I want to shoot this damn truck! Ok, so over the past 4 weeks, we have had the truck in the shop 3 times. Barely managing to make any money because without a truck, we can't work. The A/C is still not working correctly. We have to shut down in the afternoon and sometimes the evening for close to an hour for the lines to thaw out, because they are freezing up. But since we jut can't afford to put it back in the shop, we are having to deal with a temperamental A/C.

This past Wednesday morning we delivered in Ontario,CA. After sitting for a few hours we got a load picking up in Colton,CA going to Johnstown,NY that paid $4200.00. Finally a good paying load and it was only for 2700 miles. We were to pick up that night at 1900 local. I had headed to bed and J went to go pick it up. I woke up the next morning at 0600 to find out that we were back at the truck stop because they had cancelled that load. So I wait, again, and we get another load, same amount of miles but only paying $3200.00. Now, I know you are thinking, "Damn, that is still good money!" And it is, but because we lost a day, we will deliver this load on Sunday morning on the east coast and most likely will not get another load that will deliver before payroll cutoff of Tuesday. If we even get a load out of there on a Sunday. So when you figure around $1200 in fixed costs, then fuel.....well, it will be a paycheck, but not a great one.

AND, last night when J stopped in Springfield,MO to get fuel at the yard, he had to have them look at the truck AGAIN because we were losing air pressure. It was the truck that was losing air, not the trailer, and we lucked out that it was simply an airbag on the cab and was a very easy fix. But if you want to consider that time in the shop, that makes four times in four weeks. I am getting a little depressed here folks!! But I know this is the nature of the beast. And all the work up until now has all been warranty, so we weren't out of pocket any money, just the lost revenue. So I guess it could be worse. :)

Franklin,IN

2009-09-04T15:30:00.002-05:00

We made it up to NJ to drop the FedEx load off. This is the same place that we have been to once before where we got REALLY REALLY lost. I do believe this place may be the reason that several months ago I went off on a tangent about how much I dislike the northeast. :) Somehow we ended up with different directions this time, and with the help of Google Earth, I was able to drive right to it. Yay me!!

While we were enroute there, our damn A/C went out, AGAIN. We ended up getting a load back out of that same FedEx delivering to Dallas where we put the truck in the shop at Freightliner. That was this past Monday morning and we got it back and headed out on Wednesday morning. We ended up picking up a loaded trailer off of our drop lot in Saginaw and making two drops. One in Knoxville,TN and the last one in Dillon,SC. Wouldn't you know it? As soon as we made it to our last drop in Dillon, J wakes up and informs me that the back bunk is not blowing again. I swear I am going to run this truck off of a cliff!

Ok, so I call John, our FM, and he tells me to get with Road Assist. I do and find out where I can take the truck to. I give them a call, this was on Thursday, and they said that they couldn't get to it that day but they could on Friday morning. The only problem is that if they don't have a part to complete the repair, that it would have to wait until Tuesday, because they are closed over the Holiday weekend. Well hell! While we are trying to figure out what we want to do, the A/C decides that it is going to start working again. We then decided that instead of possibly being stuck over the whole weekend, that we will keep running and see how it works.

After we made our drop yesterday, our next pick up was about 120 miles away up in Laurens,SC at a Walmart and this one is going to Mt Pleasant,IA. We should be there tonight around midnight. Our FM hooked us up with our next two loads already so that we won't be sitting over the weekend. After we drop this tonight, we are going about 211 miles up to Mason City,IA to pick up a load in the morning that is delivering Sunday morning in Springfield,MO at the Kraft Caves at 0900. Then we are picking up a load at the same caves that is going to Ontario,CA to be delivered at 0400 on Wednesday morning. Because of the holiday week, our payroll has been pushed back to Wednesday afternoon so that means all of these trips will go on this payroll. YES!! Finally something that is working to our advantage.

Now if only the A/C will continue to keep working. It was starting to get warmer, the air out of the A/C as I pulled in here in Franklin. Last time it started working again after the truck sat turned off for a while. Dallas Freightline said that what they found was that the temperature was reading a constant 200 degrees so the A/C was running all the time and freezing up. It seems to be doing the same thing again. They said they replaced the sensor or whatever it was. Maybe they replaced it with a faulty new sensor. Sheesh! I just hope it works long enough for us to be able to run and make a little money before we have to put this piece of crap back in the shop!

Fort Worth,TX

2009-08-27T17:45:00.002-05:00

What a crazy week and a half it has been. Freight has been extremely slow and we are having problems with our A/C again. We had a TA look at it and they thought it was just a clogged filter for the back bunk but it turns out that wasn't the problem since we are still having problems.

We had a load out of California that picked up last Saturday and delivered in Santa Fe on Monday morning. A solo driver could have taken it and gotten there on time. But they said they were 50 loads short when the day started so I guess if we wanted a load we couldn't be picky. We spent Sunday night in Albuquerque and then I drove up to Santa Fe on Monday morning to deliver. Tom, if you read this, I REALLY wanted to get in touch with you and see if you wanted to meet for lunch or something! But with the A/C problems, we had to get back to Albuquerque to have it looked it. We didn't get a load until Tuesday night and then didn't leave until Wednesday morning because we had until midnight to get to Plainview,TX. We left Albuquerque around 0600 on Wednesday and got to Plainview around 1130 but the load wasn't even ready until 2100! Sheesh!

That load we dropped off in Dallas and they have us now picking up a FedEx load tonight leaving at 0100 going to Newark,NJ. So that means we will have been in Ft Worth for about 21 hours by the time this load is ready to leave. We have had a lot of sitting and it is getting really really frustrating.

On the bright side, we have came up with a business idea for our boat. We have been doing a lot of planning and research about that this past week. We are thinking that once we get it finished and moved down here to the lake in Texas that we may charter it out. There are lots of pontoon boats to rent but basically no houseboats, at least not on the local lakes. So that is something that we are seriously looking into. I don't know if the demand is there, but we are going to see. I would work really well also since we are thinking about possibly getting local driving jobs once this lease is up. That way we would be home more often in case the idea of chartering it out takes off. Heck, maybe it will really take off and I can completely quit work and just deal with the boad. Wouldn't that be nice!

Anyway, that is what we have been doing. I didn't want anyone to think that we had fallen on the planet or that something had happened to us. We are here, just been preoccupied with other stuff!

Pageland,SC

2009-08-17T13:39:00.002-05:00

Been a few days again. But here I am! We managed to make it to California and we had a load before we got there. We picked up the next morning in Carson,CA with a load headed to Pageland,SC. We were initially supposed to have two drops but we ended up with only one which was nice.

So Friday morning I got up and got over to pick up our load which turned out to be a drop and hook. I had to wait for a while before they let me know, but once they told me my trailer was ready, I dropped my empty and hooked up.

J still didn't get a lot of sleep so once I got hooked up I headed over to scale and then parked to give him some non moving sleep. We had time on the load to do this and I know he appreciated the quality sleep that he got. Once he got up, he headed out and we were on our way to SC.

They initially had us routed taking I-40. I did some research and found that if we took I-10 it would have only been 30 miles further. AND, we would have less mountains to cover meaning that we would get better fuel mileage. Another plus also was that from I-10 we connected to I-20 and went through Jackson,MS where our friends Misty and Riaan live. J was very tired, but when I got there, Misty came and got me and Smokey and we went to her house for about two hours for lunch. And Smokey got some quality play time in with her three dogs which he really enjoyed! J did get a doggie bag that I took back to him though.

I drove a little further after that and we switched out right across the AL state line. We hit some really bad weather in Birmingham,AL and I finally had to go to bed so that I didn't freak out. LOL I was happy to wake up though this morning to find that J had got me to a truck stop just 5 miles from our destination. He let me sleep in some also. YES!!!

This morning he woke me up and we went inside to the restaurant and grabbed a BLT for breakfast before we started out the day. Then it was off to deliver this load at the Walmart DC just down the road. I ended up sitting there for about 4 hours before they finally got me unloaded. After that, I headed back to the truck stop that we had started the day at to sit and wait for our next load. Now I have been here for about two hours and still nothing. There is another Prime driver next to me that has been here since yesterday. That doesn't give me much hope. But he is running solo at the moment until he can get a load to pick up his team partner that is on home time. So maybe they are looking for a solo load for him. I just hope that we get something fairly soon and don't have to sit here overnight. UGH!!!

Carson,CA

2009-08-14T10:23:00.002-05:00

We made it to our drop in Nogales,AZ with no problems. J had stopped for the night in Tucson,AZ the night before and I got to sleep in. We were going to be early for our appointment and they didn't open until 0800 so I got some extra sleep. It was nice! When I got there however, no one was there. I sent in a message and they told me to give them about 30 more minutes that they didn't always get there on time. Must be nice! They finally showed up a little after 0900 when they were supposed to open at 0800. Oh well. Since I only had 4 totes I got unloaded pretty quick.

I pulled away from their dock and removed my hazmat placards and then headed up to the Pilot to wait for our next load. I was there for about an hour before I got another message from our FM. It seems that there was no freight to be found in that area at all and they wanted us to deadhead to Ontario,CA. That is 500 miles. Ugh! But, we knew we would probably be heading to CA because we were aware of the freight situation where we delivered.

I headed out and started towards CA stopping in Avondale,AZ at the Pilot for fuel and then hit Danny's behind them for a trailer wash out. I made it all the way to x1 in Ehrenberg,AZ where I stopped for the day. J is low on hours so we just spent the night there last night so that he could take the night off and could get a restart. By this time, we already had our next load, loading in Carson,CA this morning, so I knew we had plenty of time for him to take the night off.

This morning found me getting up around 0530 and heading out a little after 0600 to drive the last 175 miles into Carson. I got here about 30 minutes ago and now I am just waiting for my phone to ring with them calling me to tell me which dock to head to. This load will have 2 stops. One in MS on Sunday and the last is in SC on Monday. Even though we will only have two trips for our check next week, they both paid good. A little over $7,000 in revenue for the week so we should have a decent paycheck after all of our expenses. Maybe things are starting to pick up!

Santa Rosa,NM

2009-08-12T15:55:00.003-05:00

Wow, I have now posted two days in a row. Maybe I can get back on a roll again! Unfortunately I don't have much to post about today. LOL

After switching in Effingham yesterday, J took over and I managed to stay awake until we came into St Louis. I couldn't hang anymore at that point and I headed off to bed. J got us to Tulsa which is where I started my day today. I ended it here in Santa Rosa after covering 543 miles. We can drop this anytime tomorrow and from here it is only about 640 miles, so we are in no rush. I am thinking J will make it about 560 miles to Tucson,AZ where he will stop for the night. Since we can't deliver before 0800 in the morning, 0900 our time, I will get to sleep in some and then get up and drive the last 70 miles or so in to deliver. Then we will play the waiting game for our next load.

I was talking with Picabo today about our cruise in October. We set sail on the 31st which is Halloween so we are trying to come up with costumes that we can wear that night on the boat. The best idea we have had so far is to go as characters from the show Reno 911. She has found the uniform for Lt Dangle (lol) and one of the females on e-Bay. The only problem is that if we get them and they don't fit, then we are screwed. So we are trying to figure out what we should do. She even found a wig for them. It could be so much fun, I am just worried about the costumes not fitting. Maybe we can get lucky and find something locally at a costume store. We will keep looking though!

Effingham,IL

2009-08-11T17:16:00.002-05:00

I talked to Picabo972 today and she graciously informed me that I am slacking yet again. And I have to admit that she is right! After heading back out after our cruise, I am finding it hard to get motivated. Especially since in less than 90 days, we will be going on another cruise. This one will be with Picabo and her man and no kids though! YES!!! Oh, and of course J is going! LOL

So, let me catch you up real quick without going into too many of the boring details. We made it in to Salt Lake City and ended up and dropped our load at the customers as opposed to our lot which was our original plan. They didn't have any empties there and they said it would be the next morning before we got a load (we dropped around 2200 hours) so we headed back to the yard to get a good nights sleep.

I woke up the next morning and called in after 0700 and we still didn't have a load. J woke up and was hungry so we headed down to the Sapp Brothers to get some breakfast then headed back to the yard to wait. J headed to bed and I headed inside to watch some TV. Around 1100 we got a load but it didn't load until 1900 that night. I chilled the rest of the afternoon inside and then went to wake J up around 1600. After finally finding an empty on the lot that had just came out of the repair bay (the only empty that was there) we hooked up to it and headed up to Logan,UT to get loaded.

I headed to bed and J took care of getting us loaded. We had extra time on this load, so after J scaled the load, he parked for the night. It was a really short work day for him, the lucky guy! He knew that we would be heading over the mountains to get out of the Salt Lake area and he knows I don't sleep good in the mountains, where he can sleep like a rock through just about anything. Although that could be because when he is driving it is like Mario Andretti on a road course so I am getting thrown aound in the back, where as I am more like a Grandma out for a Sunday afternoon drive. Ok, so he isn't really that bad, but he figured I would get more sleep if he just parked, and he was right. :) So the next morning I got up and headed out.

That load delivered right outside of Dayton,OH on Monday night. J managed to get us in there and then headed to our next pick up which was up towards Cleveland. When I had went to bed, we had our next work assignment which was to pick up anywhere between 0800-1500 hours today. So when J woke me up at 0230 this morning, I was a bit confused since he said he was almost to the shipper and needed the extra eyes to find it. After giving him a strange looke, he informed me that we had a different load to pick up, not the one that we had when I went to bed. Oh. Ok, now things are starting to make sense. I guess he mentioned to our night FM that the load we were originally on basically sucked as far as pay goes. Our night FM looked at it and agreed and then found us another load that had the same amount of miles but paid $1500 more. Now THAT is what I am talking about.

Now that I was coherent and knew what was going on, we proceeded to look for our destination so that we could pick up our next load. Turns out our directions were COMPLETELY wrong. We followed them THREE different times, back tracking to see if we missed something. Nope, those directions put us right in the middle of a cemetery. Of course we didn't turn into it, LOL, but we knew it was wrong. We called in to our night FM, looked up the address on Streets & Tris and on Google Earth and finaly found where we needed to be.

We got there around 0400 this morning and got loaded and by 0500 we were on the road and are now headed to Nogales,AZ with a hazmat load. The nice thing is that it is light. Only 4 totes weighing about 16,000 lbs. Currently getting 8.34 mpg. WOOHOO!!! Anyway, we should be in Nogales,AZ on Thursday morning and we will deliver as soon as we get in there. From there I am hoping we will get a decent run back to the east coast. I am thinking that a produce load to Florida wouldn't be bad if we can get a floral load coming back out of there!

So, my apologies for slacking. I will try to do better. If only I could get out of my Carribean state of mind. But it is such a nice state.......

Rawlins,WY

2009-08-07T16:46:00.002-05:00

Yes my friends, we are once again in my favorite state (said with just a hint of sarcasm) heading to Salt Lake City,UT. Thank goodness it is still summer and there is no snow on the ground. Although I can still see the white tipped mountains up at the higher altitudes, I am happy to say that there is none down here and the wind hasn't even been a factor so far this trip. Hallelujah!!

After sitting for several hours in Duncan,SC we finally got a load. We had to bust up the road to pick up a load heading for Streetsboro,OH. It was a drop and hook and that made it nice. Once we picked it up, we noticed some nasty clouds coming in, so we decided to park for the night and let the mess pass us by.

With only 549 miles to our destination, I got up the next morning and made my way north on I-81 a few miles and then hit another favorite road of mine (not) I-77 which would take me north through the mountains of NC, VA,WV and into OH. I made it just about 40 mile short of our destination when my drive time was over and I woke J up. He told me that was the worst sleep he had ever had in the truck on that road. Yeah, it sucks. The road condition itself isn't bad, but the mountains and the curves make it pretty near impossible to sleep since you are rolling around on the bunk!

After J made it to our destination, we bobtailed down to the McDonald's that had truck parking. I was familiar with this area because back in May when I was driving solo, I had delivered to this same place and had spent the night in this McD's parking lot. We actually went to the Denny's next door and got something to eat. By the time we got back to the truck, we had our next load. We were picking up a short 20 miles away and dropping the load off at our terminal in Salt Lake City.

Our information said that we didn't load until 0300 which was about 9 hours away. I called and they said that they could get us in early if we wanted to come on over. So we headed back to where we originally delivered that moring and grabbed an empty trailer and then headed to pick up our new load. They did get us loaded early, by about 45 minutes. J was about to spit bullets he was so mad! The problem was that they shouldn't have told us to come over if they weren't going to load us until almost appointment time. We were nice and comfy where we were with food and restrooms close by. But he managed to get out of there and get us about 45 miles down the road before he woke me up to start my shift.

I headed out yesterday in Ohio and made it to Walcott,IA where we switched and got a shower. Believe it or not, it was the first time since we started driving that we actually stopped there and actually went in to the actual truck stop. When we have stopped before we were always in a hurry and only went into the smaller building where we get our fuel receipt. I am sure most of you know, because I think a lot of you that follow this are fellow drivers, but for those that don't, Iowa 80 Truck Stop is the largest truckstop in the world. This place will hold over 800 semi trucks in their parking lot. That is HUGE! And they have just about anything you would want or need for a truck at the store inside. Along with a gift shop, a Verizon kiosk, DQ, Pizza Hut, Orange Julius, two other fast foods that I can't remember, laundry facilities, showers, barbershop and I can't even remember what else. It is extremely cool.

After our little shopping foray, we once again headed out with J at the wheel and he got us to Elm Creek,NE this morning. I took over there and headed west stopping in Ogalalla,NE at 0700 to have breakfast with our friend Chad. Unfortunately his wife and the kids were still in bed when we came through, but hopefully we will get to see them next time. I kept on trucking and made it in to Rawlins,WY where I woke J up and told him it was time for him to take over.

Now we are cruising across the rolling hills of the western part of Wyoming and we should be into Salt Lake around 2100 tonight. Depending on what stops we make between here and there. I am hoping that they will have a load on the lot there for us to pick up and head back out with. The load we have right now doesn't deliver until the 11th so that is why we are just dropping it there. I am hoping for a quick turn-around so we can get back out on the road. I'll let you know how that goes!

Duncan,SC - Back on the road!

2009-08-04T11:46:00.003-05:00

As much as I love what we do, I sure hated coming back to work! It was hard to get back into the swing of things after spending a week doing nothing but catching rays, looking out at the beautiful Gulf of Mexico, getting extremely sunburned and hanging out with J and Jessica. There are some pictures that I have posted, so I hope you enjoy!

We are currently sitting in Duncan,SC after making our delivery this morning in Simpsonville,SC. We picked this up last night after delivering yesterday morning in Hammond,LA. The load we delivered to Hammond was picked up in Dallas when we came back out of the house.

We were originally scheduled to come back out on Saturday but they didn't have anything for us. We ended up and got to visit with my cousin and his wife since we were there an extra night and that was really nice. They are a lot of fun and I haven't visited with them in YEARS. So that was great catching up.

I am not sure where we are headed from here. We are waiting on our next load. We don't have anything planned other than our cruise in October, so we are planning on staying out on the road until then. Sure, we will take a night or two off here and there, but no extened time. We need to save up and make as much as we can so we can get more work done on the houseboat. That is our goad. We really really want to have it finished by next summer, but we need some money to meet that goal. That means we will have to work our asses off!

We are also giving some thought to finding local driving jobs. Just toying around with the idea right now. Once the boat is finished and we have a place to live, it would be nice to get back to a more steady schedule. We love driving, so if we could find a dedicated route or something that is drop & hook and more regional where we could be home every night, we would have to take a hard look at it. Does anyone know anything about Central Transport? Their trucks are yellow? My cousin works there as a dock supervisor I believe. He has been there over 15 years. I don't remember exactly how long. I was checking out their web site and it lists OTR jobs that are 3000 miles a week, distribution center to distribution center, drop and hooks, and no nights or weekends. Still looking at long days if you are running 550-600 miles a day round trip. BUT, it does have the advantage of being in our own bed at night. Anyway, just something we are thinking about for the future.

I hope you enjoy the pictures!

Galveston,TX

2009-07-24T21:55:00.002-05:00

Well, it has been a long week, but we have finally made our last delivery before vacation! We have taken Smokey to a kennel, picked up Jessica and are now in Galveston for the night waiting to board our cruise ship tomorrow. I am so excited I hope I can slee tonight!

I know I have been slacking on here lately, but just in case anyone has missed me, or missed me in the near future, don't fret. All is well and we are just on vacation. I will post once we get back and put up some pictures once we get back next week. Every one stay safe out there and safe travels. :)

Mendota,CA

2009-07-21T07:44:00.002-05:00

This last week sure has been hecktic! After spending the night in Dania Beach,FL we got up and drove back down to Miami to Prime Floral for our first stop to pick a bunch of boxes of flowers. From there we headed down to Pierson,FL where we dropped those off. There are several trucks that come from Miami each day to Pierson. Once all the trucks are unloaded, they separate all the flowers into the different orders and reload them on the trucks to be sent out to actually make the deliveries. Around midnight Thursday night, we were loaded and on the way. We had a total of 3200 miles to cover and 12 different stops with our last being in San Jose,CA.

Early Saturday morning, around 0100 we made it to Oklahoma City,OK where we had our first two drops. Our largest drop was here with 658 pieces. Floral loads are all on the floor. Not on pallets. They are are also stacked floor to ceiling. The average size of a box, in inches, is about 8x12x36. Of course the sizes vary depending on the grower that packages them. But what this means for us is a lot of work when you have to hand unload every piece.

By o430 we were done in Oklahoma City and heading to Wichita,KS for our next two stops. J got a small nap while I was driving up there but then I woke him up to help me once I got there. The reason that I have to wake him up to help me unload all has to do with my height. Being 5'2", if I stand up really straight, I can't reach the boxes that are stacked on the top. The unloading isn't hard, other than repetitive and monotonous, I just simply am not tall enough to get the boxes that are stacked on the top. It was a long morning. We dealt with road construction in both Oklahoma City and in Wichita that had the exit blocked that we needed to take. So we spent a few extra minutes at each place trying to find an alternate route that was wide enough for us to get our truck down. After J only getting a small nap between Oklahoma City and Wichita, by around 1000 hours on Saturday morning, J was headed back to bed and I was headed towards Utah where our next stops were at.

I managed to drive until around 1530 when I called it a day. We grabbed a shower and a quick bite to eat and J took over driving from there. I hit the sack knowing that we were going to have to be up and at it once again when we got to Salt Lake City,UT. J got us to Evanston,WY where we switched. He hit the sack for about two hours until I got us to our first stop in Salt Lake City. We had four deliveries to make there. Finally got them unloaded, grabbed some lunch and J hit the sack again while I took off for Sparks,NV where we had our next two that night. I made it to Battle Mountain,NV around 1630 and we switched there. When we went in to use the restroom, I plopped $20 into a $1 slot machine. I won $42 so we had a quick lunch and headed out again.

We were both really exhausted at this point. I never even knew that J made it to our first stop in Sparks and unloaded it by himself. I didn't wake up until we were at the second stop but he said it was a small piece count and for me to go back to sleep that he had it. He is so awesome! He got those done and headed in towards our last two stops in the San Jose area. He stopped at the 49er Truck Stop in Sacramento where we switched and I drove the last 100 miles to our next to the last stop. The roads suck there and he woke up about 10 miles before I got there. Just a quick power nap is all he really had. We managed to finally get the last two deliveries made and we couldn't have been happier.

About 30 minutes after I sent our depart message, we got our next work assignment. We were to pick up in Mendota,CA and deliver in Dallas,TX. This was to be our load heading home for our cruise. We needed a trailer washout, so I headed to Santa Nella,CA where they have one at the TA. When I was done, we still didn't have an appointment time for our pick up. I sent a message in telling our FM to let me know when they had one and that we would head the last 50 miles at that point. After being completely exhausted from the pace of the floral load, I was going to stay parked so J could get some good quality uninterrupted sleep. Around 1700 we finally got an apointment time so J woke up and we went in for some dinner and a shower. From there we headed out to make our pick up.

We found the place quite easily and pulled in. J went to go check in and it took forever. Finally he got back to the truck and said that they would call when they had a dock for us. A little after midnight, they called saying they were out of product and that they would load us in the morning. Now it is morning, I have checked in and am still sitting here waiting for them to call us so that we can get a dock. I guess I am getting a little impatient because I know that this is the load that is taking us home. I am ready to get onboard that cruise ship and do NOTHING for a week. Well, nothing except swim with the dolphins in Cozumel and consume fruity mixed drinks in cups with umbrellas!

Dania Beach,FL

2009-07-15T17:29:00.002-05:00

Although I didn't get a lot of sleep last night, I got good non-moving sleep. After J took over driving, I stayed up with him until we got to our first stop in Miami. We knew that we had our last drop today at noon, so I knew that I would be able to sleep in.

We found our first drop, Florida Mushrooms, fairly easy. It was in an older part of Miami with some small streets, but not as bad as the last place we delivered to in this particular area. We also arrived around 2100 which meant traffic on the side streets was pretty light. Once we got checked in, we were told that we could spend the night there in their lot. That helped us out tremendously since there is practically no where in the whole Miami metro area to park a semi. While we were getting unloaded, I headed to bed.

Even though we didn't have an appointment to deliver until noon today, I still went ahead and got up at 0430 this morning. After using the facilities and brushing my teeth, I went ahead and headed up to our last stop at Publix. I figured that if I left early I would beat the traffic and I also thought that I may get lucky and get unloaded earlier than my actual appointment time. I arrived at around 0530 (0630 local) and was rewarded with a dock about 30 minutes after I arrived. Yes!

It did take a while to actually get unloaded, but a few hours later, I was unloaded and had sent my depart message. I pulled back around to the staging area to wait for our next dispatch since I didn't have anywhere else to go and wait that was close. About an hour later, we got our next load. It doesn't pick up until tomorrow, but it pays good. We could have left today with a Tropicana load but it would have paid crap and we would have had to deadhead 250 miles. Instead, we now have a floral load that picks up tomorrow here in Miami with a second pick up in Pierson,FL. Then we will have a final delivery out in California. Not sure how many stops we will have. We will find out the stops once we get to Pierson.

Knowing that we had a night to kill, we went ahead and headed to Prime Floral and dropped our trailer. It makes it easier for us to bobtail around. I plugged Motel 6 into our trusty Maggie (GPS) and found one up here in Dania Beach. Of course there were places closer, but Motel 6 is one of the few that accepts pets and is affordable. AND, as a bonus, we are less than a mile or so from the beach. :) I am hoping that either tonight or in the morning we can go down to the beach. It would be a nice relaxing walk and I know Smokey would love to play in the water.

So that is what we are up to. Just going to hang out tonight and then get back to work in the morning!

Jacksonville,FL

2009-07-14T15:01:00.002-05:00

Another non eventful day in trucking land has passed! After finally getting our load picked up yesterday in Avondale,PA we made it down to the Petro in Elkton,MD to get scaled and grab a bite to eat. From there I headed to bed and J headed south.

After them cancelling the first load we were dispatched on yesterday after being unloaded, we picked up this load of mushrooms bound for Miami,FL. It was originally just one stop but while enroute to the shipper, they added a second stop for tomorrow at noon up in Deerfield Beach, about 40 miles north of our first stop in Miami. Right now we have about 270 miles to go and 6 hours to get there.

It has been raining for the last hour or so. When we stopped at the TA to switch out and send in our trip sheets, I saw the radar on television at the fuel desk. It had lots of reds and yellows on it. Yuck!

Since we have been driving, we have gotten to see all sorts of wildlife. Deer, elk, bears, badgers, bunny rabbits, skunks, opossums, and hawks. The few times that we have been through Florida, I have been wanting to see an alligator. I mean, we have driven through Alligator Alley several times and have not once seen an alligator. But I saw one today! I was so excited! Too bad the one I saw was on the side of the road waiting for the road crew to remove his poor dead body from the shoulder. :( But to make up for it, a few miles down the road, I did see a rather large turtle that was just crossing the last few feet of the highway. For a turtle, he was moving. I checked in my mirror as I went past and saw that he made it to the shoulder safely. It made me smile. At least one little creature was safe for the day!

Avondale,PA

2009-07-13T16:02:00.002-05:00

Sorry folks, I'm getting behind again! This morning J woke me up at the next to the last service plaza on I-76 in Pennsylvania. Our delivery was this morning at 0700 at Costco in Monroe Township,NJ. As a rule, we really dislike going into NJ but this had to be the easiest place to find yet that we have been sent to in NJ.

We got there about 30 minutes early and went to check in. After getting checked in, we got a dock and were unloaded by around 0745. From there I just pulled out and parked inside the facility next to the curb to wair for our next load assignment.

Finally about 45 minutes later, we get our next load. I need to head to Atkinson Truck Lines in Bensalem,PA to pick up a hazmat load bound for Louisville,KY. Being the airhead that I am, when I pull out onto I-95 heading south, I completely missed my turn. So what should have been a 40 mile drive, turned into a 120 mile drive. ARGH!! I ended up staying on the NJ side and didn't make it over to the PA side where I needed to be. I am sure some of the bridges going over to PA would have been fine, but I don't like getting off onto the small state highways when I haven't travelled them before. So I went the EXTREMELY long way, that I knew was ok for trucks, and finally made it into Bensalem.

I checked in and was told that my loaded trailer wasn't there yet, so I could just drop my empty and park with the bobtails to wait for it to get there. I did all that and sat there about an hour when I get a message from our FM that he is taking us off that load and putting us on another one. It is a better paying load, but it goes to Florida. That means we will get a shitty paying Tropicana load coming out of there. Well, gotta do what we gotta do I guess.

I head back in and hook up to my empty that I had brought in, and took it through the trailer wash that they have there, and off I went again. It was only about 60 miles down, so it wasn't bad, but the last 20 or so miles was through towns and on a tiny two lane road. PITA is what that was.

But I have made it here and managed to get backed into the assigned dock. Now we are just playing the waiting game for them to start loading our mushrooms. And no, not the kind that make you halucinate. At least I don't think so..... Maybe I should go find out. :) Nah, it is a produce load, not a pharmaceudical load. No funny mushrooms here!

Acoma Sky City,NM

2009-07-10T16:52:00.002-05:00

I had a nice easy day today! Only 455 miles. :) Yesterday after we picked up our load, J headed out and made it to Havasu City,AZ. We did some figuring on the timeline since we will have lots of extra time on this load. We decided we wanted to be able to stop in Springfield for laundry but we didn't want to get there right in the middle of J's sleep schedule and mess him all up. Therefore, we decided to stop for the night in Havasu City around 2100. I was able to get some good non-moving sleep and it would get us into Springfield,MO tomorrow right around the time we switch shifts.

After we get our stuff done in Springfield, we will only have about 1100 miles to go to our destination in NJ. We should get in sometime early Sunday evening, even with stopping in Springfield. So you can see that there is plenty of time for us to be lazy.

I must say that traveling yesterday and today has been much nicer than the two days previous. Having an A/C travelling across the southwest is a lifesaver!

I did however hurt myself today! It was stupid really and it shouldn't have happened, and it wasn't even work related! I was taking Smokey for his morning walk and fell. I was at the rest area just west of Flagstaff on I-40 up in the mountains. There is a lot of rock on the ground between the truck parking and the highway, where I was walking Smokey. It is slightly slanted, the ground, so as we were walking down incline, the rocks just moved under my feet. Small rocks, like gravel I guess you could say. So I slid in a really funny position and my left foot ended up under me. My ankle is pretty sore and is actually a little swollen. But nothing popped, and I can move it, it is just pretty darn sore. J is always telling me not to wear my flip-flops, and he is probably right, (shhh, don't tell him I said that) but I would have fallen even if I were wearing tennis shoes because of the way the gravel moved. Don't worry though! My swollen ankle doesn't effect my fingers, so I can still blog!

Los Angeles,CA

2009-07-09T15:38:00.002-05:00

When it rains, it pours, right? We finally got loaded in Henerson with our ice cream load. It was so incredibly hot that we were just miserable. Our A/C just couldn't keep up. We figured it was just the fact that it was over 110 degrees outside. Once we finally got loaded, we headed back to the TA to scale and decided to park for a few hours till my shift started. We were hoping that since it was now dark, that we would finally cool off.

Since I didn't get to sleep till almost midnight, I slept in until 0530 and we were on the road by around 0600. J managed to get to sleepand I headed up out. I cut across south out of Las Vegas on US 93 and hit I-40 in Needles,CA. The sun was already up and my A/C was blowing hot air. Now, since it was early morning and the temps were in the low 90's, I knew there was a problem with the A/C. I made it into Kingman where I stopped at the Petro and decided that I was going to have them check the A/C.

About 4 hours later we finally had an answer. There was a leak in the condensor. Yay! We know what the problem is. It is warranty work so I was ready for them to fix it so I could get back on the road. Well, that wasn't going to work because they didn't have the part. Shit. I called our FM and the only thing we could do was have another team take our load to give us time to get this worked out. So when the other team arrived, they took our load and we took their load that was delivering in Los Angeles at 0800 the next morning. That worked out perfect for us. But I really hated giving up that load because it was a damn good paying load.

From there we knew we only had about 300 miles to go for our delivery the next morning back in LA. So we hooked up to IdleAire for the A/C and got some rest then heade out around 0200 Wednesday morning. Our stop was at Tyson which is in a very old part of LA. The street they are on has no room to turn the truck around. So you have to turn on to their street, get the truck and trailer straight, then back down the road to their docks which are right on the street. They had a guy out there waiting on us so he could guide us back down the street and guide us into the dock. Super tight place, but the gentleman was extremely impressed with my baking skills. I got it on the first try, missed a car by about 3 inches, and had to jump the curb with my left front steer as I was backing, because that is the only way it could be done. He told me that I did an excellent job and even remarked to J how impressed he was. He said most drivers can't get it on the first or even second try. Of course I did have J guiding me on one side, so it was teamwork that got me in there. But I think J was impressed to. As a team, we rock!

Anyway, got unloaed and headed to a drop lot to drop the trailer off and then off to Freightliner we went. Since the place in Kingman,AZ couldn't fix it, we headed to a dealer figuring they would have the part in stock. It is first come, first serve. So even though we got there and got in line at 1100 hours on Wednesday, it wasn't until this morning before they even got the truck in the shop. They said last night it would be a while, either later that night or this morning, so we headed to a hotel. They had flyers on a board for a Red Roof Inn that had rates for truckers and allowed pets AND they had a shuttle service. I placed a quick call and within 10 minutes, before we could gather all our stuff up, the shuttle was there.

We made it to the hotel and got comfy. Boy was it nice to be in a room with cold A/C!! Wd had been sweating our ass off since Monday when we picked up the ice cream. We ordered from Boston's and they delivered. Great bacon cheeseburgers! After that we were lazy and watched TV for a while before calling it a night. I was really tired. The heat will do that to you. I went to bed and slept almost 12 hours last night. I felt really refreshed this morning.

The shuttle service at the hotel doesn't run from 1100-1400 so we were up and ready to go by 1100 so we could catch the shuttle back to Freightliner. There was a mix-up with the paperwork or something, but after about 20 minutes, it was straightened out and they figured out that the truck was indeed ready. Thank goodness! We need to be back on the road making money!

We are currently on the way to Vitorville,CA to pick up a pre-loaded trailer that we are taking to NJ. Thank goodness we have a good FM and he got us a great paying load knowing that we had been down with the truck in the shop. This load is set to deliver on Monday morning so we will have plenty of time to get it there. It sure feels good to be back on the road!

LasVegas,NV

2009-07-06T16:27:00.003-05:00

As I sit here and post this, my dash is reading 135 degrees outside! Holy cow!

We had a WONDERFUL weekend with friends here in Las Vegas over the 4th. After catching up with some high school friends on Facebook, they invited us to spend the July 4th holiday with them. We are so glad that we did. We had so much fun and can't wait to get back at some point to visit more.

Unfortunately, the weekend has come to an end and we are having to hit the road again. Right now we are sitting at Good Humor in Henderson,NV waiting for them to call us so that we can get loaded. We have already been here for several hours and I haven't seen but one truck get loaded and leave. They only have one dock they are working off of and there are at least 5-6 more trucks in front of us. I don't even know if they will get us loaded today. It isn't looking good at this point.

I am going to load a few pictures so you can see where we stayed this weekend. I hope you enjoy them! The first pic is of Oz. We stayed with him and Kathy. The second is of me and Kathy. I am the super white one! LOL They live in Vegas and are ALWAYS tan! And the last is of J chilling in the pool!

Dodge City,KS

2009-06-30T09:45:00.002-05:00

Just the name of this town has me conjuring up visions of the old west and the long cattle drives when they would bring their cattle to market. Camp fire coffee and beans for dinner. Yummy! Just thinking of that is making me hungry! Although I am sure the cowboys of yesteryear would agree that the boffee, beans and day old bisquits got might old after weeks on the trail. As I sit here, it is a beautiful morning. It isn't very hot outside as it is only about 10 am and there is a nice breeze. Unfortunately, that breeze is blowing around a very unpleasant smell. Cow shit! But what can I expect when I am here to pick up freshly slaughtered cows that will soon be on supermarket shelves or in fine dining establishments?

Yesterday morning J woke me up at the last rest area in Kansas. With an appointment at 2100 last night in Denver, my plan was to head to our yard for the day. I figured while killing time until our appointment that we could get some shopping done for Vegas. We could also grab a shower and do some laundry. When I was about 100 miles out, I got a message that they could unload me whenever I got there. Figuring we can do all that other stuff later, I headed on in. The sooner we get unloaded, the sooner we will have our next load.

I drove straight to Frito Lay and they actually let me drop the trailer instead of getting unloaded. Awesome! Only problem is that they didn't have any empty trailers. I sent in a message and my FM had me to over to USF and grab a trailer from them. When I got there, I found the trailer but there was another Prime driver snatching it. Shoot! I started looking for other empty trailers but there were none to be had. About that time, the other driver walked up and asked if I was a team or solo. I told him I was a team and he said I could have the empty that he had. He was going to go sack out for his 10 hour break and he knew that as a team we would get a load before he did since he was going on break. I thanked him and waved as he headed out.

I hooked up to the trailer and found out that the reefer unit wasn't working. Not a good sign when you are in the refridgerated business. I sent in a message to Road Assist and they had me take it down to the TA to see if they could fix it. The TA was swamped and said that it would be several hours before they could get to it so they just put us in line. J and I headed in to grab some breakfast and then he was heading back to bed. While we were eating, our FM called and was wondering when we would be ready to go. I explained the situation about the trailer and he said that wasn't going to work. He told us to forget about that trailer. Take it back to the yard and he would find us another one. He was needing us to head to Dodge City where we would pick up a load but they were needing empty trailers to get our loads on. I headed back to the yard and dropped the broken one and found an empty there and headed out around 1415 hours.

It is about 380 miles or so to Dodge City. I drove until about 1730 and then woke J up and he drove the last 160 miles. We made it in and dropped the trailer and found out that our load wasn't ready. We weren't really surprised as these meat loads are never ready until the VERY last minute. Our load info said that is was to be shipped any time yesterday with a final departure time of 0600 today. Meaning that is was supposed to be ready no later than 0600 for us to pick up. We spent the night at the Flying J here. I went to bed around 2300, WAY to late for me, and J stayed up calling about every hour to see if it was ready. At 0530 it still wasn't ready so we went in and grabbed a shower and are now back over here at Cargill waiting for the load. If you noticed the time on this post, it is now 1000 hours and still not ready. I messaged in to dispatch and they said what they have been hearing from sales, who is talking to the customer, is that they may not even start loading it until 2nd shift. I'm not sure if their second shift here is the afternoon shift or the night shift. I am guessing probably the afternoon shift. So that means I will be sitting her all day playing on the computer and watching movies. On the bright side, J will have a nice day of good sleep since I will be parked!

Once we do get under way, this load has two stops. The first in the Los Angeles area and the last up in Tracy,CA. We are probably going to deliver the one in the LA area and then have someone else take it up to Tracy for the final delivery. If we take it to Tracy, we won't make it to Vegas when we are wanting. We could, but that would also be about a 500 mile deadhead to get there. So we will probably leave from the LA area. I am hoping that they may find us a load out of there delivering up to Henderson,NV. That would be ideal. It would get us to Vegas and we would get paid to drive up there as opposed to driving nearly 200 miles for nothing. I will keep yall posted!

Concordia,MO

2009-06-28T16:18:00.002-05:00

Yesterday things didn't go quite as planned. Turns out that they DID change our appointment to load until today. So yesterday, while sitting there thinking I still had to get loaded, I was signed in and they actually loaded me. The only problem is the load they gave me was for another Prime driver there that was a solo. They wanted him to take the load yesterday to deliver in Denver so that he would have time as a solo to make it there. After figuring out the cluster, I got with the other driver and we switched loads. After that we headed over to a hotel and spent the night there.

This morning I got up and we got out of the hotel and back over to the shipper at 0645. There were already probably 20 trucks there. Crap. I just knew that I was going to be sitting until mid-afternoon before I could get loaded. Knowing what to do I went across the scale so they could get my empty weight then I went inside to check in. Even with all of those trucks there, I was the first one loaded. It had something to do with where the load was going. Since it was the Denver run, it is supposed to be loaded ASAP so I could get on the road. I felt just a little bad since there were obviously a bunch of trucks already there, but not bad enough to offer for them to go first. LOL I had already waited over 24 hours for my load so I wanted to get it and get the heck out of there.

This was a cool place to load at though. I am hauling bulk potatoes. They put them on a conveyer belt and toss them into the back of the truck until they get you as close to a gross of 80,000 lbs that they can. It was fun to watch them being shot in the back of the trailer. The only problem is that since they are just loose in the back, when I hit a big bump or a bumpy bridge, they will move around. I can guarantee that my axle weight now is not what I started out with since I know the potatoes have shifted around. I just hope I am still legal! But I do have a CAT scale ticket showing I was lefal when I left. I can't control the condition of the roads out here!

This place that we picked up at also sets the appointment at the receiver. The appointment they set up for us is Monday at 2100. When I saw this, I got really aggravated. We gave that load yesterday to a solo because it was supposed to be a solo load and this load we picked up today was supposed to be a "team" load, meaning that we had less time to deliver than a solo would. After seeing the appointment time at the receiver that they gave up, a solo could have taken this load as STILL had extra time. ARGH!! Sometimes this is so frustrating! So we were dispatched on this Friday afternoon to pick-up on Saturday morning. They moved the pick-up to Sunday morning and now we deliver on Monday evening. That is three days to go a whopping 978 miles! Sheesh!!!!!!!!!

On the bright side, we are sending the July 4th weekend in Vegas with some friends! So the extra time we have tomorrow before we deliver will work to our advantage. We will be able to get the truck cleaned out and do some shopping. My swimsuit is MIA so I am going to have to buy a new one since we are spending Sunday out at the lake. Saturday we are gonna BBQ. We are really looking forward to it. These are some friends that we went to high school with that we haven't seen in over 20 years. Thanks to FaceBook we have connected back up so we are having a mini reunion. It should be lots of fun!!!!

Charleston,MO

2009-06-27T09:50:00.002-05:00

Holy cow! Can it get any hotter or muggier?? I am sitting here in Charleston waiting to get loaded. It is 0953 hours and my dash reading shows 117 degrees!! I got out to sweep the trailer and I think I just lost 5 lbs. It is crazy hot out here!

Early yesterday morning J got us into Franklin,IN where we made our first drop at 0300 in the morning. From there he headed down to a Flying J and we got out and had breakfast and a shower. We had one more drop but it wasn't until 1300 hours. J called and checked with them and they told us that they were busy but they had plenty of parking so we could come on down if we wanted to and they would work us in early if they could. That sounded good to us. That way I could get parked and J could get some good non moving sleep.

J hit the bunk and I took off to drive the short 15 miles to our final destination. When I checked in, she asked me if I was dropping. I didn't know I could drop, I thought it was a live unload. She said I could drop. Sweet! The sooner I get this dropped the sooner I can get another load. I went and parked the trailer and unhooked only to find that there were no empty trailers. I sent a message in asking where to get an empty. A few minutes later they tell me to go to the Great Dane dealership and pick up an empty there that had been repaired. After I picked that up, I headed to the Flying J to wait for our next load. That last appointment wasn't until 1300 and I ended up ready to roll with a new empty at the Flying J at 1115 hours. I love when things work to our benefit.

For all the good luck I was having that morning, it wasn't to continue throughout the afternoon. Well, I guess that depends on how you look at it. We finally got our next load assignment around 1345 hours. However it didn't pick up until this morning. J was sleeping and the pick-up was 299 miles away. Our appointment showed that we could pick up today between 0630 and 1200. I decided that we would just stay parked where we were and leave later that night. If I would have left then, I would have gotten to this area around 2000 hours or so and I hate getting to a truck stop in the evening because it is hard to find a spot to park.

Once J got up, we had lunch and decided on a plan of action. He headed out around midnight and drove about 200 miles. We stopped in Mt Vernon, IL when I got up and had breakfast and then I took over. I had to make a stop at the Pilot here in Charleston before I came to the shipper because we needed load locks. Then I made it to the shipper just a little after 0800 hours. When I get here I find out that I am #20 in line. Great! Then I get a message from my FM saying that they may not load me until tomorrow. WTF? I ran in and checked with the office to find out. If we aren't loading until tomorrow then I am heading out and getting a hotel for the night. It turns out that the office told me they would load me today. Damn. And the swimming pool at the hotel was already sounding wonderful. Guess it wasn't meant to be. So instead, I am sitting here in the back muddy parking lot of Black Gold waiting for my turn to be loaded down with potatoes that are destined to become potato chips!

Des Moines,IA

2009-06-24T14:01:00.003-05:00

I think this is the longest that I have gone without posting when we haven't been off! Sorry about that to anyone that has been reading and waiting for an update. I have no excuse other than I have just been tired!

After we left Pittston, we picked up a hazmat load we delivered to Hillsboro,OR. From there our next load had two pick ups. One in Yakima,WA and the other in Odell,OR. This load had too much time on it so we dropped it at the company yard in Salt Lake City,UT. On the lot was our next load waiting to be picked up. We are currently just east of Des Moines,IA and are headed to Indiana. We have two deliveries there. The first one is in Franklin at 0300 in the morning and the other is in Indianapolis at 1300 hours. Now you are caught up!

I realize that sometimes I get too caught up in what we have done each day that I forget to mention all of the beautiful things that we see along the way. I had an incredibly scenic drive across Nebraska on I-80 this morning. With all the rain they have had recently, everything was gorgeous shades of green. This morning as the son was coming up, there was a mist hanging just above the grass and it was almost magical the way it just hovered there. I saw numerous cows with their calves nursing and a doe standing in a pasture eating her breakfast. Mornings like this are the reason that I enjoy living out here on the road. I love my mobile office. :)

Pittston,PA

2009-06-18T19:18:00.002-05:00

After J took over last night, I headed off to bed. I didn't sleep very well and I guess I can just chalk that up to the road departments inability to make the surface of the roads and bridges match. I mean, how hard is it to make a bridge level with the rest of the road surface. Apparently it is pretty hard because every bridge that J crossed over last night seemed to have about a 3 inch drop!

J did a great job last night of gettin me to Milton,PA. That was over 600 miles that he drove on his shift, through horrible rain storms and fog. He did awesome. When I took over in Milton, I only had about 80 miles to go to get us to the receiver. I made it there in about an hour and forty-five minutes, which isn't bad considering I had some steep pulls in the PA mountains, and I hit morning rush hour traffic. I immediately went off duty when I got there so as not to go over on my hours since I could only work 3.5 hours today. I got us there at 0730 and by 1130 or so we were ready to leave. I took the scenic route of US 11 through Scranton to get back to I-81. Note to self: Don't take that road EVER again, even if it is a Truck Route, seeing as it takes me right through down town!!

I made it to the Pittston yard and as I was pulling in my Qualcomm beeped with our next load. My FM and I both thought it picked up today. He called to see if I could pick it up and then come back to the yard since it was a tight pick-up frame. I was coming to the yard here to have my APU worked on. When we were talking on the phone, we realized that it picks up tomorrow and not today. That actually worked out great for us. I have time to get the truck fixed without being rushed now. Also, I will get a restart on my hours which I need very badly. So in the end, it all worked out.

We will stay here at the yard tonight and then tomorrow afternoon head over to NJ, only about 80 miles away, and pick up our next load. This one will deliver on Monday morning at 1000 hours in Oregon. It is about 2800 miles but shouldn't be too hard of a run to make it on time. It will also be nice to be up north where it won't be quite so hot. I like the more spring like weather as opposed to the weather in the south where it has already been in the 100's. What we will have to watch out for is the tornados that have been hitting the northern part of the US. Yikes!

Brazil,IN

2009-06-17T16:34:00.002-05:00

Another day down and another 1000 or so miles under our belts! We finally got loaded out of Monte Vista and were on the road around noon on Tuesday. We had to make a quick stop to get a CAT scale, since we didn't trust the shippers scales and grab some lunch, and then we were on our way. We had almost 1900 miles to go for a Thursday morning appointment in Scranton,PA. I told our FM we probably wouldn't make it but that we would keep him updated.

For some unknown reason, and I'm not going to question why, but we have been gettin extremely good fuel mileage lately. Since we came out of the house a week ago, we have been getting over 7 mpg. And all four runs that we have been doing have been at around 65 mph because of the time frames. Even on this run, we have been running 65 to try to make the appointment, and we are currently getting 7.43. Amazing really considering we are over 79,000 lbs. We are actually about 79.5 K. Anyway, I think we will be able to make our appointment, however it will be close.

While we were in Denver, J was able to get a restart on his hours, however I was not. So when I start driving in the morning, I will only have 3.5 hours to work before I am legally out of hours. Tonight J is going to push his 14 clock and try to get in his whole 11 hours of drive time to get us closer. This way I can get us the last little bit and hopefully get unloaded fairly fast and then drive over to our yard in Pittston, which is only 13.5 miles away, to spend the rest of my shift. I am also going to have them check the truck out while we are there. Our low-voltage alarm keeps going off and I think it has something to do with the APU work we had done a couple months back while we were out in Ontario,CA. Hopefully they can figure out what the problems is and get it fixed. And hopefully it will be an easy fix. :)

It has been really nice the last few days with us driving up across I-70 to Denver and then to southern Colorado and now up to PA. The weather has been beautiful! The temps are just perfect. If only it could be this way year round, I would be extremely happy. It has been in the mid 70's during the days, maybe low 80's and in the 60's at night. This is my idea of summer! My only regret is that we are in the truck and I can't fully enjoy it. Not that I regret being in the truck mind you. LOL But this is when having a normal job with weekends off sounds really good! Especially when all our friends are going to the lake or BBQ'ing. But on the flip side of that, we get to see the most beautiful scenery every day. And I know that beats their views in their offices each day!

Monte Vista,CO

2009-06-15T19:26:00.002-05:00

With us being on a FedEx kick, we made it into Denver about two hours before our deadline. J had taken off from Memphis and got me over 600 miles closer than when he left. He dealt with a LOT of rain and storms through Oklahoma, and managed to get me into Wichita,KS where I took over. I had quite a bit of rain also but once I got up onto I-70 and west of Salina,KS the clouds disappeared and the blue skies appeared. It was a beautiful drive on into Denver. I had a minor mishap with directions, meaning the directions we had were COMPLETELY wrong, but a phone call to the receiver got me to where I needed to be.

A few hours before I made it to Denver, I had sent in a message asking if they knew if we were going to get another FedEx load out. I was on my last page of my logbook and needed to go by our yard there in Denver and pick some up. They said they didn't know yet. Since I was running ahead of schedule, I thought I would go by the yard first, just in case we got to FedEx and got another load and had to head right out.

About an hour after that exchange on the Qualcomm, I get a message saying to get an empty trailer from there and deadhead to Salt Lake City,UT. Hmmm That is about 500 miles. So I send in a message and ask if we have a load there waiting for us. I get an answer of no, there isn't, but there isn't any freight currently in Denver. (This is on a Sunday.) So I have a choice of going 500 miles empty, and hoping for a load once I get there, or staying in Denver overnight and seeing if there is something on Monday. We decide to stay in Denver. It just made more sense financially to not waste that fuel, when we wouldn't get there until today (Monday) anyway and I knew we could get something today that would be closer. Even if we had to go to Kansas for a meat load. After we dropped the FedEx load, we headed over to a motel we had stayed in before and checked in. There were no empties at FedEx so we just bobtailed out and figured we would check the company yard this morning.

This morning around 0700, I get a call from our FM that he has a local delivery for us. It doesn't pay but $50 however there is no empties to be had. By delivering this load, we would get ourselves an empty. I was going to head over there by myself and make the delivery and then come back to the hotel to get Joe, but then thought better of it. Knowing my luck, I would be stuck there until after check-out time and J would be stuck at the hotel sitting outside. I hated to do it, but I woke him up and we packed up and both got in the truck and headed out.

We made it to the yard, picked up the load and some logbooks and headed over to Pepsi where we made our local delivery. Talked with another Prime driver for a while named George. But he could be Willie Nelson's twin, and that is no lie. He could seriously be a stand in for Willie. He got a dock and then about 20 minutes lated I got a dock right next to him. J was asleep and George aka "Willie" got out and helped guide me in. I had to back into a dock that was inside the warehouse from off the street. These are tough backs because you are backing INTO a building, not a dock on the outside, and it is very hard to see because it is dark inside. And they are usually very tight spaces. Imaging a normal size two car garage and you want to park two full size SUV's inside, like Suburbans or Expeditions. Wider than normal vehicles. You could do it, but if you have a two car garage at home, you know you wouldn't have much room to open the doors. That is how these docks are, but for semis. I hate the inside docks like these! Anyway, got it done and headed back to the company yard to wait for a load.

Luck was with me because not 10 minutes after I arrived back at the yard, I had our next load. I needed to be down in Monte Vista,CO by 1500 to pick up a load of potatoes going to Scranton,PA. Since it was about 250 miles, I told him we couldn't make it by 1500, but I could make it between 1600-1630. I bumped up our speed and pulled in at 1630. Whew! Because they closed at 1700! But, it gets worse. Their production line had broken down and they were waiting for a part. AND there were at least 7 other trucks in front of us. We checked in at the office and came up with another game plan. They decided that we could come back in the morning and they would get our load then. They were already going to be working till probably midnight, 7 hours past closing time, just to get the other trucks loaded. We have plenty of time to deliver this load even if we left tomorrow, so by loading us tomorrow morning, it helped them out by not having to stay so late, and we can chill here tonight. We aren't in a rush. Besides, they couldn't even guarantee they would get the other trucks out tonight because of the problems they were having. No biggie!

The ony part that really sucks, is that we are a short 75 miles from Pagosa Springs,CO where we both grew up. We were so tempted to drive over there and come back in the morning. And we could get a green chile cheeseburger that we love from there! But, we made a business decision to stay here. After all, it isn't like this semi gets 35 mpg! It would cost us fuel getting over there and back, so we decided to stay here. But we are going to stare that direction at the mountains and just whine all night....

Memphis,TN

2009-06-13T16:57:00.002-05:00

Boy, this week I am feeling like a FedEx driver! I am starting to think I should get their pay and the benefits that they get since that is all we have hauled this week!

When J got us into Compton,CA we had our next load assignment. We knew that we were going to be picking up at the same FedEx Facility there in Compton that we were delivering to. After dropping our loaded trailer, J went and checked in and about 2 hours later, they were letting us know that our load was ready. When he headed out, he got to Barstow,CA where he woke me up and I took over. From that point, we had about 25 hours to get about 1685 miles. Piece of cake. LOL

I managed to get about 560 miles and made it to Jamestown,NM and then J took over and did an amazing job of getting us to Oklahoma City,OK which is around 625 miles. That left me with just under 500 miles to get us into Memphis. I managed to roll into Memphis around 1300 making me 3 hours early. I was worried about finding my way to this place. Mainly because it is on the Airport, and I detest getting in and out of airports. But this one was painless.

After I dropped the loaded trailer, I ran down to the lot where they keep the empties at. I grabbed the only empty that was there, did my inspection on it and was just pulling out of the parking space when we got our next load assignment. Wouldn't you know it? I am once again picking up at the same place we just dropped at. That makes things really easy. So I backed the trailer into the spot I just pulled it out of and unhooked. It didn't make any sense to take it out when they would just have me bring it right back!

We were to be here at 1700 so we had a few hours to kill. We headed up to the Petro to grab a shower, lunch and get the truck washed. From there we headed back to the FedEx facility to check in. When we were checking in, we found out that there was another truck that had checked in to pick up our load. Uh Oh. Apparently there is a communication problem. We pulled up next to them and talked a few minutes. We were assigned this load at 1330 and they got it around 1600. Hmmm So we both get on the phone and call our FM's to find out what the deal is. It turns out that this is a daily run from Memphis to Denver and the load number is the same. We were assigned the load for today and they were assigned the load for tomorrow. Luckily we caught them in time because they had already gotten the bills and were getting ready to leave. We were going to stop and get fuel, which we forgot to do when we were at the Petro, and it is a good thing we didn't or they would have been gone with our load! But they were nice about is and understood that they were assigned the one for tomorrow.

By the time we got all that straightened out, they told us we were ready to go so we just hooked up and are on the road. We should be there by 1600 hours tomorrow afternoon! And if we are lucky, we will get another FedEx load out of there. I am liking these FedEx runs! Fairly light loads and we don't use the reefer since they are dry loads. That saves us money, and I like that!

Quartzsite,AZ

2009-06-11T16:27:00.001-05:00

I have to make this a quick update before I lose signal down here on I-10. I just finished driving and J took over here in Quartzsite,AZ a short 17 miles from the CA border. We only have about 240 miles to go to the FedEx Facility in Compton,CA.

I was wondering if we were going to have to wait until tomorrow for a load since we are supposed to be there at 2000 hrs tonight. Usually that means it will be the next day for a load. Today was our lucky day though because we already have our next load. We are picking up at the FedEx we are delivering this load to. That makes it nice! That load is supposed to be ready to go at 2030 hours so we will drop this trailer, grab the loaded one, and head back out. The next load is delivering to Memphis,TN sometime on Saturday. The delivery time will depend on when the actual load is ready and we are able to leave with it.

So that is what is going on with us. I will update you tomorrow on our progress!

Ft Worth,TX - Graduation!

2009-06-10T12:05:00.003-05:00

Here are some pictures folks that we took yesterday at Graduation! The first one is of all of us. Joe, Jessica, Me and Justin. What good looking kids they turned out to be. The last one was taken the night before graduation at Chili's when we went to eat. I think that it is a great picture of Jessica. She is such a beautiful girl! It is hard to believe that they are both grown and finally we have both of them graduated from High School. Justin is just about at his one year mark in the Navy at the end of this month. Jessica will be starting college in the fall and hopes to get into medical school. We are just so damn proud!!

Now that we have graduation over with, we are back on the road. We are sitting at the FedEx in Ft Worth waiting for our load to be ready. It should be ready by 1600 hrs and then we will head out to Compton,CA to deliver tomorrow evening. We will have 30 hours from the time we leave to get to Compton. I am guessing that will put us in there around 2000 hrs California time tomorrow evening. FedEx loads are usually light and I am thinking we are going to take the southern route this time as opposed to the northern one on I-40. By taking I-20 and I-10 we can pick up our speed to make the appointment while still maintaining decent fuel mileage. Not near as many climbs going that route. Delivering tomorrow evening will also put us in a good position to get something out of CA on Friday headed for the east coast for a Monday delivery.

I feel like now we can FINALLY get back on the road and start making some money. With coming home for Prom, Graduation and then working on the boat, the account is seriously depleted! LOL Momma needs some money in the account so we can enjoy the cruise at the end of July!

Ft Worth,TX

2009-06-08T11:19:00.002-05:00

We finally made it to Fort Worth and will get to see the kids this afternoon! I am so excited!

After we made our pickup in Rosenhayn,NJ we headed down to the first Service Plaza we could find and decided to call it a night there. It was still really early, around 1600 or so, but we had a LOT of time on this load. We had two stops and the first one wasn't until Monday (today) moring at 0800 here in Ft Worth. With just under 1500 miles to go to the first stop, we knew we would make it in Sunday afternoon. That is why we decided to stop Friday afternoon. Evening rush hour traffic around Baltimore and Washington DC is horrible so we decided just to wait it out and leave early Saturday morning.

It was an uneventful trip down. We had beautiful weather. I saw so many motorcycles coming down I-81 in Virginia. I was so jealous. It sure would have been nice to be out there for a weekend road trip with all the other people starting their summer vacations! But since we were heading home, I decided that was much better. :)

We knew that we would be in Sunday afternoon so I had sent a message in to the weekend dispatch to find out if we could drop this load Sunday afternoon at the drop lot and then have a solo finish up with the deliveries. The first one was a short local one, but the second delivery was out in Merkel,TX about 170 miles away. So there was still a little revenue left on it. Rollie worked all day for us and finally found someone that could take the load. Unfortuately, when he found someone, that is when he realized that we had a hazmat load and the driver didn't have his hazmat endorsement. Bummer. So we dropped the load at the drop lot, came and got a hotel, then J left this morning and went to go make the deliveries for us.

J is so awesome for making these deliveries today! It is really nice to be sitting here in the hotel chilling, playing on the computer, doing laundry and doing a whole lot of nothing. I haven't done that in a while. Well, for a few days when we were in Atlanta, but I was sore from working on the boat and J's back was out, so that really doesn't count!

As I type this, J is down in Merkel making the last delivery. The appointment wasn't until 1300, but he sent me a message at 1120 that he was there and docked. So that means that he will be back a couple hours sooner than we had planned. Very awesome. Tonight we plan on seeing the kids and doing something with them. Graduation is tomorrow evening, so we should be spending the day with them then also. After that, we will head back out on Wednesday morning.

I am so proud of the kids, and I just can't believe that when J and I got married that they were only 7 and 9 years old. When we started dating again, they were only 5 and 7. It is hard to believe those little kids, which were complete brats at time and couldn't stand to be near each other or even be in the same room at times, are now both graduated from High School and the best of friends. Justin has been in the Navy for a year now and Jessica is going to go to a community college for the first two years and then she wants to get into Baylor's Medical School. I told her she needs to become a plastic surgeon. That way I can always look good! LOL But she wants to work with children. Not an MD but she wants to be an oncologist, working with children with cancer. This girl has a heart of gold. I am so incredibly proud of both of them!

So we are going to be spending time with family the next few days and enjoying the kids company. After that we are hitting the road again to save up some money for the cruise with Jessica in July and saving up so we can head back to work on the boat again. This is going to be a great summer!

Bensalem,PA

2009-06-05T09:38:00.002-05:00

After J headed out of Atlanta the other morning, he managed to get us all the way to our destination in Tip City,OH. All things considered, we were only 45 minutes late. I think that was pretty good! It looks like there were a bunch of other trucks with the same appointment time though which worked in our favor. They put us in what they call the "holding pen" or "bull pen" to sit and wait for our dock. Finally around 0600 we got a dock and were unloaded by a little after 0700.

Since we didn't have a load yet, I came back out the gates and parked in the holding area to wait for our next load. I had thought about heading towards a truck stop, but it never fails that if I do that, our next load will be in the opposite direction.

I sat there for a couple hours and then finally got a load. Our next load was picking up in West Alexandria,OH and delivering to Bensalem,PA. Damn good paying load at almost $2.00 a mile. Yes, that is the one part of having a hazmat endorsement that I love. Anyway, I wrote everything down and headed to get the trailer washed and then went to go pick the load up.

Picking up the load went smoothly and by 1430 I was headed back to the truck stop to scale. The first time we were on the scale we were perfect. Our steer axle was over by 140 lbs, but that would change as we burned off fuel. Our drive axle and trailer axle weights were both 33,200. Both exactly the same! Talk about even weight distribution. Knowing that we were good on weight we headed in for a shower and a hot meal that didn't come wrapped in foil.

Our delivery was set for today at 1130 eastern time in PA so we weren't in a rush to get here. We took it nice and easy and drove 55 to get the best fuel mileage. It also started raining around the eastern third of OH and has been raining ever since. J made it to around mm 179 to a Service Plaza on I-76 and that is where I took over. For the most part I made it to destination fine. Counting the one missed turn and having to get back to I-95 I was still about 2 hours early.

So here I sit waiting for them to come tell me which dock they want me at. We have another pre-plan and it is another hazmat load. We will be picking up in Rosenhayn,NJ and delivering to Ft Worth,TX on Monday. That works perfect since Jessica's graduation is Tuesday night. Then come Wednesday morning, we will be back out on the road at it again.

Atlanta,GA

2009-06-03T16:37:00.002-05:00

I have to say that getting back into the swing of things running team is harder than you would think. After sleeping in a non-moving truck or in an actual bed for the past month, I am having a hard time getting used to sleeping with the truck moving again. I have been exhausted the past few days from going to bed too late and not getting enough sleep. I think part of that is also that I have missed J so I want to spend time talking to him when I should be sleeping. I better get out of that habit real quick!

Last time you heard from me we were in Weatherford,TX. We ended up and got a load that afternoon heading to Florida with three drops. Our daughter Jessica drove out to Weatherford to have lunch with us which was a really nice treat. After that, J took a nap until it was time to pick up the load. See, another solo driver had picked it up in Plainview,TX and was on his way to drop the load at the drop lot we use in Saginaw,TX. Once we got word that the load was there, J got up and we headed out.

The first part of the trip was uneventful. He drove and got us to Natchitoches,LA. From there I took over and got us to the first rest area on I-10 inside the Florida state line. From there J took over and got us to within about 100 miles of the first receiver.

The first drop was in Port Everglades, which is the actual sea port there in Ft Lauderdale. The gates didn't open until 0500 local so we had to kill a little time before we could take off. J was exhausted and went to bed and I went ahead and did our trip paperwork and got all of that scanned so that we could get paid. Then I headed out and made it there about 45 minutes early.

As I was driving in, I realized that this was a Port and I was figuring that I was going to have to use my TWIC card to gain entry. Then I had to remember where it was. LOL Since we have had them, maybe about six months, we have yet to have to use them. I knew it was either in my wallet or up in the pocket above the passenger seat. As it turns out, they didn't even ask for it. They just wanted my drivers license and made me a temporary Port ID. I was kind of bummed since we spent money on the TWIC card and I didn't even get to use it. On the bright side, I didn't have to dig it out either!

Since I made it to the first receiver, I got lucky and got a good dock. It isn't an extremely small place, but it certainly isn't big. So I got a really good door with room to maneuver when I was backing in. If I had been ten minutes later, I would have gotten a dock that would have been harder to back into and closer to the fence. The only problem I did have was that I showed I had an 0700 appt and they showed I had a 1000 hrs appt. Not good. Luckily I was only unloading five pallets, so they worked me in, which was really nice. Especially since my second appointment was at noon.

While I was sitting there waiting to get unloaded, I pulled up Google Earth to have a look at my second drop and see what it looked like. From the looks of it, I knew it was going to be TIGHT. And I knew it was going to be one of the hardest backs yet. But I was up for the challenge! So as soon as I got unloaded, I headed over there with a positive attitude, ready to tackle this backing job.

I made it over there with no problem. As I was making the turn which put me on the last street I needed before my last turn, I realized we were going to have a problem. This was an even tinier street than it looked on Google. I had to take up two of the three lanes to start the turn and the WHOLE street I was turning onto. Not to mention having to have to wait for numerous idiot four-wheelers so that I could make the turn. Note to you four-wheel drivers out there. If you see a truck stopped with a blinker on trying to make a turn and you are behind him, PLEASE stop so that we can make the turn and get out of everyone elses way. And if you are on the street that we are turning on and are coming down the street towards us, STOP and give us room to finish making the turn. Don't keep coming and stop right in front of us where we can't make the turn. Did you not see the truck coming right at you? And then don't have the nerve to give us a dirty look or the finger when YOU have to back up so we can finish making the turn. Believe me, we are NOT going to be the ones backing up. Also, those thick white lines at intersections, which are your stopping points, they are there for a reason. Most of the time, if you stop right before that line, that WILL give a truck enough room to make the turn. If you stop past that line, you will be having to back up for us to make the turn. Those lines are actually there for a reason and they have a purpose. That is why they are called the stop line, not the "cross this point and stop five feet in front of it line." Ok, tiny rant over, on with the blog. LOL

After finally making that turn, I get down a few blocks to make my turn where the receiver is. This is an even smaller street and it is what used to be a residential street but now has businesses on it. The property is on my left and has a chain link fence around it with two concrete poles at the driveway and has three docks. But the only one that you can get a semi into is the dock on the south side closest to the fence because you need all that room to get backed in. Also the street is only big enough for a semi to go down it, and not room for anyone to pass. Then, you have cars parked parallel on both sides of the street. Shit! Time to wake J up! J gets up and jumps out while I put my headset on and he calls me. He has to tell me exactly when to stop, when to pull up and which way to turn the steering wheel, because it is so tight, I can't see everything. I finally got backed in, because J is great at being able to look and see which direction I need to go and how far, and he is able to tell me to where I understand. I will say though that everyone had stopped what they were doing and had come out to make sure I didn't hit their vehicles. HAHA Or it could have been the fact that the catering truck was out waiting on me to get parked so he could pull into the business across the street. See, it was break time and I think everyone was waiting on the "roach coach" as we like to call them so they could get something to eat. Hell, even we got something once I turned the truck off. They always have awesome food.

Feeling pretty good about managing to get backed into that dock, and with a full belly, we tried to decide what to do about our last drop. It was only about 1100 hrs local while we were sitting there, but our last drop wasn't scheduled until 1800 hours, THE NEXT DAY. Dispatch had called and they said they couldn't reschedule. We decided to try our luck and just go show up and see if they would unload us a day early. When we got there, I told them that we were a day early, but that we just hated for their product to sit on our truck a whole day since we were already right there. I turned on the charm, believe me. :) Wouldn't you know it, even though it took about 5 hours total to get us worked in and unloaded, but it worked. They must have liked my smile! LOL!!!!

We were excited to get unloaded and figured we would have to wait until the next morning for a load. Nope. Got one right away to head over to Bradenton,FL to pick up a heavy ass juice load for a cheap ass rate. Neither of us was really happy about it, but it beat sitting. The only problem is that we had a dirty trailer that we needed washed out. We decided to head towards Bradenton and find one on the way. We made a quick stop at the Seminole Truck Stop on US 27 about 4 miles south of I-75. Yet another place with kick ass burgers. OMG they were delicious. Definitely worth driving the 4 miles off the interstate for. Note to any driver that reads this: They charge $10 for overnight parking. But they won't charge you if you are just stopping to eat. Also, the little restaurant is all outdoors with covered seating and the bar is an actual Tiki Hut. Very cool. But the mesquitos will eat you alive, no joke!

After eating, I headed to bed and J hauled butt over to pick up the load and find a trailer wash along the way. Only problem was that there isn't a single freaking trailer washout in the whole souther part of Florida that we could find. And the closest one up in Tampa, 40 miles north of where we needed to be, closed at 2300 and didn't open until 0700. So that wouldn't work. We ended up switching trailers with another Prime driver that was up in Tampa at a hotel getting a restart on his hours. Funny thing is, after the face, we realize that is is U2Exit who posts over on Primedrivers.net. Small world. I sent him a message apologizing for the cluster and thanking him so much for letting us have his trailer. We had a meat load that we had emptied and we HAVE to have a washout after those loads to make sure there is no blood in the trailer. Health regulations and all. So he was a life saver for us but it screwed him on his end. So I told him to tell his FM that our FM owes him, BIG TIME!

After finally getting the trailer switched out, the load picked up and scaled, J was able to wake me up and it was my turn to take over. I headed out this morning and ended my day in Atlanta,GA around 1545 hours. Our appt is at 0200 in the morning (our time) and we aren't going to make it on time. But I figure it isn't our fault that Florida doesn't have any dang trailer washes and that our Sales department over-booked Florida with too many loads and not enough drivers in the area to handle them. We will get there as soon as we safely and legally can. We have bumped our speed up to 65, which is still 5 mph slower than the speed limit, but we still won't make it. J has the mountains of Tennessee and Kentucky to get through and that will slow him down. We will just do what we can do.

Weatherford,TX-Happy Anniversary to Us!!!

2009-05-31T08:18:00.002-05:00

At least I think that is where we are! LOL That is what I get for going to sleep and waking up in a different city!

I got a load out of Atlanta delivering in Garland,TX which worked out perfectly for us. J took off and headed that direction in the Suburban and I headed to pick up the load and take off that way also. The timing on the load was kind of funky, so I picked it up and made it to a Petro west of Birmingham,AL and that is where I called it a night. I left the next afternoon around 1630 and drove the final 606 miles into Garland,TX. By the time I got unloaded my 14 hour clock was up. Thank goodness J was in that area and he had to come drive the truck to a truck stop while I drove our burb. I couldn't legally drive the truck. We got it parked and headed over to Michelle's to spend the night. I couldn't drive until around 1800 that night and knew I wouldn't get a load till the next morning.

That worked our awesome because a friend of ours, Misty, was coming through Dallas and was going to spend the night at Michelle's also. Misty and he husband are moving to Jackson,MS and she was bringing the last load of their belongings down there. So we got to visit with her and Michelle both!

That evening, I got a call and they had me on a pre-plan to get me to Lubbock. Perfect! I was to pick up at the Sam's/Walmart DC down in Desoto,TX and deliver to the Sam's Club there in Lubbock. Since I have an AWESOME husband, he went and picked up the load and took it to Lubbock while I drove our burb. I figured since he has been off the truck for a month, he would need a short run as a "refresher" to remember how to drive the truck. LOL!! (Just kidding baby!! Love you!!)

The appointment was at 2100 in Lubbock and after he got unloaded I went and picked him up and we spent the night at my Mom's. Luckily she only lives about 2 miles from that Sam's Club. While he was getting unloaded, we also got our next load. We had to pick up in San Angelo,TX the next day by noon and drop it at a drop lot in Saginaw,TX. So we were up at 0700 and on the road by 0800 to go get that load.

Now for the life of me, I don't know what the rush was to pick this load up. First off, we were just dropping it in Saginaw,TX because it isn't due into Oklahoma City,OK until Monday morning. I know they had us drop it so that we wouldn't be sitting on a short low paying load all weekend. And second, when I got there, they were closed and the trailer was already loaded with the paperwork in the inspection door just waiting for us to pick it up. If I had known that, we could have slept in! But we got there and got it picked up and headed out.

Now since we didn't have any specific time to drop in Saginaw, I headed towards Abilene which was the closest scale that I could find and it was about 90 miles away. I got to the Wes-T-Go Truck stop and got scaled then sent a text to our friend Jaye that lives there. She got off work at 1600 and her and a friend she works with, Denise, came down and visited with us for a while. I love being able to see our friends while we are on the road! After visiting for a while, it was time to hit the road and get this load up to Saginaw.

I headed to bed and J drove the rest of the way and got us to Saginaw and dropped the load. He picked up an empty and then headed over to this Petro where we are to wait for our next load. As I stated above, I am THINKING we are in Weatherford. LOL That is the closest Petro that I know of so I am pretty sure that is where we are at. I got a call around 0730 giving me our next load info, then I got a message saying he was looking for something different for us. So now I am just sitting here waiting to see where they will send us.

Now for some REALLY happy news! Today is our 12th Wedding Anniversary!! Happy Anniversary J!!! I can't even begin to describe how great it feels to be doing a job that I love with the person that I love. I know I have said this before, but we actually like each other. So many couples love each other, but they don't "like" each other enough to be together 24/7. That isn't the case with us. We genuinely want to be together all of the time. I think that is rare. I know there are couples like that out there, but I would bet the isn't the norm. So to J, I love you and thank you for asking me to marry you! I would do it all over again without hesitation. Thank you for loving me and accepting me for who I am. You are the best and I would be lost without you. As cheesy as it sounds, but it is true, you complete me. I LOVE YOU!!

Atlanta,GA

2009-05-25T13:41:00.003-05:00

Hello again folks! Whew, what a busy couple of days it has been. I won't go back and bore you with the details, but I will tell you I am extremely happy to be in Atlanta where J is at!

I made my delivery Thursday morning in Birmingham,AL and then made my way over to Atlanta to meet J. He had been staying with s cousin of his, but since I was now there with Smokey, we went ahead and got a hotel. After spending the night we got up and headed down for me to get a first look at the work he had done on the boat.

After trying to figure out the best way to work on the boat, J decided the best course of action was to start from scratch. He started demolishing the lower level of the boat and taking it down to the steel hull. He did an exellent job of getting it tore down and out to the dumpster that he had delivered. From there, he had to clean all the rust and debris out of the bottom of the hull and then sand down all of the metal floor joists. After screwing some wood strips to the metal, he was able to start putting down the plywood subfloor. After he got that done, he started putting the wall studs up.

When I got there to help him on Friday, we finished laying the floor down and were able to get most of the wall studs up. We also made a trip to Home Depot and got some joist hangers for the ceiling rafters. Unfortunately, during the day at some point, probably when he was drilling the holes in the metal for the wall studs, he managed to slip a disc in his back. He has done this before, and it is really painful. That put an end to our work that day and we headed back to the hotel so that he could soak in the tub and try to get his back in place.

The next morning, we got up and headed back up there with one mission. I was to finish the work we got started so that we could get it covered from the elements. I was able to finish screwing the subfloor down, get the rest of the wall studs up and the ceiling rafters up. I did as much as I could but I did have to have J cut five more rafters for me. I felt really bad. He was in pain and already felt bad for having to watch me do the work. But I didn't mind. I love doing this kind of stuff and he had already gotten so much done. He deserved a day off.

We had to make one more trip to Home Depot to get a tarp to cover the boat. You should see two people trying to manage a 30'x50' tarp over a 13'x53' boat that is about 4 foot off the ground up on stands. Too bad no one had a video camera recording of us. I am sure it would have been a youtube sensation.

Yesterday we met the cousin and his wife that J stayed with and treated them to lunch and then went back to their house to return a few of the tools that J had borrowed. After saying goodbye to them we headed over to J's other cousin to return the remaining tools and to have dinner at their house. They have a Great Dane names Pearl and Smokey had a great time playing with her. He was a bit intimidated by her size at first. I told J that now Smokey knows how Chuy and Stuart feel when he is playing with them at Michelle's house!

Today is our last day off and we are chilling at the hotel. I am available tomorrow at 0600 hours and J will be taking off and heading towards Lubbock. He is going to make a stop in Dallas and see Dr. Mike who is our Chiropractor. After he sees him he will finish his trip to Lubbock. I am going to try to get a load that will get me to Lubbock. That way J can drop our Suburban back off at my mom's house and then I will pick him up. That way we will finally be running team again. And THAT makes me really happy!

I am going to try to upload some pictures of the boat. I can't guarantee that they will post since I have been having problems loading them, but I am going to give them a try!

Decatur,AL

2009-05-20T15:50:00.002-05:00

Here I am slacking once again. This solo stuff will wear you out I am telling you! I am on my second load since I posted last, so I will get you caught up.

As I was sitting at the Chex Truck Stop in Henderson last Saturday night, watching Milo & Otis on DVD, I finally get a load. After calling to make sure I could pick it up any time, I head to bed. My 34 was up at 0300, so I was up and on my way.

This load picked up in Southport,NC which was almost 200 miles away. It was a loaded trailer but the info said they didn't open until 0700, so I didn't have to bust ass down there. I did however have to find a fuel stop. I was supposed to get fuel at the Chex, but for whatever reason, there was a sign on the door stating that they were closed until 0500. Not sure if that is a normal thing or not, but I had to find another place to get fuel.

I found a Pilot a few miles south on I-95 where I crossed over it and got my fuel and continued on my way. Now I have been fairly lucky this time out being solo. About 3/4 of the loads I have gotten or have delivered have all been to places that I have been before. That makes it really nice when I don't have J and his extra set of eyes and ears here to help me. This place in Southport was one of the places I had been before, so it was easy to find again. Although, I am still wondering why, on a two lane road down to the shipper, they decided there was a need for a traffic circle. It looks pretty, but no where near large enough for trucks. I left some nice tire marks on the center of it, which is mainly concrete. Along with numerous other tire marks from other trucks!

After I picked up this load, I had to decide which way I was going to go to make my delivery in Chicago. I could have taken I-40 back west and hit I-77 north and then cut across Ohio. But last week I drove I-77 and it was a killer on my fuel mileage. My other option was to cut across the top of South Carolina and hit I-20, then from there I could take I-26 to I-40 to I-75 to I-74 to I-65. That is the route I chose to go. It was only about 50 miles further, but I could make much better time on it. Since I got up at 0300 and drove the 200 miles to Southport, I got another 350 in and then stopped for the night just south of the NC border on I-26.

The next day I drove another 550 or so and that put me within about 140 miles of Chicago. I got up early and headed out about 0230. I wanted to make sure I beat as much of the traffic as I could since I was delivering into Chicago, and not a suburb. I was going to have to watch for low clearances and my turns and figured the least amount of traffic to watch for, the better. I managed to make it to the receiver around 0630. One quick bathroom stop on the way and then some traffic, but certainly not bad. I was VERY happy to finally pull up to the place and set the brakes. Definitely could have used J that morning. Since the place wasn't open yet, I took Smokey for a walk and we saw some ducks and baby ducks. So darn cute!

Finally they show up and start getting me unloaded. I was done by around 0930 and had sent my depart macro. I asked which way I should go out and got good directions from them. Seems if I would have headed out to the right I would have gotten stuck at the corner. Not enough room for the trailer to make the turn they said. So I headed out the way I came. Sure enough, I drove past the other end of the block as I was leaving, and they weren't kidding. No way I would have made that turn.

With no new load info, I decided the best course of action would be to head to one of the service plazas on I-294. I headed to the O'Hare one since it was the closest. I guess around 1140 I received my next load. I was pickin gup at Cargill in Beardstown,IL which was 240 miles away and delivering to Birmingham,AL. YES!! This is my load back to J territory! The only problem was that I didn't know if I could make it to the shipper before my 14 ran out at 1630 hours. I headed that direction, but I knew it was going to be close. I HAD to stop for fuel, no getting around that, but I managed to do that in just 15 minutes. Back on the road, I pulled into their gate at 1640. A few minutes over, but that was the best I could do.

I was able to check in, and of course my load wasn't ready. My work assignment said that I could pick it up any time before 0200 on Wednesday morning. This was Thursday afternoon when I arrived. They had me give them my name and truck number and said they would come get me when my load was ready. I knew I couldn't legally drive until 0230 so I figured I was going to get some good sleep. I made a few calls and by about 1800 I was sound asleep.

I actually got come decent sleep. Their knock on my door at 0140 is what woke me up. That gave me about 7.5 hours of sleep so I was ready to roll. After finding the trailer, scaling and getting my paperwork, I was headed towards my baby!

I am stopped for the night here in Decatur,AL. I only have 77 miles to go from here to the receiver which is Associated Grocers in Birmingham. From there I am guessing I will just deadhead to Atlanta,GA and drop the trailer in a drop lot we use. From there I will head north and spend a few days with J and see what I can do to help him!

Henderson,NC

2009-05-16T17:43:00.002-05:00

Here I sit in Henderson,NC at the Chex Truck Stop getting a 34 hour restart. Not what I had really wanted to do, but that is just the way it happened. I guess I deserve a rest though after the last week that I have had!

I guess I don't really have much more to post on what I have been doing, so I guess I will update you on what J has been doing.

While he has been in Atlanta, the plan was for him to start remodeling the boat. When he got there and started pulling the inside walls down, he realized that there was mold. Not a good sign. So instead of pulling the inside paneling down and putting new up, he decided to gut the whole thing. And really, that isn't even right. Gutting would imply removing everything inside and leaving a shell. He didn't even do that. He removed the walls and everything. I mean, there is just a bottom to the boat and that is about it! But this seemed to be the best course of action. This way we are removing ALL of the wood and getting rid of the mold.

Next step is to get the outside walls back up and get a roof on. That will protect it from the weather. Then we will do the wiring on the inside and water lines before we finish out the interior. He has a guy coming out on Tuesday to clean out the waste water tank. This is turning out to be a bigger project that we had anticipated. But in the end, it will be worth it because it will be all new and just the way we want it. It will just take a little longer than we had hoped.

So that is it for me right now. Keep your fingers crossed for me that I get a decent load out of here tomorrow! Until next time....

Henderson,NC

2009-05-15T12:52:00.002-05:00

Boy, I have been several places since I posted last. I got stuck on a night schedule and that has me all messed up. When I have parked at night, all I have wanted to do is sleep!

Let's see, I got up the next morning in Saginaw,MI and headed up to deliver in Alpena. I got there about an hour and a half early and they were able to get right to me. By my actual apointment time of 0800 I was unloaded and waiting on my next load.

Finally around 1000 hrs, I got my next dispatch. I was to head over to Reed City,MI to pick up a load of Yoplait yogurt and take it to Murfreesboro,TN. This was on Tuesday. I headed over to Reed City and got there about 1400 hours for a 2100 appt time. I had to get there early because my 14 hour clock was going to run out before the appointment. I told them just to come wake me up when it was time and they said no problem. Then the guy said if I wanted I could just drop the trailer in their empty lot and go to the truck stop to get my break in and they would have it loaded and ready when my break was over. Sweet! So I dropped the trailer and headed over to the Marathon to grab some zzz's.

With my break being over, I woke up around 2200 and headed over there. My trailer was loaded and ready to go. I hooked up and headed back to the Marathon to get some fuel. It isn't a normal stop for us so I had to get authorization for a Comcheck. But my fuel light was on and we have very few fuel stops in Michigan. After getting the fuel and cleaning my windows, I was headed out to Murfreesboro.

I had 641 miles to do and I knew I was going to be close on time. I was having to gain hours back at midnight to be able to run legally. I was able to make it to Smith's Grove,KY before running out of hours. From there I only had 109 miles to go. Before I headed to bed, I ran across the street to Donita's Diner. Pretty darn good food and yet another place with wonderful red beans and cornbread. With a full belly, I headed off to sleep.

At midnight I was back on the road to make my last 109 miles. I barely managed to make it. I pulled in at 0157 for a 0200 appt. Nothing like calling it close! This location was a drop and hook so I dropped my loaded trailer and went in search of an empty. I found the only one that was empty and hooked up to it. While doing my pre-trip inspection I found a flat tire on the left inside rear axle. I sent a message to road assist to have someone come fix it and they told me they showed over 20 trailers there. I checked the list they gave me and sure enough, all those trailers were there. But they were still loaded! I guess they were running a little behind! They give me another location to check and it had a trailer but the gates were locked.

By only other option was to go to Cleveland,TN which was about 50 miles round trip out of the way. I decided to check back at Americold and see if they by any chance had gotten another trailer unloaded. It was my lucky day because there was now one more trailer that was there empty. So I hooked up to it!

I had gotten a preplan and was to head to Rockmart,GA to pick up a load delivering in Henderson,TN. I had a 1000 hrs appointment and didn't leave out of Murfreesboro until 0600 thanks to the trailer search. I had 200 miles to go and knew it would be close. I managed to make it there about 10 milutes late, but I notified my FM that was the case.

When I managed to make it there, I checked in and found out that this was also a drop and hook. They were loading my trailer so all I had to do was drop my empty and hook up to the one they were loading. I got hooked up and ran inside to use the restroom. As soon as I got back in the truck, the were telling me to pull out and that I was done. I pulled up and one of the guys sealed it for me. After running in to grab the paperwork I was ready to roll again.

Because I had been running such wierd hours, I couldn't work past 1500 yesterday and my appointment up here in Henderson,NC was at 1515 hours. I knew I was going to have to plan my break accordingly and leave just in time to drive the 463 miles and arrive for the appointment. That would leave enough time on my 14 for them to unload me and give me time to find a place to park for my next required 10 hour break. I figured I didn't need to leave until 0300 so that meant I could take my break there in Atlanta. That meant I got to see J!!

I was so excited to see him! It is hard for us being apart. We are just the type that really like each other and we don't get sick of each other. We actually want to be together all the time. I called him and told him the good news so he headed down to meet me at the Petro. We got to spend some time together and went to a Five Guy's and had a burger and fries for lunch. I had been up since 2300 the night before and finally at 1600 hours, I had to make him leave, even though I didn't want him to, because I had to get some sleep. I was exhausted!

I got a really good nights sleep last night, thanks to getting to see J, and I was up and on the road this morning at 0300 to get up here to Henderson. I made it here about an hour and 45 minutes before my appointment. I had to sit outside along side the road with quite a few other trucks to wait to get in. Walmart will not let you in any earlier than an hour before your appointment. After killing 30 minutes talking to J on the phone, I noticed trucks were starting to pull into the gate. I guess all of us had the same appointment time!

So here I sit inside the Walmart DC in the bobtail parking while I wait for them to get me unloaded. From here I plan on heading down to Chex Truck Stop up at X220 on I-85 and taking my break. I will get some hours back at midnight so depending on when I get out of here, that will determine when I can start driving again. I will probably have to get a 34 hour restart over the weekend at some point, but I am hoping I can squeeze one more short run in before I am forced to do that.

Saginaw,MI

2009-05-11T15:04:00.002-05:00

This is a first for me. I don't think I have ever been up this far on I-75 before. And J isn't here to share it with me! Not that there is much to see up here. LOL It is kind of flat and windy and cool. But still.

I managed to get myself up today, or should I say last night, at 2330. I had my alarm set for 0100. Again, I forgot that Ohio was on east coast time! Good thing I woke up on my own an hour and a half before my alarm was set to go off. But since I did, I had time to get rounded up and walk Smokey before we set out for the Shipper.

It was a nice drive and I only had about 45 miles to go. Thank goodness the directions were good because I hate trying to find places in the dark. I got there and checked in and the guard told me to check in with the shipping office. After checking in with them, they said my trailer was being loaded and to go drop my empty and pull up with the other bobtails to wait. I was worried that I would be waiting forever, but about 20 minutes later the yard guy was letting me know I was done and pulling my trailer out for me.

I managed to get hooked up to the trailer, but not without problems. Not really problems, just the landing gear was near impossible to crank. And I had to lower the trailer so that I could hook up to it. My back is burning at the moment. It will probably be pretty sore in the morning,. I don't think I really hurt it, just worked some muscles that I'm not used to working. I usually have J around to do the hard manual stuff. :) I managed to get it lowered though.

I headed out from there and went to the Pilot up on I-70 to scale. I was legal, but had a 5,000 lb weight difference between my drives and my trailer tandems. I was in the 5th hole and I moved it to the 10th hole. I figure that should get it pretty even. Then it was time to hit the road.

As I entered into Michigan, I sent a message to my FM asking him if the receiver would take me today instead of tomorrow morning since I could be there around 1400. No go since they stop receiving at noon. Oh well, it was worth a shot. Since they wouldn't take me, and there aren't really any truck stops once I get off of I-75, I decided to park at the TA here at x144B for the night. I still have about 150 miles to go in the morning, but that isn't a problem. I will head out around 0330, which is 0430 local time. At least it gave me time to do laundry and grab a shower.

Now I am headed to bed. I was wondering why I am so darn tired, and then I remembered. Duh, didn't I just post I got up at 2330 LAST NIGHT? That would be the reason! So goodnight everyone! Holler at yall tomorrow...

Marengo,OH

2009-05-10T14:23:00.002-05:00

Do you ever do something, then after you start doing it, realize that it was stupid and just want to kick yourself in the ass? I had one of those moments today. I set my alarm for 0700 to get up so that I could see if by some miracle I had a load assignment yet. I didn't. So I headed into McDonald's grabbed breakfast then came out and walked Smokey. After that I got back into the truck and chilled for a while. Talked to my Mom since it is Mother's Day. Also got a call from Justin, my step-son, although I am sure he and Jessica got a text from J reminding them what day it was. LOL Jessica sent me a text since she was at work. Then I talked to J for a while.

After all that, I decided I better get all my trip sheets filled out so that I could send them in to get paid. As I was working on the last one, my Qualcomm beeps. Awesome, I have a load. It loads at 0300 Monday morning and delivers up to Alpena,MI at 0800 on Tuesday. Double awesome because that will go on this paycheck.

Now I have to sit and figure out when I need to leave to pick the load up since it is picking up really early. I decide that I will go ahead and head that direction and find a place to park that is fairly close. That way, when I get up, I can get the load and get most of the driving done since I stopped early enough to get a 10 hour break in before I picked up. Now this is where I want to kick myself in the ass.

I headed out and got maybe 30 miles down the road when it hits me. If I would have stayed until at least 1930 hours tonight, I would have gotten a 34 hour restart! So I just screwed myself! Even if I had left at 1930 and drove the 150 miles to pick the load up, I still would have had time to get half way there, take another 10 hour break and still be able to deliver on time. ARGH! I am so mad at myself! This is going to come back to bite me in the ass later in the week when I will be forced to sit for 34 hours and not make money when I could have accompolished that today. It is frustrating. This is the part about driving solo that I don't like. All the planning. I know solo guys do this all the time, but I am just not in that frame of thinking since I am so used to running team.

So here I sit at the Pilot in Marengo,OH. I am going to head to bed in about 30 minutes then get up and be on the road by around 0130 to drive the last 46 miles to the shipper. I am hoping for a preloaded trailer so that I can drive the majority of the way and stop at the last truck stop before the receiver. That way I can get a good nights sleep and then drive in Tuesday morning for my 0800 appointment.

This is Tracy with her head up her ass signing off for now.......

Streetsboro,OH

2009-05-09T17:58:00.002-05:00

I made it here! Last night I settled in for at the Pilot in Caldwell,OH and decided to get up and get an early start today to get this load delivered. I got up around 0400 and grabbed a shower and then hit the road.

I only had 125 miles to go this morning so it was an easy drive. I made one stop on the way and that was for Smokey. After walking about 25 minutes, he finally found a place he considered worthy of leaving a deposit. LOL We also ran across a snake. I hate snakes! It was a little one, but still. Gross!

Back on the road again, I made it to the receiver around 0915 local time. It was a drop so I dropped my loaded trailer in their unbelievably muddy lot. Then I proceeded to the other side of the building to pick up an empty in an even muddier lot. I finally got hooked up and pulled around the front to do my actual trailer inspection and to send in a message that I had picked up an empty. I also wanted to find out if I would be getting a load out of there or if I should head somewhere else to wait.

While I was waiting for a response, I walked Smokey again and talked to another Prime driver. He let me know of a McDonald's just down the road that had truck parking. I am glad that he did because I would have gotten back on the turnpike in search of a place to wait. After getting a message that he didn't know when I would get a load, I decided to head on down to this McDonald's to hang out.

I got here right at 1000 hrs so I was right in time for lunch. Perfect since I wasn't in the mood for breakfast. Then it was time to take Smokey for a walk again. I swear I feel like that is all I do lately! See, he will get in the passenger seat and whine when he needs to go out. And he has been doing that a lot this week since I have been driving solo. But when I take him, he may pee one time and be done. Then we get back in the truck and 10 minutes later, he is whining again. I know he was kinda constipated when we got him back from the kennel, but that has passed. So I don't know what his deal is. I think he realized I am driving alone and Daddy is missing and he is just bored. I think he just wants to get out of the truck and play.

Anyway, where was I going with that? Oh yeah. So I get him out of the truck after I had lunch and take him for another walk. What did we see? Another snake! What is up with the snakes?? We see all these signs at the rest areas in New Mexico and Arizona to watch out for poisonous snakes and insects and we have never once seen a snake. Then I come to Ohio and see two in one day?? And on top of that, at the rest area where we saw the first snake, I picked up a tick! NASTY!! That little bugger was trying to get in my ear! Thank goodness I felt him. I thought I just had something on my ear, but when I pulled it away and saw what it was, I about freaked out. Now mind you, I am not afraid of them, and I don't have a problem pulling them off the dog, but I don't want to be pulling them off of me. And on top of that, I was driving. Damn glad I didn't wreck trying to get the critter flicked out of the wing window! Then for about an hour after that I kept thinking I had others crawling on me. Whew! Glad I didn't have nightmares about invasions of the ticks when I took a nap!!

Speaking of naps, after I walked Smokey, I took a well deserved nap. Before I did that however, I talked to two other Prime drivers that are in the same parking lot as I am. Both have been here since last night. One had just gotten a load that picks up tomorrow and the other still didn't have a load. Now there are 6 of us in this parking lot and 4 more across the street at the old Walmart. I sent in a message and the one I got back said to get comfortable for the night and that it would be in the morning before I would get a load. Great, just great! Why couldn't I be stuck somewhere that the weather is nice instead of here where it is cold and misty?

After I took my really nice nap, I headed next door for dinner. But I had breakfast. See how I had lunch at 1000 hrs and I had breakfast at 1700 hours. I think I am a confused individual! But it was yummy and I had leftovers that I brought Smokey. He was appreciative of the ham and sausage I brought him. :)

So here I sit waiting until tomorrow to get a load. Keep your fingers crossed for me. I don't want to be stuck here until Monday!!

Caldwell,OH

2009-05-08T17:59:00.002-05:00

I was really tired yesterday and had planned on blogging this morning while I was getting loaded. Of course, I get there and it is a pre-loaded trailer, so alas, no time to blog! But I will catch you up now.

Yesterday morning I headed out from Mason,TN and finished my journey to Gaffney,SC. I had about 542 miles to go and I knew it would be a long day. I got up and had a quick shower and was on the road by 0415. I made a few stops and finally pulled into the receiver around 1645 hours. It was a drop and hook so that was nice. I dropped my loaded trailer, went and picked up my empty, took Smokey out and then headed back to the Pilot for the night. I got back to the Pilot at 1800 with just 15 minutes left on my 14 hour clock. That was close! I even managed to find a pull through facing the fuel pumps so I was right up front.

After taking Smokey out again, because he wouldn't do his business at the receivers, I decided I was hungry. When I was walking him, I noticed a mexican food restaurant right next door. Hmm I love mexican food so I decided to give it a try. I don't remember the name of it, but it was really good. It is at x90 on I-85 right next door to the Pilot in the little strip shopping center. I contemplated having a beer but knew I would be up all night going to the restroom if I did, so I had to pass. But it was tempting!

Once I got back to the truck, I talked to J for a while and we were trying to figure some things out on the boat. Finally it was time to go to bed. I had lucked out and already had my next load to be picked up at 0700 today at Nestle which was right across the street from where I delivered. So I set my alarm for o545 and started to crawl into bed. Then it hit me. I was on the east coast which meant east cost time not central time. Oops! At least I remembered it before it was too late. So I had to reset my alarm for 0445 so that I could be there at 0600 my time!

0445 came entirely too early this morning, but the show must go on. So I got up got ready and headed out. Boy was it foggy this morning. Some of the worst morning fog I have seen in quite a while. I couldn't see but maybe half a truck length in front of me. As I said earlier, Nestle was right across the street from where I had delivered the night before, so I knew where I was going. I just couldn't see far enough in front of me to see where the turn was. I was going about 15-20 mph and there happened to be a sign stating Nestle Shipping/Receiving Next Right. Awesome! I turned in and checked with the guard shack. Good news is that I had a pre-loaded trailer! Bad news is that it was across the street at Millard, where I delivered the night before.

Ok, I head in and turn around and then come back out the gate. Now my problem is seeing to cross the 2 south bound lanes, the center turn lane and the 2 north bound lanes without hitting anyone and without anyone hitting me since visibility was about 50 feet. It looked clear to the left so I pulled out across the south bound lanes and pulled into the turn lane. A minivan about had to slam on its brakes so it wouldn't hit my trailer as it came across those lanes. I figure if she had to hit her brakes that hard then she was going way too fast in that fog.

Now my next challenge is to get across the two north bound lanes so I could make my turn into Millard. It looked clear, and Smokey was helping me look, so I had to convince him to get off the seat so that I could see for myself that it was clear. He was just trying to be helpful. I finally make my move and made it without incident across those two lanes and into Millard. I checked with the guard, dropped my empty, picked up my loaded and was off!

I headed down to the Pilot to scale first. When I picked up the loaded trailer the tandems were slid all the way back so I had to move them before I hit the scale. I slid them before I left the shipper and I lucked out and got them in the right hole before I scaled. So once I did scale, I was legal and good to go.

This load is going up to Streetsboro,OH and I would be taking I-85 up about 25 miles and then hitting I-77 all the way up. Best I can remember, I have only been on one part of I-77 before and never the whole stretch. It is an absoultely beautiful drive! But I NEVER want to drive it again! The road winds around, long grades and it seems like I spent more time in 7th gear climbing than I did in 10th. And when I was in 10th, I usually had the engine brake on because I was coming down the backside of the hill I just climbed. It was an exhausting day. I was hoping to make it all the way to Streetsboro today, but it wasn't meant to be. It is only 533 miles and I would have had the time, but it was slow going through VA and WV. So I decided to call it a night here at the Pilot in Caldwell,OH.

Tomorrow morning I will get up and grab a shower and be on the road around 0500. It is only 125 miles to the receiver. I should make it in there around 0900 local time and then I will play the waiting game and see if I can get a load out of Ohio on the weekend. Who knows if I will be stuck here or if they will end up and deadhead me somewhere. We shall see...

Mason,TN

2009-05-06T18:24:00.003-05:00

It has certainly been an adventure so far, that is for sure!! When I stopped last night, I was exhausted. This running solo is actual work! I liked it better when J was with me and all I had to worry about was driving the big truck. LOL

I set my alarm to get up at 0300 this morning so I could be on the road by around 0330. It was still raining when I got up and headed out. I managed to make it a whopping 3 miles down the road before the bottom completely fell out. The wind was howling, rain was horizontal and the lightening show was unbelievable. It wasn't an occasional lightening strike, it was a continuous light show. I was half afraid the lightening was going to cause me to go into a seizure! Not that I suffer from seizures mind you, but they say blinking lights can cause an epileptic to go into a seizure. Or maybe that is an old wives tale. At any rate, I was worried about it. I had slowed down to about 20 mph with my hazards on and only a few trucks passed me. The majority of them were staying in line with me. They figured it was bad also. I was just at the point of trying to find a place to pull over when I finally punched out of that storm cell. Boy was I a happy girl!

I continued along only making two quick stops, one for me and one for Smokey, and I managed to pull into the gate and check in with the guard at exactly 0930 which is when my appointment was. I was able to get right to a dock and by 1030 I was finished. I sent a message to my FM asking if he had any idea which direction I should head, but he didn't, so I just took off. Of course, leave it to me to pull out from the receiver the wrong direction! Thankfully I found a Walmart a few miles down that I could turn around at.

Once I got turned around, my Qualcomm started beeping. Sweet! Less than 30 minutes and I had a load! I had to backtrack to Arkansas and go pick up in Jonesboro. It said the appointment was at 1230 and I told my FM I couldn't get there in time. It was 128 miles to the shipper and it was 1130. I can't do that in an hour. He sent a message back stating it was a preloaded trailer and I could get there anytime. That worked out good because I needed to stop in W. Memphis,AR and get a trailer washout.

I made it to the shipper there in Jonesboro around 1400 and by 1430 I was headed back out the gate. The nice lady at the guard shack gave me directions to the closest scale and after checking my weight, I was off! Two loads in two days. This running solo just may work out. :)

This load delivers in Gaffney,SC and has a drop time of 0100 on the 8th. Which is basically tomorrow night. My FM said I could drop any time since this was a drop and hook location. I decided I would drive to Mason,TN tonight and that would leave me just 540 miles tomorrow. I plan on getting my 10 hour break in and then leaving at around 0400 in the morning. That should put me there around 1700 local time and still leave me time on my clock to get to a truck stop for the night. Maybe tomorrow I will get some laundry done.

Anyway, it has been interesting to say the least. I don't like all this thinking and planning I am having to do!! LOL It is definitely much easier running team with J. And I miss him like crazy. But I think we have talked at least 5-6 times each day along with texting all day. Thank goodness we have unlimited texts!!

Gurdon,AR

2009-05-05T19:51:00.002-05:00

Here it is folks, Day 1 of me driving solo. Last night I spent the night up in Anna,TX at the Love's. I got up this morning and headed out around 0530 to head to Justin,TX to grab and empty trailer. I was available at 0500, but didn't figure I would have a load until around 0800 so I left Anna at 0530 to make the hour drive to Justin so I could beat the traffic.

I made it over to Justin and as I figured, there were no empties. I sent in a message to my FM and after about 20 minutes, he tells me to head over to FedEx to pick one up there. It was right down the road so I was in posession of one empty trailer rather quickly. I still didn't have a load at this point, so I headed to the Pilot at x65 on I-35W to wait for a load assignment.

Midmorning I recieved a message asking if I could repower a load headed to Brownsville,TN. It was only 541 miles from the Pilot where I was so we made arrangements to have the driver bring the load to me there. He finally made it there around 1130-1145 and after fueling and doing my pre-trip, I was on the road around 1230.

I had noticed that morning at the Love's in Anna that I had a headlight out. After I left Ft Worth with my load, I stopped at the TA out in Rockwall,TX since they had a shop. There I was able to get a new bulb for my headlight. Being Mrs Independent, I headed out and changed the bulb myself and was on the road again. Although that stop did take about an hour.

I had a nice drive up until Texarkana where the weather started turning bad. I made it to x63 on I-30 in Arkansas and there I decided to call it a day. After all, it was 1730 by this point and my body was screaming for me to stop since it is used to stopping at 1500!

I have stopped at the South Fork Truck Stop here for the night. It was raining cats and dogs when I got here. Major bad. I decided that I was hungry enough for a bowl of their red beans and cornbread that I would brave the puddles so I could get inside. I must have been REALLY hungry, because my trip inside consisted of me walking through what I thought was a shallow stream of water, but turned out to be about a foot deep. I was soaked up to my knees. These two older truck drivers were standing outside deciding the best way around the water and about fell over laughing when I walked through and they realized exactly how deep it was. Hell, I was cracking up too. We all had a good laugh about it. :)

I did manage to have a nice supper inside and now I am in the truck getting ready to go to bed. I can leave at 0300 in the morning and I have until 0930 to get there. With 271 miles to go, I should make it just fine. I just hope I can get through Memphis rush hour traffic without too big of a delay. We shall see.....

Anna,TX

2009-05-04T16:41:00.002-05:00

What a great few days off we have had! We made it in to the Dallas area around 0900 on Thursday morning and handed off the load bound for California to another driver. Then we were officially off for a few days. Our first stop was to take Smokey to the kennel. From there we headed to Garland to pick up a rental car and then headed to Dallas Freightliner for tires and an alignment. After getting our stuff out of the truck and dropping it off we headed up to Allen,TX to Michelle's house where we spent the first night.

We had a nice nap when we got there and then headed out to see Michael, whom I used to work with, and Mai and Matt, some other friends of ours. Friday was a lazy day and we spent most of it getting laundry done and just hanging out.

Friday evening we headed down to Burleson,TX where Jessica lives. (J's daughter) We got a hotel there for the night because Saturday was a girls day. Since we were back for Jessica's prom, we spent Saturday getting our hair done, getting our make-up done, doing lunch and a little shopping. After all that was done, we headed back to her house so she could get dressed and we could take pictures of her and her date. She was beautiful! I can't believe she was just in elementary school and now she is all grown up and graduating this year. The 17th of this month will be her 18th birthday. Where does the time go??

After pictures and seeing them off, J and I headed back up to Dallas where we got a hotel for the night. We were going out with some friends and when we go out, we prefer to get a hotel so that we don't have to be drinking and driving. Aren't we smart?? LOL We had a great time with some friends of ours and stayed out way to late. But what the heck, we are off!

Sunday morning we got up and checked out of the hotel at 1100 then spent some time running around and killing time until Michelle got off work at 1430 so that we could head back to her house for our last night in town. We ended up going to dinner and the movies with friends and got home and hit the sack around 2300 last night.

Today is starting a new adventure for me. J took me to pick up the truck and then he headed to the airport to drop the rental off and catch a flight to Lubbock. He is picking up our Suburban and heading to Atlanta where he will be working on the boat for a few weeks. This means I will be running solo. I haven't done that before and I have to admit, I'm a little apprehensive. I'm not so much worried about doing my job, just the fact that I am a female and I will be out here and alone. But I have Smokey to protect me and I know to be cautious, so I know I will be fine. Still doesn't help with the jitters though! LOL

Freightliner didn't have tires so they couldn't do an alignment so this morning when I picked up the truck, I headed down to the TA in Dallas to get the work done there. After they finished up I headed up to pick Smokey up with a quick stop at Walmart to stock up on supplies. I sent a message to my FM and told him that I had been up since 0600 and could be available around 1500 after I picked Smokey up. I also asked him if it would be better for me to wait till tomorrow morning to head out so I would be fresh on hours. He said that would be better. So I am currently sitting at the Love's in Anna,TX until in the morning. I am available at 0500 so at that time I will head over to Justin,TX where he said I could grab an empty. If there are any there. Something tells me I will end up having to go down to FedEx to get an empty.

But that is what is going on with me. Since I have to stop every night as a solo, I will make sure and keep everyone update on how my adventure is going. I hope I don't screw anything up!!

Atlanta,GA

2009-04-29T15:40:00.002-05:00

We FINALLY made it out of the rain! Monday evening J took over and got us to some small town in Maryland. I can't even remember the name of it off the top of my head. From there, I had a short 156 miles to go to deliver our hazmat load. Considering that I was on I-68 going through Maryland and the mountains in that area, I made decent time. I got there about an hour before our appointment.

I knew we had been there before because of the address, but I couldn't visualize the place. As soon as I turned off of the highway the road started looking familiar I remembered the place. It is a tiny warehouse and you have to blindside back to get to the dock. J was asleep and I was planning on doing my best without having to wake him up. I actually lucked out and did a pretty darn good blindside with only getting out once to look and two pull-ups. I was pretty proud of myself since it was a fairly tight spot.

They had me unloaded within 45 minutes and from there I headed down to the Flying J which was about 5 miles up I-81. After getting backed into a spot, I figured I better do our paperwork since it was due that afternoon. We definitely want to get paid. :) I managed to get that done and right at two hours after I got parked, our computer beeped with our next load.

From there I had to head about 280 miles over to Rocky Mount,NC to pick up a load at Hospira going to Santa Fe Springs,CA. It wasn't supposed to be ready until 2100 hours but I went ahead and headed that direction. I stopped in Ruther Glen,VA at a Petro so we could grab a shower, lunch and get the trailer washed out. After we got that taken care of, J took of and drove us the last 160 miles or to to get this load picked up.

We knew this was going to be a drop and hook from having been there before, and this time was no exception. They guard told us to drop our emty trailer and then go check in with shipping. Sure enough, our trailer was loaded and ready to go, but we ended up waiting for about an hour for the paperwork. With no scale close by, we headed south on I-81 from x145 to x106 where there was a TA that we could scale at. Just our luck the load was heavy for the California laws. By this time, it was about 2230 hours and we had no choice but to go back and have them re-work the load.

The trailer was in the 6th hole and for California, it can't be any further back than that. We were over by 600 lbs on the trailer tandems. We could have got it legal by moving the tandems to the 7th or 8th hole, but then it wouldn't be legal in California. Since we are taking this load to Dallas and then handing it off to another team, we wanted to make sure it was right. So as I headed off to bed, J turned around and headed back to have them rework it.

About four hours later, J is back at the TA again re-weighing and we are all legal. All they did was remove one pallet and just initial the change on the paperwork. So I am not sure why it took them almost 3 hours to get that done. Anyway, after J gets all that done, he lets me sleep till 0400 then I am up and on the road by 0500 this morning.

I could only legally work until 1300 hrs today because I only had 8 hours available. I managed to get fuel mileage just over 7.0 running top speed so I managed to make it to Atlanta,GA where we currently are. J can't drive until 1600 today so we are just chilling at the moment but we are about to take off. We only have about 770 miles to go into Dallas, so we should be there in the morning!

Effingham,IL

2009-04-27T16:30:00.005-05:00

Yesterday I had to deal with snow in Wyoming, and today I had to deal with rain all the way across Kansas, Missouri and into Illinois. We are almost across Illinois now, and I am done driving, but it is still raining for J. Ugh! Isn't is supposed to be spring and sunny outside??

J did great driving last night and got me from Laramie,WY all the way to Salina,KS. We dropped down to I-70 in Laramie and had better roads, but more rain. But we saved on tolls, so that is worth it. When he woke me up this morning, he did so with a cheery smile informing me he had driven me all the way to the beginning of the storm. Isn't he the sweetest?? LOL

I have had a heck of a time today with the placards on the trailer. With all of this rain I lost the two on the front. I used the last two that we had so now we don't have any spares. J even lost one last night I think. When we switched in Effingham, that Pilot didn't have any so we are going to stop at the next truck stop we come across and see if they have any. Once it stopped raining for just a few minutes earlier today, I pulled in to a Petro and dried the area off around the palcards and put some clear packing tape on them to hold them down. It is helping some, but with all this rain, I am sure we will lose more so we have to find a place to buy some more at. We have corrosive and flammable which should be fairly common placards. We will have to see what we can find.

We were able to reschedule our appointment for 0900 local time tomorrow so we will have to be there by 0800 our time. They had us routed all the way across I-70 through PA to I-81 but I double checked and found the tunnel that we need to avoid and it is on that stretch of I-70. Instead we will take I-79 south just outside of Pittsburgh,PA and then hit I-68 across Maryland and hook up into I-81. More mountains that way, but we will avoid the tunnel. I wish I would have thought about that route last time when I ended up having to take US30 around the tunnel! What a nightmare that road was!

Anyway, I am probably going to hit the sack pretty early tonight and try to get into a good deep sleep before he hits those mountains. I never sleep ood going through there, or any mountains for that matter, and I want a good nights sleep before I have to finish up the last bit of mountain driving in the morning to deliver. Everyone have a great night!

Laramie,WY

2009-04-26T16:08:00.002-05:00

Will someone please correct me if I am wrong, but have I not said that I really really really dislike driving across I-80 in Wyoming? I could be wrong, but I am pretty sure I have made that clear! LOL So does it surprise anyone that as I drove across Wyoming today I had to deal with snow, freezing rain and high winds?? This is almost May, right? I am looking at the right calendar, right? I figured I was since I do my log book every day, but this sure doesn't seem like "almost May" weather to me!!

Let me back up some. Friday evening we made our way over to Pittsburgh,CA and picked up our hazmat load. We headed towards Sacramento where we had decided to stay the night since I-80 was closed for construction. We decided it wasn't worth taking the detour with a hazmat load that is corrosive and flammable. So bright and early Saturday morning, I headed out as soon as 0700 rolled around because that is when they were supposed to have the interstate back open.

We had already talked to our FM about getting the appointment changed to Tuesday, so we weren't too stressed about time. We have a friend in Winnemucca,NV that we have been trying to see since we started driving and haven't had the chance to meet up. It never fails that she is at work or we are going through around 0200 in the morning. Luckily this time she was off and in town to compete in a barrel race for an injured police officer. They were having it at the Winnemucca Events Center which is an indoor arena and there is a huge parking lot. We were able to pull right in and park and not have another vehicle for at least 50-60 yards. It was nice. We got to visit with her for a couple of hours and meet her youngest son and her husband. I only wish we could have had more time, but we had to head out because I had to get to bed.

After leaving there, we headed down the road about an hour and stopped and grabbed some dinner and I donated $25 to the slot machines. I was trying to help stimulate the economy there in Battle Mountain,NV! Leaving out of there I headed straight to bed. As it was, I knew I was only going to get about 5-6 hours of sleep.

J got us into our yard in Salt Lake City,UT where he woke me up at 0400. I had a heck of a time waking up but I made it and hit the road about 0500 after fueling up. I didn't make it very far my first try today. I made it up over Parley's Summit and to the rest area just east of where I-80 and I-84 merge. I pulled in and had to take a nap for about an hour. I felt a lot better after that extra hour of sleep.

Ready to hit the road again, I climb in the front seat and notice that it is snowing outside. Uh-oh! Not good! I boogie on out of there and get out of the snow just a few miles down the road. I made it into Wyoming and my phone rings and it is some friends of our. "Hey, was that you we just passed around the 150 mile marked?" I said, "Yep, that was me." Then the reply I get back was, "Hey, you're gonna hit some snow from around Rawlins to Cheyenne and they have the plows out on Sherman." (I guess that is the pass between Cheyenne and Laramie.) "Just freaking great! Thanks for the heads up!" I told her. Sure enough, around Rawlins I run into snow. Thank goodness it was just wet snow and not sticking to the road, but my wipers and the backs of my mirrors were all iced up.

I made it as far as Laramie,WY and said the heck with this and called it a day there. J woke up as I pulled into the parking lot, so it worked out well. We went inside and grabbed some lunch and now we are on our way again. As I type this, I am sitting in the bunk with the curtain closed. I am a horrible passenger, especially in bad weather. I have control issues. LOL Yes, I will admit it! Drives poor J nuts, but he loves me and puts up with me. Anyway, I figured it was better for me to just start out back in the bunk instead of him having to tell me to come back here!

We have decided that once we reach Cheyenne that we are going to cut down to Denver and take I-70 across. We were going to stay on I-80 but decided to go this way. It is only 100 miles further and that will only be about $50 or less in fuel. If we stay on I-80, we will have more than that in tolls crossing Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. And we can still deliver by 0800 on Tuesday morning. Or was it 0900? I don't remember, but either way, we can make it. That is an easy 550 miles each of the next 3 shifts. Joe tonight, me tomorrow morning and Joe tomorrow night. That will only leave me about 100 miles to finish up and get us to destination. Piece of cake.

So I am going to head to bed and hope that the shaking of the truck doesn't keep me awake. We have got to get this thing aligned.......