Thanksgiving.....

to say that thanksgiving at our house was nice would be an huge understatement.....to say it was caotic would be even more so........

we didn't get home from the road till late on tuesday evening, so most of wednesday was spent with a mad rush to the grocery store and all the preperations for the thanksgiving meal.....luckily, my sister, wanda, who lives near us had picked up the turkeys and was thawing them, so that major task was well underway!.....brad's cousin, lu, came from boston and we had dispatched our young nephew to the airport in pittsburgh to pick her up and she was safely ensconced at the house, waiting for us......next came all the crew from north carolina.....my sister, karen, two of her three girls and their families, her other daughter and her family, who live closer to us......and then the day after thanksgiving we were joined by wanda's son, david and his wife sarah, who would have been with us on thanksgiving but sarah had unfortunately had a mishap and broken her foot on wednesday and wasn't quite up to the trip thursday!.... all of the usual suspects were there, save my son, jj and his family from kansas, who we missed dearly!

the thanksgiving meal was all of our "traditional" goodies......turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, corn pudding, cranberry salad, deviled eggs, salad, sweet potatoes done up two ways, one with marshmallows and brown sugar and the other in a casserole so that everyone has them the way they like them......hot, homemade rolls......and then there were the pies.....pumpkin, pecan and cherry.....sour cream pound cake and pecan rolls!!!!!.....

friday found some of the younger set braving the early morning sales with some of us older (wiser) folks joining in at a more reasonable hour!....and then that night we had a seafood night.....we had a shrimp boil with potatoes and corn on the cob, along with some crabcakes and pan seared scallops!......the evening was almost declared a disaster when it was discovered that the wvu mountaineer game against pitt was not on any of our available tv channels, but every computer in the house was soon fired up and the game was enjoyed online!......that the mountaineers beat pitt in what is locally known as the backyard brawl was a very sweet icing on the cake!!

saturday was alot less hectic.....it had been declared "leftover day" foodwise, so the only cooking involved was creaming some turkey under biscuits and setting out all the leftovers out of the fridge.......

most everyone headed home early sunday morning.....the north carolina group headed out at "dark-thirty" that morning......and brad and i took lu back to pittsburgh to catch her flight home that evening......i missed them all the minute they were out the door.....there were 21 total.....our time together was filled with food and football, brad tending bar, shopping, catching up, playing with the kids, family drama, and, of course, more food! it pretty much had all the elements that make up an awesome time together!......

runnin in circles......

sometimes i think this company we drive for has flipped their friggin lid.......they give a load...we head to pick it up....they change their mind....we change direction......they pile up the computer screen with loads stacked on top of each other......we actually run maybe 1 of them......they giveth....and then they taketh away........geesh.......all i know is that if brad and i handled our end of this freight haulin deal the way they handle their's, none of our loads would ever get anywhere......and when the nonsense gets really outta hand and you voice your concerns, all you ever hear is that you just don't "see the big picture"............

now, frankly, i love my job.....when i started out years ago i was coming out of a messy divorce and going thru a period where no matter where i was, i was restless to be somewhere else....i hit the road runnin and what could be better than wakin up someplace new everyday when you've got itchy feet???.......i couldn't wait to see what was over the next hill, around the next corner....thru the next gate.....after 11 years, i haven't lost that.....oh, i'm much more settled in my life with brad, but i still love the travel and seeing places i'd only read about.....all that is even more special with brad to share it with.........

the hard part is the constant frustration in dealing with the incompetence.....i have zero tolerence for stupidity....and that makes it hard since stupidity runs rampant around here........

actually, i really do see "the big picture".....i've been doing this long enough, that while i learn something new every single day, i can pretty much put this together like a milton bradley 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle!......ok, i've vented ....i'm better now........

now where did that corner edge piece of sky go?????

best sight of all........

traveling around the country the way we do, brad and i see some amazing views.....serene and inspiring sunsets and sunrises, architecture that runs the spectrum from cozy country log homes and farmhouses to 30 story highrise buildings in new york city.....we cross beautiful wide rivers and listen to the ocean waters lapping at both shores of our great country......we get passed by all types of interesting vehicles and freight and we experience just about every kind of weather this hemisphere has to offer......but the one that makes our hearts perk up......the one that brings a smile to our faces.....the one that warms us from the top of our heads to the tips of our toes sits along a little two lane road in the middle of west virginia, in a little town with a population of 413 when we're........

HOME

bravo! cheese!!

we spent most of sunday running up and down highway 99 in central california........started out in san bernadino after we delilvered our fed ex load there and then they sent us up to modesto, which is just a little ways south of sacramento to pick up a load of bottled water to bring back down to riverside for a delivery this morning..........after we picked up the load, i only had a couple of hours left to drive and we were trying for brad not to drive at all so that he could do a 34 hour restart on his hours, so we made it back south as far traver, california and shut down for the night......this worked out really well for us since we'd been wanting to stop in traver for a long time and just hadn't had the opportunity.......traver's claim to fame seems to be the bravo farms cheese factory at exit 106......their signs on the highway boast that they have a zillion flavors of olives.....and since we love olives in everything.....and brad is always in search of the perfect martini olive, it just seemed to be a must stop for us.........it's a very quaint looking set of buildings that are home to a wine and cheese shop, gift shop, ice cream shop and fruit stand.......yes i let brad get near a fruit stand, but this time we just came away with strawberries and grapes!.....well, that was all from the fruit stand.....we couldn't buy any wine since we can't have it on the truck, but they assured us they'd ship anything we wanted to order off their website.....we did buy some awesome cheeses.....white cheddar with cabernet, creamy pepper jack, chipotle cheddar.....mango chutney, fig and raisin chutney , some jellies and, of course three different olives......

brad got a deck of marilyn monroe playing cards to add to his marilyn collection and we also picked up the cutest set of cheese knives.........we opted to have our supper in the little restaurant there.....very good food.....we ate outside on the patio tho and as soon as our food was set down in front of us, the flies dive bombed us......it's a little hard to eat your steak with one hand while you're waving the other wildly across the table......lol.....we didn't realize until almost halfway thru the meal that they also had a dining room......next time we stop there, that will definately be our choice.........

all in all it was a very pleasant evening......we went back to the truck and cleaned our berries....watched a little tv and called it a nite......

brad goes banana shopping

on our way down thru oregon the other day i'd was feeling like i really needed some potassium......legs a little crampy, just a blah feelin....you know the drill.....we'd stopped at a couple of truck stops, but they were out.....we stopped at a couple of small markets.....they were out too.....i was beginning to think there'd been a banana recall and no one had told us!....finally we stopped at a market in madras, oregon....and since bananas was all i thought we needed, brad said he'd just run in and see if they had some.....well, evidently he's easily seduced in the produce aisle........

he came back with red raspberries, blackberries, grapes, strawberries, and, yes, bananas!.....oh!, and a box of ritz crackers!....go figure!

bring on the sun!

tile floor at dos amigos restaurant, weed, ca. after driving in rain all day, from new mexico thru st. louis, i am so ready for the sunshine......and another one of their steaks wouldn't be bad either!.....lol.....just sayin......

weed, ca.....

we picked up a heavy paper load friday nite in lewiston, idaho and headed west on us12 into washington state, down thru walla walla and on down to i 84 west in oregon.......we'd loaded at lewiston before but had always gone east on 12 over to missoula, so this was a treat to be running a different road than we'd been on before.....us 12 leaving lewiston runs along the snake river for quite aways.....the snake river isn't as large as the columbia, but it's still breathtaking along most of it's way......after watching the saturday morning sun come up over the columbia as we ran across i-84, we cut down south at biggs, thru oregon on us 97.....there is absolutely nothing about this road that we don't like.....gorgeous scenery, quaint little towns and a shoe tree....(yes, diane, we remembered to wave at craig's flip flops!....lol).....97 brings you down into california and to i-5 at the little town of weed....

we love weed!

we haven't gotten to explore this little town nearly as much as we'd like.....we did get to stop at the weed store for some coffee cups and other souvenirs.....then on down to the south weed exit where we spent the nite at the truckstop there......at the risk of sounding more like food critics than truckdrivers, i will have to tell ya that we had another fabulous supper......we walked over to the little mexican restaurant beside the truckstop ....dos amigos.......very cute little place that had come highly recommended by our blogger/truckdriver friends craig and diane, over at HEADS CAROLINA/TAILS CALIFORNIA ......brad, being a seafood lover had some sort of mix of shrimp, scallops and halibut with grilled peppers and onions that you could wrap in a tortilla if you wanted.....and i had an amazing t-bone steak, seasoned with mexican spices, charcoal grilled to perfection and smothered in onions, peppers and mushrooms.....ummmm...ummmm, good.......both suppers included refried beans, spanish rice and salad.....diane had told us that we would be well taken care of and she wasn't kidding.....the staff was so friendly and made sure we had everything we needed..... including a complimentary dessert of fried tortillas with honey, cinnamon and drizzled with chocolate and topped with whipped cream......oh. my. god.......you have to check out dos amigos when you get a chance......there is a little bbq place there too that we want to try sometime.....the smells coming from their outdoor grills made me want to have two suppers......lol.....

weed sits at the southwestern base of mt. shasta.....the walk back over to the truck was amazing as the sun was starting to set in the west and gave mt. shasta a golden glow......it's hard to call what we do work when your day winds up this way.......

being children of the sixties, we found it kinda of ironic that we were sitting in weed with a load of rolled paper........hmmmmmmm.......

our little celebration!

yesterday i had to renew my dot physical for the year.......i hadn't said anything to anyone about this coz, frankly, i was a little concerned about it......i'm bad about taking my medication for the diabetes and blood pressure like i should.....it makes me nauseous......and although i had been trying to take it regularly, i also knew i hadn't been eating as well as i should , and i don't mean just eating too much or the wrong things, the last few days i'd felt kinda bad, like i was coming down with something and i hadn't been eating much at all.....which, when trying to keep your glucose regulated is just as bad as overeating...........anyway, i was really concerned about taking the physical, and i had till te 20th on it, but we were shut down for a 34hour restart here in missoula, montana and so i figured it was just as well to get it done and face the music......i guess my body didn't think it felt as bad as i did, coz i passed!!.....it's always a wonderful thing when you see the doctor sign their name on that little card......i wonder sometimes if they really appreciate what that signature means.....sure, a person's health is one of the most important things in life, but that signature also means that they can continue working.....that their very livelihood will go on as they know it.......it just seems to me that it has so many more conotations than a routine physical.........

on the way back from the clinic to the truckstop, as you pull into the lot there is a cute little restaurant ....it's called the river city grill.....

it's housed in an old buidling that used to be the main office of a lumber company.....it's cute as can be inside and the food was absolutely fantastic.....brad had the rib eye steak.....

and i had the chicken fried chicken.....yeah, i know, wayyyy too rich for the way i'd been feelin, but it looked so good on the menu i couldn't resisit.....

i have to tell ya, it was worth the ache in my tummy i had the rest of the evening.......the chicken was perfection....the gravy was as good as any i've ever made....the potatoes were homemade.....even the peach was ripe and sweet......

so this was our celebration dinner.....it was wonderful and so nice to have that weight (no pun intended...lol) off my shoulders.....if you're on i-90 on the east side of missoula, take a stop at the exxon travel plaza, exit 109 and try out the river city grill.....you won't be dissappointed....the food is awesome, the atmosphere is quaint and inviting and the service was great!

American AutoStop

brad and i are spending the night in north stonington, ct at the american autostop.....since i raised such a fuss over being treated badly at gene's in sumner, washington, i thought i'd let you know about this little jewel we found on the east coast.....as most of you know, truck stops in the northeast can be few and far between, so when you find one, especially a nice one, you want to brag about it a little......actually, now that i'm thinking about that, maybe i should be quiet about it so that no one will know it's here and you won't be coming up here hoggin up all the good parking spots!!!......we're headed up to uxbridge, ma to deliver in the morning and this is about as close in as we could get.......the american autostop is on the west side of i95 at exit 32.....it's free parking ( a novelty up here) and they also have their own version of idleaire which is absolutely free......how about that???......when you pull past the fuel islands there is a very friendly guy waiting to tell you about the parking and how to use the a/c.....and that, due to connecticut's law, to please limit your idling time to 15 minutes at a time......he's really friendly tho....even to the point of walking down to our truck after we'd parked to bring us information on foxwoods casino and a phone number for a taxi to take us there!.....how cool is that??? anyway, they have about 125 parking spaces, a cat scale, a huge store , showers, laundry, and a
restaurant .....it's a little bit of a walk from the parking area to the building, but it's a nice lot and i bet that friendly guy would even run over and pick you up if you smiled at him real nice!.....

don't dare to park at gene's

sometimes i think that as long as i live, i will never understand people......i have a saying "i used to be disgusted, now i'm just amused".......well, sometimes i'm still disgusted......

after we delivered in kent, wa, we went down to sumner to pick up a load and since it wasn't gonna be ready for a few hours, we dropped our trailer and bobtailed across the highway to a little truckstop to restock our cooler and get some lunch......we noticed the sign as we were pulling on the lot saying that it cost $10 to park there for 12 hours.....but we weren't staying the nite, we were just shopping......since we were bobtailing, we backed into a little corner behind the building that a truck with a trailer couldn't have gotten into and went inside......now, in the scheme of things, $53 isn't a whole lotta money, but when you're talking about lunch, it kinda is.....i mean, geesh, we weren't at outback, or olive garden.....we picked up some cold drinks, and some sandwiches and chicken out of the deli case ...........

we headed out to the truck and decided to eat our lunch there and then head back across the highway.....about an hour later here came a boy wanting to know if we were spending the nite and when brad told him no, that we were gonna be leaving soon to pick up our load, he said we'd have to pay to sit there.....brad explained to him that we'd just spent $53 there on food, but that didn't matter........i swear, if it hadn't been that i thought the chicken was gold-encrusted, i'd have flung the last dry, overcooked piece at his head........

so anyway.....if you find yourself on wa 167 in sumner, at the west valley hwy exit and you think you need a cold drink, have your $10 to park ready and in hand, so that you can pay to park while you spend your hard earned money on that drink......gene's is the name, parking's the game.

warning!...woman at the wheel.....

my friend, salena, over at The Daily Rant had another excellent blog post recently about being a woman truck driver....her post was inspired by a newspaper article she'd received from a friend about a woman driver who had died in a truck wreck near tuscon, az last week...the woman had been a team driver with her husband for the past 10 years....her husband had survived the crash.....aside from the sadness felt over the loss of this life, the offending part of this article is that the writer chose to use the fact that it was a woman driver who died in the headline, and, as salena says, it somehow seemed to imply that her gender was to blame for the accident.......i find it relative to mention that the writer is a man.......



i've been out here on the road for over 10 years now....the first three as a solo driver and the last 7 as a team driver with brad.....back as a solo driver, every now and then i'd run into some prejudice, but it was mostly minor and usually it was more that some guy was just trying to "get your goat" than being seriously against women, although occasionally you could tell your critic wasn't joking....since i'm fairly proficient at the snappy comebacks, i usually just struck back and laughed it off, thankful that my self-worth is not determined by idiots.......i kinda feel like i had a little bit of a head start on alot of my fellow female drivers out here, in that i'd been around trucking most of my adult life and embraced the fact that i was entering a profession dominated by men, that i was not easily offended or embarrassed by moronic male behavior, and that i have always had good report with my male counterparts........as for why women go into trucking, well, i know there is the exception to anything, but i don't think most women are out here looking for a man......it's a job that pays enough to pay the bills, there are usually benefits, there's the travel......kinda sounds like the same reasons you'd get from a man, eh???


most of the guys i've talked to out here, have, at least at face value, been supportive and willing to share their knowledge although the reverse has not always been the case.....it took me a little while to learn that not everyone wanted my help in backing up or sliding their tandems, etc.....

i've always been a rather independent person and the first year i was a solo driver i stopped at the truckstop in missoula, mt to get a mud flap for my tractor.....when the parts counter guy asked me if i wanted that put on, i told him no, i'd already taken the torn one off and just had to bolt the new one on....he looked impressed.....i commented that well, i didn't always wanna look like a girl.......he said, honey, you can put on a thousand mudflaps, but you're always gonna look like a girl......being rather well-endowed, i couldn't help but chuckle.........

i pretty much thought that over the last few years things out here had evolved a little better, but just a couple of weeks ago, i was driving thru construction on 294 in the chicago area.....the speed limit was 45, trucks were posted to use the left lane and i'd already passed 3 or 4 bears working the area......i was in a line of trucks in the left hand lane doing the 45 limit and minding my p's and q's .....about a quarter-mile space had developed between me and the truck in front of me.....all of a sudden a couple of trucks pulled out of the row behind me and passed on the right at about 55 or 60 and when they got up near me, they commented on the cause of the "hold-up" being my company truck...(i get that alot).....i said yeah, that was me, running the speed limit and obeying the lane restrictions......when they heard my female voice, the one driver proceeded to explain to me that if i was "afraid" of my truck i should get back home and have babies and clean my house.......well, my babies are grown and my house...and my truck...are clean......

i'm not a prude by any stretch of the imagination and that includes my driving......i'll sneak a few extra mph's on there when i can......but in all the years i've been out here i've never had a preventable accident and i've never had a speeding ticket....frankly, i'm not gonna start changing that anytime soon, as long as i can help it......i mean, i'd much rather take my money to the mall than hand it over to illinois.......that has nothing to do with being a scared or inept female at the wheel, that's just common sense......

i'm not advocating that women are better drivers than men......but neither are they less capable......i do feel that women pay more attention to details and by nature, are not as aggressive which can lead to better driving habits.....

i guess i'm just saying to men, don't hate us coz we can bring home the bacon and still fry it up!

lifewater

today as i was catchin up on all my favorite blogs, i was so happy to hear about stace, over at the highway hags, doin so well on her plan to kick this diabetes thing in the butt.....she's got a diet plan that sounds like it's workin for her and i'm high-5'n her for her efforts.....i thrive on her success and consider it partly mine too, because it reinforces my hopefullness that good health can be achieved out here on the road..........tho i'm a long way from any of my goals, one of the things i've found that has helped me the most was cuttin back on the diet coke.....i used to be addicted.....to the point that brad would break into a sweat at the thought of bein couped up in the truck with me if the cooler was runnin short on it......but, unfortunately it didn't take long, once i started keepin track of my blood sugar, to realize that the diet coke made it shoot up.....so i pretty much went cold turkey ....drinking water, tea and coffee......i've never been much for the fruity drinks....most of them always left a bad taste in my mouth.....but one day i was standing in a truckstop, staring at the shelves in the cooler, tryin to come up with something new, when i realized sobe had a new line out.....lifewaters......and alot of them are 0 calories.......even the ones that aren't are only about 100 calories a bottle........i'm still basically a water drinker, but these are a nice little treat when you need some flavor.....they're crisp and there's no aftertaste......my favorites are the black and blue berry, the mango tangerine and the fuji apple pear......check them out and let me know what ya think......

this weekend.....

well, it's sunday evening, supper is cookin in the burton ovens and we are enjoying our last nite, hopefully, in beautiful walcott, iowa ....our last nite for awhile, anyway.....we're supposed to pick up a load in de witt in the morning and drag it over to gastonia, nc......i can't really complain tho...walcott has been a gracious host to us for the weekend........



we've had a rough week......we spent the 4th of july in salt lake city, which was nice and they had a decent fireworks display....but on sunday, the 5th, when we went to pick up our load outta there, which was going over to montgomery, new york.....yep, good miles.....we dropped our empty trailer to find that not just one, but both rear tires on the tractor were wet ....seems we'd blowed both seals back there.....so we hobbled over to freightliner and spent the day and that night in the shop there.......after that we got a load going down to los angeles.....on the way there we got a message to go to fontana freightliner to have some wiring replaced.......another day and night in the shop.......finally they got that taken care of and we headed down to otay mesa to pick up a load going to chicago........everything was going good......it was a light load....and we always love the drive across western i-70 thru utah and colorado........but then we got to iowa city, iowa....and the monsoons had hit.......running thru torrential rains, lightening and thunder was daunting enough, but then all of a sudden the truck shut off on me........completely down......i managed to get it off to the side of the road, ignoring some comments on the cb about girl drivers being afraid of the storms, and got brad out of bed.......we could see an exit sign just ahead of us and we managed to get the truck started and running long enough to get up to the exit and off the road in a safer spot.....seems the belt for the water pump had come off the truck.....a call to breakdown brought us road service again.......i was never sure how serious to take the guy that showed up, but he tried to convince us that driving thru the rain had caused the belt to come off.....he put it back on, put in about 3 gallon of water and off we went again, heading first for a tire shop in iowa city since while brad was outside with the roadservice guy, he noticed we'd also gotten a flat on the trailer.......a quick stop in iowa city and then we were off again, heading for the t/a shop at the iowa 80 truckstop......the mechanics there got a good chuckle out of the theory of how the belt came off in the rain, did a little tinkering around with it and then had to send for some parts.......which, of course, wouldn't be in till the next day......so we had a lovely overnite stay with them.....the good news is that it was the last day of the truck show and so we had some entertainment.......at first it was still monsoon weather, and about all you could do was to feel sorry for all the vendor tents tightly closed up and making no money, and all the guys who'd buffed chome polish for hours, only to have to hide the effort under a tarp.......but later that afternoon the clouds dispersed and the sun came out .....the tent flaps got drawn back and the tarps came off and it turned out to be a really good show......it didn't take long for the iowa sun and a light breeze to dry the lot up........this was the first time we'd had the pleasure of getting to take in this show....and while it's a little smaller venue than louisville or some of the others, they do a good job here......there were alot of trucks in the show, alot of antique trucks.....one of my favorites was a black 54 autocar......sweet........there was another one that i wouldn't have been ashamed to have been seen running around in.....a blue peterbuilt with a fantastic mural of horses runnin on the beach on the sides of it......it had a big ole house on it.....all the amenities of home, even a fireplace!............we got in a nice visit with pam in the ooida truck and enjoyed a pretty good grilled dinner of pork chops, baked potatoes and all the trimmings.........



saturday they got our parts in and got us fixed up and runnin pretty quick.....we got our showers and enjoyed our supper and had a good restful night.......today we got our load assignment, and even tho we've basically set all week, it was kinda nice to know we just had the rest of the day free to relax......we ran across the street and had breakfast at gramma's kitchen......pretty good food and alot to entice you to browse the little shop as y ou head to and from your table......think miniture cracker barrel.........basically we've just been slugs the rest of the day......reading the sunday papers, playin on the computers.....the most exertion either of us has had was when babygirl made us take her outside.........as for now, supper is about ready.....gonna kick back and watch a little tv and then call it a night.......probably say a little prayer of thanks that this past week has ended and a llittle prayer for the one startin up.......ya'll be safe out there!

blogger blues......

ok, before i go sexing around with all my settings.....and other stuff that i admit to knowing precious little about, i am having some trouble lately reading some of my blogs.....is anyone else having difficulty????....and if not, got any ideas on what i need to do to remedy the malfunction????

here's my problems......

i don't have any trouble opening "The Daily Rant"....but one of my favorite parts of Salena's blogs are the archives....it's really weird, but for a couple of weeks now i have not been able to open the archives from 2005 and 2008 thru the links under each new post.....2006 and 2007 work just fine, but it's a no-go on 5 &8......if i go down to the list of all the archives i can open them there, but then i find myself reading the whole month's worth...and that ruins the daily surprise!.....i know...i know....i'm weird........i admit it.......just help me.......

and then there is "Heads Carolina/Tails California".....i can get the page to open, the list of followers, etc comes up.....but no post.....nothing at all....no matter how long i wait......

everyone else i read, daily or occassionally, seem to be working just fine.........any ideas out there?????.........please!....i've become addicted and need my daily fixes on these blogs.......

she might only be a min pin, but she thinks she's a rottweiler.....

she's only 9.5 lbs.....but she thinks she's a rottweiler........i'll have to hand it to her tho, she is an excellent guard of this truck.....she'd take on anybody that dared to try to get in ....even to get too close.......

we admit it tho....she's spoiled.....she thinks the truck is hers and she merely lets us drive her around so that she can bark at other dogs and take care of her business in various locations from coast to coast...........she's so spoiled that she has pretty much taken over our bunk......being a burrowing kind of dog, she has laid claim to all the pillows.......and the minute your butt hits the bunk, it's hers for the snuggling........which can be really nice on a cold winter night, but come summer, you wish she wasn't so affectionate.........so i guess it wasn't any surprise when we saw this cartoon and it hit so close to home.......

they're growing giant kids in phoenix!!!!!

i don't know what they're feedin these kids out there........

one of i-5's little gems.....

there's alot to capture your interest running up and down i-5 in california.....mt. shasta and lake shasta are breathtaking in their beauty......the olive groves and grape vineyards are meticulously maintained and gorgeous as they ripen.......one of my favorites tho is the often overlooked pyramid lake......just north of santa clarita.....just south of frazier park....it's nestled down between surrounding majestic mountains that seem to end in, albeit man-made, pyramids......

some crazy weekend......

well, here we are....sitting at the company yard in south holland, illinois.....not too bad of a place, even if it is the south side of chicago.....we have been running so hard that we literally ran out of hours....with brad ending up with nothing on saturday and me only having four and a half.....can't do a whole lot on that!.....we were under a load that we brought out of kent, washington and had our first stop just north of here in des plaines, illinois on friday afternoon and then it finaled out saturday in jamaica, ny........since we didn't have enough hours to run it on over there, we repowered it here in south holland and have been enjoying the local 'flavour"....yeah, right.......
this isn't a bad yard, for a drop yard.....they've got a shop, but no showers and not much in the way of a lounge or any other driver amenities.....but, hey....being a country girl....a former 4-H er.......a camper from wayyyyy back.....i've learned a thing or two about improvisation.......guessing there were no showers here, i stocked up on jugs of water on the way into illinois......now, it's no tuscan sun spa, but here is my "trucker salon"...complete with salon shampooist.........

i donned one of my oldest t-shirts.......got out by the drive axle.....hung my head down and my "shampooist" poured the tepid water over my hair.....helped me lather up and then laughed hysterically at me while i washed my hair........but then he helped me rinse and repeat.......i was gonna tip him, but his obvious pleasure seemed reward enough........i can stand alot of things....a greasy head of hair is not one of them.......

saturday we bobtailed out to the local walmart for supplies......this was an easy shopping trip for us since we didn't need alot, and as we got up to the register, brad said he'd go on out to the truck and walk babygirl and then be there ready to help me load our goodies and stow everything away......as i was putting my things on the checkout conveyor, i told the cashier i had a case of water on the bottom and asked her if i needed to put it on the conveyor or could she scan it....she said she'd scan it....well, i busied myself with putting the rest of my purchases up, put my card and information in to pay and then began loading the bagged items back into the cart......didn't give the water another thought until i was stopped by the checker at the door who asked to see my reciept.......she stood there for.ever. scanning up and down the reciept and sighing heavily and giving me this look and then asked me where the entry for the water was....really loud.....really obnoxious.....lots of people going by and staring at me......i felt about 2 inches high......i told her that i'd informed the cashier i had it, she had said she'd scan it, obviously she hadn't done that, but it is not my job to watch her......she literally hollared at the girl at the first register next to us, (not the one who'd checked me out) that i had not paid for this water and needed it rang up......i was ambivient at her tone and suggestion that i was trying to get out without paying for the water and asked her to go down to the girl who'd checked me out so that she could verify that i had told her about the water and it was merely an oversight, but she refused to do that.....she just kept saying stuff about how i hadn't paid for it, in "that" tone......
well, needless to say, the whole thing went down hill after that, with me making a withdrawal from my trucker vocabulary account at her.......the poor girl at the first register who finally ran g up my water apologized but the bitch at the gate never gave an inch and it ended with me telling her as i walked out by her that i was surprised they didn't have a lazyboy there by the door so she wouldn't have to move off her fat ass at all.....she said something back, but i couldn't hear it since the whirl of bird that i flew was so great it drowned her out..........brad could tell something was up when i came stomping up to the truck and it was about all i could do to keep him from heading inside and having another "go around" with her.......i don't know why i let it upset me so badly.....i've never stolen a thing in my life....except for maybe a kiss or two....i mean i had my reciept in hand....she looked at the total....did she really think after that that i'd be petty enough to try to get out with a free case of water????....geesh.........the whole time we were arguing i could just see the headline on the next day's paper.....walmart shopper wrestled to the ground over a stolen case of dasani water...........

well, my loving husband soothed my ruffled feathers and then took me to applebee's for a tasty supper....... .......while we were enjoying our meal, we noticed there was a best buy across the street......so we decided we'd head over there afterwards and check on a wireless router for our air card so that on the rare occasions that we're sitting still, we could both be on our laptops at the same time.......in best buy, we met up with a very nice guy named mark in the pc department and another guy from the geek squad, alex.....i tell ya, i need one of these geek squad guys to ride around with us 24/7......we told them what we wanted....they showed us what they had and helped us pick out a router....we paid and headed back to the yard to get this baby up and runnin, after a little instruction from both of them......well.............that lasted all of about 5 minutes since when we took the router out of the box there was nowhere to plug the air card into it........we rolled it around and around.....even reverted to reading the enclosed instructions....but to no avail......our flat little aircard didn't have a slot to fit in.......we boxed the router back up and headed back over to best buy......ahhhhh hah!.....we were informed they hadn't realized that we hadn't already upgraded to the new handy dandy usb aircard and so after checking our account to make sure we were financially good for the upgrade, they took one out from under lock and key, put it and the router back in the bag and sent us on our merry way with all good wishes........well, two hours later and one by-then-late-nite phone call to jj(our son and go-to family tech support guy) i finally hung my head....shut everything down and went to bed ......defeated for the time being......

sunday morning found me up and clear headed again after a cup of hazlenut belgian cafe coffee and ready to again do battle with the router.....i started fresh.....rereading the written intructions...following the steps.....reading the online instructions....following the steps......finally breaking down and calling the tech support number from the router company......i think i reached india....i don't know, it could have be mozambique.......i couldn't understand her....she couldn't understand me.....she finally told me she believed i had a defective unit.......again, we boxed the thing back up and headed back to best buy...........our luck took a good turn tho when we walked inside......mark and alex were both on duty and assured us that they'd have it up and running in short order.....and true to their word, they did..........there was no defect......seems the firmware you have to download was written before the updated aircard was made and somehow that kept it from recognizing the router.....amazing, isn't it??????......the really good part is that they wouldn't take a cent for their trouble.....i will most definately be writing best buy a letter of praise for these two guys......anyway.....12 hours , 1 phone call to jj, 1 to tech support....three trips to best buy and countless moments of intense frustration later, we have both laptops up and online and entertaining both us and you as you read this post......isn't modern technology grand????

well, that's pretty much a trucker's life....you make do when you need too.....you pick your battles and occassionally you actually win one....

the Stella awards

i know....i know....i've been really lazy all month.....no new posts......the truth is, i just haven't been able to get all fired up over anything for awhile now....so it's not so much laziness as being in a slump, i guess......forgive me....i will try to be better......a good friend sent me this in email today.....and so in an effort to have something to post......and an effort to show that stupidity runs rampant and not just in the trucking industry......i share this with you......

Stella Awards
It's time again for the annual 'Stella Awards'! For those unfamiliar with these awards, they are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued the McDonald's in New Mexico , where she purchased the coffee. You remember, she took the lid off the coffee and put it between her knees while she was driving. Who would ever think one could get burned doing that, right? That's right; these are awards for the most outlandish lawsuits and verdicts in the U.S. You know, the kinds of cases that make you scratch your head. So keep your head scratcher handy. Here are the Stella's for the past year:
* SEVENTH PLACE * Kathleen Robertson of Austin , Texas was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The store owners were understandably surprised by the verdict, considering the running toddler was her own son. Start scratching!
* SIXTH PLACE * Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles , California won $74,000 plus medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps. Scratch some more...
* FIFTH PLACE * Terrence Dickson, of Bristol , Pennsylvania , who was leaving a house he had just burglarized by way of the garage. Unfortunately for Dickson, the automatic garage door opener malfunctioned and he could not get the garage door to open. Worse, he couldn't re-enter the house because the door connecting the garage to the house locked when Dickson pulled it shut. Forced to sit for eight, count 'em, EIGHT days and survive on a case of Pepsi and a large bag of dry dog food, he sued the homeowner's insurance company claiming undue mental Anguish. Amazingly, the jury said the insurance company must pay Dickson $500,000 for his anguish. We should all have this kind of anguish. Keep scratching. There are more... Double hand scratching after this one..
* FOURTH PLACE *Jerry Williams, of Little Rock , Arkansas , garnered 4th Place in the Stella's when he was awarded $14,500 plus medical expenses after being bitten on the butt by his ne xt door neighbor's beagle - even though the beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. Williams did not get as much as he asked for because the jury believed the beagle might have been provoked at the time of the butt bite because Williams had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun. Pick a new spot to scratch, you're getting a bald spot..
* THIRD PLACE * Amber Carson of Lancaster , Pennsylvania because a jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $113,500 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument. What ever happened to people being responsible for their own actions? Only two more so ease up on the scratching....
*SECOND PLACE* Kara Walton, of Claymont , Delaware sued the owner of a night club in a nearby city because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor, knocking out her two front teeth. Even though Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the ladies room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said the night club had to pay her $12,000.....oh, yeah, plus dental expenses. Go figure.
Ok. Here we go!!!!!
* FIRST PLACE * This year's runaway First Place Stella Award winner was: Mrs. Merv Grazinski, of Oklahoma City , Oklahoma , who purchased new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home, from an OU football game, having driven on to the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver's seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Also not surprisingly, Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putti ng in the owner's manual that she couldn't actually leave the driver's seat while the cruise control was set. The Oklahoma jury awarded her, are you sitting down? $1,750,000 PLUS a new motor home. Winnebago actually changed their manuals as a result of this suit, just in case Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home. Are we, as a society, getting more stupid.... or are more members of Congress serving on juries these days

i don't know if these are true or not, but they seem true.....i mean....hey, we see it every day, huh????

frazier park....lebec....frazier park.....lebec...stop...don't stop....

in all the years i've been coming to california, i've stopped at the flyn j on i 5 on what trucker's everywhere know as "grapevine".......it never fails that if you have your cb on while you're there, you will hear at least one driver ask, "hey!...what do you call this here town at the truckstop??"....and then a semi-free-for-all will erupt as various drivers within earshot argue over whether it's frazier's park or lebec......i used to log it as frazier's park, but then started noticing that it's lebec on the fuel slips, so i figured they knew better than me and it must be lebec...........well now, i'm wondering again, since today, as we were leaving the j at frazier's park/lebec and pulled up to the stop sign just before you start up the ramp to get back on i5, i realized that uncertainty prevails in frazier's park/lebec.......only now it's to stop or not to stop...........

seven, seven, seven, seveeeennnnnn!!!

sheeps on a diet????

this morning as brad and i were running down i5 south in oregon, we were admiring all the lush green fields filled with sheep.....huge herds of sheep and most looked newly shorn.........we were discussing how they were marked from the shearing and how cute the lambs were......brad turned to me and asked if i'd heard about the shepherds putting the sheep on a new diet......without even thinking, i said, "what??"......he said "yeah, he'd heard there was a big market for woolite"........i can't believe i fell for that.....

people pooperscoopers

most of you reading this have by now met our little dog, babygirl, who travels around with us and generally acts as our bedwarmer/approaching people warning system/entertainment and exercise coordinator/and leftover food removal specialist......she's 9 and 1/2 pounds of pure cuteness and sheer terror.....a miniature pinscher who thinks she's a rottweiler........brad and i call her our "alternative child" ....she calls us her bitches.......



this morning i was taking her for a walk in the truck stop in portland, oregon......jubitz.....i'd parked near the outside perimeter of the lot, always a premium spot when you travel with a dog, and there was a nice little spot of grass not far from the truck.....we've been to this stop lots of times before, but i'd never noticed the little green box on a pole in the grassy spot before.....i walked over closer to read the sign above it and i had to chuckle.......

considering that almost any time i get out of the truck in any truckstop lot, i have to step over thrown out trash, rotting banana peels, bottles and jugs of all sizes with dark yellow liquid in them......and that's providing i can step over them and the soles of my shoes aren't stuck to the pavement.....wouldn't these containers and signs be of better service out in the parking lot than worrying about a few disintegrating dog turds?????

brad and i have tried to teach babygirl to be a good citizen.....we're careful of where we let her take care of business......we don't throw her food bowl remains out on the lot.....i guess it's just too much to expect that some of our collegues be as well trained.

having a stephanie plum moment.......

janet evanovich is a very popular writer of "chic-lit".....i'm a very big fan of "chic-lit"....actually, i love reading about women who step outside the box and do daring or off-beat things that most of us dream about doing but usually don't muster up the courage or the motivation to achieve.........i love the autobiographies of women who've made a difference in our world..........i strive really hard to live up to these examples that great women have given us......but so much of the time i find myself feeling more in step with stephanie plum than queen noir, or madelyn albright or hillary........

for those of you who don't know...and i can't imagine that could be many....janet evanovich writes an ongoing series of books who's main character is stephanie plum......she has written many other books, even a book about how she writes her books.....but her stephanie plum series is by far the most popular....i suspect because so many women like me identify with steph.......steph is a mid-thirties, divorced, junk-food-addicted, usually broke, woman from trenton, nj, who makes her living as a bounty hunter .......she's also the poster child for murphy's law....if anything bad can happen in any given situation, it will happen to stephanie......if she's chasing a fta (failure to appear) and there is a pile of dog poop anywhere in a 5 mile radius, she will slip in it......if there is

any other form of a disgusting substance around, she'll end up in it......if something can catch on fire while she's in it, it instantly ignites......if....well, you get the picture......she goes thru cars like underwear because they're always getting shot up, blown up, the aforementioned caught on fire and occasionally crushed in a crusher....but she trudges on thru life .....and perseveres.......

alot of the time that's what i feel like i'm doing out here.....perservereing......nose to the grindstone, shoulder to the wheel, etc......one load delivered, another picked up and running.....i try to be a safe driver.....i AM a safe driver....10 years on the road with no preventable accidents, no speeding tickets......haven't even worn out my middle fingers flippin people off yet......then all of a sudden the stephanie plum syndrome hits............makin a sharp, tight, right hand turn on a tiny little street in a tiny little town, i catch a curb, graze a light pole with my trailer.......no amount of "buttonhooking" is gonna help me outta this one............2 cars in the turning lane that won't back up.....oh well......gingerly i ease around the corner against the pole....and into the receiver's lot...actually he had no lot, just a wide walk space to pull in on.....one of those lovely places where you get to blindside into a dock from outta the street.....the same street where the traffic won't let you make a wide right turn, won't slow down even when they see you're blocking both lanes.....but it is the street where some happy motorist is on their cell phone telling the cops that some lowdown truckdriver just "knocked down" a light pole on the corner........well the policeman came out....took a look and realized the pole was still standing, the traffic light still working.....nothing but a scuff mark and the barest of dents on the pole......and told me to go on my merry way.........so at least one pile of crap was averted.....so see, i persevered....i delivered my cargo, which was my version of an fta capture........but another pile of crap was just lying in wait.....rounding the corner i had caught the curb with my front trailer tire....bending the rim.....cutting the tire......my very own stephanie plum pile of crap........

just so you know.......

consider yourselves forwarned.....hehehe......

crossing the gw......

ok....i admit it....i'm a freak......even brad, who loves me unconditionally, will agree with you that when it comes to crossing the gw.....heading into new york.....i'm a complete and total geek for it......i'm that one-in-a-million, often cursed and constantly misunderstood by other drivers freak who absolutely LOVES going into new york.......i've been across the gw a few hundred times by now.....but let me look over to the right as i'm coming up the nj turnpike and i start to get excited....i don't know...maybe it's the small town girl hits the big city in me......maybe it's that i still hope to catch a glimpse of chandler and pheobe and rachel and joey.....monica.....even ross........

my heart starts to flutter when we hit the ezpass booths headin onto the bridge and doesn't slow down till somewhere near the far end of the crossbronx freeway......and if by chance the trip takes us down into manhattan, or even out on the island, it's almost an orgasmic experience....

i've been to new york on both business and pleasure.......i've known the breathlessness of stepping out onto the observation deck of the empire state building at dusk....the thrill of the chandelier dropping in the opening act of "Phantom".......a saturday morning breakfast of an egg mcmuffin at the fanciest mcdonald's with the grand piano playing.....and the sobering patriotism of standing at the foot of Lady Liberty......

i've also experienced the obscene shouts and gestures when you bring four lanes of traffic to a complete standstill because you've encountered an 11 foot bridge with your 13'6" truck......... dodging taxi drivers and hellbent delivery vans while trying to back into an enclosed dock out of 3 lanes of traffic.......the hunting for an address when the street you're on ends abruptly, only to continue 2 blocks down on a one-way cross street.......

i guess it's that i head into it, accepting the city for what it is......i never expect to head straight to my destination, or even out again for that matter, without any delays or confusion......before i start out, i mapquest, i google......i check out the city map for any restrictions and low clearances......i try to prepare....... i guess it's also that by now i've been into the city a few times.....and i've paid attention while i was there.......i know which lane to be in to get on the upper level of the gw without a fight......i know how to get around jfk without getting "into" jfk......i know the whitestone bridge from the throgsneck bridge from the triboro bridge.....and i know to stay off the fdr.........

i guess it's the energy that is new york.....the fast pace that everyone moves at.....and the way they appear so confident in their journey.......it's hard not to get caught up in it......

biscuits and gravy

any of you who follow my blog and are also truckdrivers have probably heard by now that the february issue of the pilot truckstop magazine had a great article in it about truckdrivers who blog.....i have had the best time reading those, some of whom are really starting to feel like old and dear friends as brad and i keep up with their daily antics........the writing is exceptional, the photography phenomenal and of course the subject matter is always on course with our daily lives, trials, and experiences.......there's traveler, who wrote the article for the magazine, gigi, who hails from the great state of west virginia also, stace and hedron who share our views on just about everything from driving and company stupidity to politics .....and then there is salena, of the daily rant.......not just a talented driver and writer, salena is an outstanding photographer who has some fantastic pictures posted with her blogs.....and some of my favorites are from some of the meals she enjoys, both on the road and home.....they are so life-like that i dare not check out her blog on an empty stomach.........so the other day, while having breakfast at home.....biscuits and gravy......(wayyyyyy better than any truckstop's!!)....i saw the camera sitting there.....the gravy was still steaming.......the sausage bits were alluring.......so, salena....this one is for you!......lol...

still alive and kickin...

thought i'd better steal a few minutes and write something just to let ya'll know that i haven't fell off the face of the earth and am, indeed, still alive and kickin......it just seems like i've been busier lately than a one armed traffic cop on visitor's day at the nudist colony......if you ask me what i've accomplished, well the list probably won't seem so daunting....it's just that it took me forever to do it.........

the last week before we went home we had been running pretty hard.....it seems like that's always the way ....mid month we might sit and have a little down time (like we did in california)...but let the calendar roll around to the week we're headed home and they run us ragged....sometimes i think they try their best to see how many times they can make us cross over i 79 without letting us turn south and head home........we did manage to get to lost creek on the day we were supposed to this time tho....12 hours late, but at least the same calendar day.....that in itself is something.........

this time at home, in addition to the mail thingy, and the laundry thingy and all the stuff i've already written about, we had the tax thingy to get done....and i am happy to report that both the state and the federal will be sending us a check this year....modest ones, but hey.....it's better in my hands than their's, obviously......and then there was the eye doctor visit and getting new glasses made thingy, because i had dropped my glasses unknowingly in the truckstop parking lot in bushland, texas a few days before we headed home.....and we were 50 miles east of amarillo before i realized i didn't have them.....we pulled over and searched the truck inside to no avail....called back to the truck stop and asked them to look.....no luck....and then turned around and went back ourselves to take a look......well, we found them......but just in case you're wondering what glasses will look like if left in a truck stop parking lot while you travel 100 miles...well here it is...........probably not a real quality picture,

but, hey!, i couldn't see what i was taking......lol......

it was not a pretty site.....i had to pick them up tho.....i couldn't just leave them laying there,

abandoned.........

and then there was the making a privacy curtain for the truck thingy.....this new cascadia didn't come with a built in curtain for the side and front windows.....now i'm a little claustrophobic and i hate being closed in with the curtain that goes between the cab and the bunk....even more, i hate the idea of being seen by my fellow truck drivers in my bvd's or my flannel jammies.........so we had to have a curtain.....years ago t/a truckstops used to sell a really nice curtain that actually fit your window, but no more.....i think we've hit every truckstop store from one end of the country to the other, but no luck....they all sell the same one and it doesn't come close to covering the windshield and both door windows.........it had been along time since i'd sewn anything....i've had a brand new machine at the house for 2 years and hadn't so much as mended a pair of jeans, but i broke it out... made a trip to the fabric store.....and 5 yrds of navy blue suede and one real wrestling match with learning how to load the bobbin later, we have a custom-made, one of a kind, elasticsized, covers everything, but doesn't hang too long to let the heater/ac vents still work curtain!!........

while i got creative with the blue suede, brad worked on another version of the top-bunk shelf....we are now so organized that martha stewart will be wanting to travel with us........

anyway, we had a wonderful time at home....got alot accomplished both at home and things to make our life on the road a little easier.....had some good visits with my sister, wanda and even got to have dinner with her son, david, who stopped by on his way home from a guard week in virginia.....that was a treat, since we hadn't seen david since last october.....now we're back at work and i promise to do better getting the posts done.......it's not that ya'll weren't in my thoughts all along......so be safe out there......

waiting......in idiocracy.......

well, i feel like it's time to get out the spud bar....make a hole....and set a mailbox post.....yep, right here in the t/a parking lot.....i think we've been exiled to california and not told about it..........after the harrowing sliding down the mountain experience, we were in the shop for two days, then we sat at the petro in wheeler ridge for two days, then we ran up to santa clara and picked up a load of paper rolls and drug them down to irvine....and since we delivered them yesterday evening, we've been sitting at the eastern t/a in ontario......i say eastern because there are two of them here, one across the street from the other........we relish having a "down-time day" every once-in-awhile since we hardly ever get a chance to just set still and get caught up on truck chores or tv or facebook or any other personal pleasures......most of the time it's just "grab a shower and a sandwich and go".

freight is slow....especially in california....that's what my fleet-manager, a fancy new-fangled word for dispatcher, has been telling us.....she's kinda new to this business, but evidently, this time anyway, she knows from what she speaks, coz you couldn't cram another truck in either of these truckstops with a shoe horn.....the rows are full, the idle-aire lanes are full and the perimeter of the lot is lined with trucks hoping for a better spot......most of the time, in this particular area, if you're not in a parking spot by 1500, you might as well forget it, but right now you need to start looking for an opening no later than right after the breakfast crowd leaves........it's crazy.....and it's not just one type of freighthauler that's fillin it up.....there's flatbeds, and tankers, bedbuggers and reefers.......

california offers it's own personal set of complications when you have to sit here for a few days.....now, nevermind that the los angeles area has more highways traversing it's inclusion than any other city i can think of,.....i mean, theres i 5, i 10, i15, i210, i 215, the 405, the 605, the 710, rt 55, rt 57, rt 60, rt 91, us 1, us 101.....just to name a few......and most of these are, at the least, two lanes in each direction, some sprouting to as many as 6 lanes in a given direction.....and each of these lanes is usually bumper to bumper traffic at any given moment, with the only relief from this coming, if you're lucky, between 2-5am......now, i'm not a mathmatician by any stretch of the imagination, but if you could count all these smog-producing, oil-burning, gas-guzzling cars that pack the highways here at any given moment, i think the total would make the recent stimulous package total look miniscule.....and that's a real achievement.......anyway, i get carried away, but you can see my frustration when after dealing with all this endless traffic on the roads here, then when we get a chance to sit and rest and relax, california doesn't want us to idle our trucks......seriously......they have dot enforcement here who drive around the truckstop parking lot, followed by a state highway patrol car and if you're idleing longer than 5 minutes, they write you a ticket.......never mind the fact that we have to buy special ultra-low sulpher fuel and go thru a process called regeneration every few days, and have a big sticker stamped on the side of the truck that says we are "certified clean idle".....and never mind that it's 95 degrees inside the truck in the afternoon regardless of the fact that it may only be 65 outside......i can't idle my truck longer than 5 minutes at a time without risking a ticket.......it seems to me that if caldot was so gosh-darn concerned about the enviornment here, they'd have those officers out hoofin their way around the parking lot with their little ticket pads instead of having two cars on every detail......so here we are, hooked up to this wondrous (WARNING: Air is heavy with sarcasm here) invention called idle-aire....which puts a big yellow sleeve into your passenger window and gives you heat or a/c and electricty.....yeah, there's no light on it....you have to bring a little lamp from home....geesh.......and you get all these comforts for $2.99 an hour!!!!....yippee.....you can also get cable tv and internet for an added fee.......but it's down time.....it's relaxing.....it's unbelievably stupid, it's california, and it's coming soon to a state near you......and it's just one more thing for me to rant about.....it's ridiculous.....it's harrassment......it's assinine.............

but hey......i'm just sayin.........

sliding off the mountain.....

we loaded in in salt lake city for porterville, california and we were excited about the trip since we were going on a different route than we had before.....we've been across i80 a gazillion times, but this time at wendover, nevada, we were heading down us 93......we got over to wendover and were shut down because the road was closed due to snow....even i80 was closed further west......but we took this in stride and had a fantastic supper , gave the casino there a little of our money and had a good nite's sleep..........heading out early the next morning, we were enjoying the trip....us 93 takes you thru ely, nevada....a nice town with a lot of old buildings, then down thru the lavarock hills.....the light snow lying on the hills made you think you were looking at a black and white photograph.....then us 6 into tonopah, nevada......tonopah touts that it is the number 1 stargazing destination in the world....a claim that i cannot confirm since we were there in the afternoon......what i can tell you is that it is a very quaint little town with lots of personality......lots of little shops that i would love to go in......the streets are lined with artifacts from the mining days and with metal artwork depicting early prairie life.....brad especially enjoyed the murals on the sides of buildings...especially the ones with the old war planes.........from tonopah we climbed over the mountains to bishop, california, where we had another good meal....(we cook so much in the truck that anytime we actually eat out is a big deal for me....lol)....and spent the nite there......bishop is another great little town, home to the california rodeo and again....lots of little shops that tempt me somethin awful......lol.....

the next morning we started out early again....the weather was cold but beautiful as we headed south on us 395, then west on 14 and soon even further west on ca178.....178 is a 2 lane road with moderate mountain climbs that offer you fantastic views, especially when you get over near lake isabella......it is at lake isabella that we were dropped onto ca 155....ca155 is a tiny gray line on the map and not much bigger in real life......we had questioned this part of the routing but after checking the atlas and finding no restrictions, we started the climb up the tiny mountain road.......near the beginning of the trip there was a sign that said "winter conditions may exist"....it was a small brown wooden sign....the kind of sign you see when you enter a state park......more of a welcome sign than a warning.........but a little further up the road the next sign we saw was a bold yellow sign that read "11% grade next 14 miles"......not quite so welcoming......but with the road so tiny and absolutely no where you could turn around 75 feet of truck and trailer we continued our climb up the mountain......the views were fantastic, as were the homes that people who had loads of money had built there to allow them constant access to these views......upward we went, climbing and twisting thru 90 degree turns that were usually followed by another 90 degree turn in the opposite direction.......climbing.....slowly, since we were grossing almost 79,000 lbs........and then we hit the snow line......well, make that the ice and snow line.......brad was driving and he made the first few turns without any problems but then it became apparent that we were going to have to chain up just to stay in the road......we...well i should say he, put on three sets of chains....my contribution to the work consisted of pulling up or backing up a tad so that he could get the chains hooked up......now, most people when traveling in their cars don't pay a lot of attention to the elevation or grade signs, but let me explain that we were at 5,528 feet and on an 11% grade.....11% is steeper than most houses roofpitch.......the road was so steep and so icey that he fell 3 or 4 times while he was working out there.....and even tho i had my "gobhopper" boots on, it was all i could do to stand up out there......he got the chains on and tightened up but they didn't do us much good.....when he tried to start out again we couldn't go anywhere.....it was like taking 1 step forward only to take 2 steps back.....after several tries we hadn't made any progress.....and then we started to slide.....it is uncanny how sliding even 6 inches can seem like 5 feet when you have 79,000 lbs pulling you backwards down the side of a mountain and all that lies between you and what appears to be an endless ravine is a snowbank and a few trees........even with the chains we couldn't get the traction we needed to go forward and we slid backwards even more.....brad was able to get the rear of the trailor into a snowbank which stopped our slide, but this caused the tractor to come around and as it was sliding, the passenger side front bumper caught another snowbank, which tore that side loose from the truck, but kept us from jackknifing..........

it was about this time that the calvary arrived in the form of a california black and white........after the officer finished shaking his head about us being there, he gave us a ticket for being there......he said he had no problem believing that we'd been routed that way....and he agreed that there were no restrictions listed for that route in the atlas....but he said that trucking companies have access to "network maps" that show where trucks are NEVER supposed to be and that they are supposed to use them when routing us around.....he said we should pass the ticket along to the company.....the good news about the ticket is that it doesn't put any points against brad's license.....neither of us have anything against our license and we'd like to keep it that way............after he gave us the ticket, he turned into a really nice guy and actually became our knight in shining armour since he had the state highway department bring a huge chained grader up there and pull us out......he also had them bring a smaller grader which worked on the road and then they put down a couple truckfulls of sand.....the grader pulled us up to a spot where there was a cross road and cleaner pavement and we were able to do a u-turn......they stayed with us until we were able to head back down the hill........the descent was as slow as the climb had been.......once we were below the snow line we stopped and took the chains off and bungie corded up the bumper as best we could..........we crept on down the mountain to lake isabella again and on across 178 to bakersfield... it added about 90 miles to our trip......the road was a little larger, but the mountain curves were almost as tight, tho not as steep and there was no snow down there... and again the scenery was magnificent......and we breathed a little easier....but i don't think my heartbeat slowed down till we were over to bakersfield and on level ground......lol.....the mountains are truly a work of God and we're thankful we got to experience the sights, but we'll never be this way again, at least not in a big red truck.......

after we delivered at the walmart distribution center in porterville, which by the way, we did 6 hours early even after this ordeal......we headed back down to bakersfield to the freightliner shop......the trees in the orange groves that line the road here are loaded and absolutely beautiful and made me want to slip in there and swipe a few.......we got to freightliner and after they checked everything out, they said they didn't have all the parts to fix the bumper and so they rigged it up till we could get somewhere to get it fixed.....but they asked us if we'd been having any trouble with the windshield leaking and since we had been having some minor leaking so they wanted to reseal it......well, in the process of taking the windshield out......you guessed it.....they broke it.....and they didn't have any in stock, so we're sitting in the motel waiting for them to get a windshield delivered and installed........alta sierra slowed us down, but it turns out it's a little windshield leak that shut us down.......go figure!