hopefully it was the onions.......

i laid for several minutes in a state of confusion....i had just woken up pretty much in a cold sweat and felt scared and anxious and then it hit me that i was safely ensconced in my truck bunk and i had only been dreaming.......the feeling of uneasiness wouldn't loosen it's grip on me tho......i don't think i dream very often.....well, unless you include the recurring one where i become a size 8 overnite and hit the lottery the next day and have to get a restraining order against sean connery, because he is stalking me............

i don't think i'm given to fits of panic and undo bouts of paranoia, and i wish i could remember all the details of my dream.....but i'm going to try to share it with you.....because i'd rather seem to be an alarmist than to wish i'd spoken up after something happpens......and i know there a whole lot of people much smarter and more well informed than me who watch these things, and i thank God daily for them and their diligence......

in my dream, it was already tomorrow....veteran's day...11/11/11.....and all across the country parades were rolling down main streets and flags were being waved and speeches were being given.....it was almost like i had a panoramic view of the entire United States......my heart was swelling with pride at the patriotism of our country and the honoring of all those who serve it, both those who have gone before and those active now.......but as i stood there taking in the grandness of it all, all across the country small explosions started to rise up.....i could hear the calls of panic....sirens....screams....and as soon as one started, another would follow.....all in different areas of the country.....all in smaller to medium cities across our land.....until i could see fires and smoke coming up from the horizons in all directions......my mind was racing....trying to figure out what to do....how to help......and then it hit me.......there were 11 attacks taking place....i don't think that any of them were on the scale of evilness that took place on 9/11,....they all seemed to be smaller but still, of devastating porportions and armed with the intentions of letting us know that we were not safe in our small towns.....that they had no respect for our heros and traditions .......and then i woke up.......

i don't know....i want to write it off to just being a combination of the giant cheeseburger with the works i had for supper last nite and being bounced and blown across the state of wyoming as i was trying to sleep.....along with the all the sentiments and gravity of the day that we celebrate tomorrow going thru my mind.....and that i renewed my company hazmat online training yesterday..........believe me, i hesitated for along time before writing this, not wanting to be called crazy or teased about becoming paranoid.....but i just couldn't shake the feeling of needing to speak up......

brad and i belong to a trucker's group of first observers.....we try to exercise extra vigilence in keeping alert for anything suspicious on the highways, at our ports.....especially when carrying a hazardous materials load or a high value load that terrorists could use or sell to finance their plots....it's something we all need to work on.....if something troubles you about a situation....if it makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up....don't hesitate to talk to someone in authority about it.......

a sincere thank you to each one of the heroic people who work hard every day to keep my dream from becoming a reality....to those who have served, to those serving now....even to those thinking about signing up.....

missing milk day.....

yesterday we ran down us14 out of wisconsin to the chicago area.....it's a beautiful stretch of highway that takes you thru amazing farmland and some really quaint towns in both states....as we came into harvard, illinois we were greeted by these beautiful cows.....too bad tho, we missed milk day by a couple of weeks.......

a little soap box twittering......

i've got family and friends that i just have to shake my head over sometimes and wonder......i'll be the first person in line to let you know that i'm a dyed-in-the-wool democrat.....a liberal, and proud of it.......democrat......cradle to the grave.......and i make no apologies for either of those labels.........my daddy always said that a workin man that voted republican was like a chicken votin for colonel sanders......if you know me, or have read my blog very long, i'm sure you've heard that before, because i love repeatin it....simply because it's true.........i've tried especially hard to stay quiet lately, coz, simply, i've had a hard time workin my way out from under the mound of frustration i've been under since the last election.....in all my years of voting, this was the first time i had no dog in the fight.....my girl didn't make it past the primaries.....

i also work fairly hard at not inflicting my views on others.....family, friend or foe.....i figure everybody's got a right to think the way they think....feel the way they feel.... i read, and take all the glen-beck loving-obama-hating-global-warming-denying-praises-for-not-aborting-a-downs-syndrome-child facebook posts and emails that my misguided friends to the right put out there.......but every-once-in-a-while the bs level rises so high that i just have to pull out the soap box and spout off.........this just happens to be one of those times.......

i read today that the media had gone over the 24,000 pages of emails from sarah palin's abandoned governorship and hadn't been able to find anything off-color or detrimental to harrass her with.........hmmmmm.....well, good for her......i have a little trouble thinking that even she is so dim-witted that after all the time it took her office to hand them over that there wasn't a little "editing" done......but, nevermind......what bothers me is that sarah palin is a twit.....i didn't need 24,ooo pages of emails to confirm or deny that fact......it hit me square between the eyes the first time john mccain put her on tv and it's reinforced everytime i hear her still today.......it also bothers me that republicans thought women were stupid enough to accept her as a representative for them and it majorly bothers me that there are some women so embroiled in twittidome that they do......i'd really like to think that the gender that has to think with their big head because they don't have a little one to do it for them, was above it.....but the reality of it is that so many are so willing to just blindly accept anything that right wing politicians can successfully package in a "family-values" wrapper........

a few other things that bother me:
1. that liberal has become a word thrown at someone when the pitcher's intention is to discredit.....that it's become a bad thing to worry more about the guy on the welfare line than the bottom line.....
2. that the media gets blamed for doing their job......did they make palin be stupid???, did they make clinton get a little somethin-somethin on the side.....did they make gingrich cheat on his wife while wasting our money tryin to crucify clinton for the little sumthin-sumthin???.....geesh, i'd even feel safe in saying no member of the media held a gun to weiner's head and made him sext his pic to that woman in washington state.....
3.that holier-than-thou, right wing fanatics, who blame everything they see as bad on those " pagan, unconcientionable, hedonistic liberals" just don't get it.....it has baffled me since the days of ronald reagan how much they just don't get it.........the "it" they don't get?????........well, even tho i am a self proclaimed liberal.....i'm also a spiritual person....a christian.....a believer in God almighty and his son, Jesus Christ.....i believe that Jesus died on the cross for me.....i believe every single word written in the Bible....even the ones i can't pronounce......i believe in creation, and the story of jonah in the belly of the whale.....and the resurection and everything in between......i believe that God has always had a plan for the world he created....yes, he gave us free will to decide how we would live our lives and what beliefs we would follow, but his plan is in place......it just never fails to amaze me that those on the right....those given to excessive thumping of the good book when they want to tell you how wrong you are, seem to be the very ones that overlook God's plan.....that they seem to think that God can't carry it off without them .....that they make a mockery of that plan, even a mockery of Jesus dying on the cross for our sins, by believeing that they somehow have to do something additional in order to make it work......the very ones who boast of being such biblical scholars don't step back and realize that God has a plan.....one that will come to fruition regardless of who's in office....in any country......regardless of whether gays marry......regardless of planned parenthood.......regardless of global warming......even regardless of whether sarah palin really is a twit or just seems that way......

ok, i've vented now....i'm better....i love my crazy right wingers as much as i ever did....i hope they still love me.........

bon...or is that bone apetite??????????????

i'd have to live to be 687 years old to ever have the chance to cook and bake all the recipes i'd like to try.....i read alot of magazines while on the road and i'm always saving new recipes that look like something we'd enjoy, not to mention the thousands of ideas from all the blogs i read and all the websites......it's mind-boggling, really.......and then it always seems that when we are home and i have the chance to do some cooking that we stick to the same tried and true staples that we miss while we're away....coz, well, we miss them......... having said all that, i ran across a recipe the other day that has me both scared and in anticipation.......scared because most of my adolescent and adult life i have heard crude men refer to a certain part of their anatomy as this.......in anticipation coz, face it girls, there can't be one of us who hasn't wanted to chop the dang thing off and roast it at some point in our lives........so imagine my surprise when flipping thru the march issue of better homes and gardens, here was this offering...... Bon apatite!!!

bathed in comfort in barkeyville, but no king!

we had this sweet run from longview, washington to edison, new jersey over last weekend.....the only bad thing about it was that the load was those tall rolls of paper and very, very heavy....but we had plenty of time to take it easy in the mountains and curves, so inspite of the weight and possible squirrelyness..(pretty sure that's not even a word, but my fellow drivers will certainly recognize and understand it....)......we were enjoying the run........well, until late sunday nite...actually monday morning around 0200.......lizzie belle....our truck, decided that enough was enough and she shut down on us just east of grove city, pa....where i80 and i79 intersect.....brad managed to limp us up to a rest area and we called breakdown........after much "hmmmmming" about her symptoms, it was decided we would take her to the freightliner shop in barkeyville..............they ran some diagnostics....took some parts off....scratched their heads alot......decided she'd blown her turbo....and sent us to the comfort inn........and we're still at the motel.....tho they finally did get the turbo in this morning and think they might have it installed later today......yeah!!!.....lol....i guess............beside the motel is a kings restaurant.....they have alot of locations in this state and we pass them and i always thought it would be a good place to eat......not so much.....when we pick up fast food out of a truck stop i always check the bag to make sure our order is right....i guess you need to do that in king's restaurant too.....nite before last we called in an order and brad went over to pick it up, so that we could just eat in our room while watching a movie.....they left out his coleslaw.....too far to walk back in the rain for it, he just let it go......so then last nite we decided we'd order again....when i called it in, i mentioned the forgotten slaw......you'd think they'd offer to include it in the new order.....nope.....and then when he got back to the room, they'd forgotten my broccoli.....geesh!!!...come on people...it's not rocket science!!!....check the bag against the order!!!!......i mean, after all....i'm a growing girl....i need my veggies..........i called the kings back to let them know and the girl just (literally) laughed....never apologized....just said to come back over and they'd give me some broccoli.....yeah, i could see a hike back over there in the freezing rain just for broccoli......anyway, i'm thinking that any restaurant with so little regard to detail twice in a row.....well, what else do they scrimp at?????besides...who could be so cruel as to tear brad away from his ncis marathon just for broccoli????

in the land of plum......

i've mentioned before that i'm a big fan of janet evanovich's books....her main character in the "plum" series, stephanie, is sort of my hero and anti-hero, all rolled up in one.....i'm not the only one, my friend michelle over at "plum trucker" is one too....hence the moniker for her blog....so, basically, michelle, this bud, er, post, is for you!

this is the trenton dmv where stephanie spends countless hours registering her many, many vehichles, or "pos's" as we know them.....a bounty hunter who's claim to fame is blowing up at least one car in each episode, stephanie surely spends a good chunk of time on line here waiting to change registrations and order new plates......thank goodness super-hot ranger, her mentor, loans her alot of cars or she'd never get out of this building.....

a quick view up a "burg" street in trenton.....i'm thinking middle-middle-class....not quite as nice as where steph's parents and grandma mazur live, but not stark street either.......

one of many vacant factory properties you see as you pass thru......chances are there is a chop shop, dead body, money laundering operation, dead body, flame-thrower-wielding psycho, dead body, transvestite lurking behind any one of those windows just waiting for stephanie to stumble onto/into it......

hamilton avenue......i just know that had trucks been allowed and we'd have made the turn, i could have surely caught a glimpse of steph....lula.....morelli.....maybe even ranger!!

cadillac forklift......

i've always wanted to run the forklift.....thru the years i've become convinced that trucking isn't really about the movement of goods across the country.....around the world, even......what's it's really all about is creating a playing field for the millions of operators who spend an eight hour shift shuttling stuff from warehouse shelving to trailers that move it on so the next person can play......
it did nothing to help my "forklift wanderlust" to spot this little beauty yesterday in fremont, california.........now this area has reasonable mild weather year round but being california, they do have winds....and rains.....and winds......and i think this guy took all that into account with his design....he shrink-wrapped over the cardboard cab!!.......
i was really impressed with his efforts.....how meticulously he cut out for the windows and lights.....how neat everything fit together......i think he's onto something here.....he could market this design......this cadillac of forklifts!

hole in the rock.....

yesterday i showed you a little bit of the scenery from our run up thru colorado and utah on us 491 and us 191......it's a gorgeous drive, and what would any self-respecting gorgeous drive be without a few tourist traps along the way?????there are more than a few along the ride up this way.....mostly native american's selling blankets, and pottery, and jewelry,....the turquoise selection alone is worth the drive thru here.....one of the largest and possibly best known tho, is the "hole in the rock"........just below moab, utah.......





pretty much the first thing you see when you enter is this jeep....the body of the jeep is covered with license plates from all the states.....and everything else is welded tools and hardware.....i cannot begin to imagine how long it took the artist to even collect the materials for this project, let along the hours welding it all together......(babygirl didn't give a rat's derriere about the work involved, she just tried to figure our how to get that bone on top from the jeep to our truck!)





the seats of the jeep are also made of tools and hardware.......



and this is a closeup of the "tires".......talk about a "rough ride".....



and this is brad with a bull by the same artist......

and a golfer made entirely of clubs........

a cute little tow truck that should have had a bit part in the movie, "cars"......

fdr.....

i loved this.....notice the pantaloons showing at the bottom of the top door and the men's boots and trousers at the bottom door????.....who says it's a man's world????.....

if you find yourself out this way, be sure to stop......in addition to all this art, there is a tour of the house built back into the rock...a gift shop and a general store....and a sighting of big foot!....you just never know what you're gonna find along the road.

rock on.....

last week we came up from gallop, new mexico on us 491.......crossing thru the southwestern corner of colorado and then into utah and going north on us 191 ......we were headed to portland, oregon....by way of the "backroads"......lol......i probably took a thousand pictures.....the scenery is just amazing......wide flat valleys, ensconced on both sides by volumous mountains....the snow-covered western slope of the rockies to the east and the la sal range to the west....i'd have to blog at least 10 times to show you all the beauty along this drive....so i picked out a few of my favorites to share.....


crossing the colorado river just above moab, utah.....

balancing rock........there's even a motel named for it at the base of this mountain......i'm not sure i'd get a good nite's sleep there, as i tend to "unbalance" things at times.....

brad and babygirl in the wilson arch....brad is a lover of all things rocky.....he loves to climb and babygirl's always ready for an adventure with dad......

wilson arch.....named after joe wilson, a pioneer who had a cabin nearby....this formation is known as entrada sandstone.....over time, the superficial cracks, joints and folds of these layers were saturated with water....ice formed in the fissures, then melted in the extreme desert heat and winds cleaned out the loose particles......over the years many have crumbled, but some, such as the wilson arch, seen here, hardened and survived.....i didn't make this up, there's a sign at the base of the arch.......

this is just one of my other favorites.......i don't know what this one is named.....it sits near the highway in a long sweeping valley, majestically overseeing the area.......beaten by the wind and rain over the years, it's almost impossible to think it wasn't sculpted.....if you look closely at the southern base, there appears to be an opening into the bottom of it.......hmmmmm......

oh lord, won't ya buy me a new western star......

a couple of friends on facebook are always posting first lines or verses to songs on their status and most of the time, other friends will fill in the rest of the tune.....some of them are fresh and modern....others take you on a trip down memory lane........tonite my friend, jody's status was the janis joplin hit.....oh lord, won't you buy me a mercedez benz........took me straight back to the mid america truck show in louisville, ky......1999, i think....or maybe 98.......

western star's booth was doing a promotion and giving away free prizes and perhaps even a chance to be featured in an ad campaign....and all you had to do was get up on stage and give them a slogan idea, sing a song or act something out...........

well, always having prided myself on being a quick thinker on my feet.....and never having been particularily shy.....and aided by enormous prodding, coaching and even a little double-dog-daring from the bunch i was with.....i found myself on stage......and this was my contribution.....

oh lord, won't ya buy me a new western star

my friends all drive volvo's

i need a new large car

worked hard all my lifetime

drove near and drove far

oh lord, won't you buy me

a new western star.......

well, i did get a hat...a couple of them....and a t-shirt.....but no recording contract....not even a discount on a new star.........

get up! ethel, you ain't gonna believe this.......

coming thru amarillo on i-40 we found ourselves in a big ole backup that took forever to get thru......even tho truckdrivers are alot like nascar drivers and don't like to think about someone else's wreck and how it could happen to them, they also can be as bad as four-wheel drivers when it come to slowin things down to do some rubber-neckin......you can enlarge the photos and get a better look....please note that we're headed east.....and the trailer is across the west-bound lanes.......

at first i thought the tractor was hidden behind the firetruck or the tow truck.....but i was wrong....

as i got closer, there was the tractor in the far left lane of the east bound side......he'd obviously jumped the jersey barrier .........as we passed, it was set upright, but from the looks of it, it wasn't always that way......it's hard to see them in the pictures, but there were a couple of cars involved too.....cars on the east bound side......cars that probably never expected that big blue truck to jump the concrete wall and tangle with them......any ambulances that had been there were long gone and we never had any information about injuries......just goes to show ya, nothin is set in stone....not even when there's a four foot wall of stone between ya......be safe out there!

not all cleavage is created equal

brad and i stopped in oregon to empty our porta potty at the rv station in the rest area.....i couldn't help but notice the person working on their camper a couple of lanes over from us.....i think it was that massive expanse of white that drew my attention.....you know how it is.....you see a butt crack.....you don't wanna look......you even find it distasteful.......and yet, in just the same way you can't keep your fingers off a pimple on your face, you just can't seem to divert your eyes entirely from the cleavage before you.......you find youself wondering why alot of men can't seem to get a pair of jeans that simply "fits" them.......and then the guy stands up and turns around and........it's a woman!......

bg and the horses

we have about 12 acres of unused pasture & a barn at the house and so we let a guy from down the road board a few of his horses there......they're always happy to see us come home and always head straight for the fence, hoping for some petting and a treat or two......they just can't decide what to think about babygirl tho.......she goes flyin at them all barky and puffed up like she's gonna ride herd and just about the time she has them a little skitterish.......she stops short and turns to her dad and says "dad, those are the biggest freakin dogs i have ever seen!"

tomato soup

i'm still wondering how big the grilled cheese sandwich has to be to go along with this soup?????????????

more goodies for us!!!

if you don't already have one of these, then you need to take a couple of minutes (really, that's all it takes) to pick up one and activate it the next time you're stopped at a pilot or flyin j truckstop.....just ask the cashier for a new card and then you can activate it at the kiosk in a flash.....if you take in your old card, you can also transfer all your points and showers onto the new card.....all the instructions are on the back of the card and also on the kiosk screen so it's hard for even a technologically- challenged driver like me to mess it up.......you can register it online also, but if you're there, it's really easy just to swipe it thru the kiosk.....and the very best thing about registering????.....200 bonus points!!!.....i don't know about you, but we use those points....not as much for buying supper but we let them build and then buy or replace gadgets for the truck......new coolers, new ovens, cb mikes, log book covers.....it's like christmas!!...



it's still a point for every gallon of diesel you purchase over 50 gallons, but some of the added features include a half-shower point for diesel purchases between 14 and 49 gallons....which, if you're like us, especially in the winter months, you top off those tanks more frequently, and those half-points add up quickly........and, for those of you wondering, yes, i did have to explain to brad that this didn't mean you could only shower half your body at a time.........and for those of you out there running hard, there are longer expiration times on your shower points .....

it's nice to see that pilot/flyn j continues to look out for drivers with clean showers and restrooms and hazelnut coffee......and now it's even easier to cash in on your points with the new frequent fueler advantage card.

finally!....a sign i can agree with!!

there's so many special signs on the highways pertaining to trucks....but finally, there's one i can agree with!

happy new 2011!!

you might have noticed that i hadn't done much blogging in the latter part of 2010......i'm not completely sure why, except that it seemed like everytime i went to write something, it came out sounding angry and bitter.... and i wasn't liking that, not even a little bit.....i've always considered myself a glass-half-full kinda gal, and the fact that i was having trouble even finding anything in the glass was very troubling to me........even worse was the fact that i couldn't really name or define any particular reason for feeling this way.......oh, sure, the usual tribulations of truckdriving were applied.....bad weather, not enough time at home, the holidays coming and no time to get ready, frustrating fleet managers, rough roads that made for little or no sleep some days.........



we were, of course, late getting home for our christmas hometime, but that blow was lightened by the fact that my niece and her kids (thanks, joyce, cj and cayla!!) had cleaned the house and put our tree up for us and had done our grocery shopping.......it was so nice to come home to a well stocked refrigerator!



we managed to get to stay home thru new year's day which was just what i think i needed.....not that i couldn't have used a few more days.....and not that i really got anything that sounds substantial done around the house, but the boost to my morale was immeasurable.....we just enjoyed time with family and friends, time spent just enjoying the lights on the tree......time looking out at new snow......time planning future home times and home projects.....



as of yesterday, we've been back on the road a full week.....my mood is lighter and i'm back in the groove and hoping to be a little better about posting here.....i was gonna say that i was making it a new year's resolution to post everyday but i know me and i know that would achieve nothing except to jinx the whole idea, so here's to 2011......let's see how it goes!!