all things bradbury

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

2011-11-10T12:57:00.003-05:00

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.....

2011-06-21T11:22:00.002-04:00

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......

2011-06-13T16:51:00.003-04:00

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??????????????

2011-03-28T17:59:00.003-04:00

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!

2011-03-24T12:29:00.005-04:00

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......

2011-03-14T09:18:00.003-04:00

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......

2011-02-24T20:56:00.003-05:00

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.....

2011-02-22T12:25:00.001-05:00

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.....

2011-02-21T20:50:00.004-05:00

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......

2011-01-30T21:17:00.005-05:00

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.......

2011-01-29T18:40:00.002-05:00

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

2011-01-28T10:29:00.000-05:00

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

2011-01-22T11:14:00.002-05:00

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

2011-01-22T10:41:00.002-05:00

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

more goodies for us!!!

2011-01-17T10:20:00.004-05:00

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!!

2011-01-10T16:53:00.001-05:00

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

happy new 2011!!

2011-01-10T15:04:00.003-05:00

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!!

some days i feel like i've lost all my stuffin.....

2010-11-06T12:28:00.001-04:00

babygirl sure gives her toys a rough go sometimes......there are times i feel like life treats me the same......i guess you just have to poke your stuffin back inside and keep playin!

i know we've only been back on the road 5 days, but it's been hectic and rushed and i keep lookin at the calendar counting down the days till we're off for thanksgiving!....

only in new york.......

2010-10-25T14:21:00.002-04:00

now, don't get me wrong....i love new york.....as i've told you before, i'm one of the extremely few truckdrivers who still get excited everytime i cross the george washington.....or staten island.......but i gotta tell ya, there is a reason that new yorkers have the reputation they have.......case in point......a couple of weeks ago we headed over into brooklyn by way of the verrazano bridge to pickup a load at the old navy docks.....after getting off of i-287 and making our way almost to the docks on typical, overcrowded, narrow, paralell-parking-on-both-sides-of-the-street surface streets, we were one left turn away from our destination when we can to a sudden stop.......a roadway driver in a 10-wheel straight truck.....what???,about half the length of our truck???? rammed in to side of a small compact car driven by a young man who was attempting to pull out of a parallel parking spot on the right....thus tying up traffic on the street while both parties exchanged blame and other choice words and then got on their respective cell phones to contact a. police, and b. insurance agents and c. at least one good buddy each who they surprised with the words "dude, you're not gonna believe what just happened"........we sat at a stop right behind the roadway truck because we needed to make a left hand turn just past that building on the left in the top picture.......cars from behind us started coming around us, which literally made the oncoming traffic have to come to stop, except for a few adventuresome souls who sucked in their breath till they'd fit and created a lane where there was none........all of this was accompanied by the usual honking and hand gestures that make new york new york......and then the epitome of new york thinking kicked in in the form of the roadway driver coming back and telling brad to go around him.......brad told him that he had to make the left turn and that there wasn't room to get snaked around him and clear the intersection......and his reply???? "whatdayamean( yes, that's all spoken as one word!) ya can't make the turn??? wheredidya (also condensed to one word) learn how to drive????"

ummmmmm.....dude, excuse me, but we're not the one's sittin in the street with a four-wheeler attached to our bumper.........

another mouth to feed........

2010-10-19T18:45:00.001-04:00

one of the perks of being a team of company drivers is that we get a brand new truck every year......we put around 250,000 to 300,000 miles on a truck and then trade it in and start all over.....for about 3 years now, we've been burning ultra-low sulfur fuel in the trucks ....a design effort to reduce emissions and comply with epa standards, especially california epa standards.....at first it was a hassle as not all truckstops were carrying the ultra-low sulphur fuel and we were constantly having to track down a place that had it, but then as there became more and more demand for it (all trucks with engines 2007 and newer require it), more and more places carried it........

about the same time we started using the ultra-low sulphur fuel, we also got a handy little feature on our engines called "regeneration"........this meant that while going down the road, our truck would occasionally go thru the "regen" process where internal temperatures could reach as much as 1500 degrees and would burn off any carbon buildup......occasionally you would also have to "regen" manually if you had been idling for long periods of time....when you have to manually "regen" you have to make sure you're not sitting on grass and/or near any paper or combustible materials........i've gotta tell ya, it took quite awhile to get over feelin anxious every time we were in "regen" mode......with all the little silly things we've had mechanics miss on our trucks over the years, it's a little hard to trust that truck builders always do everything right to keep you safe from those kind of temperatures under your butt........

last month we got our 2011 freightliner cascadia.....it has a detroit motor in it.......detroit, in their infinite wisdom, designed an engine that not only has all the features i've already mentioned, but it also has this handy little receptacle that you have to keep filled, in addition to the fuel tanks........ this extra tank holds a product called d.e.f......which stands for diesel exhaust fluid....an additive that makes the "regen" process burn cleaner and supposedly more effectively.....

you have the above pictured gauge(the row of green lights) on your dash to let you know when you need to add def.....and you're warned to keep a close eye on this gauge as running out of def will shut your motor down............we've been told that eventually most truck stops will also have a pump on the fuel islands for def, but so far, in three trips from coast to coast, we've only found one truckstop in washington state with it and they only had one pump on one fuel island for it.......the truckstops who do carry def stock it in the packaging you see below......2 and a half gallon plastic jugs with foot long nozzles that come packaged in cardboard cartons.........it causes me some concern that the same people who came up with this wonderful idea, are the same people who couldn't figure that the packaging should include a vent in the plastic jug so that the fluid would actually go into the tank with out you having to pull out your trusty pocket knife and punch a hole in the jug.............it also causes me concern that even tho i'm not picking up the tab on the def, it's $14 for one of these jugs and we have yet to determine how many jugs it actually takes to fill the tank up......ours was on half full and we put in 6 jugs and think we could have easily added two more.......let's see....that's $84 and two days later we had to fill it again.......i'm all for saving the planet, i just want to be able to afford to live on it while i'm keeping it green........

so now we leave this nice mess on the fuel islands.........

and this mess down the side of our truck, because the way the tank opening is situated and the way the jug nozzle is made, it's impossible to keep it from dripping......

not to mention that on the stops where you have to add the def, it adds at least another 15 minutes to an already tight schedule.........but hey!.....who gives a rat's derriere if we're overloading the landfills with plastic and cardboard as long as we're keeping the air cleaner in california?????

my little black bag

2010-10-17T16:45:00.005-04:00

i'm not much for carrying a purse on the truck......for one thing, life in the truck is hard on them....they get kicked around on the floor, rub up against stuff and ruin the leather as we roll down the road....about the only time i feel the need for one is if we are taking time off somewhere other than home and i know i'll be going out shopping or to dinner....or when we stop at walmart.........back in my solo-driver days i had the whole dash to hold all my "essentials" while i was driving......but in the years since i became a team driver, it seems like either the dash is getting smaller and smaller, they're putting more and more space-sucking gadgets on the dash or else brad is just getting more and more stuff of his own, because it doesn't seem like i can find a place for my stuff up there anymore!.....but a couple of months ago while in walmart i was cruising the craft supply isle and found this little jewel......it's got sturdy sides and has kept it's shape.....it has loads of various sized individual pockets that make almost custom-crafted homes for all my goodies and it wipes clean with a damp cloth!!.....
outside pockets hold my eye-glass cleaner and cloth, hand sanitizer and a small bottle of a great little cucumber pick-me-up-spray, pens, post-its, and a comb........ an interior row of pockets are sized just right for my sunglasses, tissues, ipod, phone and headset.....and the huge inside pocket holds whatever audio-book i'm listening to at the time and keeps my wallet in handy reach!

i'm not embarrassed to tell ya that i'm just a little bit in-love with this handy little bag!....i set it on the floor beside my seat when i'm driving and everything i might need while driving is within handy reach......i've not yet given up my cupholder space for my coffee, water, tea or whatever tho...although the designers seem to keep making these smaller and shallower all the time, so it may not be long before i have to add a bottle holder to this little number!....and when we switch out and brad drives, all i have to do is pick it up and set it back on the bunk or a shelf and it's out of his way.....and he thinks that's pretty sweet!

council bluffs, iowa

2010-10-17T15:41:00.003-04:00

i take alot of pleasure from simple things in life......one of them is watching all the new decorative bridge railings and intersection landscaping that so many cities across the country are installing as they upgrade and expand the infrastructure.....pennsicola, florida has the blue angels navy show squadron on their overpass abuttments.....seattle has fish and waves and mountains......las vegas has fighter jets from nellis airforce base.......albuquerque has huge mosaic pots and a giant cactus that changes colors at night......salt lake city and ogden have beautiful tin sculptures of ranchers, cattle, horses, and miners and skiers.............recently, while coming thru council bluffs, iowa for the first time in awhile we were greeted by this............we looked.......we looked again......we picked our jaws up off the truck floor and looked again.......we looked at each other and then at it again.......whaaaaattttttt??????????........

i'm pretty certain they paid alot of money for this "art".....upon a little closer inspection it looks like parts of tractors and farming implements welded together in some grotesque and eerie fashion.......perhaps inspired by a transformer movie or even edward scissorhands....... i guess i'm just missing something here.......i've seen the remains of a three-car pileup loaded on a rollback that made more sense than these do.......

on another recent trip thru council bluffs at night, we did at least find something good to say about the sculptures........"at least they're not lit up after dark!"

sittin & waitin......

2010-08-06T16:12:00.002-04:00

most people think all truck drivers do is run down the highways of america taking things from one place to another......and that is a good part of our job.....it's the part that usually makes sense and earns us a paycheck......but it surely isn't all that we do.......on some loads, just the paperwork involved, alone, could send the hardiest of pencil pushers into a frenzy.....and then there's the driver's who load and unload their own freight......we try to avoid those kinds of loads.....occasionally we'll get stuck with one and i always argue with them over it since i have a strong aversion to touching freight.....it's not that i'm lazy....well, not entirely that i'm lazy, it's just that while i drove 500 miles thru the nite hauling said freight, i never once looked over and seen a shipper or receiver sittin in the passenger seat telling me funny stories to help keep me awake.......they never fuel, they have never once come out and cleaned my mirrors.....nothin........so i take great offense when they think i should work on their dock......just doesn't happen very often and i can assure you, NEVER without protest!!.....

anyway, the other big part of truck driving is the sitting-and-waiting........the past couple of weeks we've been doing alot of that.....first off because our load got picked up by another truck....then an entire week in a hotel with our truck in the shop.......then another day & a half waiting on a shipper to rework a load that was too heavy on the front....TWICE.....they reworked it and still couldn't get it right.......i mean, jeesh, it's not like they load trailers everyday..(insert sarcastic eye roll here)...........we didn't sit & wait much for the next few days, as we came down from seattle to los angeles, delivered, picked up another load and headed to baltimore......three days comin across the country meant three days that they had to get everything worked out on this load......three days till our 0700 delivery appointment this morning that i got up at 0300 in order to make on time......just to be turned away from the port gates because someone had not bothered to register this truck at the port for the past three days.......hmmmmmm.....can we say "incompetence"???????.......

so now it's 1645 eastern time and i'm still hooked to the same load and still waiting for them to tell us where to take it.......we are supposed to be headed home as soon as we do drop it.......i can assure you i won't be sittin & waiting for them to tell me to go!

theives among us!

2010-07-27T18:48:00.005-04:00

everybody has fears.....we all are afraid of something.....for truck drivers, it's usually nasty winter road conditions, drive tire blowouts or that mini-van loaded with kids that pulls out in front of you........for alot of us it's knowing that things "back home" are safe and secure while you're out here earning a living........today we know how that feels......we're in portland, oregon in a hotel while our truck is in the shop........brad and i, while spiritual people, are not church-goers, so we don't tithe, but are thinking maybe we should start after these past few days......it all started last friday.....we delivered here in portland and were dispatched to pick up a load here later that evening going to sacramento, but when we went to pickup, it had already been gotten by another truck....evidently the load was double-dispatched, which i never understand how that happens, but it occasionally does.......so we headed over to the truck stop and called it a nite.....then on saturday evening we were again dispatched on a load going, this time, to los angeles,but it didn't pick up till monday morning.....that meant we had all day sunday off.....we are never ones to mind an occasional day of sitting idle because even tho you're not making any money, you do get a chance to catch up on sleep, laundry, truck chores and, let's be honest, facebook!!......we walked over to a really nice little restaurant for supper sunday nite and had marion berry pie for dessert!....if you haven't had marion berry pie then you need to add that to your bucket list......alot like blackberries, marion berries are indigenous to this area and very very tasty.....i wish i'd remembered my camera, just so that i could make your mouth water, but you'll just have to take my word for it......yummo!!.......anyway, we returned to the truck, watched a little tv and settled in for the nite......all was going well till about 0300 local time when we were awakened by what we thought must surely be the second coming....light on the dash blinking, buzzers going off....and a truck full of exhaust fumes!!!!!......we quickly got up, got the truck shut off and opened up and brad got under the hood to see what was going on......we ended up taking the truck to another truckstop shop where the mechanic found a break in the exhaust line just under the bunk......he couldn't fix it, so we took it to the international dealer's shop where they found a host of troubles in addition to the exhaust leak......seeing that some of the parts needed had to come to portland from the chicago area, they found us a nice hotel room....and we settled in again and ordered pizza, since after spending all day in their lovely, but hardly air conditioned driver's lounge, neither one of us were interested in leaving the a/c of our nice room......this morning brad called to check on the truck and was told that it wouldn't be ready today either.....frustrating, but doable....it's just part of truckdriving........a little later in the morning tho was when insult was added to injury......we got a call from the guy who looks after things for us while we're gone......he'd gone by our house this morning and found that sometime in the past few days it had been broken into!!!!.......in all the years we've been on the road, we've always worried about this happening, but have never had anything bothered.....it probably took me a good ten minutes of the call to comprehend that he wasn't bs'n me and that someone had actually been in our home.........i still don't think it became totally real to me till he put the state trooper on the line to talk to me......hearing news like that is just surreal........it appears they'd entered thru a window.....they must have spent a little time there, because every drawer had been opened and gone thru......they took some change we had in plastic jars where we empty our pockets on the truck and hadn't gotten taken to the bank yet....the took some of brad's marilyn monroe wines.....they took some jewelry .....these are the things we know of so far....we won't really know what's missing until we can get home and look for ourselves.........the biggest thing is that they took any peace of mind that we had, naively or otherwise, about the house and they put a large crimp in any thread of belief in human decency......no one should ever have to worry about the safety of the things they've worked hard to provide for, but today is totally about us.....so i'm saying that truckdrivers should never have to worry that, while they're working to bring the stuff you want to you, that their stuff is being pilfered out the back door!

sh*t our load planner comes up with!

2010-07-19T13:11:00.002-04:00

i know that some of you just shake your head when you read some of my blogs where i complain about the folks we work for.......i know you think i should just suck it up and get on with it.....pull up my big girl panties and deal.......well, most of the time i do.......i'm a dealer-with-er-kind of person, always preferring to see the glass as half-full............it's just that sometimes it harder than others to believe there's any substance in the glass at all......

take last nite for example.....we delivered our load in salt lake city yesterday morning and then headed over to the truck stop, caught up a little on sleep, got a nice shower, some supper.....spent the evening watching tv and catching up on facebook till the driver-tech beeped with our assisgnment and this is what we found.........take a close look......deadheading 647 miles from salt lake to our company yard in colton, california, just to run a load over to ontario, ca....a whopping 21 miles away!!!!.......it doesn't take an mba to calculate the business stupidity of this logic........and if you notice that the load needed to deliver by 0900 local time the next morning.....now what you can't see in the picture is that this pre-assignment didn't even come to us till midnite!......we've been doing alot of loads lately that have high dead-head miles on them....this doesn't usually matter to us since we get paid by the mile loaded or empty....but sometimes ya just gotta go "whoooaaaaaa!!!".......anyway....brad called our fleet manager, explained that there was no way we could make it on time, the fleet manager, surprisingly, agreed how ridiculous this load was when there were surely any number of drivers in the local california area who could take it and he had it taken off of us..........as it stands now, we are picking up a load right here in salt lake in a couple of hours and heading to portland, oregon....makes much more sense to me.....with over 6000 trucks in the fleet there is hardly any area of the country that there aren't some of our trucks in at any given time.....why would you not utilize the closest truck????.....i've been reading a hilarious non-fiction book by justin halpern entitiled "sh*t my dad says"......i think i may have to plagerize his title and start a blog, "sh*t my load planner comes up with!"

something old....something new.....

2010-07-02T17:53:00.004-04:00

hah!....i had you!.....you thought i was announcing a wedding, huh????......well, that could get a little complicated if it were true since brad gets cranky if i mention getting any other husbands besides him.....although he has agreed that i could have a brief dalliance with sean connery, if the moment ever presents itself...............actually i was thinking more about some fellow drivers we ran into earlier this week while we were in seattle.......when we arrived at the shipper's there were a few other trucks from our company there and since there was a delay with getting the freight off incoming ships and thru customs, we ended up spending one entire day and part of the next there waiting to get loaded......that gives you a little time to get to know the other drivers and listen to their war stories........if you're a fast enough talker, it even gives you a little time to tell a few of your own........

we spent alot of time talking with two trucks in particular.....one a team of "seasoned" drivers who, from the content of their stories, had literally done just about "everything" there was to be done in life, both in the trucking industry and out of it......we stood in amazement at the level of bullcrap that clogged up the arteries of their tales ....you know the kind i'm talking about.....the ones you hear when you have to sit at the "professional drivers only" counter in the truckstop restaurant because all the other booths and tables are taken......since they'd already given us their ages, we also may have missed details of their stories, since we were both busy in our heads trying to calculate how you could possibly fit all those accomplishments and adventures into the span of life they'd been on this earth......from years of experience, we'd learned that it's easier to just "ah ha" in the appropriate places during these kinds of tales tho, than to call the storyteller on the bullcrap and make him have to try to show his cards......it isn't that they weren't likable enough.....just that you need a big shovel to hang around with these guys very long........

the "something new" was a young couple who were literally on their third trip out......they'd just come out on the road together after having went thru school and then a few weeks running with individual trainers and they were eager to soak up any advice and experience we could share with them to make both their jobs and their life on the road easier.....brad and i both were impressed immediately at how down to earth and level headed they both were.....i was also impressed that while watching their faces during bullcrap stories, i could see that they weren't buying into any of it....that made me feel alot better....i've heard some real horror stories about new drivers who think they can put into practice some of the tall tales they've heard from other drivers.......they asked alot of questions, even took some notes and already had a couple stories of their own to tell.....we ended up trading phone numbers, email, etc......and came away feeling confident that they were on the right path to a successful driving career....

it made brad and i feel a little honored to get to mentor this young couple.......we wish both teams all the best....storytelling, like truckdriving, can be hard work!

wildhorse casnio......pendleton, oregon

2010-06-26T20:12:00.003-04:00

after running over 7000 miles in 7 days, we finally got a load that gives us a little down time over the weekend.....we're hauling 42,000 lbs. of sugar from nampa, idaho to a bakery in seattle and we don't have to be there till monday morning......when we got this load we really expected the drivertech to beep and tell us to load it and drop it at the yard for a solo driver to deliver and then that would be followed by another beep giving us a long and "hot" load that just had to go, go!, go!!.....but so far that's not happened......it took us about 5 hours yesterday at the shipper's to get loaded...they're usually not that slow there but for some reason everything was moving slowly....it was refreshing to scale out legal on the first try and not have to do alot of sliding tandems to get things road-ready.......so since we hadn't ate all day and since it was already late evening by eastern standards, we went over to the truckstop and had supper and called it a nite........we've been watching the first two seasons of "weeds"......(yes, i know, we're behind!...sometimes it takes us awhile to embrace new pop culture.....lol).....anyway, we finished up season 2.....this show cracks me up......i swear, nancy (mary louise parker's character) cannot catch a break.....never mind that she's a marijuana dealer.....she's is the epitome of murphy's law and then some!!....anyway, now we're anxious to get to target for the rest of the seasons that are out on dvd.....that's pretty much how we watch tv.....seasons of the shows we like on dvd long after the next season of those shows have started.....we are never setting still long enough to catch anything in real time.....although lately we have been exploring hulu.com....a wonderful invention!!......any way, back to the sugar load.....we made it as far as pendleton, oregon......it was absolutely beautiful today coming over cabbage....the sky so clear you could see for miles....we decided to call it a night here.....pulled into the arrowhead travel plaza and cleaned out the truck......i think we have gremlins that trash this truck when we're not looking, because it sure does get dirty quick.....course it could be blamed on the fact that i had an snack attack of peanuts in the shell the other night while driving.....trust me, you cannot shell peanuts and drive at the same time and stay neat.....not to mention that had a cop saw me he would have probably explained how that isn't much different than driving while texting, so i have decided that peanuts in the shell is not a good "driving" snack......it could also be blamed on the pup, who loves nothing better than to get hold of a paper towel or tissue and see how many pieces she can transform it into!.......after dusting and running the sweeper and cleaning the windows, we went inside to one of the nicest showers you can find in a truckstop....it was so cute i was sorry i hadn't thought to take my camera inside with me so that i could show you......clean and cool and really great water pressure!........right beside the truckstop is the wildhorse resort & casino.....doesn't take much more than that to put a sparkle in brad's eyes....lol...so we moved from the truckstop up to the casino truck parking area and ran inside......after all, farewell bend and cabbage scales were both closed today as we came over, so that's a sure sign that lady luck is in your house, right????......anyway, brad hit the three card poker table and i found a couple of good one armed bandits and then after awhile he found me and we hit the buffet......not the best one i've ever visited, but not bad........with my tummy full, i played a little while longer while he went back to the tables and then i decided babygirl was probably gettin lonely in the truck all by herself, so i called it an evening and came out to be with her......alot cooler.....not to mention cheaper, to play computer games out here with her......lol..........

pulled from the files of " you just can't make this crap up!"

2010-06-20T13:05:00.002-04:00

in honor of father's day, here's another short installment from the "you just can't make this crap up!" file......

spotted this near ft. collins, colorado.....it actually was a pretty neatly done paint job.....considering all the time it must have taken tho, you have to ask yourself, "why?"

also in ft. collins.......i think the folks out there either get some kind of kickback on the price of paint or else just enjoy the fumes from it........

i can't think of a thing i could say that would explain this one any better.......

i guess if you're gonna be trailer trash, then be the cutest little trailer trash you can be.......

carl hayden dam at lake powell, az

2010-06-05T17:20:00.000-04:00

we picked up a heavy load of sugar in nampa, idaho just before the memorial day weekend and took it down to pheonix, arizona.....i was already a little cranky because i had wanted to be home in west virginia over the holiday, but they offered us a nice bonus to stay out and run and even tho that brightened my mood a little, i was cranky all over again when i looked at the routing.....i84 down to ogden, ut, then i15 to down below salt lake city and then we were taking us89 out thru the woods ( as truckers like to say anytime they get off the 4 lane).....i'd never been down that way before and i just thought i wasn't in the mood to be dealin with draggin 45,000 lbs of sugar up one mountain after another.....i should have known better!.....it's true, there were alot of mountains......long pulls up and slow decensts.....but the mountains were absolutely beautiful and the small towns we went thru made me want to stop and spend at least a day in each one of them.....panquitch, utah.....kanab, utah...well, we did spend the night in kanab......and then we crossed over into arizona the next morning and found this little jewel.....pretty much the most northern tip of the grand canyon and beautiful in it's own right.....lake powell, just north of page, arizona....and the carl hayden dam and visitor's center.

if you enlarge the photo, you can see the dinosaur's prints pretty clearly.

you'd think i'd know by now that just as you can't judge a book by it's cover, you can't judge a trip by it's routing. if you find yourself ridin down this way, prepare to not be cranky anymore!

hi 5 for USA

2010-06-03T17:02:00.002-04:00

one of the little things brad and i enjoy while we're running up and down the highway are the vanity plates so many people have on their cars now.....sometimes they're cutsie.....sometimes the just let you know what line of work the driver does......sometimes they're so abstract it becomes a game between us to see who can decipher them first...........this one that we saw yesterday as we were running west on the ventura highway in california was pretty obvious....and i have to say, "right back at ya!"

Hi, there. I'm a napkin.

2010-05-27T11:07:00.002-04:00

monday brad and i had the good fortune of picking up a load in emporia, kansas, which meant that we got to see our daughter-in-law, gwen, and the grandkids...... jj was out of the country on a business trip to london and tel aviv, so the best we could figure was that missing our visit was his loss....lol...... we had lunch with gwen and jacey at pizza ranch, a really cute pizza buffet place that has excellant food and a western atmosphere.......i always enjoy places that add a little nuance into the finer details......the little things.....and although i really loved the decor of this little place, it was the back of the napkins that did it for me.........

when ya think about it, anywhere ya eat.....anytime ya get takeout......you always need napkins.....and they do kinda have a somewhat thankless job....people use them, thoughtlessly, to wipe their mouth, clean up kid's faces and hands, wipe up dropped food off their own clothes and even blow their noses in them.........kinda seems to me like one of the toughest jobs too......

here lately, brad and i have picked up alot of trailers that other drivers have dropped with numerous problems that they should have taken care of...but didn't........we're also frequently asked to meet a truck and repower their load, that a) was a team load and a solo driver picked it up, b) is a hazmat load that a non-hazmat driver tried to pick up, or c) the driver doesn't have the hours to run the load........not to mention all the repowers we do in order to help another team get home or because their truck has broken down......

there are alot of names that people in our line of work get called.....some seriously, some humorously.....truckdriver, driver, freight relocation specialist, hand, professional tourist, asphalt cowboys,.......but after lunch at the pizza ranch i know we also have another name......napkin.....coz we're always cleaning up other people's messes.

jihad turkey!

2010-05-16T19:47:00.003-04:00

brad and i've been having kind of a lazy weekend......we had been running so hard since we came out from hometime that we were both getting dangerously low on hours....so when we got this load going from nampa, idaho to jackson, tn and it didn't have to deliver until monday morning, we discussed our hours with our fm and figured out how instead of running it thru and dropping it early, we could use the weekend to do what is known as a rolling restart on our 70 hours ....that just basically means that when brad finished driving last wednesday, he started his 34 hour restart and i did all the driving thursday....then we shut down for thursday night, then he did all the driving friday and i had enough hours to do my 34 hour restart ....it cuts down your miles a little, but it gives you a slower pace and sometimes you just need that to regroup your spirits as well as you log book hours........anyway, we'd been enjoying it and having time to have good meals and long night's rests.....we'd stopped last nite in percival, iowa where a popular shortcut thru nebraska meets up with i-29 coming down thru western iowa and on into kansas city, mo......i usually get up and hit the road around 4 or 5 am but this morning i'd slept in a little and didn't start out till 7.......i'd been on the road about 2 hours and had just gotten off i-29 onto i-435, the beltway around kansas city.....it was an overcast morning with just a light drizzle every now and then......out of nowhere into my field of vision came this humungous bird....at first i really couldn't tell if it was a turkey or a hawk.....it was headed right for my windshield and before i had anytime to react, it slammed into driver's side of the windshield, shattering it into a million tiny little tiles of safetyglass......the glass actually buckled inward under the impact of the bird and a gazillion little shards of glass sprayed both me and the cab of the truck......i had a purple top on and when i looked down , it looked like my shirt was covered with glitter! instantly, i could no longer see thru the broken glass but i managed to get the truck onto the shoulder of the road and stopped . brad had been awake but hadn't gotten up yet and at first he thought we'd had a blowout.....but when i yelled at him to get up, i don't think he could hardly believe what he saw......the first thing he did was get our sweeper out and clean the glass off of me before he would let me move.....it's amazing that i didn't get any cuts and haven't had any glass splinters, so far anyway..........after he got dressed, and after all the calls we had to make about the incident, we managed to get the truck on down the road about a mile and a half where we could get safely off the road.......we spent along time cleaning up the truck and they sent another truck out to repower the load on to tennessee.......so here we are till tomorrow morning when they can put a new windshield in.......i'm figuring that we'll be cleaning up glass shards again after that.....i can't imagine that they could get this one out with out it coming all apart......

the whole thing did give us time for a nice visit this afternoon with virgil and cattleya and the kids......when they heard what happened, the drove up from kansas city and crowded into the cab with us for a couple of hours.....then they went and got lunch for everybody and again we nestled into the truck like sardines in a can......we had a great visit tho..........brad and i had just been talking the other day about how we will go for years without being hit by a small bird.....and then it seems like once one hits you, within a few days one or two more will do the same.....it's weird, i know....it always makes me think alfred hitchcock.....lol......i'm really hoping that only goes for small birds and not game fowl!!

kent to lost creek and back to kent again!

2010-05-10T17:39:00.002-04:00

well, i'd kinda made a pact with myself to try and do better about keeping up the blog, so while we're sitting here in fife, washington, waiting on our load to be ready i thought i'd let you know what had been goin on since our last trip out this way and the previously blogged-about trailer incident.....lol......we finally made it out of kent on thursday and were headed east towards home.....we dropped that load at our company yard in indianapolis and picked up one from another team there that delivered in weirton, wv on sunday.....after dropping that trailer at the customer's, we headed off bob-tailing for lost creek.....we had a great time at home!!....no major excitement but alot of visiting with family and friends, some really good suppers, a little shopping and a pedicure!.....the rest of the time we just vegged out or worked on getting laundry done and the truck repacked......we headed back out on friday afternoon, going up near pittsburgh to pick up a load that had a stop in canton and then delivered in swanton, ohio late that night....from there we ran down thru the woods to columbus and got the one that we brought out here to kent.....we weren't sure just what we'd find on the way out here....we'd been hearing tales of snow just a few days before, but we were lucky for the most part....a little rain and a lotta wind, but no snow......yeah!!....lol.....all of our stops have worked out well, with trailers that have been in good shape......the only calamity was that we locked ourselves out of the truck at our fuel stop in billings, mt yesterday and had to have the locksmith come out.....ugh!!!....i'd had that happen once to me when i was a solo driver but this was the first time for me and brad together......we felt like a couple of rookies, hanging around the truck, which was still running and on the fuel island!)...waiting for the guy to show up......brad put the hood up on the truck while we were there so that other drivers would think we had a mechanical problem and we could save a little face!!!....lol....of course when he pulled in and parked in front of us with LOCKSMITH on the side of his van, it kinda gave the whole thing away.....lol......oh well, crap happens!....our other excitement came when the air hose going to the driver's seat came apart......lol....the sound of air whooshing in your cab is a little mind-boggeling when you're not expecting it.........we're not sure just what happened there.....at first we thought the pup got ahold of it, but then it looked more like maybe the seat came down on the metal trashcan and the rim of the can got it......anyway, we tried bending it double and taping it till we could get somewhere to get a coupling, but the tape didn't hold very well, so basically about 60 miles of the trip was spent with me lyin on the floor between the seats holding the hose.....lol.....what ya gotta do sometimes!!!!....lol.........when we stopped at the fuel stop, brad bought an airhose and installed that, so now when i don't feel like runnin the sweeper, i'll just open both doors up and blow everything to the ground!!...lol....i might like that.....maybe i'll end up having to have one installed at the house too!!.....anyway, we made our delivery in kent just 45 minutes late which i consider pretty darn good, since we were 9 hours late picking it up because they had us do that swanton, ohio run first, then we had about 2 hours of down time between the air hose issue and the lockin ourselves outta the truck issue.....and not to mention the gettin into seattle area at morning rush hour....it took me over an hour to get off i-90, down the 405, and down the 167 to the customer's...which was only about the last 25 miles ......geesh.....but i had a good cup of hazelnut coffee, so i just relaxed and did alot of people watchin as they scurried about tryin to get to work on time!

so it isn't just us, after all!!

2010-04-29T19:15:00.001-04:00

baby girl listens as brad talks to dispatch on speakerphone!

drop unto others as you would have them drop for you!!!

2010-04-28T17:13:00.006-04:00

no, no, no....get your mind out of the gutter.....i'm not talking about any kind of kinky sexual antics here......unless you wanna include the screwin you take when the driver pullin a trailer fubar's it up and then silently drops it and you are the lucky holder of the ticket to pick it up......we seem to be drawing those numbers a lot here lately.......
this load was a prime example.......

we arrived in kent, washington yesterday afternoon to pick up a load that brings us to indiana and then towards home for the weekend......we dropped our trailer in a door, unhooked and pulled over to the side of the lot to await it being ready to go.........after a couple of hours they came out to tell us the load was ready and on a different trailer than the one we'd brought......as we left out of the building with the paper work, they were locking up and heading home for the day........we hooked up to the trailer, pulled it out from the door and sealed it up and did the usual walk-around, making sure all the lights worked, etc.......as we came up along the driver's side, we noticed a big dent from top to bottom about half way up the side of the trailer.....the metal runner at the top of the trailer was so buckled that you could see part of the roof panel hanging over it........and the bottom metal runner was covered in yellow paint, and dented in pretty badly......and the turn signal assembly below it had been cable-tied back on!!!......we immediately called claims to report the damage so that, a. we could not be held responsible for the damage to the trailer, and b. that if, in fact the hole at the roof line went clear thru, then repairs would need to be done immediately since we had a trailer full of electronics, in kent, wa......which is basically seattle.....and you know what they say about how much it rains in seattle.........and that's true!.......anyway, as most things do when you let corporate in on anything, it turned into a big fiasco, with people from claims, people from the breakdown department and still others from dispatch all jockeying for position as head honcho in what to do about this load..........after a lot of deliberation and phone calls, it was decided that we would have to stay there at the shipper's until this morning and then have them take the freight off the damaged trailer and load it onto the one we had brought in......and, that they would be sending someone out with a tarp to throw over the roof to minimize any rain damage that might be happening......so about 3 hours later, and of course, right in the middle of "glee".....which we hardly ever get to see in real time......here comes a couple of dudes to tarp the trailer.............after more deliberation ...on their part, not ours, we were busy trying to salvage the last few minutes of glee......they decided that it didn't require a tarp after all and in their words, they duct taped the hell out of it and that would be fine till morning.......uh huh..... .well, as anyone who's ever spent an hour or so out in the cold, sleety, winter weather, tryin to get haz mat placards to stick to a cold and wet trailer will tell ya.....duct tape won't stick to it till ya dry it off!!!.....honestly, don't these people even watch red green????........so this morning, at first light , when i poked my head thru the curtain to see what everything looked like, imagine my non-surprise to find the duct tape flyin over the roof of the trailer like a flag of a redneck encampment..........then the shipper finally shows up for the day and is totally surprised to see us still sittin on his dock......he's one of those guys who is never gonna be voted most likely to win mister congeniality anyway......so after a lot of huffing and puffing on his part...... cell phone glued to one ear while he makes wild gestures with the other arm and a lot of foot stamping......he finally takes the load off the damaged trailer and loads it onto the one we had brought in with us yesterday.....now, if we can just get all the talking heads at our company to turn to the same page in the hymnal , maybe we can get out of here and headed to the other side of the world where home is.......so.....another 3 hours or so later we are finally given the ok to hook to the good trailer and head out..........in the mean time while all this deliberation is taking place, an honest to goodness repair truck shows up, complete with a generator that runs all kinds of wonderful tools to straighten metal and rivet metal, and honest to goodness caulking.....and he has the trailer fixed by the time we're ready to leave........anyway......to bring my little diatribe back to the subject......seems that the yellow paint i was telling you was on the side railing of the trailer??????...well, the same yellow paint was on the buckled up cross member on the bottom of the trailer......and what? you might ask is also that same color yellow and could have left this paint there????.....oh, only about a gazillion concrete posts and rocks painted yellow and placed in places to protect objects that you shouldn't back over in parking lots and dock areas.....little inconsequential things like fire hydrants, electrical boxes, drains.......my point is that not even the densest of drivers could have gotten up on this pole, and then gotten off this pole and not have known what they did......and yet, they brought the trailer into that shipper and dropped it, hooked to another and went on their merry way, leaving the problem for the next driver to have to deal with................i'd really like to catch some of these inconsiderate, cowards in the process of dropping trailers like this.......i'm an old hand at duct tape and i know where to stick it to the dry parts.......they'd only be dry till i ripped it back off!

ask a truckdriver......

2010-03-01T07:37:00.002-05:00

my friend, salena, over at the daily rant finds some of the best memes for her blog.....i always love reading them because they give you such insight into the thoughts and lives of the folks who answer them.....it's always nice to learn more about friends, family....and in this case, also fellow drivers........

1. what is your favorite interstate to travel??
it's hard not to say i79 simply because that's the one that runs past our house.....but i really enjoy running i 5 thru northern california, oregon and washington.....beautiful scenery, lush green mountains, amazing lakes and rivers, not to mention those cute little expresso huts!

2. pilot, t/a, flyin j or loves??
pilot!....like salena said, they have clean showers and restrooms, and hazelnut coffee!!...

3. If you had to travel cross-country (East-West or West-East) would you prefer to take the Northern Route (I-80 or I-90) or the Southern Route (I-10 or I-40)?
i don't really have a preference here.....there are so many interesting things to see along both routes.....not to mention family and friends sprinkled along the way......i'm kinda like salena, in that i prefer to be cooler than too warm, but as long as my ac is workin, i'm good to go on either route!

4. When driving, do you prefer to see the sunrise or the sunset?
the sunrise!....i love that feeling of greeting the new day......the way that, even when you're driving west, you see the sky begin to come alive behind you.....i love being up while most of the world is still sleeping......

5. Favorite state to drive through?
oregon..............oregon never disappoints!!....the columbia river is breathtaking by day and with the moon glimmering off it at nite......i love portland with all the lights glistening off the water..... any state that has family in it, kansas, missouri, north carolina, massachusetts always makes me smile when i cross the state line too......

6. Least favorite state to drive through?
again, i agree with salena.....definitely texas!!...takes FOREVER to get across it....and with the exception of a few city lights and a couple of good bbq joints, it's mostly hot, dusty and bumpy...

7. What do you think is the most truck friendly state?
oklahoma......lots of truck stops and parking areas.....

8. What do you think is the least truck friendly state?
california......between the 55 mph speed limit, the lack of parking and the no idling enforcement, it takes the cake!.....florida is just about as bad for parking, as are a few others.....makes you feel like they're basically saying, "give us our stuff and then get the hell out!"

9. What is your favorite town to layover in?
vegas, baby!......lol.... .....with the exception of lost creek, wv, of course!!

10. Las Vegas, Reno or Atlantic City?
las vegas, hands down!!

11. Atlantic Coast or Pacific Coast?
pacific coast......you get everything from the desert to the mountains, city lights to olive groves, awesome views of the ocean......and those little expresso huts!

12. Favorite type of freight to haul?
well, for what we do now, i'd have to say electronics or airfreight......neither one are usually really heavy loads......my all time favorite tho, is when we were flat-beddin and doing over-sized stuff ......

13. Favorite company/industry to haul for?
the military......like salena said, it's always interesting!

14. Most annoying traffic related gripe regarding truck drivers?
trucks running up on and then tailgating four wheelers.....it's bad enough when they do it to other trucks.....it's downright stupid when they do it to cars......

15. Most annoying traffic related gripe regarding four wheelers?
being on the dang cell phone......passing and then cutting right in front of me to get off at the exit.....being on the dang cell phone......coming off the on ramp at full speed and running alongside me on the shoulder when i can't get over, which most of them would be able to tell if they weren't on their dang cell phone.......

16. Do you drive solo or as part of a team?
i ran solo for a number of years, but for the past almost 8 years i've teamed with brad.....teaming is better!

17. What kind of truck do you have and what color is it?
an 09 international.....and it's red......it's a company truck...that's the only reason we have it....

18. How many gears does it have?
it has 10 "pretend" gears

19. Does your truck have a name?
it has many at times....but most of them can't be repeated here......

20. Do any pets travel with you? If so, what kind and what are their names?
we have a new little miniture pinscher puppy.....just six weeks old.....her name is babygirl

21. What is your favorite drive in the entire country?
our driveway......what???...you didn't see that coming????.....

22. What state do you currently live in and were you born and raised in that state?
west virginia.......and yes, i was born here, raised here and if God is good, will die here.....i'm a hillbilly girl, thru and thru......

23. What kind of trailer do you pull?
a 53' dry van

24. What is your favorite truck stop?
jubitz in portland, oregon

25. What jobs did you do before you became a truck driver?
stay at home mom, waitress, pharmacy technician, deli worker, photographer, basket teacher, mayor, city recorder, truck driving school instructor.....

26. Have you ever been to Canada and if so, which is your favorite Province/Territory? Why?
several times....i think i've been in 7 of the provinces.....my favorite is ontario.....it's beautiful up there....and so clean......you can't be up there without noticing how clean everything is.....

27. What type of weather do you dislike driving in?
black ice.....this might not have been a good choice coz actually i don't drive in it.....i shut down asap!!

28. What do you listen to while driving? Type of music, talk shows, etc.
i listen to alot of audio books on cd.....john grisham, sue grafton, diane mott davidson and janet evanovich to name a few........our sirius satelite radio.....everything from howard stern to martha stewart......blue collar comedy to rosie odonnell, cnn to npr......

29. Who is your favorite talk show host?
ok, ladies....don't get offended but i gotta say.....howard stern

30. What is your CB handle?
dreamweaver.......but i hardly ever have the radio on.

the 2010 handbook

2010-02-06T13:14:00.002-05:00

a friend sent me this in email and i thought i'd share it with you.....yes, it's a little past the new year's start, but never too late to put good advice to work for us......hope you enjoy....and find a few things here that will work for you this year.....

health:
1. drink plenty of water
2. eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar
3. eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and less food that is manufactured in factories
4. live with the 3 e's....energy, enthusiasm and empathy
5. make time to pray
6. play more games
7. read more books than you did in 2009
8.sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day
9. sleep for 7 hours
10. take a 10-30 minute walk daily.....and while you walk, smile

personality:
11. don't compare yourself to others.....you have no idea what their journey is all about
12. don't have negative thoughts over things you cannot control.....instead invest your energy in
the positive, present moment
13. don't over do.....keep your limits
14. don't take yourself so seriously.....no one else does
15. don't waste your precious energy on gossip
16. dream more while you are awake
17. envy is a waste of time.....you already have all you need
18. forget issues of the past....dont remind your partner of his/her mistakes of the past.....that
will ruin your present happiness
19. life is too short to waste time hating anyone
20. make peace with your past so it won't spoil the present
21. no one is in charge of your happiness except you
22. realize that life is a school and you are here to learn.....problems are simply part of the
curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class, but the lessons you learn will last
a lifetime
23. smile and laugh more
24. you don't have to win every argument.....agree to disagree

society:
25. call your family often
26. each day give something good to others
27. forgive everyone everything
28. spend time with people over the age of 70 and under the age of 6
29. try to make at least 3 people smile each day
30. what other people think of you is none of your business
31. your job won't take care of you when you're sick......your friends will....stay in touch

life:
32. do the right thing!
33. get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful
34. God heals everything
35. however good or bad a situation, it will change
36. no matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up
37. the best is yet to come
38. when you awake alive in the morning, thank God for it
39. your innermost is always happy......so, be happy

there's so much good here....a few that i'm not sure what they mean.....but i keep remembering the quote that we are only as happy as we choose to be.......as for me, i'm happy....i wanna be happier....so i'm gonna choose to have a 2010 full of good times with brad and all my family and friends.....a profitable year in the truck with safe travels and awesome adventures....who knows, i may even organize my files and balance my checkbook........i'm just sayin......

some sites we see on the road just speak for themselves.....

2010-01-09T23:57:00.002-05:00

seriously, you just can't make this stuff up!......hermiston, oregon

Thanksgiving.....

2009-12-01T04:24:00.002-05:00

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......

2009-11-09T19:09:00.002-05:00

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........

2009-10-30T20:50:00.004-04:00

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!!

2009-10-26T19:36:00.004-04:00

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

2009-10-19T19:24:00.006-04:00

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!

2009-10-19T19:19:00.001-04:00

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.....

2009-10-18T15:59:00.005-04:00

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!

2009-10-16T07:58:00.005-04:00

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

2009-09-12T22:34:00.002-04:00

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

2009-07-30T18:05:00.003-04:00

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.....

2009-07-28T16:11:00.002-04:00

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

2009-07-16T15:12:00.006-04:00

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.....

2009-07-12T20:53:00.002-04:00

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......

2009-07-05T11:32:00.002-04:00

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.....

2009-07-04T17:55:00.002-04:00

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!!!!!

2009-06-14T22:02:00.003-04:00

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

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

2009-06-14T21:12:00.006-04:00

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......

2009-06-14T18:57:00.007-04:00

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

2009-05-27T12:01:00.002-04:00

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....

2009-04-27T22:25:00.004-04:00

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!!!

2009-04-21T14:41:00.002-04:00

sheeps on a diet????

2009-04-21T12:57:00.003-04:00

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

2009-04-21T12:43:00.007-04:00

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.......

2009-04-07T09:01:00.000-04:00

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.......

2009-03-30T16:59:00.003-04:00

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

crossing the gw......

2009-03-20T18:04:00.006-04:00

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

2009-03-12T18:45:00.004-04:00

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...

2009-03-12T17:41:00.004-04:00

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.......

2009-02-25T18:46:00.000-05:00

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.....

2009-02-20T14:49:00.000-05:00

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!

GWEN.....

2009-02-20T13:02:00.000-05:00

i always feel very lucky when i think about my daughter in law, gwen......i listen to a lot of my friends always finding fault with the wives of their sons, the mothers of their grandchildren and i often remark to brad how lucky we are that we don't have those issues.....i think you're really fortunate when the worst thing you can find to say about your dil is that she's from kansas......now, not that there is anything wrong with being from kansas....it's a lovely state and has a lot going for it, it's just that as a mother who watched her son follow his heart to kansas....well, that's a really long way from west virginia!.........i fell in love with gwen almost from the moment i met her.....she was easy to talk to and down to earth and liked a lot of the same things i did, starting with jj....and continuing with crafts and good food.......in fact, while they were dating, i used to chide jj that if he didn't marry her soon, i'd have to adopt her........

they've been married for a dozen years now and i'm sure like all marriages, they've had their ups and downs, their easy days and then those days when they could barely stand the sight of each other, but when you're around them, you'd hardly know it.....they have a close relationship, their own looks and language with each other......thru the years jj's built a remarkably successful business in kansas and although i will be the first to jump on the bandwagon about how smart and hardworking my son is, i also know that this would have been a much rougher journey for him without gwen's support, understanding, counsel and, most of all, patience...........they may be able to tell you different, but from across the miles between kansas and west virginia, i've never seen a time when she wasn't there for him.......what more could a mother-in-law ask from the woman who shares her son's life???....well, that and four beautiful grandchildren.......recently gwen was recognized in the emporia gazette as a gazette mom......it's a wonderful thing and a long overdue pat on the back for all the hard work she puts into her family......

Being home.....

2009-02-06T09:35:00.000-05:00

It's crazy the way we are when we finally get to Lost Creek.....we're like hermits....carefully guarding our time at the house, savoring every smell, every bit of dust, every little creak in the old floor boards.......people say, "let's go here, let's go there", and we're like no, no...we've had enough of the "going", thank you very much......come here to us.....savour our smells, our dust, our creaks with us.......

first day at home is always a whirlwind of activity.....we come into a great looking space that Wanda has so lovingly dusted and swept, and immediately trash it with our stuff......we unload our dirty laundry, our truck bedclothes and rugs, all of our treasures we've garnered at stops along our travels, our life-sustaining appendages, (also known as our laptops) and all manner of other paraphernalia that makes it's way into our lives on the road......

first order of business is always our mail.....our little post office holds it for us while we're gone so that it isn't prey to anyone nosing around in our mailbox, and if Wanda hasn't already picked it up and has it waiting for Brad to sort thru, then he jumps into the blazer and heads off to retrieve it.....this is his "thing"....well, one of his "things"....he is anal about getting the mail.....we usually have at least two post office totes of it, after being absent for so long, so he is in heaven, sorting, stacking magazines and catalogs, neatly piling bills in one stack and "fun and personal' stuff in another....i swear, sometimes i think i actually hear him whistleing as he does this.....and, oh, my goodness....if you seriously want to make him sing, just let there be a package in there!!!!...especially one with his name on it!!!!!!!

next there's laundry......just imagine 3-4 weeks of jeans, shirts....i won't even mention the sox....oh, god, the sox......it's always like 10 loads of stuff at least.....you see, i just can't bring myself to use the washers at the truckstops......i know most women have an adversion to going to the laundromat and putting their unmentionables in washers where other's unmentionables have gone, ....now mutltiply that adversion by a hundred and you will understand why i don't use truckstop laundromats......an accident of catastrophic proportions has to occur in our truck before i will even consider it......thankfully, since our time out was extended this past trip, we had visits at Christmas with JJ and Gwen, and at New Year's with Karen, both of whom, mercifully, lent us the use of their washers and dryers......without that, we'd have been at walmart buying jeans and underwear......one of the things that will go on my list of 25 when i get to it, is that i secretly think all inanimate objects have a life of their own when we're not around....(a product of too many saturday morning cartoons in my childhood, i suspect)....but i imagine my washer and dryer lolling around in the weeks right after we leave out, dinning on ice cream and truffles, and then when they hear we're headed home, they're bulking up on fiber and protein, because they know the workout is coming........

the next thing i must do is make spaghetti......and "real" mashed potatoes.....not in the same meal, of course.......you just can't get decent spaghetti on the road.....if you're lucky enough to get a run across the Indiana tollroad and can stop at one of the plazas that has a Fazollis, then you can come close, but it's still not homemade.....and i won't even try to imagine the number of times i've embarrassed Brad with my quizzing a waitress on wether their potatoes were real or plastic......enough said........for Brad, it's getting to finally have a martini.....he really loves a good martini......he's so "James Bond" sometimes......

so here we are....hedionistically ensconced in the house.....in our little town that swells to 413 when we're home....and where everyone calls us by name...(so "Cheers", huh??)...and not by our truck number.....and loving every moment of it......tomorrow i am going to break the chain and head down to Parkersburg with Wanda.....she is having a mini-reunion with some classmates from highschool that she has reconnected with on facebook and she has enticed me for a ride-a-long with lunch at Olive Garden and a stop at Crafts 2000.......i'm not worried, tho.....Brad will be safeguarding all the smells, and dust and creaks till i get back.....

rant

2009-01-23T17:05:00.001-05:00

ok, i've vented....i'm better now....bring on the weekend!!.....

cincinnati

2009-01-23T16:16:00.001-05:00

tgif......one of the hazards of running the way we do is that you tend to loose track of time.....even tho you date your log every day, the days tend to run together sometimes and you, or at least i, do forget what day of the week it is......i guess it's because we aren't waiting anxiously for friday to come so that we'll be off for the weekend......but this week i can truly say i am thankful this is friday....this has been such a hectic and frustrating week......wednesday was the worst.......i hate to admit it, but i have a trucker's vocabulary......i try really hard to keep it reigned in, but it's hard to do when you're in an enviornment of hearing it constantly......at customers, on the radio, in the truckstops......one of my top resolutions on jan 1 was to work on at least toning down the trucker talk, and after wednesday i can say that i have probably come close to depleteing my entire year's alotment of cusswords, so i should be virtually profanity free for the rest of 09!......back in my extension homemaker days i took a number of classes on dealing with difficult and diverse people and several times in my trucking career i have had to put those lessons to use, but none so much as wednesday.....we attempted to deliver in cincinnati wednesday morning.....when i pulled into the customers lot i had a bad feeling about it....it's one thing to not be able to get straight in a customer's dock, but when you can't even pull on their lot straight, you kinda know it's gonna be bad.....i won't go into all the gory details.....let's just suffice to say that it got down-right ugly....to the point i asked for my paperwork back, informed them i got paid whether they took their crap or not and sealed the doors back up on my trailer........we did end up delivering it at another business's dock who told us, rather disgustedly, that they have to unload that customer's freight all the time because of the condition of their lot..........following that fiasco, we headed north towards dayton, where we were going to pick up another load that evening, and stopped just outside of cincinnati at the pilot for a shower and a sandwich......now, we eat subway on the average of 3-4 times a week......all over the country.....coast to coast....top to bottom......brad almost always gets the philly steak and cheese footlong.....four trays of meat...he has them put three on the sandwich and takes the fourth to go in the tray for babygirl.....well, evidently the women at subway are related to the guys at the customers we had just delivered at coz they proceded to tell us they could not do anything like that.....excuse me???????????????it's not like we were asking for something extra or difficult.......when i explained we always got it that way so we'd have a little treat for the dog, 2 of the women told us they were gonna send out a company-wide email informing other subways that it was against company policy to divide the meat that way......what????????????....i was like, yeah, i'm sure an email from the two of you are gonna scare the bejeezes outta them........still reeling from the nastiness of the previous stop, it took all the strength i could muster to keep from going over the counter ......i'm pretty sure that brad thought he was as close to seeing me open up a can of whoopass as he'd ever been......what ever happened to the customer being right.????...about keeping the customer satisfied.....?????.
......i told brad i think we need to stay away from southwestern ohio for awhile......i know you're probably shaking your heads.......looking back on what i've written, i get it if you don't get it....i guess it's one of those things where you just had to be there......although i really wish we hadn't been.......

2009-01-20T15:01:00.000-05:00

welcome to my blog....i've wanted to start one for along time now, and was inspired by a facebook friend and fellow truckdriver to jump in and give it a try.....i hope you enjoy riding along with us from day to day....."us" includes me, ruth ann....my husband, brad and our "alternative child" , a 9 & 1/2 lb min pin named babygirl......we drive a tractor and trailer for us xpress, a fairly large trucking company based out of chattanooga, tn and we run all 48 contiguous states and canada, hauling a variety of freight from fed ex to electronics to farm equipment to farm products to victoria's secret....very diverse....always interesting.......

today we are running thru pennsylvania on our way to cincinnati, ohio. ...we loaded in swedesboro, nj.....this is a light load, about 20,000 lbs. and we are always happy about that!....we have been in alot of snow lately and although the roads are clear, the temperature keeps dropping...(it's down to a balmy 18 right now) and we have snow flurries....

we've been riding along listening to all the inauguration events on cnn.....this is some day for america.....i say that, not because i'm a big obama supporter, but because i am 'so not' a bush fan......i am happy to see a democrat back in the white house.....he was not my choice....i'm still a hillary girl....but we have him now .....and i hope that everyone will pray for his success at keeping even half of what he has promised to do for our country.....i am willing to tuck away my misgivings about him for now and give him the benefit of the doubt and a chance to prove that he is more than just a good line of rhetoric......i believe it is our responsibility, as americans, to offer up our support with an open mind and a faithful heart to our leaders, as well as it is also our reponsibility to keep vigil that they remain honest and true to the promises they made to us.....
however it plays out, it is certain that the next four years will be an interesting ride.......