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

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

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

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

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

just so you know.......

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

crossing the gw......

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

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

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

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

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

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

biscuits and gravy

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

still alive and kickin...

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

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

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

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

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

abandoned.........

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

sliding off the mountain.....

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

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

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

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