bring on the sun!

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

weed, ca.....

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

we love weed!

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

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

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

our little celebration!

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

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

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

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

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

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

American AutoStop

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

don't dare to park at gene's

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

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

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

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

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

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



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


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

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

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

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

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

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

lifewater

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