bathed in comfort in barkeyville, but no king!

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

in the land of plum......

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

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

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

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

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

cadillac forklift......

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

hole in the rock.....

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





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





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



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



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

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

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

fdr.....

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

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

rock on.....

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

my friends all drive volvo's

i need a new large car

worked hard all my lifetime

drove near and drove far

oh lord, won't you buy me

a new western star.......

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

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

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

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

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