missing milk day.....

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

a little soap box twittering......

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

bathed in comfort in barkeyville, but no king!

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

in the land of plum......

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

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

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

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

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

cadillac forklift......

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

hole in the rock.....

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





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





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



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



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

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

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

fdr.....

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

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