Ho Hum

Well we are leaving Wisconsin. What can I say...not that exciting. I don't know what I was expecting...maybe a big ole hunk of cheese? It is basically farm land...miles and miles of farm land. We did go through Chicago on the way up there, traffic was a nightmare. I will take the farm land over rush hour traffic anytime. Adolph says if I would get my nose out of a book occasionally, I might see something worthwhile.

Ahh...finally, something different

Don't get me wrong, I am still loving this adventure that we are on, but....we have been going to the same places...alot. Well surprise, when we got our new load assignment this morning it was to pick up in Lynchburg, TN and deliver in Brookfield, WI. Yea!!! I have never been to Wisconsin, so I'm a little excited. I don't know if any of you know it, but Lynchburg is famous for Jack Daniel Whiskey....you betcha...thats what we are hauling. 1142 cases to be exact. Now thats alot of whiskey. Hopefully I see something worth taking a picture of, if so you will see it also.

Things that make you go hmmm!

If you have every wondered what 43,780 lbs of potatoes look like...well wonder no more. The bags in the front are 5o lbs each to give you a little perspective. My concern was how are they going to unload them. I was thinking that they would do it by hand and figured that would take all day. I asked Adolph and he said that they would dump them...that's where the hmmm comes in. How in the heck are they going to dump them, you would have to pick up the trailer to dump something out of it...right? Well...that's what they did, and next week them potatoes will be on your grocery store shelf as Lay's Potato Chips. So enjoy...it keeps us working.

Grins and Grumbles

This is Robert & Susan's 3 1/2 year old son Luke. He is a huge fan of tractors...big or small, the real thing or the toys, old or new.. he loves them all.
When we were there last weekend it was very warm, so his Daddy sprayed him with the hose, he was loving that so his momma got his pool out so he could play in it, well he got mad when we would not empty it for the 3rd time and put clean water in it. There was a few pieces of grass in it and we told him it would be fine, but he wasn't having any part of it and started crying, I told him to hold on so I could take his picture and that really made him mad, so later that day when we were at is meemaw and peepaw's house where the tractors are and he was happy, I ask him if I could take his picture while he was smiling and as you can see, he was all for that. He really is a very sweet boy.

Did you remember to put the windows up?

Not that I think it would have mattered in this case. We left sunny Florida on sunday morning and this is what we went through in AL. This is construction along I-65 North in Birmingham. I am sure that when the road crew came back to work this morning they were a little surprised to say the least. A small tornado had come through just prior to us getting there, it had taken down a bill board on the southbound side and part of it was on the northbound side. The rain was unbelievable, you can see where it is starting to come out into the road. We heard on the news that there was damage just east of us. By the time we had gotten to our place up there it was pretty much all over with, just a light drizzle, but lots of puddles.

Hello Everyone

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend. We spent the weekend in Alabama. It was a little cool, but nice. We had a wonderful Easter dinner with Susan's family and went to Robert and Susan's church for Easter Service. After dinner was the Easter egg hunt with real eggs, I think at last count there was only one missing, I'm sure it will be found over the next couple of weeks...eewww. We are coming to Florida for the weekend as far as I know. It will be nice to be home for a day or two and get to see everyone.

Tagged - 7 things

Here are the rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Share 7 things that people may not know about you.
3. Tag 7 people to share 7 things and link to them.
4. Let them know they have been tagged.

Okay, Meredith tagged me... so here goes:

1. The most important relationship in my life in the one I have with God, that makes all my other relationships stronger, better and more fulfilling.
2. I have been married 3 times, but I never knew true love until I met and married Adolph. We have been married for almost 18 years.
3. I am a pack rat. We have a 4 stall garage that has no room for a car and a 20 X 40 shed that is full. I get it honest, my mom is a pack rat also.
4. Most music can move me to tears, but I can't sing to save my life.
5. I am very gullible. I trust to easily and it has got me into trouble and cost me a bunch of money, but I figure anyone who takes advantage of me will have to answer for it some day.
6. I only eat one color of jelly beans at a time, and I don't eat black ones, purple ones or green ones.
7. I do not like to fly and will only do so in emergencies.

Catch up again

Okay, I'm back...it has been another busy week. We brought mom up to AL for a visit and the pollen reaked havoc with her breathing, so she was only able to stay one full day and then back to FL to see the doctor. We made it home for Lisa's wedding (had a great time..thanks) on Saturday the 28th, and then on Sunday I ended up taking mom to the hospital. She had not gotten any better so they admitted her. She spent 4 days there. We left on sunday afternoon and delivered in Northern AL on Sunday night and was back in Crystal River at lunch time monday. Tuesday we went down to Tampa and picked up our 5th wheel. Mom came home from
the hospital on Wednesday and we left for AL on friday. We spent the weekend getting setup up there and went back to work on Monday. We love our little home away from home.

Sorry, Sorry, Sorry

I know... it has been two weeks since my last post and I want to apologize to my loyal followers. It has been crazy. When I did have time to post I didn't have a signal, and when I had a signal I didn't have time to post. So here we go...We were thinking about buying a house in AL. We found a great deal. A triple wide, 3000 sq. ft. of living space and it was only $35,000.00, and it was in a great neighborhood. We had made up our minds to buy it, but I just had this nagging feeling that I should just hold off. So we talked about it some more and did some figuring, it was going to cost us about $800.00 a month for house payment, insurance, and utilities and we were only going to be there 5 or 6 nights a month on the average. So at the last moment we decided not to do it. We have decided to buy a camper instead. We can put it on Robert and Susan's land and that way they can keep an eye on it while we are elsewhere. I don't think we will have to worry about cabin fever, because the camper will be big compared to the inside of the truck. We have one picked out and have already put a deposit down on it, we will try and get it to AL in the next couple of weeks. We are either going to have to take a few days off to go down to Tampa and get it, or I will have to drag it to AL by myself while Adolph drives the big truck...yikes, I have towed a pop up before, but the camper we are getting is a 33 ft 5Th wheel. Big difference, either way I am going to make sure we have insurance before we pull it off the lot. I will post some pictures as soon as I can. In the middle of all of this going on, I got sick and had to spend two days in the hospital...not fun....but I am good now and back on the road. Again, I'm sorry for taking so long to post and I will try to do better in the future.

Friday the 13th

I am not a superstitious person by no means, but today was kinda crappy. We didn't have time to stop and get a shower and get breakfast before we had to be at our drop. We got there with 45 minute to spare. We had an appointment time of 12 noon and we got there at 11:15 so we are thinking all is good....well we sat outside the gate until almost 5 and then we sat at the dock until 9:45. Thank God we did have some stuff in the truck to nibble on. I said a little prayer in the afternoon for patience....don't ever do that...the way God teaches you patience is with experience. So pray for comfort or guidance or whatever your need may be, but take my advice and don't ask for patience. You know what they say...becareful what you ask for...you just might get it.

Largest Cross in the western hemisphere

On I-40 at Exit 112 in Groom TX you will find this cross. Sorry I don't have a better picture, my batteries died after I took the first picture. They do have a website that has some pretty amazing pictures, go to http://www.crossministries.net

After seeing the website, I wish we had taken the time to stop and see it.

What a view!!!

By the time we got loaded, it was getting late, we were both tired, we were almost out of hours that he can drive and we really didn't want to go back down that mountain in the dark...so we dicided to stay there for the night. This is the view from our motel room. This is the first time we have stayed in a motel since he started driving for Garrison. It was an amazing site as the sun was going down.This morning was a different story. It was freezing cold, the wind was blowing like crazy and when I opened the door I got hit in the face with snow. I was ready to head south again. I have to say though this is some pretty country up here.

Rio Grande River

On our way to the top we crossed over the "Rio Grande", at least thats what the sign said.

What a beautiful ride

We had to go to the top of a mountain to pick up our load. We went to a town called Monte Vista. It is 90 miles off of I-25 just south of Colorado Springs. When we got there is seen a sign that said the elevation was 7554.

CO Rockies

The things you see out here

I could not believe how big these tires were. The driver seen the flash of my camera, I can only imagine what he was thinking.

Bridge going over Missouri River

This is the bridge in St. Charles that crosses the Missouri River. I am not real fond of bridges, specially at night. This one was not bad, you notice I wasn't looking down...just straight ahead.

St. Louis Arch

We are in Missouri or Misery as the case may be today. There are tornado warnings untill 2 this afternoon. We went through a little rain, but its the wind that is bad. You would think that with a payload of over 40,000 lbs and a truck that weights around 28,000 that you would be fairly planted to the road...not so. The wind catches the side of our trailer and it is "hold on nelly". We have even seen a few motorhomes pulled over under the overpasses trying to get out of the wind. If you would like to see some better pictures or more info on the arch go to www.gatewayarch.com I would like to go to the top someday when we have more time.

Go West Young Man

We are headed to Denver. I have never been in that part of the country, so I am kind of excited. I have been to California and all the states along the bottem of the US, but I haven't been to the midwest yet, another first. I checked the weather report, it says 50's during the day and 20's at night. That will be great, as long as there is not alot of snow. I have seen enough snow for awhile. I hope to be able to get some good pictures while we are out there. Our dispatch says we are going to be bringing potatoes back, and he wants us to bring him 100 lbs. I can't even imagine what he will do with that many spuds, but he has a very large extended family so I'm sure they will not go to waste.

I wanted to say Congrats to Johnny and Liz, they are signing the papers on their new home next week. I can't wait to see it. When I talked to Liz she was so excited she could hardly stand it.

Okay that's all for now, but for my nascar buddies.....GO JEFF

Back to Work

We got to go home for the weekend. It was great to see everyone. That is the one bad thing about this job, but we have a great dispatcher and he gets us home fairly often, so it's not really a bad thing. We had to go to Pensacola last night to the naval base to pick up a load. You go through a gate and then you are in... a town. I had requested directions, because we had never been there. It says to go down this road until you pass through the gate...Adolph kept telling me "there is not going to be a gate in the middle of the road, that can't be right". Well it was right. There is a gate, and once you get on base, its like another town with banks and stores and houses. I guess it you have been on a military base before its no big deal, but I had never seen one, so there's another first for me. We are headed to Norfolk, VA to another navy base, I will be an old hand at this before we are through. It's really cool getting to see all these different places and experience new things. We are truly blessed, and we thank God everyday for this opportunity and for keeping us safe.

Good Bye and Good Riddance

We are finally out of New York. I don't really care for the place personally. Most of the people you meet are kinda mean and everyone is in a hurry. I guess being from the south has a lot to do with the way I feel. I do have to admit that I seen a part of it that I wouldn't have believed was New York if I hadn't seen it for myself. We had to go from Binghamton over to White Plains and we took 17 east. What a pretty ride, there is a winding river on one side of the road and mountains on the other side. There were all these little cabins sitting along the river, covered in snow, alot of the water was froze. I wish I could have gotten some pictures, but it was already getting dark and my camera will not take a good picture thru the windshield at that time of day.

We are on our way to South Carolina, and when I spoke with Robert today he said he would get us home for the weekend.

Snow, Snow and more dang Snow

I have seen enough snow for awhile. It's great if you are watching it through a window sitting in front of a fireplace, but what we went through last night was as far from fun as you can get. The roads were icy and it was hard to see, I didn't know that you are not suppose to watch the snow coming at you, that you should watch the road right in front of you. I didn't know that it would make you nauseous. On top of everything else the directions that we had were wrong, so we had to find a place to exit and then get back on the highway, well in New York that is easier said then done in a big truck, we ended up rubbing the guard rail with the tires on the trailer, we didn't have any damage but it sure made a awful noise and we were both pretty tense anyway. It took us almost 4 hours to go 80 miles, but we could only go about 25 to 30 mph. So we are ready to head south for some warm weather and sunshine, they can have all this snow.

New Red Truck

This is the new truck, as you can see it already has snow on it, more about that later...all I can say is I don't really like New York.

Snow

We hit snow in TN, but since then, not much. Adolph said he heard someone on the CB that said that Syracuse NY got 2 foot last night, that is about 10 miles from where we are headed. Hopefully it will all be melted by the time we get there tonight or in the morning.