Thursday, April 15, 2010

The South and Beyond

So we finally arrive in Dalton, GA on a Thursday morning, not on a Friday in the wee hours of the morning. We actually have an entire day until our load is ready at midnight. The truck is clean, dishes are done....didn't get to the laundry yet, but let me tell you
how nice it is to have this truck stopped for a period of time and able to get re-organized and functioning like normal human beings again! The pic on the left is in-between Dalton and Atlanta. I actually got to see Wisteria for the first time blooming, not a silk flower, but real Wisteria. They are really pretty and smell very sweet. We have our driving shifts down now. I usually drive from noon - midnight and Jeff drives from midnight to noon. It works really well, sometimes I end up getting more drive time for the week, but sometimes Jeff ends up getting more drive time...it is just the luck of the draw!

So...we had our first mishap. We fueled in Las Vegas and were planning on spending the night at the truck stop, but there weren't any spaces available. So we decided to keep going into Southern California. Before we crossed the state border we found a rest stop 12 miles this side of the border. Pulled in and it was a HUGE dirt lot...perfect! I pulled in and purposely pulled all the way to the other side of the lot where nobody was parked. We pulled in and parked for the evening. In the morning we both woke up and were still laying in our bunks and I asked Jeff if he wanted me to make some coffee and he said he just wanted to lay there and wake up for a bit. I said that sounded good...as soon as I said that we heard and felt a huge bang. Jeff looked out the driver window and a truck had rolled right into the back of our trailer, however, there wasn't a driver in the truck that hit us. Jeff saw a driver running across the lot after his truck to get it to stop, but not in time. He forgot to set his parking brake and the truck rolled right into us. Needless to say, after 4 hours of highway patrol, safety officers from the other drivers company, we finally got on our way to drop our load in Souther CA. The trailer wasn't messed up enough to be pulled out of service, but as you can see from the pic above, his truck was jacked up. I believe he was fired from his job as well for having not set the parking break...bummer. Nice guy, but just made a big mistake. Makes you think how quick things can change.

Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia are just striking in the spring. The fields are starting to be plowed, so now we can see what all of these farmers are growing. Can't wait to get fresh produce directly off of people's farms, not to mention the refreshing drive of not hitting snow or ice on the road. These pics are from Modesto, CA where I have been waiting for this strawberry patch for at least 2 months now. Finally we pull in the terminal across the street and they are ripe and ready to purchase. I paid $5 for the juicy balls of deliciousness that you see above.....YUMMY!

We have met so many people that we would have never had the chance to meet in our previous jobs. People that just want to sit and talk about life and their experiences. Jeff is in hog heaven...cause we all know he can talk to anyone, about anything, for any amount of time! There are some really nice people in this world and it has been an awesome experience to meet so many of them. There are still jerks that exist, but you learn very quickly who to talk to and who to just keep on walking and not have anything to do with.

We have now added MI to our list of states we haven't been to yet. Hoping we can get into Florida at some point, but haven't had the opportunity yet.

We did get the chance to go the biggest truck stop in the world in Iowa. It is on I-80 on the Iowa/Illinois border. It has 23 showers and 600 parking spaces. A movie theatre, 3 restaurants and had 3 semi trucks within the building displayed. It was crazy...but pretty cool!

Here is a great example of how the weather can change in just a few hours of going down the road. These three photos are in Utah within a 3 hour period...crazy! The middle photo is an actual salt blizzard off of The Lake.

As I said before, we are planning on having a BBQ this summer, probably in July or early August where we would love to have everybody come over and see our new remodel of the house and our beautiful backyard, as well as catch up on our new career. I will let everyone know when we are thinking ahead of time, so we can see everyone and catch up on what everybody else is doing. Until then, hope spring happens soon!

Friday, April 2, 2010

What a Difference a Day Makes!


So we finally get time to come home and we get a 60 degree day and then we get a blizzard...nothing has changed! It was nice to be home, but we didn't take any time to see many people. We mostly slept, loved our dogs and enjoyed our family. Next home time visit, this summer sometime, we will have a BBQ at the house, and have everyone over and share our stories and see all of our friends and catch up.

We have been in pretty much every state so far. Weleave for Michigan this evening, so we can add that one to the list.

I don't have time to go into detail right now, but I will share these photos with you and hope you enjoy them. Thanks for visiting our site and I will try to be better about updating...really, I promise!

Finally got to drive in Colorado over the I-70. It was beautiful and nice to see the pass from up high in the truck.