Life from a truck window: PA Fun

A crazy day in PA! We started the day south of Pittsburg and headed to our destination of Bethlehem, PA which is almost to the New Jersey state line. The roads in PA are crazy! Never in my life had I seen stop signs for on ramps to interstates. There were places where there were no merge on ramps, you had to yield or stop before getting onto the interstate. Also with all of the hills and mountains a lot of the interstate is 55mph. We got really slowed down as there was a oversized load ahead that had a police escort and took up the whole interstate. Luckily they found a place to pull over for awhile and we were able to pass them and go on.

We got close to Hershey, PA and was hoping they would be passing out free chocolate on the interstate, and about as soon as I said that we saw a man walking down the interstate and told Josh to stop he must be the one handing out chocolate! LOL! Even if this man did have chocolate I wouldn't want it from him, he was a bit rough looking.

On one section of road where they were doing construction (which is everywhere no matter where you go there is some kind of construction going on in every state) we were quite high in the mountains and they had the white line for the edge of the lane was under the guard rail and past the guard rail was a huge drop off. I told Josh I didn't like this part at all! Made me very nervous and was glad when we got through that.

There are plenty of mountains and beautiful landscapes here too but what I love the most is seeing all of the farms that are scattered around. A lot of the homes had stone bases and a lot of barns were made completely of stone and they were the big beautiful house and it seemed like all of them were two stories tall. I can't imagine being a farmer in this kind of area with all the hills, we don't know how lucky we are in Illinois to have a flat area to farm on. I told Josh the only kind of farm I would have out here is a goat farm, at least they are great climbers.

We make it to our stop and was told that we were too early, it was 1 p.m. here and they wouldn't take us til 7p.m. We have to leave the yard and find a place to park and sit til it is time to come back. The closest place we could find was in New Jersey. We were hoping it would be an approved gas station (we have a list of gas stations that the company approves of and only there can we get gas) but there are no stations in New Jersey or New York on the list so I guess we weren't supposed to be there. By the way we were only about a 100 miles away from New York City. We had time to go there but I don't think the company would have approved of all the extra miles. Josh has me look up Walmart nearest us and we are hoping to park there and be close to where we need to drop off our load. I look up on the Walmart website and find out there is one only 3 miles away and we snake our way through town in search of it. It is no where to be found when we get to the address, it is all residential. I know we were getting a few looks from people wondering what we were doing in that part of town. We then decide to get out of town and the crazy roads and get on a main road and head to the truck stop in New Jersey. We park at the TA (Travel Centers of America gas station) and go inside to eat lunch and the food was actually decent even though it was a buffet. After eating we lay down in the bunk and take a nap. When we get up it is raining and the truck stop is filling up with truckers fast and they are parking in place that they aren't supposed to, meaning we are stuck because there is a truck in our way and have no way of getting out without him moving. Josh tries to get out and ends up hitting a mirror on the truck next to us and we realize no matter what we try we are stuck. I told Josh give me the name of the trucking company that is blocking us and I call the TA truck stop and have them page the owner of the truck to move. He finally comes and out and he is happy we are leaving as he wants our space but so do 4 other trucks that were watching what was going on. I don't know who ended up with our parking space but we finally get out of there.

We had a bit of trouble coming back to the town and ended up going through the tight parts of town again to get where we needed to go but we get there and once we get to this warehouse there is a line of trucks waiting to get in. I guess it didn't matter that we were a little late as we still would have waited. We are currently sitting at the dock waiting to get unloaded and it is 9p.m. and Josh is completely out of hours and the warehouse does not allow overnight parking so now we get to drive illegally to try and find a place to park for the night. Our next load is in Carlisle, PA and we are dropping off in Ohio. We are getting closer to home but not close enough for me. It just seems like everything that you do in a truck is 10x harder than it should be, and it wears on a person after a bit. I know Josh is very tired and losing patience and can't wait to get home. I am handlling the situations ok but I am wondering if this isn't such a good idea for him. Time will tell but I am hoping some of the frustrations will lessen.

Morning update: We had time to go in to take a shower and it was a diabolical shower. I had the temp set where it was nice and warm and then it would make this pulsing sound and it would shoot out HOT HOT HOT water. Josh was laughing at me because I was in there dodging the water every time I heard the noise. Sometimes it would do it without warning, so I do believe that I am boiled clean today! You just never know what you are going to get into in these places.