Kentucky here we come!

Haven't posted anything for the past few days as there was nothing to post about since we were stuck in Virginia.  I guess it would have been exciting to tell you we sat in the truck, did the laundry, and ate some more crappy food but I'll save you that! :) 

We were excited that today was Monday and hoping to get on the road this morning, so we went and showered and called in to see what they had going for us today.  We call the first time and it goes straight to voice mail and we left a message.  We keep watching the QUALCOMM for a message to where we were going, and nothing.  We call in again and he said they still had nothing for us.  To say the least we were fuming!  I mean steaming mad and could hardly contain it any longer.  I think that sitting here since Thursday has pushed us to our limits of patience.  They finally said we may have something for you but it is 300 miles away from where we are now.  Who cares!  Give us the load!!!  About half an hour later we get the message to head to Kentucky.  Gladly.  It was a great release to be out and doing something instead of sitting.  We arrive at our destination for a load pickup and they shut down half an hour earlier and we have to come back in the morning for pick up so we are off to find another truck stop to sit the night.  It is a let down but at least we know we have something to do in the morning. 

On a positive note, Josh really cares for my bum.  He has provided the ultimate pampering for it as he bought me a camper toilet that really flushes, no longer will I have to sit on a 5 gallon bucket with a trash bag in it to potty!  Then today he buys me a cushion for my seat so it will be a more comfortable ride.  If that isn't true love I don't know what is.  He always makes sure to take care of me even when he doesn't want to, like going with me to do laundry yesterday, he really didn't want to come with but he did for me.  Isn't he sweet?!   I did try to get him to do a photo shoot with me yesterday as I was desperate for something to do but he did refuse that.  Bummer.  With all the brownie points he has earned lately I guess I will let that one slide, for now.

There is a fine line between having fun and being stupid sometimes.  Today we saw a man riding in the back of a pickup truck on the interstate.  He was moving all over that thing, bobbing his head and waving his arms.  I am thinking that he was so annoying that the other people made him ride back there.  As we drove by I took his pic which he noticed what I was doing and posed for me.  Yep he is one of them good ole boys.

Making the best of Virginia

The last post indicated that we were in Virginia waiting for our next load assignment and two days later we are still waiting. Yep still in Virginia. We were told to call in at 9a.m. yesterday to see what they have for us and they still had nothing. We called in again around noon and still nothing. We decided we are not going to sit in the truck all day and stare at the back of a truck stop. Thank goodness for the internet. We were scouting out where there were going to be fireworks and we found out that the town we are in Lexington was having a display and plus they put on a HotAir Balloon festival!!! As most of you know Josh and I have tried on two different occassions to ride a hotair balloon but both times were cancelled due to weather. I was so excited to see this plus it was to have other fun things to do there.

We call a taxi and find out it is going to cost us $15 for a ride to the festival grounds. Josh says lets go for it, you only live once. Taxi comes directly to our truck and off we go. We ask him tons of questions, things to do in town, how good is the fireworks display, and points of interest. We told him we were not the type of people that like to go shopping and so he was having trouble coming up with much but we got a few tips. We arrive at the festival grounds which is on the VMI (Virginia Military Institute) grounds and immediately we were quite impressed with the buildings and how extremely well kept the grounds were. We look at the different vendors that are set up there and the food booths. They also have bouncy houses set up. We keep walking down the road and realize that is all they have. We had missed the balloon rides for that morning but they were going to set up again in the evening. So back to the internet we go and called a few places trying to see if they were within walking distance. I stop a guy and ask how far was it to the horse drawn carriage rides and he said about a mile, and proceeded to give us directions and even offered us a ride as he was headiing that direction anyway. We declined the ride but decided to go ahead and walk there as there wasn't much else to do.

We walk toward town and we are in the historic part of town and there are lots of old buildings and we get into town and and the streets are lined with quaint businesses lined up next to each other. We walk to where the guy gave us directions to and it isn't there. We look it up and he gave us the wrong directions. By the way we are trying to use Josh's phone sparingly as he didn't charge it up before we left and I left my phone in the truck thinking it would be one less thing to carry and we still need enough battery to call the taxi back when we are done. So we back track about 4 blocks and we find the horse drawn carriage tours and sign up for it. Luckily we had a short wait of 15 minutes and off we go. We were pulled by two horses named Jake and Jenny and I was allowed to pet them but they didn't seem like they wanted me to touch them. Josh took my pic with them and even though I hate the pic of me I will still post it. (I hate seeing how ugly I am in pics, I prefer my fantasy world where I look much better). I felt sorry for Jenny as she was the one that pulled most of the weight as Jake stayed behind letting her do the work. Our tour guide told us about the history of the town and pointed out some of the places to visit when the tour was done. I didn't get too many pics of the places we saw as we were crammed into the carriage with other people and the shots would of been mostly filled with the other people.

We make it back to where we started the tour and we head to the Visitor Center hoping they had a bathroom. It didn't have a whole lot of items to look at but we did use the bathrooms and headed on down the street. We then stop in at the Stonewall Jackson house where they give tours and I love looking at older homes and their history but this one was lack luster and was only allowed to see four of the rooms and they were very sparce in items. The tour guide was very "different" and made what was a boring tour even worse. After leaving there we decide to head back toward the VMI as it was getting closer to time for the hotair balloon rides and I wanted to see them set up. As we are walking we are looking for any place where we might be able to find a phone charger as Josh's phone is in the red. No luck on that and so we decided to call the taxi now and see if we can make an appointment time for him to pick us up. We decided on 10:30 as the fireworks start at 9:30 and figured that would give us plenty of time and yes they would pick us up then.

We arrive at VMI and by now I am searching for a place to sit down in the shade. I have realized that all this sitting in the truck is making my legs weak already. Plus it doesn't help that there is no flat ground in this town it is all hills and I know that my legs were screaming at times when we were going up hill. I also only brought my sandals with me and would have been a little better off if I had worn more appropriate shoes. I also realize by this point that I am sunburned. We find some steps to sit on and have a pretty good view of where the balloons will be set up and we are shaded. I have to admit that the weather was wonderful this whole time, it got a little warm but nothing unbearable and by evening there was a cool breeze that was wonderful.

They start setting up the balloons and got some great pictures of that but by the time they got it totally blown up the wind was strong enough that they were having trouble controling it and kept pushing in the sides, so no longer did they have it up they took it back down again. The wind never did stop and so there weren't going to be any balloon rides. I told Josh that we must of jinxed them as every time we try to ride one the weather doesn't cooperate.

Now we are getting hungry. Earlier in the day I decided to I wanted a gyro as I LOVE them and one of the vendors had them. It was nasty. I was nothing like what I was wanting or used to but I ate it anyway. So now for supper I told him I wanted the chicken on a stick that one of the chinese vendors had.. surely they couldn't mess that up. It wasn't bad but it wasn't great either but at least edible. Josh also got me a funnel cake too and we shared that. After eating and all the walking I was so ready for a nap as there wasn't anything else to do but wait for the fireworks. Once they started we walked closer to them and sat in the grass (luckily no chigger bites today). I tried taking some pics but most of them didn't turn out too well. The fireworks reminded us a lot of the ones back at home, very sparse in the beginning then with a big finale. It took of all of 15 minutes. We still had to wait for 45 minutes for the taxi. He arrived a little earlier and we headed back to the truck. We were tired and went directly to bed.

We get up this morning and call in and got voice mail and they haven't called us with anything yet so we may be stuck here until Monday. I see a lot of napping and movie watching in the future as I am still tired, just walking up to the truck stop to use the bathroom is tiring. All I can say is that we better get a lot of detention pay for all this sitting. 

This is only one of the many buildings they have at the VMI

Just want to add on how awesome my husband is for doing all of this.  He had no interest in any of these things and he did it all because he knew I would enjoy it.  He has earned some mega brownie points with this gal! 
　

Welcome to....

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some pics of the welcome signs from different states.  Enjoy!

 

Here is a cute video that I found on youtube I thought was appropriate for my Welcome to page.

Way to go little guy!

Virginia is the place to be

It took to long for the mechanic to look at our truck so someone else was to take our load to Granite City. We now have a load that is to deliver to Virginia. By the way the truck still isn't fixed, one problem we had they just marked it up to a glitch and the air conditioning unit they fiddled with it and said it should work but of course it doesn't we had another night of waking up sweating and had to reset it to make it turn on again. I guess that is better than not having it at all.

We made it to Virginia and so now I can mark off two states that I have been in that I hadn't been in before, Virginia and West Virginia. I started taking pictures of the different state welcome signs as we enter each state and I know I have missed a few from earlier travels but I am sure I will get a chance to get those later.

To get to Virigina we got to cross the Applachian Mountains this time. At first I wasn't impressed but the further we got into them I was just as impressed as I was with the Smokey Mountains. I am snapping pictures right and left of the mountains and thinking "these are cool" but then "BAM" I see a stream with beautifully clear water running over rocks, trickling and making small whirlpools and I start to cry again. I guess I have it down now that it is the combination of the mountains and the streams that get to me. Josh and I discussed about moving to a place like this and I wonder if they would become common and wouldn't be as exciting if we see them daily, maybe, maybe not, but I told him we could definetly go camping there. He looks at these streams and wants to go fly fishing but I just want to walk around barefoot and enjoy the beauty of it all.

We have unloaded our trailer at our destination but now we are waiting for our next load assignment and we have been sitting in their parking lot for about 4 hours now and still not sure where we are going next. I am kind of anxious to know as I want to see fireworks somewhere new this year and hoping they are going to be good ones. I have never missed seeing fireworks each years for as long as I can remember and I don't want to start now. I am hoping to get some great shots of the fireworks as I haven't used the night shots part of my camera yet.

As we are sitting in the parking lot we heard some birds singing in between the rain that has come and gone and it reminded me of those plastic whistles that looked like birds and you put water in them and blow and it kind of sounded like a warbler. I know my grandma had those and as a kid I thought they were just wonderful. I haven't seen those around in a long time, you would think Dollar Stores would carry them as they are just cheap plastic but oh so much fun. I guess kids now days have all these electronic devices to make the bird chirpping noises for them. I think simpler is better.

I want to give a shout out to one of my faithful readers Michelle, her birthday is today but I won't tell how young she is as she has so much more energy than I do even though we are the same age. Kudos to all you do Michelle! Keep up the good work you do and hope you have a great birthday!

This pic is from Ohio, I just thought it was cool how they incorporated the city name into the over pass.

Sorry about all of the bug smears but here in the mountains they are plentiful.  I don't know how well you can see but along this highway for many many miles there were little american flags very neatly down the road.  I am assuming for the 4th of July but there was so many of them I am sure they wiped the stores out of them.

One view of the Appalachian Mountains.  Trust me I have tons more! but I will spare you more pics of mountains.
 

Tired and a bit frustrated

I am sorry for not reporting our happenings yesterday as Josh and I were very tired, and getting grumpy and we were so ready for bed that we weren't even thinking straight. So now our story begins.

As you know we had to leave out at midnight to be able to get to Chicago on time. I know Josh didn't sleep very well in the time we had but he got up on time and headed that way. I was up for awhile but have to admit that I went back to sleep shortly and got a few more hours of sleep in. We make it there in plenty of time, even a half an hour early to our relief. We get there and it was a difficult place to decide where we are supposed to be entering but Josh goes inside and says we are signed in and the first of the list to unload. That would be all fine and dandy but they put us on the wrong list and we notice all these other drivers going in the other entrance. Josh goes in and asks what is going on and lo and behold we are the wrong list and now we are third in line, but that isn't the worst news. The plant had a power outage from the storm the night before and they are running behind getting their own trucks loaded so that they could start unloading the incoming trucks. Josh quickly was using this time to talk with other truck drivers. He almost seemed relieved to have someone else to talk to besides me. Big men talking about their big trucks, it was cute. After sitting there for quite a bit and seeing all these other trucks trying to find a place to park as the their little lot was filling up quite quickly Josh and I did manage something like a nap. It is like having a baby and waiting for any little noise indicating that is our turn to unload. We waited for 6 hours. Josh decided that since we were so close to being off duty for 8 hours and that would reset his clock we waited another two hours. It didn't reset and Josh was frantic as now we only had an hour of drive time and we already had our next load assignment we needed to get to. He called up the company and found out that we had put him off duty and it should have been sleeper berth to be able to reset the clock so they were able to do that for us and we were on the road again.

The grimlins were at work again on the truck. The indicator light for the hazard lights was flashing like crazy and no matter what we did it wouldn't turn off but also the hazard lights themselves wouldn't work and wouldn't come on. We started up the truck and then the check engine light was on, perfect. The bunk air conditioning just works when it wants to and last night it wasn't wanting to, perfect. I know these are little things but it does seem to upset you when are needing a good night sleep.

After our clock reset we were off to Hammond, Indiana to pick up some steel coils. Once again our GPS went crazy. We at least got to the town and we had directions from the company on how to navigate through town and thankful for that. It was an extremely small compact area we had to snake our way around in and got to the dock and loaded right away. We leave there and I know Josh is tired and not thinking straight and we miss our ramp for the interstate. I have to navigate our way through many little towns to be able to get back on the interstate. It wasn't difficult to do except for the fact that there are stop lights at almost every block, and lot of the stop lights were not working due to the storm that passed through. We also saw a lot of tree damage along the way so they must have got hit hard. Josh was having trouble understanding which road I was wanting to take, as he is the human map, if he has been there before he remembers it quite well, but this was new territory he was trying to picture this all in his head as we are going down the road.

We did have a pretty good scare as we were driving through these towns. As you know there are these places that sell fireworks that just seem to pop up all over the place this time of year and these towns were no exception. As we were passing one we heard a very loud bang and we both jumped. My first thought is we blew a tire, Josh thought something had hit the trailer, thankfully it was neither as we realized they must of set off one of the fireworks as were going by. I can do without that kind of excitement.

We get to the nearest truck stop that has scales to weigh the load as we know we are close on max weight and Josh had adjusted the tandems before we left out and wouldn't you know it he was spot on again! It was the perfect weigh, it is just one of his many talents. We pass two weigh stations on the interstate and wouldn't you know that both of them were closed but Josh always wants to scale the load than risking a ticket at the weigh stations and I don't blame him. We made it to Decatur, IL last night and got to park in the McLeod terminal as we are having the truck looked at this morning to see if we can work out some of the grimlins out of the truck. We were both getting kind of snappy with each other and suddenly that truck seems even smaller when you aren't happy. I knew this day would come but I am learning not to say everything that I am thinking especially if it doesn't help or if it is about something that can't be changed. Josh decided that we needed to get out and have a real meal and we decided on Texas Roadhouse and was wondering if they allow trucks to park there (without the trailer of course). We then found out that McLeod has a company car on site and we could use that to go out to eat! How great was that! We more than ate our fill and came back to the yard around 9 p.m., got in the truck and went directly into the sleeper. It would of been better sleep if the a/c would have worked but hopefully we are going to get that fixed today and not have to worry about that for awhile.

This morning I decided to wash my hair in the wash basin that I brought and that was fun! (total sarcasm there) The water of course was cold and I manage to get water everywhere on the floor but I told Josh it is duel purpose, I get my hair clean and the floor mopped at the same time! Win Win! The smallest things that you want to do in a truck is such a struggle and I think it is wearing on me already. I am looking forward to time at home. I also had a headache last night and you have to realize that no matter what you are doing there is a constant stream of noise ALL THE TIME. I am currently in the drivers lounge while the truck is getting looked at and even though it isn't completely quiet I am enjoying the quiet office noises.

We have to be in Granite City by noon so here is hoping they have the truck done in time to make our stop. I took no pictures this time as things were hectic, maybe today I will get some to post.

St. Louis = Lost

Early this morning we headed out to our stop of Granite City finally. We made it there on time but of course we had to wait for them to unload and that took about 3 hours. Josh said that he is running out of hours so for the rest of time until we get our days off we are going to be doing short runs so that means nothing exciting to see that I haven't already seen. Its a bummer but happy we started out with a bang. It is also ironic that the stop in Granite City was a Prairie Farms, Josh just left Peavler trucking and all they did was deliver to Prairie Farms, it seemed all too familiar except he had never been to this place before and it was quite interesting to find as it was tucked away in this swarming mess of steel manufactures and train railways, very industial part of town.

We then get our next load assignment, going to Anheiser Busch in St. Louis. I DO NOT like driving in St. Louis at all, I have had some harrowing times there and I hate the traffic and all of the on ramps, off ramps, and crazy drivers. We used to go there quite often for Alex when he had doctor appointments at the Childrens Hospital. I knew one way on how to get there and if for any reason I got off track I was lost. This was of course before the days of GPS and the like but I have to say that our GPS today was no friend. We passed the St. Louis Arch and while we are on area of road that seems to be way up in the sky with no off ramps it says "turn left here" ..um.. no thanks I don't have a death wish. Obviously the GPS was no help in finding our way and once we got so far there really wasn't a good place to try and turn around, trucks aren't allowed on quite a few of the streets and so began the furious map reading and planning on how to get where we need to go. We ended up going almost all the way around St. Louis before we got back on track. I have proved my worth of map reading and direction giving, what would he do without me! Even with my handy dandy directions we were still a little lost towards the end on where we were supposed to enter and eventually with dumb luck we find it and had to wait forever to get inside. We find out that we are on a drop and hook load which Josh prefers but the truck has been acting a little funny lately. First off the truck will only idle for so long before it turns itself off and as we are waiting in line to get into the brewery it turns off, and didn't want to start again! ARRRGGGG!!! What is going on? Eventually after many many tries it finally starts up and off we go, or at least we think. Josh finds where we are supposed to park the empty trailer and the pin won't release, he is getting hot from the sun and hot under the collar but eventually too that finally gives. We pick up our load and thankful they have scales on site so we don't have to weigh it at a station and have to pay $10 to make sure we are evenly distributed. Now we are trying to find a approved gas station to get gas and try to get the heck out of dodge. Thanks to me the wondergirl trucker sidekick I found us a place and get there with no problem, again so we think....

Josh was thinking that the town we are supposed to take this load to is by Decatur and when he is setting it up in the GPS so it will be ready to go when we leave it says it is by Chicago.. Hmm.... we were getting conflicting information from our phone GPS and the truck GPS, we finally get directions on how to get to the stop and that helped us figure out that it is indeed a suburb of Chicago. This means that we are basically out of hours for the day and we have to wait til midnight to get more hours back to drive but we have to be in Chicago by 7 a.m., it is going to be a push to get there on time but Josh says he is confident we can do it. At least we are gassed up and ready to go but here is it around 5 p.m. and he has to sleep to be able to get up at midnight. I just can't do it so I am here in the dark of the truck writing my blog trying to keep the clacking of the keys down.

One other little side note: I did go out to my garden last night and look for the zucchini that both my boys said disappeared, that someone or something had taken them because they weren't there. I do believe that zucchini is the master of camoflage and they have ninja moves so they can't be seen by boys. They are calmer when a woman is near and they practically jump out at you as they want to be caressed and pick up. Yep 5 huge zucchini jumped in my arms and I lovingly showed them to the boys. Alex plans to cut up and fry at least one of them, and once again I am missing home but at least someone is enjoying the fruits of my labor. 

　

Home is Beautiful

Our load doesn't have to be in Granite City until tomorrow at 10 a.m. so that means we had time to stop by the house for the night.  Home sweet Home!!!  I know I have only been gone from home for a week now but it was great to be back even for just one night.  I immediately started cleaning since my boys really didn't do anything while we were gone and usually I would be upset but it was great to stretch my legs and be busy.  Josh did a load of laundry that we had and I made spaghetti for us to eat and while cooking I emptied and loaded the dish washer.  I will never complain again about how small my kitchen is as it seems like paradise now. 

My wonderful mom came to visit us while we were here and was excited to show her all the pictures I took so far on our trip.  After looking at all the pictures I realized that I took 258 pictures and almost all of them were of mountains!  I really loved trying to get some amazing pictures to show how awesome they were and I guess I really got carried away.  Ethan was teasing saying it must of been like Josh was the tour guide and I was the tourist taking all the pics.  I forgot my manual on the ins and outs of what my camera is capable of as it has so many options it makes my head spin.  I am really wanting to learn how to take great pictures and see what I am capable of. 

I was feeling a bit restless still and was wanting to do some more cooking but was having trouble coming up with much with what was available in the house but of course I managed to find something, a cherry pie, my favorite.  We are waiting for it to cool yet and I'm getting a little impatient.  I do love to cook and that is something that I know I am going to miss more and more as we spend more time out on the road. 

I have a small pet peeve too when it comes to cooking and that is using disposable items.  I can't tell you the last time I bought paper plates or even paper towels.  I really was trying to cut down on our spending and cut down on what we put in our trash and right now in the truck it is easier to use these items than not but I am hoping to change that.  I am bringing a wash basin with me on this trip and it will have dual uses, wash dishes in and wash my hair/body in.  When it comes to daily use items that we spent a lot of money that didn't need to be I was more than ready to cut those expenses out.  One step I took is making our own laundry soap and I love it!  It is fraction of the cost and does a great job that I don't even miss using store bought soap.  I mentioned to my family about using cloth instead of toilet paper and then of course washing them and reusing them as I hate buying expensive toilet paper.  That idea didn't fly with anyone in the house and Josh's mom heard about this and had a huge laugh and bought Josh toilet paper for his birthday and told him that was just for him.  Needless to say that idea never came to fruition.  Oh well. 

That brings me to another point.  There is nothing better than pooping at home!  I know that is too much information but I have learned something important, riding in a truck seems to have a constipation effect.  That wouldn't be too bad but if we are going to be out for two weeks at a time I may explode before I get home.  Literally.  I guess all that vibrating is not good on your body but when I got home and relaxed it was finally time for some relief!  Did I mention I was happy to be home?

I will be getting a shower, at home, get some sleep, at home, and watch a bit of tv, at home and going to enjoy it while it lasts.  We will be up early and back on the road.  Since I took so many pics of the mountains here are a few more for you to enjoy.