So, before Anne threw herself from the truck (there is a nasty rumor she was pushed) there we were, happily running on I-80 across Ohio very early in the morning when the truck computer dings with a message. “We need you to repower a load going to Canada” next message was “other team will meet you in Toledo”. Usually when we have a repower, they ask us if we can do it, not this time. this sounds like an order. They told us the load was currently at our terminal in Springfield Ohio and there was a problem with the trailer. So we shut down on the Turnpike at an Oasis about 50 miles from Toledo and went to sleep waiting to be contacted. Six hour later still no word so I sent a message and they told us to drive to Springfield and get the load. Got there in about three hours, dropped our load and got the new one heading to Montreal Quebec. We drove up to Detroit to the border crossing and found out we were pre-cleared (Yea Someone) and drove through the night through Toronto to Montreal.  Our regular Fleet Manager came in from her weekend and called to ask us why we did not refuse the Canada load, we told her they did not ask us, they ordered us.  I am sure somebody heard about that.  Got to delivery 30 minutes before scheduled time. The thing that drives me crazy about Canada is that every Province in the Country must list all of their road signs and all packaging in both English and French due to Quebec being a French-speaking Province. HOWEVER, when you get to Quebec, they ONLY list everything in French with no english. A pathetic cave in to the French Separatists. My high school French pretty much just allows me to get into trouble where I can then use one of the few complete sentences I can utter in French. “Je parle en peu francais” (I only speak a little French) It was gorgeous weather in Canada with the temp at 76 degrees in Montreal in mid-March. We got a preassign from New Hampshire to Pennsylvania so we dropped down into one of the only two States we had not driven in yet…Vermont! All we have left is Maine of the lower 48.  We also want to drive to Alaska at least once.  What a beautiful drive and we had all day to goof off as our pick up was early the next morning. We tried to stop in Williston VT as it was one of the prettiest towns I have ever seen but could find nowhere to park the truck. We will get back there in a car. We stopped in Montpelier at a little truck stop with an Applebees next door so since we were shut down for the day we had a couple of drinks with lunch and spent a very nice and relaxing day watching TV and reading. Picked up in New Hampshire and dropped in PA (Where Anne fell out of the truck) then back to New Jersey to pick up a load to Los Angeles. Other than a LOT of complaining by my very sore wife, the run across country was uneventful. Got to LA a couple of days early so we dropped our load at the Colton Terminal and spent a few hours the next morning (after our amazing breakfast at the Rodeo Cafe in Mira Loma) searching for an empty Reefer (refrigerated) trailer. Finally found one at a FedEx and headed out to Oxnard to pick up a load of Strawberries headed to Maryland. We had to wait for six hours to load as they pick the strawberries that day and then have to chill them to between 33 and 35 degrees before they can load them on our trailer. We are now heading West just East of Albuquerque New Mexico. Weather is perfect and life is good. Anne is also starting to feel better.

I also wanted to say that before we headed to Canada we ran into Jon and Jade, a great young couple who have been following this blog for a while and joined USX in part due to our experiences. Jon upgraded first and drove Solo for three weeks as it takes longer for women to get a trainer. They have been running together for a few weeks and I saw a post on Facebook that they were at the Iowa 80 Truckstop (worlds largest) we were a couple hours away in Des Moines heading their way so I sent Jon a text. I took a nap and woke up when we stopped to meet them. We really love meeting the people we have been talking to for a while. Just a really nice surprise. I am posting a picture of them below with their dog Lucy.

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