Michigan is a bit nippy this time of year.  86 degrees and sunny in Laredo so I am whining for a load South.  January has pretty much sucked for miles.  We are doing fine but doing about half the miles we want.  January and February are the slow time of the year for trucking so pretty used to this but we really would like to be doing better.  Mostly running all solo loads, 400 to 600 miles and pretty much one load a day.  We deliver and then sit until the next day.  Having a blast with my wife but we would rather make money and have a blast on a beach somewhere.

Christmas was great.  We spent about two weeks at home.  We flew Anne’s son Tyler into Colorado and had lots of great family time.   We got home and went right out and got our Christmas tree.  It was so nice to get to decorate a tree.  We had a huge pile of Amazon boxes waiting for us that needed to be wrapped.  We basically do all of our gift shopping on Amazon since we have Amazon Prime membership and it includes two day free shipping.  We spent a lot of time with the three kids that were in town.  Christmas Eve dinner is always my Baby Back Ribs and Rosemary Garlic Rolls.  I can confidently say you have never had better ribs than mine.  While home we also took Tyler up to the New Belgium Brewery, home of Fat Tire beer, for their tour which includes an insane amount of free beer. We also headed out East to the Grasslands to go shooting.  It was a blast.

As I said, mostly shorter runs.  We also had a load from Detroit to Chicago that was a bit of a nightmare.  They sent us to this place with no loading dock, in the snow and ice and no way to get around the building.  I tried anyway and got stuck.  After about 90 minutes one of the employees used his Expedition to help pull us out.  It was not his first time doing this.  I finally backed around to the side of the building and they brought out this machine that weighed about 10,000 pounds and was on swivel wheels.  I talked them into breaking it down into two parts and strapped the rolling part down hard.  This should have been a flatbed load and I was very nervous the dang thing was going to break loose and come through the side of the trailer.  We made it however.

One of the things we are trying to do is lower our fuel consumption.  This truck has seven batteries and an isolated starting module so we can start the truck even if all the batteries are completely dead.  So we went out two days ago and bought a small ceramic heater.  We parked last night at about midnight, shut off the truck and turned to little heater on low.  Woke up this morning at 6:30 and we slept great.  Six and a half hour of not idling the truck.  Pretty sweet.  A truck uses just under a gallon an hour idling so assuming we save $3 a hour that just saved 19 dollars.  We paid $15 for the heater so every night after last night is free.

We are currently sitting in a Walmart parking lot in Livonia Michigan.  Anne is going to get her nails done and, if we are still here, we will probably head over to Chili’s tonight to watch Russell Wilson in the Pro Bowl.

Our new truck. Green is nice

My Ribs and the rolls

Shelby shooting the 9mm

Tyler Shooting the 9mm

Tyler shooting the AR15

Anne with her Margarita

This REALLY should have been a flatbed load.

I do not think they want us to leave the dock yet

Watching TV from the front swivel seat. Awesome

New Swivel Passenger seat. Makes the front into the living room

Lil Bit does NOT want to go outside in Michigan.

One of many samples at New Belgium

“Can”-dalier at New Belgium Brewing Company