Anne & Craigs Great Adventure

Chipmunk 1

Chipmunk 2

What she usually looks like.

One of the perks of this job is seeing family and friends all over this country. One of the downsides is not seeing your children everyday or week or in some instances every month. This week has been a rough one. My daughter had her wisdom teeth pulled and I wasn’t able to be with her. Now I asked her if she wanted me to come home and she of course said no, she’d be fine. Her boyfriend Scott was going to take care of her and Scott’s mom (Shawn)  would be helping too. So what did I do. I listened to my daughter. LOL What was I thinking. I knew I would regret not being there but people keep telling me I have to let go. It’s time for her to be on her own….. blah blah blah. Well you know what. I do have to let go but that is my baby and I would and always will do anything I can for her and Tyler. That’s what being a mom is. I should have been there. Scott and Shawn have been there for Shelby and I am so grateful!!! I just wish I was there too. There is nothing like getting that phone call and your baby is crying from the pain and being sick and there isn’t a thing I can do but tell her how much I love her. I am so proud of the woman she is becoming. I am proud to be her mom but I’m not sure I will ever let her go LOL. Just letting you know Miss Shelby. I love you to bits and am so sorry you are having such a hard time but always know how proud of you I am and how loved you are. I love you THIS much. So does Tyler and Craig and Max and Bella and Lil Bit.

OK, I am going to tell on myself.

One of the first things you learn in CDL school is three points of contact, there is a label on the top left corner of the drivers window that stresses to use three points of contact, there is a large sign at every terminal that reminds drivers to use three points of contact, when we boot up the computer in the truck one of the boot screens reminds you to use three points of contact AND my eight year old nephew Nathan reminds me about three points of contact whenever we talk.  OK…….I get it.

What it means, of course, is back out of the door and always have three of your feet/hands in contact with the truck at all times.  The bottom of the door is about four feet above the ground.

So yesterday afternoon in Nebraska I had fueled the truck and pulled forward to let the guy behind me in.  Grabbed my large insulated mug to go in and get ice and also grabbed our two travel mugs to wash out the old coffee.  I could have easily held them all in one hand but I didn’t.  I turned sideways to step on the top step and my foot slipped off leaving me with ONE point of contact and no hands free.  I fell hard and landed on the concrete flat on my side…. all of my weight landed on my left hip which I had had surgery on five years ago.  Miraculously I do not believe I broke anything and I skinned my left elbow a tiny bit.  My hip is very sore and swollen, I mean really swollen, like three inches.  It is going to be a massive bruise and I am an idiot.  A very lucky idiot who is going to limp for a week or two.  I need Nathan to call me more often.

We really had a great day yesterday. Craig covered most of it but I do have to share something. Last night Craig and I took Max for a walk. We were at the truck stop and there was grass everywhere. A perk for those of you that know what most truck stops look like. As we are walking Max sees some birds and a bunny. Well I thought he saw the bunny but he just saw the birds. Craig grabs the leash from me and he and Max run and chase the birds. Craig is calling MAX GET THE BIRDS. Now to see Craig and Max running full throttle had me almost peeing in my pants, I was laughing so hard while the two of them were chasing the birds. I could not stop laughing.  Max never caught the bird but I will say it is one of those memories of our time out here that I will cherish forever. I have the bomb of a husband. Even thinking about it today makes me giggle.

As you can tell from Max’s post below, we had a pretty lazy day yesterday. We left Springfield at midnight and ran up to a little town north of Fort Wayne IN to pick up a “hot load” for the Chrysler plant in Belvidere IL near Rockford. After about 10 minutes they came out and said we were loaded, I looked and it was three whole pallets of plastic gas tanks way up at the front of the trailer. Felt kind of silly but it is what we had. Got to Chrysler at 11:00 AM and dropped the load and headed down to East Moline IL and to one of our favorite truck stops, The Flying J in Davenport IA. Just a regular Flying J with a Dennys but it is surrounded with grass and is really like a park. Here is Anne taking Max for a walk.

Max getting his exercise

We had an awesome evening enjoying the sunshine, talking, playing with Max and watching TV.  Up at 4 AM this morning and I bribed Anne with coffee to get her tail out of bed and we headed over to Fedex at 5 AM for our 6:00 pick up to Henderson Colorado.  A couple of great things happened at Fedex, first we ran into our friends Wonda and Dudley who drive for USX also and were picking up a load for Wa.  Actually, we ran into Wonda and her dog Misty since Dudley was sleeping.  Nice surprise,  then Anne went in to get our load and it got changed to San Bernardino California.  Not only twice the miles but we MAY get to see her Mom.  This is, however, trucking and no plans are final until you actually get it done.

We have decided to work over the Fourth of July since we were down last week and I had an ulterior motive.  One of the things on my bucket list has always been (well, at least since 1980) to see a space shuttle launch.  Next Friday, July 8th is the last shuttle launch…………… ever.  So I called my friend Mike Lafferty who lives just South of the Kennedy Space Center and we are headed there to see the launch.  Mike is even working on passes to get us into KSC for the launch.  Fingers are crossed on that.  Very excited for both the launch and seeing Mike and Brandi.  A  little beach time will be nice also.  I think there may be a bit of Rum in my future.

They left the computer open so I thought it was about time I got to blog. Not having thumbs sucks so I have to hunt and peck. Life is pretty cush in a truck. I get to sleep all day and be with my pets. They feed me really well. I have them pretty well trained at this time but they still have some annoying habits I need to break them of. Mom keeps needing me to walk her in the middle of the night in the pouring rain. I love my mom so it’s ok.  I miss my siblings but get to see them every time we go home. Which is pretty cool. Leaves more leftovers for me.

I am a little confused sometimes when we go out for walks. Sometimes it’s beautiful and sometimes it is freezing. All in the same day. Not quite sure how that happens but I’m getting use to it.

Oops got to go. I hear them coming.

This has been a very frustrating week for us. Our truck broke down in Cheyenne, Wy. It would have been Nebraska but there was no place to stop so they had me continue on. They meaning breakdown. I can’t say I minded. I refused to stop in Nebraska LOL. Stupid REGEN system. It took them three days to fix. They fixed one part and then got error codes, fixed that and then something else went wrong. End result is all that matters and it was fixed. Then we sat and sat and sat. Finally got a load. We dropped our empty at the drop yard in Denver and then picked up a loaded trailer at the Rail yard. Drove that load up to Loveland to a Walmart Distribution center. We got our load assignment with no way to deliver on time. It was suppose to be a live unload but we were late so we could only drop it. Took us two hours to get permission to drop the trailer. It was a Friday afternoon and we slipped through all the cracks.  We are on our way to our next load which was in Fort Collins at the Budweiser plant. Have to say it was pretty darn easy except our load was heavy so they ended up unloading and reloading the trailer and taking some beer off. Finally we are on a run to Des Moines, Ia. Pretty easy trip with a spectacular storm. Sydney Ne I stop to switch with Craig, his turn to drive. I realize Max has not been out in hours so I tell him I’m going to get Max out. I guess I forgot about the raging storm outside LOL. Needless to say Craig wouldn’t let me out. Ended up taking him out when we fueled in North Platte. Our favorite city in Nebraska.

We drop our load in Des Moines and ask sweetly for a load assignment. We get one. Run empty 222 miles and our pick up is tomorrow and only going 669 miles due two days later. This is when I get frustrated. The loads out of Denver we could have made on time if they gave them to us earlier. Why they give this type of load to a team makes no sense to me. I realize how hard planning must have to work but HATE when this happens. What makes it worse is being broken down for the previous 3 days. We had a great run going last week. The loads we have done seem pretty standard and regular. Why it takes half a day to get us an assignment baffles me.

The good news out of this was we got to see a few of our children. Had some good meals and even got to take the girls to visit the local college where they will both be starting this fall. Cheyenne is only 50 miles from Loveland and most of our deliveries were in the area. The perks of this job!!! Would have been nice to spend more time and actually get to do some laundry but hey…. Anytime we get to spend with our kids is worth it.

Have we told you Craig got this awesome coffee maker. I must say it is pretty darn cool and for those of you that like coffee totally understand what I mean. Our little 63 sq ft apt is coming along nicely. Still working on a couple things I want to change but not worrying too much about it. It is nice and cozy. Life is good!!!

Well, we broke down  again!

But first let me bring you up to date.  Our load to California got cancelled.  We were at the shipper and they took our trailer to load it at 6 AM and we waited.  At 8 we went in to ask and they told us our load got cancelled but they had another to Atlanta that they had already loaded on our trailer.  We grabbed it and got moving South.  We spent the night in the Ellenwood Terminal 5 miles from our 8:00 AM delivery.  We made the delivery and got a load picking up in Tunnel Hill and heading to Northern California.  2400 miles we really wanted.  We got to TH and dropped our empty and went to pick up our loaded trailer but could not find it.  Went back to the gate and asked and it was pulled into the shop for it’s annual DOT inspection.  The shop told us it would not be ready for a couple of hours so I called Jason and asked if we could have lunch.  It was fathers day so Jason, Anna, Jackson and Blythe came to pick us up and we went for Mexican!  What a great 90 minutes.

Fathers Day with the Grandkids (and their awesome parents)

So we got the trailer and got moving and then……..

As Anne was driving through Nebraska (yes…THAT Nebraska) we started to lose power.  We were still able to do 55 mph on the flats so we kept going since we were 76 miles from the Wyoming border and we were NOT willing to breakdown in Nebraska again.  Called breakdown and told them we were going to try and make it to Cheyenne. We limped in to the TA on the East side of town and they changed the fuel filter.  That is what breakdown thought it would be since we were 6000 miles past our PM (planned maintenance) So as we pulled back onto the freeway the red stop engine light came on and our top speed was about 45 mph now.  Called breakdown and they had us limp two exits to the Freightliner dealer.  Got here about 5 PM last night and we are still waiting to get an eta.  They said it is the after treatment system but we are waiting to see if they have the part.  If we have to wait, we will run home tonight and see the kids. (and take showers)

OK, we have been busy since we got back on the road. After a great weekend in Oshkosh with family and Megan’s graduation, we have been running pretty hard (which is what we want). We had to head out late Sunday night to drive down to Fond du Lac and pick up an empty trailer at Mercury Marine and then head up to Peshtigo WI to pick up our load Monday morning. Peshtigo has an amazing, awful history. The site of the most deadly fire in US history but I bet you have not heard of this disaster. Why? because it happened on the same night as the Great Chicago Fire. Here is a link to the story.

http://www.peshtigofire.info

We took that load to Portland TN and then ran empty to Memphis where we picked up a FedEx load going to Hollywood Florida.  There is no direct way to South Florida from Memphis so Anne had lots of two lane highways and then I took over late at night to take us the rest of the way.  We dropped the load early afternoon and had to head to Miami right away to get a high value load heading to Quincy MA (just outside of Boston)  We HATE high value loads as we are not allowed to leave the truck unattended but we love the miles.  I was driving as we crossed the Florida – South Carolina border in a very nasty storm.  60 mph winds, driving rain and lightning everywhere.  I had to yell to wake Anne up to make sure she was strapped in with the cargo net over the bed.  This was tornado weather and if we ran into one, I was not going to see it until it was right on us.  It was a pretty scary couple of hours but we made it through.  It certainly kept me awake!  So we got to Quincy and unloaded this morning and then got a load assignment to pick up in Newark NJ and heading to Grapevine TX then on to Hawthorne CA…..3200 miles!  What a great run for the weekend.  It will keep us rolling until Monday afternoon.

We are sitting in a truck stop in Connecticut and will head out about 3 AM for New Jersey for our pick up.  I will update again from sunny Southern California!  Hope we can see Anne’s Mom, her son Tyler and friends.

Here are a few pictures from this last week.

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Love saying that name. We had a wonderful time in Oshkosh at our nieces graduation. Oshkosh is a really neat city, not sure I want to be there in the winter. It was a little chilly for summer but love all the water! Hopefully we will get to spend some more time there. Seeing family is always great even if my father in law left the day we got there. I won’t hold it against him since we get to see him the most.

We are now back on the road. I am writing this actually in Florida somewhere. Max and I are in the back  drinking my morning coffee. I’m drinking, Max is sleeping LOL

Craig at last has his dream coffee maker. It’s a cuisinart that uses those little cups. keurig or something like that. You can also use regular coffee in this little contraption but he is a  happy, happy camper. I will admit it is pretty cool. You can make one cup at a time and it takes a couple of minutes to heat up. He liked it because the water reservoir holds 80 ounces which is a big deal when you live in a truck. We have had a time with regular coffee makers. Two died and we ended up with water and coffee grinds everywhere. That is all I will say about it.

Anyway I guess I should have titled this post COFFEE. We drop our load in a few hours and then find out where we will head to next. I hope it is somewhere on the west coast. We are trying to figure out where to spend July 4th. I was thinking the east coast but then realize it would be a great time to go see Tyler. (My oldest) I haven’t seen him since April so it would be great to see him, my mom and the rest of my peeps. I really do miss my friends!! I am so blessed to have the bestest friends a girl could ask for.

But we will see where the road will take us. We also need a grandchildren fix. We haven’t seen them in a few weeks and it would be nice to see them.

This job is amazing. After my post from the other day regarding missing my daughter. What happens. A couple days later we get a run to Henderson, Co. From there we got a load to LOVELAND, Co (our home town). We had breakfast with Shelby and I got my fix. LOL. I realize that it is time for her to move on with her life and luckily realize that that is the way it should be. One of the things I love about this job is that things like our visit are able to happen. Sometimes when you least expect it. Or when you need it the most.

I am writing this while sitting at the kitchen table with Craig, my mother in law and sister in law. The kids are off to football and I am going to get my haircut and run some errands. We have our nieces graduation party this afternoon and it’s a good day to celebrate.

I feel really blessed with my life and the people in it. Life is good!!!