Chilling in Milwaukee

We had a very restful 5 days off in Ponca City. When we arrived in OKC on Friday it was 103 degrees. Man that's hot. We swapped our stuff to the Bug and headed out and watched the temp climb to 105, and man that's hotter still. Fortunately the next day a cool front came through and dropped the temps into the high 80s and low 90s for the next 5 days. Thanks Mother Nature. Of course that brought in some much needed rain to the area. Disrupted one of my planned golf days but for the relief it brought I'll take it.

Lots of good eats, most notably I fixed a brisket (sp) that I thought was pretty good. I cooked it Quincy Jones style. I used to regularly ruin ribs on the grill but years ago I picked up the Quincy Jones Ribs recipe off of Oprah's web site. Oprah raves over the these ribs and I have to tell you, they're really good. Anyway I picked up a 7 lb brisket and some green and red peppers and a Vidalia onion. I rubbed the brisket down with Uncle Joe's mix and cut the peppers up and put the fat side of the brisket up, on top of the peppers, wrapped it all in foil and "aged" it overnight. The real secret is to cook the whole thing at about 300 degrees for 8 hours. Then I lowered the temp to 170 till dinner time. Real tender and juicy.

We got back to the truck Thursday morning at 0800 to find dead batteries, not a great start. I called Schneider's emergency maintenance (SEM) and the guy was there in about an hour.

Our first w/a was to pick up a trailer in OKC and head over to Pryor, OK to pick up a load of paper headed for Indianola, MS. We spent the night in Little Rock, AR and dropped at Dollar General on Friday morning. Our next w/a was to pick up a load of recliners in Houston, MS and deliver to Wauwatosa, WI Saturday. We dropped that trailer last night at a JC Penny distribution center. When I got up this morning it was about 60 degrees, real nice.

We were headed up I57 right through Champaign so we called the girls for a lunch date. Teresa was uncontainable.

Our upcoming load is to head north to Neenah and pick up a load of consumer goods headed for Romeoville, IL with a delivery some time tomorrow. Right now I'm planning to sit here till 1800 tonight which will be 24 hours after delivering yesterday. The 24 hour sit time means Schneider will owe us $65 for layover pay. We'll pick up tonight and head back through Milwaukee without traffic and stop north of Chicago and wait out the morning traffic till about 0900 then head for our delivery, which we should be able to make by 1100.

I think our TAH counter is 23, after 3 days already on the road. We're headed home for rodeo.

We're planning a trip to CA to see Adam and Claire in September and a Mediterranean cruise for next spring.

Life is one big trip for us, whether in the truck or not.