Still in Texas

Called and sang "Happy Birthday" to my Mom on Monday. Then we had a great breakfast with Teresa's Mom and Dad. They are as excited about going to Las Vegas as we are.

Teresa had the, ummm, audacity to ask our waitress her age. Funny thing she had Teresa's same birthday, except 32 years earlier. She was 82. Cute and efficient. I'll bet she could do some training. Grandma said she's been there for as long as she has been coming, and that's a LONG time.

We delivered our beer in Perry and took a walk. We're back to using our weights again. When we got back we had a smallish work assignment. We went over to Tulsa and picked up a relay load of flour from Houston and took it to Vinita, OK for delivery Tuesday morning.

Then we headed back to Tulsa, Jenks, actually and picked up a load of Scott paper towels and took them down to Houston. We delivered this morning. I didn't figure we would get another load soon so we headed over to the Houston OC. Fairly quickly we did get another w/a. We were 13th on the list. But this is a HAZMAT load and not all drivers have that endorsement. Anyway, I do. We ran into the OC and showered. Which was very badly needed. Since we were on a lot of state highways there weren't any Pilots to fuel and shower at. I even had to buy $100 of diesel to get going on Tuesday. Course they reimburse, eventually.

We headed over to Chem One and picked up Zinc Sulphur - I have no idea what it's used for, except we get to haul it to St. Louis.

We've stopped for the night at a little truck stop north of Cleveland, TX, owned by eastern Indians. The guy gave me my scale receipt, then ran over and made pizza. Multi-faceted and multi-tasking.

Must be Beer-thirty

Saturday morning I was checking with Motel 6 and Super 8 for room availability and rates and decided on Motel 6 - they had the best rate and had truck parking nearby. About 1100 I made a last check on the QC. Whoops, there it is.

We dead headed down to Ft. Collins, CO to an Bud plant and picked up 44,600 pounds of beer. It was still fairly early so we headed down to Denver where I knew the temperatures would not freeze the beer. Beer is an FP (freeze protect) load and you have to be aware of the temps and if it's below freezing you have to run the truck all night. It was snowing in Cheyenne, WY and Ft. Collins but Denver was very nice.

We saw more wildlife on this trip than any other, I think. No, the Funny Lady is not out there with the buffalo. We also saw pheasant and a couple of Eagles. Try to get a picture of either of those some day, HAH.

Yesterday we left Denver and made it all the way to Wichita, KS and it's still warm. Glory, I think winter is on the wane. We're meeting Grandma and Grandpa for breakfast at 0900 in Blackwell, OK then we'll head to Perry, OK to deliver our beer at a Anheuser Busch distributor, about an hour from Blackwell.

We need to stay in OK today so I can get the satellite set up - you should know that "Dancing With The Stars" starts tonight. That means every Monday and Tuesday for the next whatever weeks we have to be able to get a good ABC signal, or the satellite in local, or a motel or something. Small concessions to keep the Funny Lady along.

We've made our arrangements to Las Vegas. Got to love cellular phones and wireless. Traveling across South Dakota we made 5 airplane reservations and secured our timeshare on the LV strip. We talked to all the kids to put the bugs in their ears about coming. Grandma and Grandpa Purvis are coming, my Mom is coming, and I'm hopeful most of the 5 kids and their families will be able to come, too. Those from Monterey have 500 miles and Scott from Boise has 600 miles. I'm thinking they can drive to LV pretty easily. Course I'm a little jaded, I drive that many miles every single day. The girls will have to fly from Chicago, that's next on the arrangement agenda.

Time to get the Funny Lady out of the sack.

Gillette, Wy

Ok, last time you have to hear about our aborted trip to Cancun. Grandma took this picture that Sunday we were headed to the airport. Think we were in the spirit ? You betcha.

Beautiful trip across Wisconsin, Minnesooota, South Dakota and into Wyoming. Not even too cold during the day.

As mentioned earlier, Teresa had a place in mind to have dinner in Sioux Falls, SD, Minerva's. I could tell it was a little more upscale than Golden Corral or the like. Evidenced by the white table cloths and napkins on the tables. Minerva's was very nice, food was great. I had a nice steak and salad bar Teresa had a lamb steak with risotto. She even had some left over for lunch yesterday. The tab wasn't as bad as I thought for as good as the food was, $58, including tip.

Enroute we took some time to wander around the famous Wall Drug, in Wall, SD. Cute, interesting and huge. Just about anything a visitor or tourist would like to buy, including multiple restaurants. Was fun and got out of there without spending any money and a free bathroom. Can you imagine having to pay for a bathroom on an airplane ? Well they're free at Wall Drug, like everywhere else!!! I do remember a time when there were some places that had a quarter slot on the door to open it, but I haven't seen any of those for a LONG time.

Made it to Gillette at 1400 MST then I got a look at the load. All of the bathroom and kitchen cabinets needed for 24 apartments. None on skids. They pulled a crew together, they had done this a lot of times before. They pulled up a forklift with a platform and nailed on some 2 x 12's to make a slide. Then I got to pull them down and carry them to the tail gate and someone else loaded them onto the slide and three other guys carried them into the storage area. When I got about half way through another guy appeared in the truck and I continued to pull them down and he slid them back to the tail gate. Two hours and down to a t-shirt and it was snowing lightly outside.

I was getting sore by half-way through. When we were all done I grabbed some Motrin, not too bad today.

No new w/a yet. If we don't get one this morning we'll go check into a hotel, probably for both Sat and Sun nights.

Across the field from the apartments there was a herd of antelope. One of the guys said there were more antelope in Wyoming than people. From what I had seen on the way, I believe it.

Back in Gary

We made it back into Gary this evening at 1900 and dropped the trailer headed to Canada. Our new w/a is to pick up a loaded trailer here and take it to Gillette, WY, 1015 miles and deliver by 1300 on Friday. I'm going to try to change that to 1500, it's a little more reasonable. Cabinets; don't know what kind, but it's supposed to be 15,000 lbs. LOVE THOSE...

We're going to leave here about 0530 and make it to Sioux Falls, SD for the night. Teresa used to live there and has a place picked out for dinner tomorrow - Minerva's.

Not much to report traveling I80 west then east for two days. I think tomorrow we're headed up I90 and west. Cows and harvested corn and lots of it.

I'm guessing after unloading Friday we're going to be laying over, we'll see.

I promise to start taking a few pictures... course you know the Funny Lady will be in most of them.

Got an email that Craig and Diane put in a comment - but I haven't seen it yet.

Want to post a comment

I have had a couple of emails wondering why I don't allow comments. Well turns out I do.

If you move the cursor to the right of my name at the bottom of each post you will see the hand come up. It will open a comment box. It's invisible. Try it a couple of times it will work.

Sioux City

We high tailed it out of Gary at 0515 this morning. Just in time to grab a cup of coffee and hit the road. Course the Funny Lady was still in the sack till 0700. We made it to Aurelia at 1430 and we unloaded by 1500. We updated the Qualcomm with a no load message and waited. About 20 minutes later I figured to head east to a truck stop for the night. Enroute we got our next w/a. Head to Sioux City and pick up a load of pet food tomorrow morning. So we made a few rights and a left to get turned back around headed east.

This load is headed for Canada. Oh, heck, no passport. Turns out we're supposed to drop the trailer in Gary for a Canadian driver to take home for TAH.

We made it on into Sioux City so we're here for the night and a quick jaunt in the morning to the consignee. Today was 590 miles. If things go well we'll make it 450 miles tomorrow back to Gary.

There's an Aussie truck driver here says he can get me a driving job in Australia. Wouldn't that be a kick. I'm not packing my bags just yet.

Long day today, Teresa's watching House while I blog. Read for bad, I meant bed.

Three Days in Indiana

We arrived in Champaign about 1630 Friday night. Looks like Pilot has bought Road Ranger. A couple of miles north of Champaign is an old Road Ranger moving into Pilot life. We dropped our trailer there and headed into Champaign. We had a nice dinner with Tracie at Chevy's and then Teresa and Tracie walked the mall looking for a formal dress for a sorority function Tracie was planning to attend. I figured "oh, no" I'm gonna get hit big for this one. Nope, $10. Everyone was happy, including me.

Saturday we trekked on up to Gary and got here by 1015. We left this morning for our delivery. So either we had a nice restful Sat and Sun in Gary or a pretty boring weekend, right ?

Well not too bad. We used the company car a couple of times. Trips to Costco and out to dinner. And a shower every day. Almost heaven.

This morning we left at 0515 headed for Elkhart, IN a little over two hours away for an 0800 delivery. Turns out we were late - I forgot the 1 hour time zone difference.

After a quick delivery we got our next w/a. Deadhead down to Bluffton, IN and pick plastic bins headed for Aurelia, IA. Tonight we made it back to Gary and another shower. Tomorrow we have to leave about 0500 to make it 450 miles to Aurelia by 1500.

We're doing fine though and our next TAH is scheduled for 3/21 - 3/24 so we have something to look forward to.

Ron, I figured I would get a chewing out from you for leaving Teresa at the rest area last week, are you sleeping ?