No load yet today so I checked into a hotel. Screw sitting around a truckstop. I found a place with decent rooms, a restaurant, and a lounge. I'll bill it back to the boss anyway. I had a pretty good time in the lounge, a couple of the ladies asked me to help them pick out songs on the jukebox, and I even enjoyed a nice slow dance with one of them, but eventually wandered back to my room. At some point in the lounge I totally screwed up the pattern in the scarf I am working on so I'll h...

I pulled into this plant in PA this morning hoping to get unloaded fairly quickly and be on my way again. No such luck. The receiving side isn't capable of unloading anything as large as these pieces so they sent me around to the shipping side which is quite busy. I am now sitting and waiting for my turn to get into their bay to have the pieces unloaded. As this is the shipping dock I have to wait until they load the trucks that are here to pick up. Thankfully this place has a cafeteria ...

I made it back to the yard today, unloaded the one piece that's staying here, and promptly checked into the hotel. After a much needed shower I headed over to the Appleby's next door for a few adult beverages and some dinner. Geez, I'd only been away from there for about a month but things had really changed. I know the bartender but didn't recognize about half of the rest of the staff, including the manager. I knew the old manager quite well and was disappointed to see she wasn't ther...

It had to happen. And you know what? I'm not even a little surprised. Last night I walked over to the grocery to stock up on food that I can heat in the microwave. I bought enough to tide me over for a few days. Just a few minutes ago the generator that supplies the power for my microwave took a shit. Figures. The belt is shredded. No power, no heat, no nothing. So now I have a stock of food but no microwave in which to heat it. I really can't afford it but if I am spending another nigh...

I'm sitting in a mud lot in a tiny little truckstop in northern WA. It's a joke to even call this a truckstop as it's basically just a gas station/C-store that happens to sell truck fuel and has a big enough piece of mud to park a few trucks (for four bucks a night). I got up this morning and as I am on the left coast the sun hasn't even begun to rise yet. I trudged through the mud to use the restroom (get the key-on-a-stick from inside and walk around back), fill up my coffee mug, and tru...

One of the best and worst things about running out to the left coast is the time difference. If it's afternoon and you're running a little behind it's nice because you have a couple of 'extra' hours to get where you're going. In the morning it sucks. I slept in this morning and didn't crawl out of bed until 8:00 am my time. The sun wasn't even beginning to come up yet. I'm sitting around killing time now until I can get rolling. Seattle and Tacoma have oversized curfews in place preventing...

I'm stuck for the weekend. I'm sitting in a truckstop east of Seattle with a view of the cloud wrapped mountains and tall pines outside my windshield. Here the clouds are not something way up in the sky, but are instead something that drifts around you. It's quite a sight. Coming in here I had to come through Snoqualmie Pass. As I climbed the mountain the rain started becoming more solid as it hit the windshield, that squishy sort of sleet that isn't quite liquid but not quite solid either...

I'm sitting here in Western Montana watching it rain and waiting for the sunrise to begin so I can get rolling. That's one big problem with running out west. The time zone difference means sunrise comes pretty late to those of us who run on Central or Eastern time. I'm typically not a late sleeper, especially on the road and most especially when I know I'm under the gun to get some place. Thanks to some pretty nasty fog in SD slowing me down the day before yesterday I am in a tight spot re...

I spent today running through SD and MT. SD went pretty well but about half way across MT I had a very close call. I was on a downhill grade and suddenly saw smoke about a quarter of a mile ahead of me. A big rig swung over to the right shoulder and then quickly back across the highway, rolling over and crashing in the median with the trailer laying across the highway totally blocking the left lane and partially blocking the right one. I'm hauling a wide load which is not exactly light. I ...

I'm currently sitting at the yard while my truck is being serviced. I'll be spending the night here and then tomorrow morning I'll be loading for Washington state. I'll be hauling an oversized load, snow removal equipment, to the port in Seattle and then a crane part up to the northern part of Washington. It's been a few months since I've been out that way so it'll make for a nice change of scenery. I don't mind running the Northwest too much, it's pretty scenery and for the most part good...

I parked at this truckstop in Fond du Lac, WI late yesterday afternoon. After grabbing a bite to eat I decided to stretch my legs and go find a couple of cold ones. My GPS indicated a bar about a mile away so I started walking in that direction. The trusty GPS lead me right to the place. It was called Rumors, and the sign on the building read "Rumors Adult Day Care". I thought that was pretty amusing so I went on inside. It was a typical little neighborhood tavern, wasn't very busy, and se...

Last night I went into the truckstop and was amazed to find that Stevie Nicks happened to be there. Wow. I managed to get to talk with her for a bit and she invited me to join her for dinner. We had some great conversation over not so great food. About the time we had finished eating, one of her songs, Sorcer, began playing over the sound system. I commented that it must be kind of strange to be in a place and hear yourself singing in the background. It was about that time that the alarm ...

This morning I headed over to DeLand, FL to pick up a damaged generator and two skids of axles that' are going back to the factory in WI. It's one that's mounted on a trailer and someone tried to go around a curve too fast with it and flipped it over. It isn't pretty. When i got there I told the guy that he needed to load the generator onto the top deck (front one), and the axles on the back deck because I'm also picking up a Mack truck. He kept whining about how he didn't know how he woul...

Dispatch called me a little while ago. I'll be leaving out in the morning. I have to pick up a partial in DeLand, FL and then they said I'd probably be heading for the Tallahassee area to pick up a truck. Time to get back to the old grind once again. Oh well, gotta make a buck one way or the other I suppose.

I am almost finished knitting my first hat. I was working on it last night when the yarn snapped right in the loop of a purl stitch on the needle as I went to purl it. Ack! This has never happened to me before so I wasn't sure of exactly what to do about it. As it was a stitch already on the needle the ends of the yarn weren't very long at all. I had to carefully tie them off into a knot which was not an easy task with those two very short little pieces. I did finally manage it and slipped...