I finally made it up to WI with this heavy load. I intentionally dragged my feet a bit so that I would run through IL today as their weigh stations are usually closed on Sunday. I have permits and all that, it's just a royal pain to have to stop at each weigh station and show it to them. I'm now parked at the truckstop just a few miles from the factory that will rebuild the military truck and will deliver it there tomorrow morning. For now I can just kick back and relax for a while. I d...

I've been here at the port all day. I got here reasonably early in the hope of getting loaded and being on my way. No such luck, which is typical for a port these days. I've been sitting in line, third back from the front, waiting for my turn to load. I spent most of the morning just sitting and watching them loading junk military vehicles onto rail cars which probably won't even leave here before next week at the soonest. After a few hours they finally decided to start loading the trucks ...

JoAnn and I split up in early '04 and I moved from VA back to FL. After 7 years it was over between us. And yet I still got calls from her at least once a month. I was never sure exactly why. After my wreck the day after Christmas in '04 she called me at the hospital in Milwaukee to see how I was doing. That was nice. When I was released from the hospital to fly home at the end of January '05 she paid for my plane ticket. We'd been split up for a little shy of a year by then. She called...

Not having a load to go pick up I was able to sleep in this morning. I was a bit amazed when I finally woke and saw that it was 7:30 am. I haven't slept that late in ages. It was kinda nice. I had myself some coffee and breakfast at the truckstop and finally wandered back out to the truck around 9:00 to call dispatch and see if they had found me a load. They had. He said that I needed to go by the lumber yard and pick up some 4x4 lumber. I cringed when I heard this as the last time I had t...

I was sitting at the counter in the truckstop a little while ago eating my dinner and chatting with the other drivers congregated there. After I finished eating I pulled out the Irish Hiking Scarf I've been working on and started knitting. The driver on my left mentioned that he had been hearing about a lot of truckers taking up knitting recently. Seems they were talking about it on the XM Radio trucker's channels or something. I explained how relaxing it is and he said he could see tha...

I got an early start this morning in the hopes of getting through Houston before traffic got too bad. Unfortunately it seems the Houston variety idiots get up pretty early, and there are a lot of them. Between the accidents, construction zones, and accidents in construction zones, it was a complete idiot-fest. A good 3/4 of the people I could see in their cars, SUVs, and pick ups were holding a cell phone to the side of their head as they were doing their absolute best to create yet anothe...

Today I ran through IL, MO and into OK. Man was it hot! My poor truck's air conditioning just wasn't up to the task as there was just too much space to try and cool from too much heat. I finally closed off the sleeper curtain so that it only had to cool the front of the cab and that helped some. I made three geocaching stops along the way. All I can say is that it's a good thing I'm a Floridian and used to the heat and humidity because it was brutal out there in the woods. I think even th...

I left the yard this morning with my freshly repaired truck. I can't help but wonder how long it will take before some dimwit hits it again. I'm heading for a stop in Tulsa and then a stop just South of Houston. Nice little ride. I stopped in an IL rest area that was near a geocache. I donned my hat and vest, grabbed my gps, plugged in the cache data, and starting hiking into the woods to try and find it. Naturally I did it the hard way, hiking in a straight line through the nasty nettles...

My truck is still in the shop for yet another day. It should be ready to roll around noon tomorrow. I'm back in the hotel where I have spent all of this week. Not making a fracking dime. I went over to Applebee's around 4:00 this afternoon and had a few brews. I was there when they had the shift change from afternoon to evening, and one of the newer bartenders came on duty as well as the adorable little redheaded server. I was once again struck by how tiny she is as well as how damn cute s...

I just got off the phone with the shop. I called to see if they had heard anything from the body shop about my truck as it was supposed to be ready today. He said that he had spoken with them and now they are saying it will be ready tomorrow "for sure". For crying out loud all they had to do was repair the fiberglass fender and shoot some paint. Our shop will replace the bumper and chrome once they finish this. What the hell could take three days about that? Last time they did the exact sa...

Today I helped out the office by spending some time picking up a couple of generators and hauling them back to the yard. It's not something I was getting paid for, but it was better than sitting around in a hotel room being bored by what passes for entertainment on television. I used one of the spare trucks but did stipulate that the truck had to have working ac as there are a couple of them that don't. While waiting around at the factory I got hungry and wandered into their break room. I ...

I delivered the load of animal feeders yesterday afternoon. It turned out that I had been misinformed about where they were going. I had been told they were going to a farm, but it turned out they actually went to the Shalom Wildlife Preserve here in WI. I followed the little gravel road that was not built with trucks in mind at all and had a difficult time getting around some of the curves without taking out a few pine trees in the process. On one curve I had to pull up and back up severa...

I made a stop near a cache today to do a little geocaching. The cache was out in the woods. I grabbed my gear and started hiking. I followed the gps to the coordinates and starting looking around. The gps said that I was right on top of it, but I couldn't find any sign of the thing. I knew from the listing that I was searching for an ammo can, and they aren't exactly small, but after poking around just about everywhere that could possibly hide one I was coming up empty. So I just kind o...

I'm parked at a small truckstop in rural TX for the night. I'm picking up a load near here tomorrow morning that will take me back up to WI. I'm a little on the tired side at this point. I left WI a little before noon on Tuesday, delivered in KS on Wednesday, delivered at the Army depot in TX today, and made my way deeper into TX to be in a good position to make an early pick up tomorrow morning. Normally I would be able to just take it easy on my way back to WI but I am delivering the loa...

I got bored with the beard and shaved it off. This should be good for scaring the children.