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.

I managed to do some geocaching along my route up from FL to MN and then from MN to the yard here in WI. On the run up from FL I really didn't have a lot of time to spend on it but did manage to find a couple of quick and easy ones. Today I was able to take my time wandering across WI as I didn't really have to be anywhere at any certain time today. I'm not due in at the office until tomorrow morning. I plotted a couple of caches on my GPS that were along my route and stopped at both of th...

It's been a stressful couple of days. One long traffic backup after another. I finally got my load delivered today, a full 24 hours late, and headed into WI to make way to the yard. I stopped at a small truck stop inside of WI and decided to relax for the evening. After having something to eat I kicked back and started knitting. That always relaxes me. While I was working on the Irish Hiking Scarf I suddenly felt my truck rock to one side. Damn! I knew what that meant. Some asshole just hi...

Yeah, it was one of those days where everything worked out exactly the way it shouldn't have. I got to the pick up location 15 minutes early this morning as is my habit but still wound up having to wait a couple of hours before getting loaded. Instead of getting all bent out of shape about it I just pulled out my knitting and worked on that until time to finally load. When the guy walked over to my truck to tell me he was ready for me he kind of did a double take on the knitting but never ...

I'm having my morning coffee and getting ready to head back out on the road again. With the moving and all it just doesn't feel like I've been home long enough. But there are bills to pay and a new house to pay for, so off I go again. I have to pick up some power substation transformer components about 30 minutes from here and haul them up to MN. The crane will be there at 9:00 this morning and so will I. I'm all packed up. All is left is to carry out the trash, rinse out the coffee pot , ...

I took my GPS with me when I rode the bent to Publix a little while ago. I decided to do a bit of geocaching along the way. I got lucky and found two this time out. The first one was hanging below a wooden bridge on a bit of fishing line. It took me a few minutes to find it but as the name of the cache was "Troll" I assumed it would have to be under the bridge. It only contained a log which i signed to document the find. The second one was called "My House" and once I followed the GPS...

I've decided to take a break from the sorting and putting away of my stuff for the rest of the day. I need some rest as I have been going full tilt since I got in from the road. I have the living room in good order, the kitchen is finished and quite presentable and usable, the bathroom is now done (except for pile of laundry currently being done). I've made a small start on the disaster of a bedroom but that can wait until tomorrow. I'm still doing laundry but it's not like that's so much ...

Good grief. I'd forgotten just how much work setting up in a new place can be. It seems like no matter how much I do the mess just seems to remain. Today I've managed to more or less get the kitchen together and usable. I've set up my computer desk and computer system (no DSL yet), rewired the phone lines, installed some shelving in the hall pantry and stored the pots and pans on said shelving, made a grocery run, and made a small dent on getting the bathroom in some sort of reasonable sh...