On my way home today Mom called me and said that her friend wanted to sell me her place right across the street from Mom. She offered a good price, was willing to carry the financing herself, and as she knows that paying interest and finance charges is against my religion (CCB) she would finance for 0%. I went and looked the place over and it's much larger than my place, is fully furnished including two televisions, and a machine that is both a washer and a drier in one unit (now I have to...

I was reading about geocaching Link and decided that it sounds like fun. It's basically like a scavenger hunt using a GPS. The cache can be anything from a simple container with nothing more than a log inside for you to sign, or it could contain any of a number of things. The rule is if you take something, you also leave something. As I am killing time here at the truck stop in Vero Beach, FL I did a cache search for anything near these coordinates and found a listing for a cache about a...

I'm on a load home. I loaded most of it at the yard in WI on Tuesday morning and then picked up two large crated machines in Holland, MI on Wednesday morning. The first stop is in Jacksonville, FL for Monday morning, then I have a stop in Ft Lauderdale and one in Miami. Once I get them delivered I'll be going home for about a week. As I can't deliver until Monday I've been doing the run in small hops. I don't want to get down there too quickly and wind up sitting around in one truck stop f...

I went over to Appleby's for dinner. While there I noticed they had a new server. She was about 5 foot nothing, had that deep red auburn hair that you just can't get from a bottle, and a slightly turned up nose that I found adorable. Adorable is a good word. That's what came to my mind looking at her. Adorable. I'd guess that she was, at best, 21 or 22 years old, and actually looked younger. The bartender told me her name was Reagan (sp?). An apt name for her look. I have to admit that I ...

I've made it to within 30 minutes of my delivery in WI for tomorrow morning. I can now take it easy, rest, and catch my breath after a week of pretty hard running. I've had my dinner and am about to pop in a DVD to fall asleep by. I've really been enjoying my new toy, the GPS unit. I discovered that the picture viewer part is kind of useful after all. I transferred several images from my laptop to the unit's SD card and it plays them slideshow fashion. It makes a dandy little screensaver. ...

I'm now really glad that I bought this GPS unit. I was riding along on I-44 in MO and saw signs that indicated that there was an accident at mile marker 186 that had the two left lanes blocked, prepare to stop, and expect delays. Wonderful. Sure enough right about exit 184 traffic was at a dead stop. A quick glance at the GPS screen showed an alternate route through the small town of Rolla that would put me back on the interstate on the other side of the wreck. I took the exit and started ...

I made my way out of Utah, through a corner of Colorado, and into New Mexico on route 491 which was formerly known as route 666. They changed the name some time back because a lot of superstitious types refused to drive on "The Devil's Highway". I even saw tee shirts at one truck stop on a reservation that read "I survived the Devil's Highway". On my way to El Paso I stopped at a Petro truck stop and saw a sign that indicated that the Lowrance iWay 250c GPS unit was on sale for $100 off. P...

Sleep is great. It really does wonders for the body. After the hard running I did over the weekend and yesterday my bad hip was killing me. By the time I got unloaded and made it to this truck stop it was sore. I grabbed something to eat here and after sitting down and eating I had a real tough time getting back up again. Oh oh, not a good sign. I very painfully limped back out to my truck, barely able to keep moving and dearly wishing that I had my cane with me right about then. I craw...

When I woke this morning I still had about 130 miles before I was out of Nebraska. That is one looong state. I got up early, grabbed some coffee, and started hammering for the Wyoming line. I made one quick pit stop about half way across WY and didn't stop again until I pulled up to the gate at Hill Air Force Base in Ogden, UT around 2:30 in the afternoon. I got the snow broom and truck unloaded and then head North for the little town of Logan, UT. I am supposed to be picking up some signs...

I'm going to have to lay off the beer, at least for the time being. Being as alcohol is a depressant I really shouldn't be drinking it right now anyway. Last night I had a few and all it really did was make me feel bad, depressed, and I also blew a week long quit and started smoking again. I think the smart thing would be to just lay off it at least until this thing settles and I am fully feeling better again. I did write a piece last night, basically a writing exercise that helps get thin...

No, there's no weird animal sex thing going on in my hotel room. As we have a big safety meeting tomorrow I am checked into the hotel for the night. Good chance to get some rest away from the truck before starting a hard run to Utah. I have to be there Monday in time to unload at an Air Force base and then reload for El Paso. Whew. I went and picked up the load this morning. It's a snow broom truck. Yeah, it's summer. I picked up a snow broom. Go figure. On my way back down from pic...

One of the things that happen when I get an episode of depression is that I basically just don't give a damn about my immediate surroundings. Messy, clean, whatever. Makes no difference to me. As you can well imagine this can quickly become a problem in the confines of a truck, even one with a large sleeper like mine. When I finally reached the truck stop around 5 this afternoon I was possessed by a powerful urge to clean up this pig pen of a truck. I just couldn't stand it another minute...

I went into the National Guard Armory in Temple, TX first thing this morning. I told the SGT that I was there to pick up a forklift that's heading for Ft. McCoy, WI.He didn't know anything about it and proceeded to wander around from office to office asking if anyone knew anything about it. Typical. I finally grabbed my cell phone out of the truck and made a call in to my office. He wasn't too surprised, we'd done this dance number before. He said he'd make a couple of calls. A little ...

I'm spending the night in Temple, TX. There just accidentally happens to be a bar next to th3e truck stop. I've been accidentally stopping in there for years. At some point during the evening's conversation I mentioned that I had taken up knitting. The reaction was hilarious. "You're doing what?" bartender. "Knitting? Like with yarn and stuff?" fellow driver. Etc... "Yeah, ya know, a couple of sticks and some string" me. I walked out to my truck and grabbed Irish hiking scar...

I left the yard around 2:30 yesterday afternoon heading for the Army Depot just outside of Texarkana, TX. I'm having my coffee in IL this morning. I supposed it's a reflection of my industry but I noticed that the smoking section was fairly busy when I walked in, but I have the non-smoking section all to myself. There are more truckers that smoke than not so that's not too much of a surprise. I spent a few hours knitting on the Irish hiking scarf before turning in. The scarf is coming ...