I finally received my permits via fax for this 102,000 lbs load and was just about to pull out of the truckstop when I got a call from dispatch asking if I had put tires chains on my truck for this trip. I reminded him that when I asked yesterday about when the chain laws went into effect he had told me the 15th so I didn't bother grabbing any. He made a couple of calls and found that he had misinformed me and that the chain laws actually went into effect on the 1st. Wonderful. The fines i...

I'm about to depart the yard heading for Tacoma, WA. I picked this Marine Corps truck up in Oshkosh yesterday. We knew it was going to be heavy as it's armor plated so I am using a brand new three axle heavy haul trailer. I'm the first one to use this trailer and it's the first one of it's kind we have purchased. I'm sitting here now as the mechanics are finishing making it ready for the road as I found a few mechanical problems with it when I picked up this load. Kinda sucks that a brand new...

I popped over to Applebee's for lunch and wound up staying for several hours. I was having a good time and some good conversation so I stuck around. The bartender for whom I am knitting a hat came on shift. My first thought was to just put away my knitting so she wouldn't see it but I decided to see if she approved of the colorway instead. She liked it so I guess it's a winner. While there my favorite bartender there, who became a manager and lately transferred to another location, came in...

Just posting a couple of update photos on my current beard, started about a week after Labor Day.

I finally made it back to the yard late this morning and promptly put my truck in the shop to have the belt replaced on my generator. I checked with dispatch and as "R" hadn't yet planned anything for me I told him I was going to go hide out in the hotel over the weekend as I was tired as hell and my bum hip is killing me. He understood and said he would just plan on my being ready on Monday and may use me for some local stuff that day. That worked for me and as soon as my truck was ready ...

I had a pretty long day today. I started out this morning in NE (edited...thanks LW) OH, right on the PA line and, after swinging by the yard to pick up an additional piece to deliver over in MN, am now parked for the night in western WI. I only covered about 650 miles today as I was held up in several back ups the causes for which ranged from a big rig on fire on the shoulder of the highway to a flatbed that dumped his load taking a ramp too fast to a couple of run of the mill car crashes. A...

I decided to go ahead and just frog the black scarf back to a pile of yarn and start it over from scratch. I only had about a foot of it done anyway and it just seemed easier to frog it all as to try and frog back to a good point, pick up the stitches again (I'm not very good at that yet) and figure out exactly where in the pattern I was picking up from. So now I'll just have to start it all over again, hopefully sans mistakes this time around. I may go ahead and do the hat for the bartend...

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...

As I've just been sitting around in a truckstop since yesterday I had time to do some knitting. Last night I finished knitting the black watch cap I'd been working on and seamed the top this morning. I didn't follow any pattern for this one and just did a basic 2x2 ribbed cap. I did try something a little different with the decreases to shape the top, basically decreasing around to wind up with 1x1 ribbing. I'm not really all that happy with that part and will probably stick to a more trad...

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...

A quick pic of what I can see out my window here in extreme northern WA.

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...