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...

This commercial just played on my idiot box and I get a good laugh every time I see it. A bird craps on a guy. He drinks a Red Bull (gives you wings) and then the guy flies up above the bird. He starts unbuckling his pants and the bird freaks. Ok, ok, I think it's funny anyway.

Good grief! Doing a whole month's worth of laundry, the washing, ironing, folding, hanging, etc all at once is nuts. I am trying to get everything finished up and packed up so I can leave in the morning and this is just absurd. I am going to have to start doing some of this in the truckstops while out on the road.

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 finished knitting my very first hat. I don't think it turned out too terrible for my first one.

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...

I'm trying something a little different for tonight's dinner. I picked up some chicken breast tenderloins at the grocery the other day and until now hadn't quite decided how I was going to prepare them. I had a jar of Classico marinara sauce in the cabinet which I hadn't used. I usually like to make my own sauce but figured it might come in handy in a pinch. I decided to put the chicken in a roasting pan, cover it with the marinara sauce and toss this mess into the oven to see what happens...

I just got a call that my youngest brother's daughter just had her baby, a little girl, around 2:00 this morning. It was a bit of a surprise as she wasn't due until the 13th so it's a few days early. It's her first baby and the labor went pretty well, less than four hours. Girl, 4 lbs 15oz (tiny baby)

An engineer dies and reports to the pearly gates. St. Peter checks his dossier and says, "Ah, you're an engineer -- you're in the wrong place." So, the engineer reports to the gates of hell and is let in. Pretty soon, the engineer gets dissatisfied with the level of comfort in hell, and starts designing and building improvements. After awhile, they've got air conditioning and flush toilets and escalators, and the engineer is a pretty popular guy. One day, God calls Satan up on the telep...