Tonight finds me in Clearwater, MN. It has been an interesting and difficult couple of days of driving. Ice, snow, and roads closed down due to weather. Many bowls have been smoked while plugging along, sometimes at 15mph while trying to not run over the "four wheelers" who seem intent on getting themselves run over. Today I passed many four wheelers in the ditches and in the median. Oddly enough, but not surprisingly, every single one of them were four wheel drive vehicles. Those fol...

I picked up my load in Richland, WA this morning and set out hoping to make it to deliver in Minnesota Friday afternoon. My hopes were quickly dashed by the time I reached the Idaho panhandle. It was snowing like mad and the forecast indicates it will do so until late tonight. No way I was going to try and get across 4th of July Pass or Lookout Pass in these conditions. Guess I'll be delivering on Monday.  I shot these photos about an hour ago and at least another inch and a half has ...

I am in Portland, OR tonight and it is raining. I have been in snow for a few weeks now. I am really not sure which is worse. Ok, I am just bitching about the weather. What's wrong with a nice sunny day? I am at the Jubitz truck stop, one of the world's premier truck stops. Everything one could ask, hotel, fine dining (more or less), bar, movie theater, etc. A grand place all around. I spent a couple of hours in the bar drinking beer before bringing some BBQ chicken wings back to my truck....

Tuesday I picked up some machinery out in New Hampshire to haul to a town just north of Minneapolis, MN. It was a wide load and I had to wait for the needed permits before I could leave. As it turned out, the NH and MA permits didn't arrive until just about sunset so I had to wait until Wednesday morning to depart. I spent the evening sitting at a small truck stop. It had a restaurant so it wasn't too bad. I noticed a sign on the door of the restaurant that indicated that Sunday would be thei...

Tonight finds me just South of Nashville, TN. After spending way too much time held up in a road construction related traffic jam. I checked into a motel after I got out of Nashville. I have stayed here before and know the owner, a fellow with the last name of Patel (Indian for Smith LOL). He is a nice fellow and remembered me from my previous stays here. It's a clean and comfortable place and has a Hooters night next door. I accidentally wandered over to Hooters for dinner and a few brews...

When I got to the office today there was a postal box waiting for me. A member of a pipe forum to which I belong had sent me a couple of Peterson pipes out of a lot he had purchased on eBay. They are both great looking pipes and I look forward to smoking them. They will make fine additions to my modest collection of Peterson pipes (made in Dublin, Ireland). Peterson is my favorite brand of pipe and I own more of them than any other brand. They are invariably good smokers.

I took a short run down to Sioux City, IA. No big deal, just a snow blower truck. In less than 500 miles my truck went through 4 gallons of coolant. That is NOT a good sign. Well, I made it back to WI today, after another 4 gallon of coolant, and put my truck into the engine shop in Milwaukee. They offered several times to give me a ride up to our yard, but I said that I would stick around until either they had it fixed or said they couldn't get it done today. In my experience these folks ...

I'm sure most of you heard about the Winter storm that hit the west coast, even if you haven't read my blog about the problems it caused me. Well, I finally made it to my delivery in Three Lakes, WI this morning after holing up in a hotel in Wausau, WI last night. It was just too damn cold and windy when I pulled in there and checked in. MY GPS told me there was a Buffalo Wild Wings across the street from the hotel. As it was Thanksgiving, the Buffalo Wild Wings was closed. Damn! I was rea...

I am still holed up in a hotel in Grand Junction, CO. Once it was obvious that the weather wasn't letting me out of here today I decided to go down to the lounge for a couple of drinks. I had spent the afternoon downloading some old 1980s music videos and running them through some enhancement and editing software to make them reasonably presentable for my Archos tablet. Have I ever mentioned that one of my hobbies is collecting 1980s music videos? While sitting at the bar I was watching sa...

On Saturday Donner Pass, I-80 in California, was getting pounded by snow. The only route open to me to get out of the state was to go south and cut over to I-15 and go out through Las Vegas. It added an extra 200 miles to my trip but was the only option other than sitting for several days. Nevada and Arizona were no problem but before I got too far into Utah and I ran into crappy weather. It started as rain and as I went along it progressed from sleet to full out snow. The roads were passable...

Tonight finds me parked in Lodi, CA after a very tiring day. I started out at 5:00am CST and tried to make the best possible time for my delivery in Lodi. The wind continued to give me trouble with my tarps and I wound up stopping several times before the sun came up to replace broken tarp straps. By the time I reached Sparks, which is just outside of Reno, pretty much all of my tarp traps were broken and I was out of spares. The rear tarp was shredded. I went into the truck stop and picke...

Yesterday afternoon I picked up a couple of large water filtration units down in Colorado Springs heading for the Stockton, CA area. The units are quite large and had to be tarped. The guys at the shipper helped me to get the tarps over the units. The tarping was quite a job as there were high winds. We put one tarp on three times because the wind kept blowing it off before we could get a few straps on it to hold it in place. The high winds were a real problem as I was heading north. I had...

I am currently in Denver, CO. I drove out here over the weekend and had to fight a pretty strong wind storm through IA and NE. When I got to CO it was snowing. Yuck. I delivered some snow removal equipment to two locations here yesterday and am now just waiting for them to find me a reload back out again. Before I left out I had stocked up on food supplies. It's much cheaper to eat that way than in truck stops, and in Winter it is especially important to carry emergency supplies anyway. ...

I am now on my way to Baltimore after a rather annoying delay at the shipper. I was told that there would be three of us picking up at 7:00am. I was there on time and when I rolled through the gate I saw that there was only one other truck sitting there. It was a driver I know and have run with in the past and after I parked my rig I got out to talk with him. We shot the crap for a while while waiting for the folks working for the shipper to get around to loading the fire truck ...

This evening finds me in Greencastle, PA. I hauled eight elevator cages from a factory in Wisconsin to a wind farm under construction on a mountain top in Middle-Of-Nowhere, PA. The original plan had been to deliver the cages first thing this morning and then come down here this afternoon to pick up some crane parts for a customer back in Wisconsin. That plan was tossed out the window as I wound up blowing half the day at the wind farm. A piece of advice, if you need to get in and out in ...