Finally!   After the months of waiting and false starts I am now on the road with Greg.  I am so excited!   I really enjoyed the time spent with mom, seeing the nieces and nephews but ready to get started with the next phase of our lives.   Who knew it would be truck driving.  As you know though, I am not one to question much the path that comes up. God has had a plan for us in each stage of our lives and so I know he has one for this stage as well.   So, house is rented out.  Car is sold.  Precious is ready so here we go!

We spent the day before cleaning the truck and getting most of the stuff in it.  It has a lot of hidey holes so we are not too closed in.

Day one started at 5 am.  (I am really going to have to adjust my internal clock.  The days of going to bed at 2 am are over)   Paul was so great to pick us up so mom didn’t have to get out that early.  We loaded the van with the stuff we still had to go and headed for the truck.   The truck was absolutely freezing when we got there.  Temperature read 17 so we had to wait for everything to warm up and defrost the windshield.  Can’t really reach up and scrape it.

Our first trip was in Napoleon, Ohio.  269 miles.    Campbell’s Soup Company.   Trip was pretty straightforward going so we were thinking we would be in and out and on our way to the next stop pretty quick but that didn’t happen.    First when we got there we were told to wait so we did about 20 mins or so.  Then we were told to take the trailer to lot E and drop it and wait some more.   Got to lot E and the lady moving the trailers around said no take it to lot C.   So here we go.   We get trailer dropped and wait some more.  To give you the size of this place, there are 5 lots A to E full of trailers waiting.    We got called to go pick up our trailer and headed out with 43,000  pounds of soup and V8.    First thing to do is find truck stop and weigh load to make sure it isn’t over.   Well, it was. By 800 pounds.  So Greg worked for an hour sliding the tandems which means shifting the weight trying to get it to balance out but to no avail.  Called Transam and we have to take truck back to Campbell’s and have them take weight off.  Fortunately we hadn’t gone but just a few miles so back we go.   Wait again.  Finally dock is ready so we back in and they move stuff around for about 30 minutes and end up taking off 1800 pounds.  Unfortunately by this time Greg’s drive clock and 14 hour clock were done so we couldn’t go very far so we ended up going back to Petro where we weighed the truck and parking for the night.    This place was full.  So was the Pilot station across the street.   It amazes me how many trucks are on the road hauling all this stuff around.

Dinner was quite the fancy affair.  Gas station chicken for me and precious and Greg had andouille sausage on a stick and fries.   Yum yum.

Settling in for the night was cozy but not too tight.  We watched an episode of Justified and Downton Abbey (my new obsession) and then turned in.   The truck has an excellent heater which is good in these temperatures but really got hot so we would turn the fan on until we got cold and then heat and then fan all night.   Hopefully will get that figured out soon.

One thing this lifestyle will fix is my drinking habit.  Down to two Diet Coke’s.  Can’t stop every little bit like you can in a car.    No late drinks either.  It’s a long walk to the bathroom in the middle of the night and it’s been in the teens.

Off to Minnesota tomorrow so no warmer weather yet.

Campbell’s Soup

Precious watching traffic

Waiting in line to get loaded at Campbell’s.

Barn in Ohio

Sadieville, KY