Got to sleep in until 6:30.  Wow!  Getting a later start because it took them over 4 hours to load our trailer with 26,000 pounds of Halls cough drops.   Must be getting close to cold season.   

We have 650 miles to go to reach our stop in Hodgkins, Illinois.  Just outside Chicago again so Greg is thrilled.   When we were in OakPark the other day it’s amazing to see people act like this big truck is the size of a bicycle.   They pull out slowly in front of us, some places run across the street in front of us.   Crazy people.   I especially love how they give you room to turn.   In these tight city streets and you need to turn right and there is a car at the light just looking at you like what?  I’m not backing up and giving you room.   So do we hit the car, the curb with the pole on it or wait.   Usually we end up waiting until that lane is empty or the next person realizes you need more room and doesn’t pull up in your way.   Most people get it and don’t seem to mind waiting just a minute but it’s the others that just really surprise you.   They all want their stuff but don’t expect them to make your job easier.  Sorry for the rant.  We are headed back to almost the same neighborhood we were in the other day and it is very nerve wracking to maneuver through those type of streets.  Praying now for cooperation, kindness and light traffic on our trip.   

Plus we have a Powerball ticket for tonight so hopefully this is our last trip! 

DG:  Stopped in Gary, IN.  We were just here a couple of days ago. It was morning and we had to get to Oak Park for our delivery. There was a guy in front of the main building of the truck stop with about four large smokers with ribs, chicken and sausage on the grills. It was a charity cookout for the Children’s Miracle Network.  We had pulled in here to get fuel and I smelled the cooking as soon as I got out of the truck. I was so wanting some BBQ but it was too early and nothing was ready. 

Well, we stopped today for fuel and to spend the night and the grills were still here and this time the food was ready. However they were out of ribs, but they had chicken and sausage so that’s what we had. Mmmmmmmm.    

Drove 620 miles today. Got within 40 miles of our delivery point with a 10:00 am appointment time we will be heading out of here around 8:00 in the morning. Want to give myself plenty of time in case we run into any traffic, which I am sure that we won’t. 

Good night all and God bless. 

Alarm going off at 3 am. Uugghhhh.  Time to make the donuts?  Nope, time to get down the road.   Greg is awake since he got to sleep early.   I’m dragging behind because I read too late.   Caught up in a J. D. Robb In Death book.   

DG:  So glad she has time to read, knit and crochet. Me, I drive. Annie has added a few more titles to her name. Besides navigator she is also entertainment coordinator, chief cook with no bottles to wash chef de jur ala microwave, pet sitter, head nurse, spiritual counselor, truck psychologist, and with the newly acquired fly squatter, chief exterminator and disciplinarian. Needless to say I am watching my P’s and Q’s more closely these days. Those things can sting. 

So we get to our unload and they unload us.  Pretty quickly and in their effort to keep us moving dispatch gives us a load to pick up about 80 miles away but it’s not due to be ready until tomorrow morning. They tell me the shipper won’t change the appointment time but I could go in early and see if I can get loaded or pick it up, whatever. Well I know how those things go so I ask if they have something else that I can get today and keep rolling.  So I get what is supposed to be a drop and hook, about an hour away, so we take that. So we have to get the trailer washed out, that take about half an hour but the washout place is only eight miles from our pick up. We are going to be late but not too, we hope. Arrive at shipper about 20 minutes past appointment time but there are a line of trucks, actually two lines, waiting to get in this place so it’s going to be way past appointment time when we get to the guard shack. At the shack we are told they didn’t have any empty trailers so they are going to have to live load us. Annie and I both suspect the truth is everyone left early Friday and no one worked the weekend or yesterday.  Anyway we are not going far today as I will be out of time by the time they get us loaded. 

But tomorrow we head back to the Chicago area. Woohoo!

Almost forgot, we traveled through some Pennsylvania farm country, two lane road style and saw some really old stone houses and barns and, I saw my first ever cow crossing sign. Yep, just like the deer signs only with a cow. 

The wonders of the road. 

Gotta go. God bless. 

Up at 6 and hitting the road.  Short hours today so we will be stopping mid afternoon probably.   Heading to Pennsylvania with 43,000 pounds of beef from Tyson.   Thought Tyson was chicken but not exclusively I guess.   

DG:  We’re all chicken. Where’s the beef?  It’s in my trailer. 

Just crossed into PA. Stop for the night because my 70 hour clock was down to 24 minutes. Next rest area/truck stop is over an hour away. 

Good thing we got here early. It is overflowing now and it’s just eight o’clock.  Gotta get up at one so goodnight all. God bless. 

Annie – I can’t fall asleep.  It’s still daylight outside.  Even with the curtains closed my body knows it’s still daylight. Greg is already asleep which is good since he has to get up at 3 and drive.  Our delivery time is 7:30 am and we still have 230 miles to go.  Guess I’ll read a bit and try to get some sleep.  

Up at at 8 and showered. Ready for the day.   We have two hours to get to our drop. Greg was on the phone last night and again this morning trying to find a load after we drop this one off.  Apparently being a holiday weekend the loads are not available.  Will keep trying.  Don’t want to have to sit until Tuesday!

I started keeping my crochet hooks in the cup holder so I didn’t lose them and Greg has found another use for them.   Now he can send emails easier.  Too funny!

Made it to our stop in plenty of time.  Not anybody here because of the holiday weekend but we can leave our peanuts and now off to Tyson in Ottowa, illinois to take to Robesonia, Pennsylvania.

DG:  Chocolate everywhere but no samples. Unlike Hershey, Mars does not give samples. That’s why I am boycotting M&Ms. Just kidding.

This was a stressful delivery. The plant was built back in the 20s and since that time somebody built a town and many neighborhoods around it.  And then they put in an interstate 8 miles away. Narrow streets, tight turns and lots of traffic. And I had two sets of directions both warning me about an area of weight limits and another warning not to go east on one of the streets I had to go east on, but that was a warning not to go east leaving the plant because there was a low overpass that was marked improperly.  To beat it all my GPS which is supposed to be designed for truckers was trying to direct me down several streets that an 18 wheeler had no business going down. But we made it and all was well.

Got to the next pick up on time but it wasn’t ready and wouldn’t be ready for several hours. Fortunately there was a Wal Mart not half a mile away so we went and were able to stock up on some supplies.

Next weekend we will be in Cape Coral welcoming our new grandson into the world.

God bless.

Up at 6:15 to head to Chicago.  The mountains are pretty this morning.  All foggy.  Got a long way to go still, almost 600 miles and only 9 hours to do it in.  Here’s hoping we don’t hit holiday traffic.

DG:  Found another Motel 6 close to our stop so decided on a room and a shower. No bedbugs this time though. The truck does get pretty small sometimes.

Ordered a pizza and spaghetti from a local Italian place and it was very good.

Watching TV and just having a relaxing evening. Nothing to see here. Move along. Just two people having a relaxing evening.

Interesting thing happened on the highway today. We were traveling north on I-57, speed limit 70 mph so I had my cruise set.  Usually cars are passing me when I’m doing the posted speed limit. I notice a line of cars behind me in the left lane and a longer string of cars directly behind me. The lead car in the left lane was staying about even with the back end of my trailer. This went on for several miles without any change in speed or position.  I thought, “What’s going on here?”  So I start to slow down a bit. The cars in the left lane start to pass me and as soon as I see the State Trooper that was the second car back on the left I realized what was going on. As soon as he cleared the front of my truck he sped on leaving everyone else behind and of course with him gone everybody came around me and sped down the road exceeding the speed limit as usual. Everything was back to normal.

Up about 7 and headed down the road to Albany, Geogia to get a load of candy.  Just great!   We stopped at a convenient store for caffeine and got boiled peanuts for breakfast.  Love those things!   I know mom, you’re making a face right now.  Haha 

We got our load of 40,000 pounds of peanuts and are headed to the M&M factory outside Chicago.   Yummy!

Traffic around Atlanta was crazy again.  I swear I couldn’t sit in that to and from work every day.   We were over an hour just getting around Atlanta.   No thanks. 

Made pretty good time after that until there was a wreck just outside of Chattanooga. Looked like a truck hauling a camper turned over.  Not sure how that happened.  I didn’t see any other cars involved.   We waited probably an hour or longer there.  

Needless to say, it was late when we got in to the Loves truck stop north of Chattanooga.   We were able to take a shower though and eat so all is good now.  

I’m off to bed.  Got a 6:15 wake up call.  

Goodnight y’all. 

Up at 7 am.  Took a Benadryl last night to help with the itching and slept like a log.  I don’t even think I moved.  Haha.   Itching and swelling some better this morning though which is good.  

We have just a little over 300 miles to go today.  

DG:  GPS, what are they good for?  They will get you lost unless you check their given route with a map. Today, in my haste to get to my next load, I forgot to check the map against the GPS direction and you know it, that dang contraption give me a wrong turn. Annie and I were cutting up about something and j wasn’t paying real close attention but I did make the turn it indicated and then 18 miles down a country road it heads me back in the other direction. So we lose about an hour of driving time.  When we got back to the intersection where I had made the turn I distinctly remembered the GPS telling me to turn there. The correct path would have had me going straight at that intersection.  

Wel, all is good and we are parked in a KMart parking lot for the night. Picking up more candy in the morning and hauling it to Chicago.

God bles. 

Up at 1 am to see if our door is ready.  Not due until 2:30 am but sometimes get lucky and we did or so we thought.  They gave us a door to back in to and so we got all set up.   About the time Greg sets the brake the lady from inside comes out and says the shipping manager fell and hit her head and they are going to have to take her to the hospital and it will be a while before somebody else gets here who can unload.   Sorry to hear that and hope she is okay.   Our clock doesn’t start again until 5:30 so our time is ok.  They got us unloaded about 6:30 which is good.  Our next pick up is only 14 miles away and it’s going to Alabama.   We are going to Florida the weekend of the 13th so I figure they may keep us in the south this next weekend.  Oh joy!   I am really enjoying the cool weather.  We get to the next place and they load us in about 10 minutes.  Only one container of plastic resin liquid or Elastoflex apparently.  Not sure what it’s used for but we have 4,500 pounds of it.  

Well our night in the hotel is coming back to bite me – literally.   I think I got in to bed bugs.   I have a bunch of bites on my left arm, face, chest hand and foot, which is the side I sleep on, and they itch!!  Greg never gets bitten by anything.   We can walk through Mosquitos and I get eaten alive and he comes out without one bite so of course the bed bugs didn’t bother him any.   I think we need to really avoid anything owned or run by Indians.  Their truck stops and now their motel, are just never clean.   I guess they have a different idea of what that is than we do.   Oh well.  I’ll have to buy some Benadryl when we stop.  

DG:  I guess you can say I am naturally repellent.  She’s right, bugs rarely bother me. That’s true also about the Indian run truck stops we visit. We always know what to expect when we walk in the door and see them behind the counter.  To be clear we are talking about gas station and not casino Indians. The difference is obvious. 

So here we are in Glendake, KY.  Just south of Louisville.  We will make our stop a day early. Here’s hoping they will unload us. Surely they are anxious to get their resin.  This is the lightest load we’ve had and the second lightest I’ve had since starting this career.

We stopped at a Petro truck stop which is the same as TA as they were the only one in the area that had laundry facilities.  I think the other truck stops are missing out on some profit by not having laundry. Oh well, not my business. 

If there is no blog Friday morning it’s because we won the lottery tonight. I will call a limo service, leave the truck right where it sits and we may never be heard from again. Not.  I would have to complete the trip I think. I don’t know. I hope I am confronted with that decision in the morning.  That would be a pleasant dilemma to have. 

Well, better get to sleep so Santa will come. 

Love to all and God bless.