DG:  Was awakened at 5:30am by a four year old full of Christmas excitement.  Maddie was up and ready to see what Santa had brought. So, soon all were awakened, or stirred may be more accurate a description of the state of the adults. Alex was somewhat ambivalent but very interested in all the activity that suddenly swirled around him. And so it began.  

 
  
And so it began. There were many toys for all the kids. Some really cool gifts for the adults. Laughter and tears of joy filled the room. And our hearts overflowed with love and appreciation for the joy that was before us.  A very Merry Christmas.  

  
  
Our sincerest hope is that all are blessed as we are blessed. God bless everyone.  

3:30 am.  Up and getting ready to go.   We have to get fuel first.  It’s really foggy this morning.  Hope it doesn’t last long.   Also some rain on the radar.  Hope it goes away too!  

11 am.  Stopped in Calhoun Louisiana for some lunch.   Little run down place but boy the food was good.   Greg has the jambayla and I had chicken and dumplings.  These were Louisiana chicken and dumplings, not like we’re used to. No carb overload here.    The dumplings were real thin but the broth and chicken set my mouth on fire.   In a good way.  I do love spicy food.   Greg kept having to wipe his bald head (lol) which meant his was spicy too.   You never know what you are going to find in some of these places.   We’ll have to remember this one.   I figured Greg would have a boudin, which has become one of his favorites every time we go through Louisiana.   It’s a big spicy sausage filled with rice and spices. I don’t want one but he really likes them.    Just about everything in Louisiana comes with pork I think.     

   
Back on the road.  250 miles to go. 

DG:  The jambayla was delicious. So was the chicken and dumplings. I know cause I tried some. The boudin Annie mentioned comes two ways that I have seen. In a long sausage casing and as balls breaded and deep fried about the size of a meatball. I prefer the long sausage style and this place had only the deep fried kind and they came in an order of six so it was either them or the jambalaya, not both, so I chose the latter. Mmmmmmm good. 

So now we are in Terrell, TX watching the clock. My 10 will be over around 1:30 am, but appointment is not until 5:30 so we will sleep in a little and try to leave here around 4:30 for our 30 minute drive to the receiver. I have three stops tomorrow so it is pointless to try to go early to the first one when you don’t know how long it will take to get unloaded and then if you are too early for the second one and they can’t take you until the appointed time your clock is running and you are wasting time. Again, anything the government touches gets screwed up. 

So, dinner in the truck tonight. Sandwiches and chips. Nothing on the menu at Country Pride we haven’t tried and not hungry enough for a buffet.  There are some new episodes of Who Do You Think You Are and we watched one of those. Tried to watch the second episode of Morgan Freeman’s new show, The Origin of God, I think it’s called. Still trying to figure it out after all these years. 

So it’s getting late and 4:00 o’clock comes early.  Hope you all are well and we will have more tomorrow. Goodnight and God bless. 

1:45 am.   Greg is up and ready to go.  My butt is dragging but then I didn’t get as much sleep as he did. I see a nap in my future.   Haha.  

4 am.  Yep.  Sleepy time.  I tried to stay awake but didn’t make it too long. 

9 am.  Have to pull over.  The load supervisor at the place we just loaded at called and said they think they loaded us wrong and wants Greg to break the seal on the trailer and FaceTime them so they can see the second part of the load.  This load has three stops.   I video taped Greg doing all of this in case there were questions.   Breaking a seal and opening the trailer is a BIG no no and I wanted to make sure he was covered.   So, order verified, new seal placed on door and we are back on the road.  Apparently it was loaded correctly.   This is what happens when you have people who barely, if at all, speak English working with people  who don’t speak Spanish.   In America!   

DG:  Amen to that, sister. Preach on it. Build that wall!  

Okay, stopped in Loxley, AL.  Called log department earlier in an attempt to more thoroughly understand the split break. Apparently, if I would have extended the one hour break I took around 0500 to two hours it would have given me more time than driving out my drive clock, as I have done.  So we have set the alarm for two hours from the time we stopped to see what time will be left. Sound confusing?  You betcha. The results are forthcoming. I got nothing after two hours as I had exhausted my 14. Clearer now?  Thought not. 

8 pm.  Parked in Loxely about 2 pm or so.  Greg was wore out so we took a nap.   Time to get up and shower and have dinner.   Arby’s.   Uugghh but that’s all they got.  

10 pm.  Turning in.  We have to get up at 3:30 am to get back on the road.   Goodnight y’all. 

DG:  I second that. Good night and God bless. 

Didn’t take any pics today so here’s an oldie for you. 

3:30 am.  Woke up with the phone ringing.   Greg had called the receiver to see if we could come in earlier since we were close but at 8 pm last night no one answered.   I guess they felt 3 am was a good time to call.   He said to come on in and they would work us in.   Now Gregs clock hasn’t reset yet so we have to wait about an hour.  Back to sleep.  

5 am.  Drove on in to receiver and waited about 2 hours.  We were done by the time we were scheduled to be there so that was good.   

9 am. Got new trip.  You’ll never believe where.  Dallas!   I know you are shocked.   Heading to Riviera Beach, Florida for a live load.   If you remember this is where we waited 7 hours to get loaded last time.  Hope they got their act together better today.   First have to stop in Ft. Pierce and get a trailer wash out.    

2 pm.   Waiting for them to get us loaded. 

3 pm.  Still waiting.  

5:30 pm.   Finally finished.    Better than 7 hours but still ridiculous.    This place has two buildings.   We sit and watch them bring the load over from the other building a forklift at a time.  Seems to me they should load us at the other building.   

6:30 pm.   Stopping for the night at Loves.   They have an Arby’s but I’d just as soon have a peanut butter sandwich.   

7 pm.  Greg is turning in.   He is going to do an 8 hour split instead of the usual 10 hour break.   He has really got to put some miles on the truck, 1200, in the next two days.  This way he can drive for a few hours and then take a 2 hour break, making his 10 hours.   This gives him a nice rest before getting back on the road.  600 miles a day is rough on him.   

11:30 pm.  Guess I’ll turn in now.   Got caught up in Nora Roberts new book.  

Good night y’all.  

DG:  Those truck wash places gotta be making a killing. We were about sixth in line, two lines, and by the time we got to the door there were eight more trucks behind us. Took about an hour. This means my 14 hour clock has caught up with the others so now we are working on that one which at the moment shows 4:26.  And it don’t stop. And they have not yet started loading us so I’m figuring we will be blessed to get out of here with two hours left to drive. We’ll see. 

This place is called the Italian Rose and they make salsas and sauces and use lots of garlic. You see people coming out of the plant wearing gas masks. Guess it’s pretty strong in there. 

Three hour load. They cut their old time by more than half. However this leaves me with about two hours of drive time at rush hour. Not going to get far on that. 

I was right. Traffic was thick in the city and on the highway. Made it to our fuel stop, about 55 miles, and stopped for the night. Going to try a split break to see if I can squeeze more driving time out of the old clock. Here’s hoping. 

DG:  Back to the Derailed Diner for breakfast. Sitting at a different tailgate this morning. Check out the salt and pepper shakers holder. 

Took some pics in daylight so you could see more clearly the work that went into this scene. It appears the owner had some set builders do this as it is all fake. Pretty good job on it I think. 

  
Who is that handsome trucker?  

Florida! Pensacola Bay

DG: Stopped at TA in Inverness, FL. There aren’t many truck stops much closer to our stop and there was parking spots close to the building so here we stay. Laundry and dinner and then hang out. Our delivery is due at 9:00 in the morning and we are about an hour away. So, we will leave around 7:00am to give us plenty of time to overcome traffic and if no interruptions we will be early and hopefully get out early because we have already been given another trip. I don’t know what’s happening but I hope this is a sign of things to come. We’re going right back to Texas but two days before payday and 1000 miles, I’ll take it. 

So for the fourth meal in a row we are having sit down as opposed to fast food. Not sure it’s any healthier but it is tastier by far. 

Interesting pic from the Busy Bee. Needs no explanation.

Fuel is $2.41 here so we will be looking elsewhere hoping we can find a lower price somewhere in Florida.  

Thought I would have emote but after dinner we watched a little TV and now hitting the sack. So hope you all had a great day and we will be writing more tomorrow. Good night and God bless. 

8 am.   Slept all I can.  Time to move.   They’re not sure if we will get a trip or not.   Here’s hoping!  

10:30.  Greg called Doc and told him we are in town.  Plans made to eat potato salad and cook out.   He is picking us up at noon. 

12:30.  At Doc and Sherrie’s house.   Doc is making the potato salad.  Greg is making a lot of mmmmmm noises.   It’s been about 4 years or so since he’s had homemade potato salad.  Haha.   He and Doc eat a big bowl.   To taste test of course.  

1:15.  Got a call we have a trip.  I can’t believe the timing.   We were this close to homemade food!  And our visit cut short.   Looks like we are heading to Orlando.   

2 pm.  Sad goodbyes too soon.  Such great people!  

3:30 pm.  Headed to Cargill to pick up our load for Florida.   

5 pm.  We got to Cargill and got a door right away which is encouraging.    Hopefully this won’t take too long.  

6:30.  Yay!   Ready to go!   So glad that didn’t taking forever.  You never know with Cargill.   We have waited a little while and we have waited all night.   You just never know.   Luckily these people wanted to go home!  So we are now officially heading east to Florida.  

DG: Only drove a few hours today. Hard to know when to sleep when you don’t know when you will be leaving. We are just a few miles shy of Louisiana and have until 9:00 am Tuesday morning to get to Orlando. Should not be a problem. 

Annie told you how close we were to home cooked BBQ ribs. So close. I was staring at them as they were thawing in the sink. While eating freshly made potato salad. Yes, it was good. Very good. Almost as good as what Annie has made. So sorry we missed that dinner. But work called and we answered. So we gave up ribs to haul 39000 pounds of Burger King Jr. Whopper patties to Florida. I hope them floridians enjoy their burgers and appreciate what we have done to get them there. But they won’t give it a thought. And that’s okay. 

So, goodnight from East Texas. God bless each and every one of you. 

Annie – Turning in.   970 miles to go.   We had rain earlier but fortunately that has cleared up.  Hoping for clear weather the rest of the way.   Better get to sleep.  Goidnight y’all. 

Happy Birthday Faye!  We miss you!! 

7:30.  Up and ready to go.  About 450 miles to go today.  We are taking the load to the KLLM yard in Lancaster, Texas.  

DG:  We have fallen into the abyss that is Lancaster. No freight. No empty trailers. No night attendant for showers.  Grab a towel and go and please clean up after yourself. Not sure what’s going on here but I don’t like it. 

More on the saga tomorrow. Good night and God bless. 

Annie – Not much to add.  Pretty uneventful day.  Got to yard and was told sorry, no loads.   So we hit the shower but no attendant to monitor showers.   Hope it’s clean.   Looked ok.   One of the drivers bought hamburger and hot dogs and used the KLLM grill and fixed everyone dinner.    Hot dogs were burnt just the way I like them.   

Well, turning in.   See what happens tomorrow.    Goidnight y’all.  

Happy Birthday Greg!!

2 am.  Heading back over to Walmart distribution center to get unloaded.  

4:30.  Unloaded.  Now back to Walmart to sleep!   

8 am.  Rise and shine.  Heading in to Walmart to get a few things then get on the road.   Due in Lebanon Tennessee at noon.   

11:45.  Made it on time.  It’s a live load.   Hope we don’t sit too long.  

1 pm.  Sitting…..

3 pm.  Still sitting…..

4 pm.   Well, finally ready to get on the road.   They had to wait for product to arrive before they could load us.  Seems like they would have known that and scheduled a later appointment but there you go.   

4:15.  Headed to Texas.  Load isn’t due until Saturday so we shouldn’t have any trouble getting there on time.  

DG:  So much partying today, I am so tired. Going to bed. Goodnight. 

8 am.  No trip yet so heading in to have breakfast.  

9:30.  Got a trip to Gulfport, Mississippi to pick up bananas and take to Tennessee.  

11 am.  Directions were to port but that’s not where bananas are.  They are 2 miles away.  We got to drive along the beach though for a couple of miles.  Bet the view of the gulf is gorgeous when not raining.   There are houses but they are across the 4 lanes of traffic.   Some were Big old Mississippi plantation houses.  We didn’t see any rentals or condos until we actually got to Gulfport.  Only one hotel.  Seems like a nice area.   The University of Southern Mississippi is right on the same street.   Gorgeous campus.  

Pictures of beach in the rain and the port.   

10:50 pm.  Arrived in Shelbyville, Tennessee with our Honduran bananas.  We have had rain off and on the whole trip.  Sky was pretty and blue for a bit and then more rain.   Our appointment isn’t until 3 am but Greg is out of time on the clock.  Hoping they let us sit here until appointment time. 

11:30 pm.   Well, we are parked down the road at a Walmart.   Too early for our appointment and they have no parking so here we are.   This means Greg will have to lay down until 2 am, get up, drive back over to distribution center and wait to be unloaded, go back to sleep until done then get up and drive back to Walmart for the rest of his clock reset.    

Turning in to get a little sleep before we get up and move again.  Good night y’all. 

DG:  Me too.