7:45 am.   Awake and sitting.   Our load isn’t due to be picked up until 6 pm but dispatch is checking to see if we can pick up earlier.   Headed to Barnes and Noble in New Jersey.   

9 am.  Shopping and walking around Walmart.  Didn’t need much but walking was nice.  

11:45 am.  Appointment got rescheduled to 1 pm.   Going to head on back over now just in case they get it done sooner.   

12 pm. Got a door pretty quick. That’s good.    

DG: This is the Common Core warehouse where food for little skulls of mush is packaged and distributed to indoctrination centers all around the country. And to think I am taking part in that. Think I’d rather be hauling candy. 

Annie – 1:25 pm.  All loaded and ready to go.   37,000 pounds of assorted books.   

DG: Stopped at a Petro in Kingdom City for fuel. Hey, since we have time, what about a shower?  Sounds wonderful.  So that’s what we’re doing. No pictures please. 

Annie – 2 pm.   Well, crap.   I cracked a tooth.  I’m hoping it’s one with a root canal because thankfully it’s not hurting. But instead of going straight to New Jersey as planned we are going through Kentucky so Greg can drop me off at moms so I can go to the dentist Monday.   Looks like he will have to go on to New Jersey  without me.   It will only add about 100 miles to the trip and we have time since load isn’t due until Monday.    Good time for it to happen if it had to happen. 

4:30 pm.  Coming through St. Louis – again. 

 7:30 pm. Stopped for the night at a rest area in Mount Vernon, Illinois. Ran in to the bathroom real quick and I heard this girl say she was going in the men’s room. Well, Greg just went in there so this should be interesting. Turns out she didn’t see the women’s restroom and was not going in the Unisex bathroom and then yelled and said the F word a couple dozen times about how this was against women’s rights and how she didn’t serve in the F military for this kind of stuff. Well you get my meaning. It was a very colorful conversation to say the least. She said she understood the ransgender thing but didn’t want a man in the women’s bathroom upon which I remarked “well, didn’t you just come out of the men’s room?” She is wearing very high short shorts and a tank top so I told her the boobs gave her away. Then, somehow we go from that to gorillas and how she didn’t serve in the military for gorillas to get shot because a woman couldn’t keep up with her kid. She has 6 f….. Kids and knows where each one of them are at all times. Hers never fell in any cages at the zoo. Her boyfriend is staring at the map in the rest area like its a great novel. Then he and Greg are looking at it. Too funny.  

Their pick up is parked next to our truck so we are all walking back to the parking lot together.   She gets in their truck and gets out again and asks me if there was an F…… Ladies room in the rest area to which I replied – “where did you think I went”.  Then her boyfriend yells out the truck window “told you”!   Then she says “wow, I guess I need to calm the hell down”.   

I’m totally exhausted now.   Been on a roller coaster.   Haha.   They are going to Cave in A Rock park.   I feel sorry for the Rocks.

DG:  Oh, you never know what or who you are going to run into on the road. Can’t say that I was surprised to see her in the men’s room. I had finished and was washing my hands when she came in so nothing to see here. On her way to a stall she did ask if I was okay with this and I said as long as she didn’t use a urinal as that may be a little messy. All in all in was an interesting and friendly encounter.  

Here’s what a truck load of books looks like. And I stand corrected. I don’t think they are text books as they are going to Barnes and Noble. 

Annie 8 pm.  Me having a picnic with Greg.   At least the bunnies were fun to watch.  Just kidding.   Doc called and that’s always nice.   

For those of you who forget that last minute gift or need a make up gift on the way home – good news.   You can now buy your loved on a teddy bear out of the vending machine at the rest area.    Seriously! 

11:30 pm.  Turning in.  Should be in ashland early afternoon.   Good night y’all.  

DG:  And on that note we say good night and God bless. 

5 freaking 30 am.   I swear If the alarm wasn’t Greg’s iPhone I may have thrown it out the window this morning.  Some days you don’t want to get up.   That’s me this morning.   I don’t know why.  We weren’t up late.    Just not ready and even the caffeine isn’t helping.  

Anyway, we are on our way to the receiver.  Already traffic is crazy.   We thought it would be a quiet drive so early but Indianapolis is hopping.  

6:45 am.  Arrived at receiver but was told we were at the wrong place.  “They always keep sending you guys here”.  This is the address we had but apparently they have another warehouse about 3 miles away.   So, off we go.  Again.  

7 am.  Arrived at receiver.  We are now at the right place.   There are several trucks ahead of us and wondering about the wait time so Greg walks up to guard shack to check in.   Apparently the waiting trucks are picking up.  Since we are delivering we can go on in.  Yay! 

DG:  This is only my third load on the new dedicated fleet and already I see a big difference. The shippers and receivers are much more laid back, seals apparently are sometimes optional and so far no one has even checked. I mean, what’s the point really. If you have everything and all is accounted for then seal or no deal you have your goods. Apparently these are all live loads as well which at first I feared was going to be a problem but so far they are pretty quick at getting us in and out. Let’s hope it stays that way. 

In the picture below you can see what appears to be four welcome mats on the concrete. What those are are mud flaps and the way they got there is by the driver backing against the curb catching his mudflats between his tires and the curb. I know because I did that once. Fortunately I only lost one but it taught me a lesson. 

Oh, almost forgot. Saw this in a service area in Ohio. Thought it was funny. 

I sent her a nice long message expressing my feelings about her and her campaign. I hope she gets it. 

8:40 am   Unloaded and ready to go.   That was fast!   We already have a new trip.  Something else new with the new route.  They have a a trip ready before or just after we finish one.  Definitely beats sitting for hours or days waiting.  Now on to Crawfordsville, Indiana.  

Early summer in Indiana 

10 am.  Arrived at a publishing place.    Apparently we have the wrong pick up number so dispatch is trying to figure it out for us.   My thoughts are how many trips do you have going out by KLLM today to Jeffeeson City, Missouri that this is an issue.  We are the only KLLM truck here and actually only one of three trucks on the place.   How hard can it be for them to find the load number.   Apparently impossible.  So we wait for dispatch.   

11 am.  Went in again to check.   Called dispatch again.  Finally have the 5 numbers and 1 letter they were looking for.   Rocket science here people!    So we are getting loaded finally.  

12:30 pm.   On our way to receiver.   We now have 32,000 pounds of books for Scholastic. Mostly teenager books. Cool! Now to get to Jefferson City by 8 pm.   

5:30 pm.   Arrived at receiver.  They are on break and will get to us shortly.   We are picking up a load here tomorrow but going to check and see if we can get it while we’re here.  

7 pm.  All done with unloading.  We drove around to the shipping side but they can’t load us tonight so we will have to call in the morning for an appointment. 

The clock has run completely down so we have to use mandate to leave which is something the DOT has in place for when you need to leave a shipper and your clock is up.   You have 30 minutes to get somewhere.   There is a Walmart close so we will go there. 

8 pm.  Greg is getting his blood pressure meds filled while we’re here.    Now if he just remembers to take them.   

Going to watch a bit of TV and turn in.  Good night y’all.  

6:30 am.  Time to get up.    Long way to go today.  Getting a biscuit and caffeine first.  

7:30 am. Stopped at Petro truck services to see about borrowing a ladder but no go.   Apparently you can’t just borrow a ladder for 2 minutes it has to be a service call and they were swamped.   Waited half an hour but had to leave.   Why did we need the ladder you ask?   Well, apparently driving through Jersey City yesterday at some point we hit an old telephone line and it’s hanging from the side of the trailer.   Greg cut it so it wouldn’t hang down on the road but it is still tangled on top of the trailer.   Will have to try to get them later on I guess.  

DG:  Everyone uses cell phones now right?  Maybe they won’t miss it. 

Well, the cicadas are out in full force.   They keep hitting the windshield but I don’t think we are making a dent in them.   Ugly little bugs.  I mean, look at those eyes.  Creepy! 

7:45 pm.  Stopped for the night at a Pilot in Indianapolis.   14 miles to receiver and load is due at 7:30 am.    We started to stop at a Flying J down the road first but apparently it had a horrible fire.   So, here we are.    

There is an Indian restaurant across the road and we are going to have dinner.  Chicken curry for me. 

DG:  I had the tandoori chicken. Very delicious. Also they got my order wrong at first and brought us both the same thing. When I pointed this out to the lady who seemed to be in charge she was not the least concerned and told me she would bring me what I ordered and I could have the curry chicken too. So now I have dinner for tomorrow. A two for. 

So I work Precious for her nightly walk while smoking my last cigar. A very pleasant night here in Indiana.  As I was walking around I was looking for someone who may have a ladder. No go. There is a car hauler two doors down but he was asleep. I thought if I could get him to pull up beside my truck I could climb up and remove the wires. Oh well, we will have a solution soon. 

Annie – Anybody order a rock?  Apparently it’s limestone from Indiana. 

Meanwhile in Florida.   Tropical storm Colin has gone away.   Sky is gorgeous tonight according to Gregory.  

DG:  A beautiful setting on which to say good night. And God bless. 

8:30 am.   Awake and ready to go but waiting a bit so we don’t start the clock too early.   Going to deliver load we have now and then on to Bridgeport, New Jersey and then on to Avon, Indiana.   The sun is bright and no rain in sight.   

10:30 am.  Made it to receiver.   Wow!  Lots of narrow streets and cars.   The cars didn’t care he was a big truck either.  Very narrow street he had to pull in to receiver between two other trailers.   A couple of close moments, mostly with cars trying to go around him while he’s backing up, but he did a great job.  One of the cars that had waited patiently while he backed up even yelled “good job” as he drove by.  

Greg got to have a little fun afterwards.   Going through a toll booth in New Jersey with a cigar and the Sopranos theme song playing.    We have to find our excitement where we can.  Haha. ​

DG:  That felt really cool. 

Annie – Brazilian butt lift?  Uh, no thanks! 

Stopped at a service center on New Jersey turnpike.   They had an Arthur Treachers fish place.  Didn’t even know they still existed.  Looked them up on google and this is 1 of 7 still open out of over 900 in the 70’s.  Greg had the seafood combo.   You guess it. I had the chicken.  

Wow!  I didn’t think anywhere did this anymore.   Guy at gas station pumped the gas! 

DG:  Sorry dear, he pumped the fuel. Still amazing. And it was the cheapest fuel around. For miles. 

Newark New Jersey 

New Jersey farm country.  

3:15 pm.  Made it to shipper.  Was told to go to parking lot with the other waiting trucks and someone would come get us when it was our turn.   Oh yay!   

DG:  4:15, gotta door. Fifteen minutes past appointment time. Not bad. Just glad we didn’t get here too early. 

Backed in and they got right to it. Now let’s see how long it takes them. 

Annie 5:15 pm.  All done and heading out. We have 42,000 pounds of Great Value (Walmart) jellied cranberry sauce.  Yuck!  

Delaware River from Vermont to Pennsylvania.   Around Chester Pennsylvania.   Philadelphia is in the distance.  

Cargo ships on the Delaware River.   These were outside Gregs window so they’re tinted. 

8:45 pm.  Stopping for the night in Carlise, Pennsylvania.  We have 544 miles to go tomorrow.     

Too funny!  We go in to the truck stop and they had a Sopranos pinball machine.  Of course Greg had to play! 

And after that we went back to the truck and watched the first episode. 

It’s a cool night in PA so we are forgoing the running of the A/C.

That’s about it. Hope you enjoyed the video.;👀.  Good night and God bless. 

11 am.  Sitting here listening to the rain.   I don’t think we are going to make it to the city today.   It’s pouring.   A little drizzle maybe but not this.  It’s a shame too because the train station is across the street.   When the rain slows down we’re going to go in and do some laundry I guess.   Fun fun fun.   

2 pm.  Done with laundry and lunch.    We ordered from a local Chinese place.  It was very good.   Now back in the truck.  Sleep or TV??  

DG:  SLEEP!  6:30, pouring the rain. 

Good sleeping weather. Must have needed the sleep. It hadn’t rained for about four hours and Annie was just saying we could have had all afternoon in the city and then the clouds opened up.  

DG:  8:00pm. It cleared up a little, just long enough for us to get some pictures. That big tall building is One World Trade Center. 

Annie has some better pictures. See below.  

Annie –  I love how the late afternoon sun that is finally coming through is hitting the buildings.  And the rainbow was gorgeous.  

11 pm.  Time to turn in.  Hopefully the weather is better tomorrow.  Good night y’all. 

DG: Going to Jersey City in the morning. Looks like it is going to be a good day. 

The skyline was neat this evening with the sun glinting off the skyscrapers in Manhattan.  And to the west of us there was a steady stream of airplanes coming in for landing. Lots going on up here. 

Hope your day was blessed. We will talk more tomorrow.  Goodnight and God bless. 

Up at 7 am.   Have to be at shipper by 8 am.   Heading in for caffeine and some breakfast.   Wendy’s has a new sausage, egg and cheese sandwich with hollandaise sauce.  Mmmmm.  Bet that’s good.  Greg is going to give it a try.   I’m sticking with the plain bacon biscuit.  

8 am.  Arrived at shipper.  We came by yesterday to see if we could get in earlier but the place was deserted.  We thought we had the wrong place. It was kinda spooky looking.  Doesn’t look much better this morning but there are a few cars in the parking lot and some guys in the warehouse.   They started loading us right away which is great.  Shouldn’t be here too long.   

It’s not a bit scary either to see a white stream of something coming down the driveway in to the drain at a chemical company!  The name is Chemway after all. 

8:20 am.  All done with the loading but according to DOT we have to wait another 15 minutes as you have to clock 30 minutes load time whether you use it or not.   Gotta love government regulations! We definitely loved the load time.   Any time it’s a live load you hope it doesn’t take 4 hours.   This was a nice change!  

Sun is shining, a little cloudy, a little muggy.   And we are heading to New Jersey.   Here is a picture of where we’re going.  I bet traffic is just wonderful! 

We passed this house, Octagon Hall, going to the shipper.  It’s a neat house with a lot of history. http://octagonhall.com

4 pm.  We were able to stop in Ashland for a few minutes and have dinner with mom.   We went to Bob Evans.   Couldn’t stay long but it was a great visit!!  Thanks for supper mom!

DG:  Yes, thank you Ruthie.  It was good to see you. Your hair looks marvelous. 

I forgot to include these pictures from our lunch yesterday in Nicholasville.  I hesitate to call it a truck stop as it had only five spots for truck parking and no showers or laundry, but it had a dynamite lunch counter, good home cooked food and something I’ve never seen on a buffet before, broccoli casserole.  Awesome. The rest of the food was good as well. 

I had the roasted chicken and that is the broccoli casserole at the top of the plate. And a bottle of Ale-8, the Kentucky soda of choice. 

So we got as far as Frametown and stopped at a rest area for the night. It was still light out so I went over to a table for a smoke and some reading. 

And another Ale-8. Well, I didn’t get very far into my smoke when we encountered Ricky Joe. He’s the attendant here at the rest area and he came by our table with something in his hand saying something about Silence of the Lambs.  He was several feet away and was holding his hand out to show us what he was holding but I didn’t understand him so he came closer and said that what he had in his hand was like the moth that was in Silence of the Lambs and just now I got the reference. It wasn’t in the movie that I remember but is on the movie poster. See picture below. Then he proceeded to tell us about the moth. Apparently this particular moth attacks bee hives, tricks them into letting it in where it proceeds to eat the honey and the larva and then lays its own eggs in the hive. According to Ricky they can be very devastating.  He lost several hives to them. 

In the bottom picture you can see the eggs. I forget how many thousands of eggs he told us these things can lay in a day. 

Well, the story only got better from there. Having no bees he set out to trap some more to refill his hives. Said he uses lemon grass oil as an attractant. And there apparently are bee traps you put the oil on to attract and capture the bees then you put them in your hives. Well, at first he was having no luck. Then sadly his father died last week and they just buried him this past Saturday.  Now here’s where it gets interesting. According to Ricky, He went to check his bee trap Monday evening and it had a swarm in it. He took it to one of his hives, put the bees in and returned the trap to the same tree where he had it before. The second evening, he had another swarm. Now according to Ricky and his knowledge of conventional wisdom when it comes to trapping bees, you should not be able to attract another swarm to the same place you just caught a swarm, but he ignored that and put the trap right back in the same place and for five days in a row has been successful in trapping a swarm of bees. Now his hives are all full. All three of us attribute this to spiritual help from his father who had recently passed. 

There were a couple more ghost stories but I’ll leave them for later. 

Hope you all had a blessed day. Goodnight and God bless. 

Annie – Yes, a very interesting visit with Ricky.  Everything from his dad and bees to his moms death, a light over his house which his pastor told him meant he would be next in his family to die to several fire fighting stories.  And one story about a crick across the street. Wow!  You just never know what people are going to say.  

Well, turning in.   About 500 miles to go tomorrow.  Goodnight y’all 

DG:  By faith we live, not by sight. 

Tried not to use the A/C last night. It was relatively cool, for Georgia.  However, around 4:30 this morning I woke up in a sweat. Started the truck and attempted to set the idle manager, that lets the engine run past its California mandated idle time, but it wouldn’t work and after a couple of minutes my check engine and stop engine lights started blinking. Shut it down and tried again. Same thing. Worried that we had a similar problem like the one that ended us in a shop for five days, I prayed about it. I said, “God, you created everything and I know you can make this truck run like it is supposed to”.  And I thanked Him for doing so, which is important if you intend to show faith.  And, I went back to bed. 

Around 5:30 one of the employees from the truck stop knocked on the side of my truck, woke me up, and said we would have to move. I bob tailed in and parked in the car parking area around front not wanting to take up a whole truck space if I didn’t have to, as did several other truckers who were bob tailing. Moving around back to the truck area the two previously mentioned lights came on again, started blinking and before I could pull into a space, the engine died. It restarted and I was able to get into a parking spot. 

By this time Annie was awake and asked about the situation. I told her I thought we were going to have to call road breakdown and would probably need towed to the closest shop. She reminded me that I had asked God to fix it and to go back to bed. I got out and opened the hood to see if I could see anything that might be causing the problem. Nada. Got back in, started the engine, let it run past the time the lights came on the last time, set the idle manager, 6:30 and it’s working perfectly. Thank you Jesus. Going back to bed. Praise the Lord. What else can I say.

Annie – 9 am.   Time for caffeine and breakfast.   We aren’t leaving until about 3 pm since it’s a short trip and load isn’t due until 1 am.  

Ok.  Bragging a bit.  Sadie got some awards at school today for reading, math, attendance, music, all A’s and good moral character.   Her teacher said she is the first one to help out in class if another kid needs help but in the playground is very competitive.   I love that!   

3 pm.  Took a little nap now we’re ready to head to shipper. 

4:15 pm.   All loaded and ready to go.   Kentucky here we come! 

4:45 pm.  Well, this is fun.  

Tennessee River around Loudin, Tennessee. 

Rainbow!

Brice River near Briceville Tennessee.  

Blue ridge mountains.   It’s a little dark but still pretty.  

DG:  Arrived at receiver about an hour early. They check you in then we go sit on a side street until they call us with a door. This warehouse sits down over a hill behind several businesses so they do their unloading at night as not to disturb the businesses during the day. Kind of a weird set up but it works for them. 

Annie -2:10 am.  Got the call to come back over and get a door to get unloaded.  

3:45 am.  Still waiting…….

5:35 am.   Fell asleep.  Still waiting.  Going back to sleep.    Goodnight y’all. 

7:30 am.  Time to get up and head on in to Kennesaw Georgia.   We have about 490 miles to go.   Bright sunny day though which is good.   

To top off the rough day I had yesterday – the air conditioner in the truck stopped working.   IN LOUISIANA!! Of all places.   Greg tried several things and went out and lifted the hood and the compressor wasn’t coming on.   Not a good sign.   Sweat is now rolling down my face and the fan isn’t helping.   Contemplating whether they would notice if I slept in the Arby’s dining room then I have a thought.   It’s a computer.  Try rebooting it.   So Greg shuts off engine, waits a minute and then restarts truck.  Cold air is coming through!   Yeah!!   The humidity is about 90% here.  I really would have slept in the Arby’s!   So all is good this morning and cold air is still coming through the vents as we head in to Mississippi! 

Mississippi River going from Louisiana to Mississippi. 

7 pm.  Arrived at shipper in Kennesaw.   Traffic around Atlanta slowed us down a bit but got here with 43 minutes to spare.  

8:15 pm.  Heading to rest area.   We dropped off our load and went next door to pick up load but it won’t be ready until 1 am.   Out of time so have to go to truck stop.  We are headed to Nicholasville Kentucky which is only about 370 miles so will come back tomorrow afternoon as load is due to be delivered at 1 am on june 2nd.  

Sunset on a lake in Kennesaw Georgia.   Nice way to spend the evening.  

DG:  Bob tail to the truck stop. We got time now. Stay up late watching tv and sleep in. Roll on in the afternoon. 

Changed fleets today but won’t start till after this trip. It’s a dedicated fleet so we will be delivering for one customer but still going all over the country. 

Okay, it’s later than you think so time for bed. Good night all you good folks. Hope your tomorrow is better than your today. Don’t really know what that means but it’s gotta be good. God bless.