8:00 am. Woke up to a pretty sunny day.  43 degrees so 3 times what we have been used to lately.  

9 am.  Got an empty trailer and heading to Waco to pick up candy from Mars to take to Manteno, Illinois.  I feel like I’m going in circles.  Haha.  

We travel the world and don’t even leave the United States. 

1 pm.  Sitting.  Got here for our load to find out there is a hold on it.  Nobody knows why.  Waiting…..

4 pm.  Still sitting.  Now found out that load isn’t even here.  It’s at their other plant across the street.  Good grief!! 

4:50 pm.  Ok. Load is back where we were.  Big lot of confusion going on at this place.  Last word was its ready for us.  

5:30.  Sitting at a truck stop.   The story gets crazier.   We went back across the road to get trailer as it was supposedly done but the 12 year old security guy said we couldn’t have the trailer.  But Mars said it was ready.  Sorry.  I have a sticky note here that says it’s not ready that there is something wrong with the trailer and he can’t release it.    But I have a form from Mars that tells you to give it to me.  Nope.  My sticky note says I can’t.  So he calls his boss and was told nope.  Can’t release it.   Why couldn’t he have settled all this at 1 pm when we got here and we could have been on our way.  He didn’t tell us about the all important sticky note then.  I feel so confused.   Anyway, we left and went to Flying J where we will probably be spending the night since it’s getting late.    Greg is typing what sounds to be a really long email back to KLLM.  Hope it helps.  

At least we have had an amazingly beautiful day in which to sit.  Windows down, light breeze.  Perfect temperature.  Of course, Greg slept through most of it.  Haha   I dug in to a good book and just enjoyed the day.  I would say quiet but as mentioned above, Greg slept most of the afternoon.  Haha 

DG:  I tried to sleep, but she reads so loudly. 

This all may be moot as I feel there is an attack in the works. 

   
   
Gackels and cow birds. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands are massing to destroy truckers and trucking. Too many of their brethren have been mowed down by these deadly behemoths and the men and women who wield their power. The day of reckoning is at hand. If there is no blog tomorrow, you will know what has happened. Warn your family. Warn your friends. And warn only the neighbors that you like. This may be a time to rid the neighborhood of the trouble makers. 

Seriously though it does remind me of the movie The Birds. 

Forgot to post this last night. 

God bless everyone.

7:30.  Rise and shine.  Got a little time before we have to leave so watching the latest episode of iZombie while we have signal!  Greg of course isn’t watching.  He doesn’t  like to watch zombies.  Apparently Predator monsters are ok but not zombies.  Haha 

It’s 11 degrees today but wind chill factor is 1.   All I kept hearing while crocheting a scarf and hat for Greg last summer was “I’ll never use that. You don’t have to make that for me” but I kept crocheting.   Now when getting out of the truck he makes sure he has his hat and scarf on.  It’s so much fun being right.   Hahahaha

9:30.  Arrived at shipper.  No doors available for us so we sit.   Seem to be doing quite a bit of that lately.  

10:30.  Still No door. 

DG:  Door. We have a door. Not long after that last statement. 

We are in a suburb of Chicago called Chicago Heights. Apparently the German glass manufacturer, Gerresheimer Glass, likes this place as a distribution center. They make specialty glass for the medical and pharmaceutical industry. From what I saw in the warehouse we will be hauling a whole big bunch of little glass bottles. It’s interesting as you never know what you are going to find in these little towns and villages. 

The warehouse here is an “L” shaped building shared by, from what I can see, at least three businesses. Going in for my bills after a fairly quick load I discover that there are only two business that share the building but man what a busy place. It was like a ballet of trucks going in and out and around all moving fluidly around each other, pulling out of the docks and backing into the docks. Yard dogs moving trailers around for other trucks to pick up and picking up trailers dropped by runners that just go from the warehouse to a railhead or a port.  When it was my turn I had to first back up out from between two trailers left there by runners since I had arrived because there was not enough room for me to pull forward and make the necessary turn, then swing around, and circle around and pull head first into the space I had just backed out of allowing me to back straight into the appointed dock. 

11:45 am.  On the road.  Heading to Fort Worth, Texas.  Yee Haw! 

10:00 pm parked in Lebanon, MO home of Tracker boats. 

Bed time. Good night and God bless. I’m beat. 

Today is my aunt Teresa’s 56th birthday.   

7:00 am.  Good night sleep.   Time to get on in this morning with our turkey.   It’s a balmy 11 degrees but at least it’s not snowing.  

Good morning Illinois!  Kind of looks like Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, parts of Ohio, Indiana and Kansas too.   I guess If the road signs didn’t say Illinois I would be hard pressed to tell where we are.  Haha. 

Kankakee Illinois 

Made it to our stop in plenty of time.  US Cold Storage.  They have these gigantic storage places all over the place.  

DG:  Live unload. No surprise there. These places are generally very efficiently ran.  Out in just over an hour. Long enough for a short nap. 

Next trip is from Chicago Heights to Ft. Worth, TX. Good. Heading for some warmer weather.  But first a washout. My trailer looks like somebody ran a pallet through a wood chipper and threw some dirt in for good measure.  Not to worry though, the boys of Blue Beacon are on the job. 

After that we will be crossing the street to find a parking place for the evening.  

Not far from the place we are staying for the night there is a restaurant that has a car like the one in The Blues Brothers.  

 
We also passed the alien again but this time going the other way.  The place was called The Launching Pad.  I think it was a restaurant.  Not sure what kind of food they would serve though.  

Tonight we dine in style. The Iron Skillet restaurant at the Monee Petro is famous for its endless buffet and exquisite salad and soup bar. Not really. Just thought it would taste better if I made it sound fancy good. It’s not bad and the menu varies slightly from place to place and its 1000 times better than fast food and you get to sit down and be waited on. So considering all the positives, it’s a fairly good place to eat. And one has to consider that usually when one is near the Iron Skillet they are far from any other eating establishment.  Of course in this case, where we were parked, we were closer to a Culver’s, but I wasn’t that impressed with them the last time we ate there. 

Had a slow leak in a tire so got it checked out. Sure enough there was a piece of metal in it, probably a nail, but now all is well. 

Back at the ranch it’s time for bed. Hasta minana amigos eh amigas. God bless. 

3:30 am.   Alarm goes off.  Time to go to receiver, which is Kroger this time.   

The alarm woke me up during a very interesting dream.    I was driving up a hill into a big canyon and there were protesters on both sides of the road with signs.  I park and get out and there is my cousins Rita.  People are standing all around and a few are sitting against the rocks.  She starts getting all worked up about everybody is just standing around. Nobody’s doing anything.   She starts yelling “Come on people!  This is important.  Get up!”   I walk on down the path a bit and it turns and I see millions of people all over the rocks, in the canyon, going back as far as you can see.  I start telling Rita to hush and Come here.  She says “But nobody’s doing anything”. I take her down the path a bit and turn and she sees all the people.  We are overcome with gratitude and amazement.   Then all of a sudden everyone, millions of them, start singing in unison like a choir of Angels.    I still don’t know what the protest was about or what we were doing but the Angels are with us.   

6 am.  All done.  Boy, that was fast.   Now headed to Jonesboro, Arkansas.  Load isn’t scheduled to be ready until 2 pm but hopefully it will be ready early! 

9:30. They are able to take us early so heading to Butterball.  

Saw this old truck on the road.  Pretty cool.  They don’t make them like that anymore. 

  
10 am.  Butterball!! 

10:30.  Got our load and headed to Illinois.  

3 pm. Snowing a lot of the way. Not much. Roads are fine.   

The Snow Geese are back.    We saw several big groupings like this today. 

5:30 pm.  Parked for the night in Effingham, Illinois.  Only have about three hours to go to get to our appointment at noon.   

Went in and had Sbarro for dinner.  Fairly decent and differnt.  Hadn’t had pizza in a while.   Greg had the spaghetti and meatballs and was sure to save one for Precious.  Haha. 

Since we don’t have to get up before dawn we were able to watch a movie.  Greg wanted to watch Blazing Saddles.  Predator was on in the lounge and he watched some of it while I had some work to do.   I think he needed something funny after that.  Haha

10 pm. Turning in.   Goodnight y’all. 

DG:  Epilogue.  Blazing Saddles kept me from having nightmares about the Preditor. God bless. 

Happy Birthday Dad!  He would have been 74 today. 

5 am.  On our way to pick up load in Franklin, IN.   It’s snowing!  Big puffy flakes and then small ones coming down pretty good.   Doesn’t look like it’s going to stick but we will be out of here in a bit.  

Snowing when we came through Louisville too.   

DG:  Near blizzard conditions this morning.  But it didn’t last long. Picked up a load of coffee creamer and candy bars.  42000 pounds of the stuff. 

Stopped in Memphis, TN. Can’t find Elvis anywhere.  I think he left the building. 

Our appointment is for 4:45 in the morning.  We are only two miles away so I’m going to sleep till 3:30. Will drive the two miles, get backed into a dock and go back to sleep. What a job. 

That’s all for me. Good night and God bless. 

10:30 am.  Yep.  Slept til 10:30.   Took a Benadryl last night for this crazy sinus thing I got going on and slept like the dead.   I can’t take those very often but it felt good not to sneeze and wipe my nose all night.  I don’t know what’s in the air but it’s trying to kill me.    I know we aren’t making any money this weekend sitting in a truck stop but with my head the way it feels it sure is good not to be bouncing down the highway right now.    Of course, I think Greg planned the reset for this weekend so he could watch the super bowl.  Haha. 

DG:  Haha indeed. What planning?  I don’t plan. I go with the flow.  That’s not exactly true. And that point was made clear to me today during lunch. In almost all truck stops, if you listen closely you will inevitably hear a conversation about politics.  I believe I can accurately state that most, if not all truck drivers lean toward the conservative side agreeing that there may be some registered as Democrat, I don’t believe there are any that embrace that ideology especially as it has metamorphed over the last 10 years or so. Today I overheard a conversation, on the one side were complaints about government regulations/restrictions as regards the trucking industry. After patiently listening to that argument the person next to the orator made the statement that he just doesn’t care. It made no difference to him what the government did or didn’t do. Hitler would have loved this guy. As would any liberal politician today.  I don’t know how I feel about that statement albeit I know it is not a healthy attitude to adopt. While I am by no meaning of the term a political activist I do care and use my vote to express that concern. Along with the occasional letter to a ocngressman, which I have found only generates a form letter reply however I do feel that if all the people who feel strongly one way or the other regarding a political position would let that feeling be known we would not have the rampant runaway government we have today.  I want a government that cares what people think and not people who don’t.  I feel a change in the wind. 

6:30 pm.  Back in bed.  Feel miserable.  Did manage to get some laundry done and take a shower.  Now another Benadryl and back to back.   Waaaaaaa

Greg went in to the truckers lounge to watch the super bowl.  

11 pm.   Greg is back from watching the game.  Lousy Broncos won.   Oh well.  There’s always next year for my Steelers to  make it. 

We have a trip now.   Picking up at Nestle and going to Memphis, TN.   Gotta leave at 5 so better get to bed.   

Goodnight y’all.  

7:30 am.  Up and ready to go.  Going to be a bit late for our appointment since we ran in to some traffic in Nashville (of course).   

Pretty Indiana morning.  Little bit of frost in the ground.  Little misty.

10 am.  Made it to the Kroger distribution center with our bananas.   Just about an hour late.   Now we wait.  

Noon. Still waiting.   We have a door but they haven’t started unloading us yet.   They offered us a trip but it’s only 300 miles and doesn’t deliver until tomorrow night which means we will be sitting all day tomorrow and then driving all night again.   Probably just going to do a clock reset which is a 34 hour break.   We’ll see.  

1:30 pm.  Unloaded and ready to go.  Still no trip so headed to truck stop to sit and wait.  

DG:  You meet the most interesting people on the road. Talked at length with a driver from Wisconsin who was part Italian and married an Italian girl. Traded life stories. One wonders at times how people end up out here but we do. 

Another driver told of how he delivered a boat to John Lennon a week before he was killed.  And his dad bought a motorcycle from Jimi Hendrix. We don’t know if any of its true but it makes for good story telling. 

Watched the second Thor movie on the big screen in the driver’s lounge. We came to a Petro for just that reason. Not all truck stops have lounges. 

Going to do a reset so we will sleep in as long as our old tired bodies will allow.  

More tomorrow. God bless. 

8 am.  Up and ready to go.    Should get almost to receiver today.   It’s a gorgeous day here in Mississippi.  It’s only 40 degrees but not a cloud in the sky.  

Driving all day.   Went through Mississippi, Alabama, Tennesse, and stopping for the night outside Louisville, Kentucky.   

Rail bridge in Louisville changes colors at night.  

We are all tucked in and ready for bed.  Have a delivery at about 8 am and still a couple of hours away. 

Goodnight y’all.