DG:  3:00 am delivery. Time for a nap. Got to yard around 11:00 last night, was wired from driving so watched some tv for a while then tried to sleep all day but that didn’t work. Did some laundry and took a shower. Now it’s time for a nap. 

Annie – 6:30 pm. Time to get back on the road. Headed to Louisiana.  If only we could find the truck.  Lol 

     
Getting the truck washed here at the yard before we head out.  They do it for free here including the tractor which can be pretty expensive on the road.   It needs it too.  All the salt and grime from the snowy roads and rain have made it a mess. 

3 am.  Passing through New Orleans.    Bridge going over Inner Harbor from Lake Pontchartrain.  Hope we get to go back through in the daylight.  

3:30 am. Arrived at receiver with our truck load of Teddy Grahams.  They say it shouldn’t take too long.  Greg is going to put his head down for a minute anyway.  Getting pretty tired.  

5 am.   All done.  Heading to truck stop to get some sleep.  

Passed this on the way to the shipper.  It’s the Destrehan Plantation.    Sorry the pictures are dark.  Here’s a link to their website and Wikipedia. 

http://www.destrehanplantation.org

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destrehan_Plantation
   
    
   

5:30 am.  Finally stopped for the night.   This truck stop has a casino attached to it.  I believe I now know the reason casinos are so popular.   They are the last public place where you can still legally smoke.  The smoke almost knocks you over.    The casino and truck stop share the bathrooms and apparently everyone takes their cigarettes to the bathroom with them.  Haha 

Well, turning in.  Goodnight y’all.  Or good morning. 

3:40 am.  Got to Walmart in plenty of time for our 4:20 appointment.   There is still a lot of snow piled up here in London, Kentucky.   

5:52.   All done unloading the truck.   Not bad at all for a Walmart.    We don’t have a new trip yet so headed to truck stop.  

7 am.  Stopped at a BP station in London, KY.   I got some ice in my cup and went to the counter to tell them.   The guy (maybe 20 years old) turns around, spits in the garbage and says “That’s ok mam”   Man, you gotta love Kentucky!  

11 am.   Went back in to truck stop for lunch.   I had the chicken and dumplings.   Boy it was good.    Greg had fried chicken he said was good too but I think he was more interested in my chicken and dumplings.  Haha 

We got our next trip but our clock hasn’t reset yet so we are going to do off duty driving to get wash out and pick up load.   Not entirely legal but ok to do when empty.  We are picking up here in London and going to Union City, Georgia.  Again.  

Looks like we are picking up Cookies.  This must be where they make them too because it smells amazing.  Too bad they don’t give samples and the blog doesn’t have smellovision. 

 
Well, we didn’t get Oreos like the guy ahead of us.   We got BeVita cookies.  I don’t think I would like those so it’s a good thing they didn’t give us samples.  Haha 

We are now headed to Georgia.  Starting to rain a bit.  

This display was at a tire shop next to a truck stop we stopped at.   Wonder what their name is? 

12:30 am.  Got to our drop off and pick up (same place) in plenty of time.   Just swapping trailers.   We swapped cookies for cheese.  

Only about 30 minutes left on clock so we will just head to KLLM yard for the night.  

5:30 am.    Made it to Walmart.  A little late due to the time change when we hit Indiana.   Hope it doesnt make us have to wait too long.   

9:30 am.   Still waiting.  At least Greg got a good nap. 

11 am.  Finally!  They have unloaded their part.   The rest of the trailer goes to London, Kentucky in the morning.   But now we are out of time and have to head to a Petro close by.   If you have had a big break like this one and able to nap you should be able to get back on the road.   Thanks government regulations! 

DG:  Yea, thanks, but no thanks. 

Anyway, it is what it is. Here is how they get the corn out of those cribs and into the trucks. 

  
I don’t know how many trucks they can fill up from that one crib.  Looks like just a couple but I’m betting it holds more corn than it appears. 

Sitting having lunch, our window looked out onto the fuel aisle. One of the corn trucks had just fueled up and dropped some corn. The birds were happy to clean up after him. 

We’re napping now so please be quiet. Thanks. 

9:30 pm Up and ready to get on the road.  A bit early but we couldn’t lay down any longer.   Got about 5 hours to get to our stop.   It’s a little foggy but the traffic is light which is one good thing about driving at night.    

12:30 am  This is what those windmills look like at night.    There are probably 100 of them on both sides of the road.   Sure can mess up a horizon.  

4:30 am.  Stopping for Greg’s two hour break in Ottawa, Kansas.   Got to get his new tire re-torqued.  You are supposed to do that after so many miles I guess.  Then nap time!  

6:40.  Time to get back on the road. 

11:30.  Clock is out of time so we stop at a TA for Gregs 10 hour break.   We need to get a preventative maintenance on the truck so this is a good place to stop.   Time for the oil change, filters, lube, check tired etc.   This will take a couple of hours so head in to do laundry and eat lunch.  

2:30.   Time for bed.   Have to be on the road at 9:30 in order to make 4 am appointment in Indiana.   

DG:  As usual, I am too tired to think creatively so will get back to this after a nap. 

9 pm.   Time for Greg to get up and get on the road.    I slept a couple of hours and then went in to the drivers lounge a while and watched tv and listen to the other drivers talk about their companies, truck driving in general and of course, football. They are all of the opinion truck driving has changed a lot in the last few years. Mostly due to the influx of foreigners because companies can get them so cheap.   The unity seems to be missing lately.   All the sitting everyone seems to do at times.   And who is going to win the super bowl.   I’m hoping for the Panthers!  Not a Peyton Manning fan so the Broncos are not it for me.   We’ll see. 

11 pm.  Now it’s my turn to sleep.  Goodnight y’all.  

8 am   Up but not sure if we are going or not.   Load is about 4 hours away but they said it may not be ready until this afternoon.   No point in starting the clock this early if we don’t have to.   Greg is going to call to check on it.   

9 am.  Received an email that the load was ready.  Off to Kansas we go.  

Do you ever think that people who work in convenient stores may have extra time on their hands?    

DG:  Apparently we had the same idea because we both took the same picture unbeknownst to the other. 

A beautiful cool morning in Oklahoma.  

Backing up a bit, I meant to post this picture the other day. This is in Beaver Dam, KY. I was looking for the Moon Pie distributor but I guess these guys still have not put it together. 

  
In case you can’t see the sign, this is the source for RC Cola. Well, maybe not THE source, but you get the picture. Haha.  

Cherokee Oklahoma.  

   
   
This building was just out in the middle of nowhere.   Cemetery Association?? 

Need some tacky yard art or rusty farm equipment?   This us outside Dodge City, Kansas.   

1 pm.  Arrived at shipper but was told that load wasn’t ready yet and to check back in a hour.     Luckily there is a truck stop close by.   Apparently a lot of trucks are waiting on their loads to get done. 

2:15 pm.  Greg called received to check on load and was told that it wouldn’t be ready until 9 pm!   What?  Yep.  9 pm.   So here we sit.   

5 pm.  Clock is winding down so we aren’t going to be able to go anywhere at this rate so decide to get a shower, dinner and take a nap.    8 hours will be up around 10 so technically Greg can do an 8 hour drive with a 2 hour break in there somewhere and reset his clock.   Which basically means he will be driving all night but at least gets to take a good nap at some point.   Still not crazy about this idea but have sat long enough today.  

10 pm.   Alarm goes off.   Call about load.  Yay!  It’s done.   So here we go.   Precious of course is pouting that her nap was interrupted.  (Me too) 

11:08 pm.  Loaded and heading out.   We have two stops this trip.   First one is in Gas City, Indiana to drop off 18,000 pounds of ground chuck and the next one is in London, Kentucky on Tuesday we are dropping off 14,000 pounds of oxtail, tripe, tongue, brisket and sliced liver.  Yuck! 

Going to close this days blog since it’s getting close to midnight.    Talk to you soon. 

6 am.  Up and ready to get on the road.  Only have about 4 hours to go so shouldn’t have any trouble making our 11 am appointment time. 

10:30.   Got to appointment in plenty of time.  It’s a live unload but hopefully it won’t take long.  

12 pm.  All set to go.   Greg called Doc and we are meeting them for lunch.  

12:30.   At a local taco place.  I ordered a chicken burrito and Greg had a roast beef one.  They were yummy.  Came with meat, retried beans, cheese, lettuce, onions, tomatoes and jalapeño peppers plus two kinds of pepper sauces.   So good!   

1:30.  Headed to our next load in Dodge City, Kansas.   

Sadie getting off the bus today.  She loves riding the bus.  She also likes to run home and beat daddy.   Haha 

   
  
Lazy S Ranch in Davis, Oklahoma.    

Well, we are having tire trouble again.   Only one tire which is weird.  It has a spiral groove cut out it like someone had taken a potatoe peeler around it.   If we had run over something or hit something it would have hurt at least two tires.  Very odd.  

DG:  Tire mystery solved but not after an asserted attempt to have it replaced under warranty.      
  So weird how the tread appeared to have been sliced off of the outer edge then just pieces taken out of the tread. After some deliberation and calling of key supervisory personnel it was determined that it was not a defect in the tire so I was going to have to buy one if I wanted it replaced. As much as I wanted to blame the manufacturer something didn’t quite sit right with me but I couldn’t put my finger on it.  I didn’t hit any deep pot holes. The roads were rough but not rough enough to do that with a tire. And why just one?  If I hit something hard enough to do that to a tire it would have done similar damage to the one right behind it. And I certainly would have felt it, which I didn’t. I did however drop my trailer tires in a hole pulling out of a truck stop and there was the cause. The trailer dipped far enough to that side that the tire edge caught a cutout in the bottom of the trailer and this sliced off the edge of the tread. My bad. 

Had a wonderful lunch with Doc and Sherry. Always enjoy their company. Looking forward to our next visit. 

All’s well that ends well. Good night and God bless. 

8 am.  Got to sleep in a bit since we got parked so late last night.    We are going to go down the Western Kentucky Parkway today instead of the interstate the GPS wants us to go.   This route will help us avoid Nashville and all that traffic plus it looks to be a bit shorter.   Every time the GPS wants to route us through Nashville.  If we can avoid it we will.   It doesn’t seem to matter what time of the day or night the traffic is always awful.  Plus we haven’t been down the parkway in years so it will be a nice trip.  

We just passed the exit for the birthplace of Bill Monroe and entered in to Muhlenberg County.   You may not be familiar with the song but it’s a tear jerker.  

http://www.jpshrine.org/picshow/paradise/paradise.html

Tennesse River around Paducah. 

 
 We stopped in Blytheville, Arkansas at a Roady’s truck stop for fuel and ended up having one of the best meals on the road I think we’ve ever had.   The truck stop had a big smoker in the wall and they had ribs and chicken.   They also had big thick fried bologna sandwiches.   We got the ribs and chicken and it melted in your mouth.   No barbecue sauce but it didn’t need any.   The baked beans had little pieces of sweet pickle in them which was different but a big heat kick which was nice.   Definitely put this on the map to stop at next time.  

Greg also went down memory lane a bit while we were here.   This is the exit to Blytheville Air Force Base where he was stationed for two years and also where he met Doc and Sherry.   Lots of memories (which I’m sure I will have to listen to all the way to Dallas – haha).   He said this whole area used to be just soy beans and cotton.   Now it’s mini malls and car dealers.   We did see the fields outside of town though.  

It’s a gorgeous 56 degrees today. 

DG:  No stories. She’s heard them all and I’ve forgotten most of them. People talk about the snow we got this winter like it was something unusual. I was at Blytheville for two winters and both of those brought lots of snow and freezing temperatures. The summers were good for thunderstorms and one very bad tornado. Okay so I guess I do have a couple of stories left. I’ll keep them to myself though. 

One very important thing happened while I was there. I met the best friend a person could have, Doc. And we still keep in touch.  In fact we are planning on seeing him tomorrow.  Really looking forward to it. 

Weather has been very cooperative today, traffic minimal and the truck is running well. 

Tired and groggy. Good night and God bless. 

DG:  10:10 am, waiting for a trip.  Looks like the weather is clearing some. The snow has begun to melt and now there is slush everywhere. And still some icy spots. 

Annie – Precious and I are officially back in the truck today.    We got our trip and are heading to Johnstown, Ohio and then to Dallas, Texas. 

Got to Johnstown for our appointment and was told there were 5 trucks ahead of us.  So settled in to wait.   Fortunately this was not Walmart so it only took them a couple of hours to get to us and get us loaded.   Now on our way to Dallas.   

We passed Bob Evans offices on the way through. 

  
10 pm.  South of Louisville and looking for a place to stop tonight.   First place we stopped was a Loves but it was full.  Now on our way to a Pilot about 11 miles away. That’s the bad thing about trying to park so late.  It can make it hard to find a spot.  

Pulling off the exit for the Pilot there is a sign that says Makers Mark distillery this exit.   It must be really close because you can really smell the mash.  It is so strong.  Of course Greg doesn’t mind.  Just too bad he can’t have some and drive.  Haha. 

DG:  So I sleep in the blissful fog of the aromatic mash and dream is vats and stills producing that divine liquid that refreshes our spirits. Ahhhhh!!!!

Sleep tight. God bless. 

DG:  Relaxing at Ruthie’s. Sound like a movie title. 

Delivered in Brooks, KY, just south of Louisville then headed for Ashland. Got here around 11:00.  Annie got us an appointment with our favorite chiropractor and after a much needed adjustment, relaxing is much easier.

Went to the movies tonight. Can’t remember the last movie we saw in a theater. Tonight it was Star Wars. Wow, what a movie. And a real cliff hanger. 

It’s good to be here and getting my navigator back. We won’t know until morning where we are going as the planners don’t get in until 7:00 am central. 

So that’s how it is in our world. Good night and God bless. 

  
DG:  Just a neat house in Illinois.  

Nothing to report really. Pretty routine day. Not many miles driven. Plenty of time to get where I gotta be.  On my way to get my baby. Can’t wait to get her in my arms. Gonna kiss her all over her face. 

Love you sweetie. 

God bless you all.