DG:  WARNING!  The invasion has begun. I don’t know what the purpose of this giant spaceman was and I went by too fast to get a good picture so I took one of my rear view mirror. It appeared to be in front of a store so one might assume it has something to do with the business it is in front of but I cannot guess what it might be. I didn’t catch the name of the town either. Somewhere in Indiana. 

In case anyone is paying attention the number of days has been corrected due to a couple of repeats I found during a review of the blog from the beginning.

Anyway, delivered my frozen waffles, got my trailer washed out and got to the truck stop in time to see the Carolina, Arizona game.  And some dinner. 

Here are some pics I took today going through Indiana. 

Okay, I thought I had more to say but sleep is overtaking me. Good night and God bless. 

DG:  It’s almost 7:00 am and I am looking for signs of weather. Looks like the storm has moved on to the east. Drivers are leaving the parking lot so that’s a good sign. Everyone I spoke with yesterday was coming from the south so I was unable to glean any first hand reports of the weather around Nashville.  I feel certain they have it cleaned up by now. 

Annie – Can’t get out and do anything today.   So stayed in and made peanut butter cookies. 

  
The snow really piled up good in the last day. 

DG:  What a mess. Highways out of Nashville were icy and the Tennessee DOT didn’t do a good job of clearing the roads. 

  
The truck stop where I was to get fuel was jammed with trucks that couldn’t get out. So I went on by. 

   
 Then into Kentucky where the roads were clear and the snow was deep. 

   
 
Sorry, I think the picture of the road is still in Tennessee.  

Anyway it was one nasty day. 75 more miles and grocery stores will have their frozen blueberry waffles. 

Good night and God bless. 

We have groceries in and all set for the winter storm they say is coming.   I’ve made bread today and a big pot of vegetable soup. 

   
 
Gregory FaceTimed me today to watch Sadie on her bike.  She took her training wheels off today!  Such a big girl.  

DG:  Love the food pics. And my Sweetpea. Growing up. So wonderful. 

Well, delivered my candy and picked up some frozen chicken. 33 more miles to go but out of time. Appointment isn’t until 8:00 in the morning so getting there tonight wouldn’t have done me any good. 

It’s a lonely truck without my navigator. I looked around a couple of times today thinking she was in the bunk but she wasn’t.  Miss her terrible. 

And now the storm. I think I will request they keep me in the south a few days. 

Too sleepy to see. Good night all. God bless. 

Up at 8:30.   Called the vet and they are able to see Preciois at 9:15 so off we go.  

10 am.  Diagnosis is uveitis.   Not glaucoma thank goodness.  We got drops to put in 3 times a day with a follow up Tuesday.   

11 am.  Everybody in the house is falling asleep.   Guess it’s time for a nap.  Greg will be up most of the night so it’s a good thing he lays down for a while.   

DG:  That’s right. Got to Nicholasville around 8:15, got checked in, now waiting with other truckers to be assigned a door. 

Another nap is in my future.  From here I go to Erlanger for to take some frozen poultry to Kennesaw, GA. 

Until tomorrow, good night and God bless. 

Annie – 11 pm.   It’s a lonely world without your split apart.    Missing my sweetie already and he’s only been gone a few hours.    Enjoying the time with mom and being out of the truck a bit though.   Watching a bit of TV and then going to bed.  

Goodnight y’all.  

4 am.  Bam bam bam.  Somebody banging on the door.   “You’re all done!”   Took them 4 1/2 hours to get us loaded.  Good thing we could sleep while they did it.  So, now we are up and at ’em.   First stop is in Marylabd for fuel and then on to Nicholasville, KY.   Looks like we are taking a big cross section through West Virginia.  That’s going to be fun with a loaded truck.   Fortunately we aren’t too heavy.   Just 15,000 pounds of candy! 

8 am.  Stopped in Hamburg, PA, and found this on the bathroom door.  Apparently P is for Peach.  It looks like it was made with white-out.  Usually all you see is profanity so I thought this was cool.  

Noon.  Stopped for fuel in Cumberland, Maryland.   Looks like our route is going to take us through Ashland on the way to Nicholasville so Greg is going to drop me off.  I get to spend a couple of days with mom, go to the dentist and get Precious to the vet.  Something has been going on with her right eye lately.   It’s swollen and red.   Doesn’t seem to hurt her but want to get it checked out while I can.   

Some pictures of Cumberland, Maryland.  

7 pm.   Made it to moms and going to have some Giovannis pizza!  

DG:  Oh, I ate too much pizza. It was good. 

Very relaxed at the moment. Should have written something earlier. Isn’t that always the case?  

Hope everyone is well. Headed for Nicholasville tomorrow. 

Good night and God bless. 

4:30.  Up and ready to head to Pennsylvania.  It’s 17 degrees with a wind chill factor of 3.   Getting out and going to the bathroom is going to be fun.   We have just a little over 400 miles to go this morning.  No snow accumulation last night so the roads are clear.   

DG:  Note; never get the first stall by the restroom door at a rest area in the winter time. You have your pants down and there is no protection from the wind.  Just saying.  

Annie – 1:30 pm We got our load delivered to Mars on time and got another load to pick up in Reading, Pennsylvania.  

We went through this little town on the way.   It said it was wide enough for trucks but just barely.   It’s called Tamaqua.   Little old run down coal town. Apparently it used to have 8 lines running through it but due to government regulations it only has one line operating now.   The houses are piled on top of each other.  I swear for a bit I thought I was going through Delbarton.   The population has dwindled from 12,000 to 2,000.  Sounds a lot like eastern Kentucky and western West Virginia.  

Then we come out the other side of the town in to the country and found where Christmas trees are grown.    For probably 3 miles there were Christmas trees on both sides of the highway on every hill and flat place that didn’t have a house or barn on it.  They also have flowering and fruit trees but there were thousands and thousands of Christmas trees from little sprouts all the way up to big trees.   I bet it is something to see with snow on them.  The name of the tree company was JC Hill Tree Farms.   

http://jchilltreefarms.com

5 pm. We got to Reading to pick up our load.  They can’t load us until tonight.  We are to go back in at midnight and sign up for the night shift and its first come first serve so that’s going to be fun.  So it looks like we are spending the night in the parking lot.   This is a candy place where they make the little hearts for Valentine’s Day with the letters on them like BE MINE, etc.  Looks like we got here just in time.   No samples though.   At least they have a bathroom! 

Pretty bridge over the Schulykill River in Reading.  

6:30. Knock on door.  We can’t stay in the parking lot tonight.  Have to go back down the road about a mile to Walmart parking lot.  Good grief.  Gregs clock is out of hours and we aren’t supposed to move but we will have to go now and then drive back at 11:30 for appointment.    

11:35 pm.  Time to get up and go back over to candy place.   There are several trucks in the Walmart parking lot, probably all waiting on midnight too.   

12:05.  Back at candy place.   There is a door open.  They told Greg to grab it and go back to sleep.   Guess we are going to be here a while.  Looks like 5 trucks ahead of us.    

Goodnight y’all.  

DG: The trick is not to go over 20 mph or else your clock will start. I managed to drive the mile to and from Wal Mart without starting my clock. There were a few cars following me that didn’t appreciate the time sensitive nature of my snail pace driving but I’m sure they are over it by now. 

Back in door 3 and back in bunk. You guys have a great day. We’ll be on the road in a little while. 

God bless. 

2 am.  Time to get up.   We have to get a light on the trailer fixed before we can head out.   Thankfully the Petro has a shop on site. 

3:30. Still waiting on them to fix the light.  These boys are not motivated at all.  We told them we would be here at 2, which was 7 hours ago, yet they wait until we are here to get approval from KLLM for repairs.  Seems like we could have had that little bit taken care of before we got here and saved us all some time.  

4 am. Back on the road.  Heading to M&M in Cleveland, Tennessee to take a load to Mars in Hazleton, Pennsylvania – again. 

7 am. Got our load and headed to Pennsylvania.    Clear weather so far but may have some snow going through Virginia.  

DG:  Looks as though there was a little snow but no accumulation. 

We stopped in Max Meadows because I didn’t have enough time on the clock to get very much farther with the next truck stop just 67 miles away it wasn’t worth the time and effort. We had stopped here for fuel anyway so decided to stay put. 

8:30.  Getting pretty cold and starting to snow.  I don’t think it’s supposed to accumulate though.   Will see in the morning.   

What a weekend for sports.  First Kentucky loses to auburn, the packers lose to the cardinals and tonight my steelers lose to Denver.   There may be tears on my pillow tonight.   Haha. 

Goodnight y’all! 

3 am.  Time to head to Georgia.  We are about halfway so about 7 hours to go.  Precious isn’t ready to get out of bed yet so I think I’ll keep her company.   

8pm.  We got to deliver our load this morning but Kraft didn’t have a trailer for  us to pick up.  This presents a problem as you need a trailer to pick up a load.   We called dispatch and it being the weekend hit a wall.   They didn’t know where any were either.  We ran in to Mario,  a KLLM driver we met in Laredo about a month ago, and he said we could try Mars in Kennesaw, Georgia so off we go.  

We were able to get a trailer but no loads available yet so we head to Petro for some dinner and wait.  

40 minutes left on the clock and Greg gets a load to Pennsylvania and it’s due to be picked up by 9 pm in Tennessee.   Not going to happen with 40 minutes left.  So we call dispatch and it’s ok to pick up load in am but it’s due Monday am so a long drive tomorrow.  

Greg has already gone to sleep and I am about ready.   Just couldn’t go to bed at 7 pm.    

Goodnight y’all. 

5 am.   Up and heading to truck wash and then to Kraft in Champaign, Illinois.   Taking a load from there to Union City, Georgia.   Maybe it won’t be so cold down there.  That will make Greg very happy. 

8 am.  Got to Kraft for our load.   Guess what we have? 

   
 
We are close to the load limit of 80,000 pounds so we have to get weighed and make sure it’s balanced.   Took us 2 times to get it right but now we’re legal.  You can only have 34,000 pounds on each axle and we had one that was 34,450 so had to move the trailer a couple of times to get it right.   Now on our way to Georgia. 

DG: Made it to Oak Grove, KY.  Gonna spend the night here and move out really early.  Trying to get through Nashville ahead of the traffic. 

It’s been rainy, but we got through that before stopping. 

Dinner and a little tv in the “driver’s” lounge then off to bed. 

I know the picture is of macaroni but what we have is mayonnaise.