The girls ended up in bed with me again.   Precious is totally put out that Sadie is on her pillow.   Once I got out of bed Sadie rolled over to my side and layer down on my towel.  

   
 No school today so we are doing science and math in the form of baking again.  We made cookies with royal icing.  We started out trying to do a pattern but that was quickly done away with.  Haha 

DG:  Here’s my pictures.  

 
South Dakota sunrise. 

  
Long straight highway, South Dakota.

  
A lake in Nebraska.

  
That says it all. 

Took a walk after dinner and found this. 

  
Looks good on inside too. 

Annie – Today was Alex’s first day of formula as Melissa had to go back to work today.   He slept really good after eating buy threw up a couple of times.   Hope his tummy handles it ok.  

DG:  Tomorrow I am headed for California. All the times we begged our dispatcher for a trip there it happens to be the second trip after dropping Annie at Gregory’s. I miss my navigator. It’s going to be a long trip. 

Well, I’m in Minnesota and it’s cold. Probably unseasonably warm for the locals as I would suspect it is normally a lot colder here this time of year. 

Drive through the town of Marshall on my way west and found it to be a place I would like to return to and spend more time. Google Earth it. Worth a look. 

I delivered a truck load of resin from which these are made.   
  
Another blade on its way to capture the wind. 

Annie – This has been my day.   So beautiful. 

Woke up at 2:30.   Sadie – “Mammie, can I get in bed with you?”   Sure, come on.   About 4 o’clock.    Maddi – “Mammie is Sadie in bed with you?”   Yes.  “Can I get in bed with you too?”   Sure.    10 minutes later – stop kicking me Sadie, move your legs Maddie.    Shhhh go to sleep girls!  

6:30 – Gregory comes in and wakes Sadie up for school.   “Come on Mammie”.  Guess I’m up too.  

7:15.  Taking Sadie to school.  

Came back and waited until 9 to go take Maddi to school and then pick her up at 12:30.   Sadie stays at school until 4 today because they have arts and crafts on Thursday.  How cool.

DG: 3:00 am, alarm goes off. “Get up Greg”.  “Ugh”. 3:25 am; make a wrong turn trying to get out of the parking lot, end up in a dead end back lot with no room to turn around.  Attempt to back out.  Too dark.  Two empty slots on right hand side.  Blind side back into one and drive out.  Moral of story, make sure your awake before driving.  I made a note of it.  

Made it to Cedar Rapids, IA.  625 miles. Sleepy.  I miss George Jones.  And Johnny Cash, and the rest that have gone on.  

Off to bed.  God bless

DG:  Went up to the driving school to see one of my instructors and got a ride on his new swamp buggy. See video below.

Back on the road tomorrow. More later. 

Kids were out of school today for Veterans Day.   We have played all day.   

We painted some this morning. 

And baked some bread and cinnamon rolls this afternoon.    The girls also played with the spilled flour after we were done.  They had a whole flour village at one point.  Of course clean up was fun.   It involved several wet paper towels and a sweeper and immediate baths.   They even put flour in their hair so it looked grey like Mammies.   Guess it’s time to hit the Miss Clairol.   

  
    
 
While we were doing that Greg was on his way to South Dakota.   Sure glad I missed the long lines at the fuel stops and Nashville!  

   
    
 
I’m turning in.   Everybody is down for the night.   Goodnight y’all!  

My sweetie got on the road this morning without me.   Makes me sad but I get to play with the babies so I’ll be ok. 

DG:  Looking at those pictures from a couple of days ago, I’ve never made you smile like that. I think you’ll be okay. 

This truck seems awful empty without you. I even miss Precious. 

Well, not much to tell. Drove about 420 miles today. Got to do more tomorrow if I’m going to make South Dakota by Friday. Pray for good weather. Got a report its snowing all around. You all know how much I don’t like snow. 

Okay, showered and fed this trucker’s going to hit the bunk. After I call my sweetheart that is. 

God bless. 

DG:  Day two of home time. 

Mammie drawing with her girls and being adored. Maddie starting the day with scary hair. Kaiden is intensely enjoying Osmo, an early Christmas gift.  And papaw, that’d be me, holding a sleeping baby. 

HOME TIME. Nuff said.  

DG:  Arrived early to the delivery, Buckhead Beef. Look for them in your favorite grocery store.

Got here about 5:00am and the place looked closed. Not sure where to park or where to check in. Never been here before.  There are two trucks in the parking lot in front of the gate facing out. Pull up beside them to get the down low on the situation. Nobody in either truck. I’ll just wait here. See a faint light in a little building that could be the guard shack. I approach. There is a security guard in there. Things are looking promising.  She has me sign in, checks my bills and tells me where to park and tells me when they are ready to unload me someone will come to the truck and I will be directed back into the warehousing facility and given a door. 

Well right at about that two hour mark when I was in my deepest sleep there comes a banging on the side of the truck. “Boy, you’re hard to wake” was the greeting I received from the security guard who apparently had been knocking for some time. “Door 9”, she says, “someone will come and get your papers”.  

“Great”, I reply. As she hands me my bills and walks away I am asking myself, “which door did she say”?  Ah, she wrote it on the bills. Now why can’t they all do that?

Door 9, approximately a one hour unload. And they want to purchase the damaged cases of beef. So now we are all collectively waiting on several high paid personnel, in my company, their company and the shipper as to determine if these two cases of beef will be sold here at the place I sit. This is okay with me as my other alternative is to take it back from whence it came and even though it is just a 20 minute drive, I do not like to backtrack. 

3:20 more on break and I can drive again 

Annie – we had Nicaraguan food for lunch from a food truck.   It was delicious.   I had chicken and Greg had beef.  They came with beans and rice.  I also had plaintains and Greg had Yuca.   They came with two sauces.   One was an herby parsley spice blend with olive oil and the other was a habanero sauce.  Yummy!   We are at the picnic tables by the lake.  There is a blue heron on the left side of the lake but he’s hard to see in the picture.  It was a nice place to have lunch except for the heat.   It’s still too hot for me and it’s November!  

Melissa’s sister Megan made a hat for Alex.  So cute!

We finished our second stop but still have to wait three hours for Greg’s clock to reset before we can go see the babies.  

4:30.  Finally!  We are on our way to see the kids.  We have one more stop to make but it’s not until 1:30 so we are going to spend the evening with the kids and then go back at midnight and deliver the last load to Walmart.   

 Somebody is glad to see his papaw! 
Sadie got a shirt at school for being a renaissance kid which means great grades. 
   

While we were talking and saying hi to everybody we found Maddi trying to get back in her Halloween bag for candy.  She got caught before she was able to get any and wasn’t happy about it.  LOL

The girls wanted to watch a movie with me so when everyone else went to bed we sat on the couch and watched about half an hour of Inside Out before they were both asleep on my lap.  I couldn’t move.  Thankfully I heard Greg get up and go to the bathroom and was able to softly yell at him and get his attention so he could help me get them in bed.  So sweet!  

Midnight and the alarm goes off.  Time to go to the last stop.  

DG:  Cursed clock. That’s all I got to say.  Have to figure this out. It’s true, you can’t stop time. Nor can you make it go faster. Wonder if anyone has done a study of how much fuel and time is wasted just waiting for these fool things to reset. I would bet it’s in the millions of dollars and millions of hours. Wasted. Leave it to the government to screw something up royally. 

Where was I?  Oh yea. Big surprise for the kids as they were not expecting us until tomorrow.  Sadie gets so excited she cries and Maddie comes running for papaw. Kaiden is pretty ambivalent.  Unless there are gifts involved. I think he was glad to see us. I got several big smiles out of my new grandson. And he got more than several from me. 

Well, wait time is almost up. Time to go to work. 

9 am and we are finally leaving Walmart.   They gave us a buzzer like one of those things at a restaurant and said it would go off when they were done.   It never went off so Greg walked up to th office and the lady said “I told you to come to the office if it didn’t go off by 5:15”.   No she didn’t.   I was with him.   Oh well.    Time to go play with the grand babies.   I’ve had 4 hours of sleep.  

Well, close but no cigar.   Greg went to the back of the trailer to close the doors and they haven’t unloaded us yet.   They gave him the paperwork and said they were done but nope.   That’s why our buzzer hadn’t gone off.   I think somebody dropped the ball somewhere.   Legally if she signed the paperwork and said we are good to go anything left in the truck is ours.   I wonder what 11,000 pounds of beef is worth.   But, we won’t do that.   

Ok.  After many trips to the office and several conversations later they have finally unloaded us.  It is now 11:45.  Wow!  The left hand does not know what the right hand is doing at this place and neither one of them are doing much of anything.  

Now, hopefully, we can get back to the kids.  

Gregory called and said they were looking for us and we’re disappointed when we weren’t there this morning when they got up but told Gregory “they’re coming back.  They left Ptecious!”    

Woke up about 1 pm.  Slept like a log.   Time to get moving around.   Need food and shower!   

Ordered pizza and took a shower while we waited on it to be delivered.   Someone had a birthday here at the yard and they brought us a piece of cake.  No, Greg is not wearing lipstick.   He shared his wings with Precious.   

   

We have a trip information.    We are headed to Florida and actually have a trip there.  Gregory needs me to help babysit for a couple of weeks which I am happy to do.  Miss my babies something awful.   Greg will be alone for a couple of weeks and we appreciate all prayers.  Haha.  We have three stops to make before we actually get to Cape Coral so we should be in there Saturday morning.   

We were able to get our windshield fixed finally while we waited on our trailer.  Took the guy 10 minutes.   He said it only took that long because he had to walk over to the truck.  Haha. 

1:30 am.   Arrived at first stop.  Save-A-Lot to drop 11,000 pounds of beef.   Two more stops to go.  

3:15.  All done with this load or so we thought.  Greg went in to get final paperwork and was told two packages were damaged.  No idea where or how especially since we didn’t have it the first leg of the trip.   Gotta call dispatch and see what to do.   They don’t open until 7.   

4:30.  Arrived at second stop.   They don’t open until 7 am.   Time to go to sleep.   Goodnight y’all.  
  

DG:  Woops,  must have been driving. God bless. New day.