DG:  Ah, rest and relaxation. As much as one can expect parked in a truck stop parking lot that is going through renovations. Ah yes, the roar of Diesel engines and the clank of a back hoe digging a trench. Music to the ears. As long as they keep up a good rhythm it does have a certain soothing effect. 

Eight hour break complete I currently have five hours and twenty minutes of drive time available before a two hour break is required to fulfill my ten hour break in twenty four hours requirement. Where would I be without the government telling me when I am tired and when to rest and how much rest I need. I am so helpless on my own. Thank you big government for taking care of me. 

Pardon me while I puke.  My attempt at sarcasm has left me nauseous.  Just typing those words has left me weak and dizzy. I will need a minute. 

Annie –

Gregory called last night and said Maddi fell in the driveway. Poor little thing. We FaceTimed her and told her she needed ice cream to which she readily agreed. Haha. I think anyone who falls and bangs up their forehead and nose deserves ice cream. She scraped her knee pretty good too but she wouldn’t let me see it.  

  
Ok.  I know I have mentioned several times about the nasty and weird bathrooms on the road but this one takes the cake of weird and I am locking the door!!   Talk about cheap.   How much does plywood cost?  Really! 
   

We stopped at a rest area just across the Kentucky line in Tennessee.   I don’t think you can get this combination anywhere else but this area these days.   

2:40 am.  Arrived at receiver in Atlanta.   Boy are we tired.  Thankfully it’s a drop and hook so we should be in and out pretty quick.  

4:04 am.   Back at the KLLM yard for the night.   Or morning as it were.    Goodnight y’all.  

DG:  I still don’t understand everything about this clock business.  There is a thing called a split break where you can divide up your required 10 hour break into eight consecutive hours then later that day two hours all in the sleeper.  Somehow I got over 12 hours of driving time today doing that but I swear I don’t know how. It felt good splitting it up though. 

Okay, now that we are parked I am going to do the full 10 all at once. Goodnight and God bless. 

7 am.   Still waiting.   

I wish I had something to write today.   We have been a whole day sitting again.    Greg called about 7 pm to see if we could bring load over but nope not until 9 pm.  

8:30 pm.  Headed to drop – finally!   

9 pm.  Got to receiver right on time.  

9:45.  Unloaded and ready to go.  Wow.  3 day wait for 45 minute unload.  Unreal! 

So now we are off to Champaigne, IL for load back you Atlanta.    Sometimes I feel like I am in a loop.  Lol 

1:48 am.  Arrived at shipper.  Kraft foods.  We are picking up 41,000 pounds of cheese whiz.   You just never know.  

Well we are finally on our way to Georgia.   Hopefully Greg will stop shortly and sleep. I’m turning in.  

Goodnight y’all. 

Slept until 7 in a nice soft comfy bed.  Ahhhhh

Greg called the receiver to see about bringing our load in but they said no we couldn’t deliver before the delivery date tomorrow at 9 pm.   Good grief.  So a call to KLLM to let them know and they are working on getting us another trip.   Don’t want to sit here two more days.  

DG:  No trips to be had so I have to try and stay up late tonight so I can sleep all day tomorrow before delivering at 9:00pm and then possibly getting a trip after that to somewhere.  

So thankfully we are at a truck stop with a movie theater. They let whoever pick the movies so after watching half of Furious 7 I went to the counter and requested San Andreas and Hot Pursuit, neither of which we had seen. The first one was really good, anything The Rock does is good and the second one was cute and we were glad we didn’t spend $40 at the theater to see that one.  So that’s all for today. Just sitting. That’s usually not exciting unless I guess you are sitting on the rim of the Grand Canyon. That would be exciting and probably more inspirational. 

7 am.  Or is it really 8 am?   I’m so confused!   We’ll go with 7 since that’s what all the digital devices say.   

As you could tell, Greg was in a rather depressed mood yesterday.   Hopefully today is better!   We had just come from dinner where this lady sat with her family and she, the adult, kept burping loudly while she ate.  No manners whatsoever and then the things people do in public bathrooms.   I can’t even tell you.   Then while listening to the radio they were talking about all these companies, trucking companies as well as all these other big companies, are hiring foreigners specially bringing them in to keep wages low.  They get government breaks on taxes when they hire from another country.   So less per hour, or mile in our case, plus less corporate taxes means a lot of Americans who want to work don’t have a shot or have to settle for crappy wages.   Why doesn’t the media report on that garbage?   Where are the riots?   Oh yeah!  We’re all too busy on Facebook to care.   Shoot.  I think I caught his aggravation.   Sorry for the rant but it does get depressing when you go in for a cup of coffee in the morning  in the middle of freaking Indiana and you’re the only ones speaking English.  Now we know why all these truckers out here have Middle eastern or Indian accents.  Can’t even blame the Mexicans on truck driving jobs.   This has got to stop or America is gone.   

Ok.  Enough!  Moving on.   It rained a lot last night but looks like we have a bright sunny day to drive in which is nice.   Here we go to Illinois.  

Got to our fuel stop in Demotte, Indiana.   Such a sunny day.   It’s nice after a couple days of rain and cloudy.    Pretty good temperatures too.  57 so not cold.   We are 2 1/2 hours from stop. 

Ok.  Guess it’s time to buy some new bras.  Walking across the parking lot Greg asked me if I had a bra on.  Well, of course.  Then he says “oh.  Well you looked floppy so I didn’t think you had a bra on”. Not what a girl wants to hear – ever.   

DG:  Trucking, get it there early, and sit. The load we are on started in South Carolina yesterday morning with a due date and time of 11/3, 9:00am to 9:00pm and we are here today, Sunday 11/1  And there is no one at the place where we are to deliver. Sooooo, we came to a motel which is right across the street from a truck stop. Park the truck, walk across the street, order pizza and watch some football. Almost like real people.  

Even Precious enjoys some time out of the truck. 

Got the pizza and a salad. Good on both counts. The Steelers lost to the Bengals so there is sadness in the room, but the Packers will win their game tonight and joy will once again return. 

In case you missed it, Illinois is flat. 

  
Evenings are long when you park early and have nowhere to go until morning. Time for laundry and a shower and a nap. 

So the Packers lost and the World Series is tied in the 12th inning. I should be in bed but haven’t yet had my shower. 

Kansas City beat the Mets to win the Workd Series.  7 to 2

Hope everyone is well. God bless. 

4:30.   This is way too early to get up but our load is ready to go and time is up.   We are sleepy this morning because we were up late doing videos with mom, Lindsey and Jake.  Too funny.  
We are loaded and headed toward Illinois with 42,000 pounds of paper.  It’s on 13 big rolls that look like news paper rolls.   This place was a huge paper factory but we noticed there was no smell.  We always used to go through South Carolina and talk about the smell of the paper factories.   I guess that’s being regulated now too.  

Going through western North Carolina this morning.   Looking a lot like winter is coming.  

Some pictures around Asheville.    
    
 

The kids are carving pumpkins today.  Sara Childers is helping.   She came over from Orlando to see the kids and meet Alex.  

   
 
Trick or treat! 

OMG.   Abby and Lindsey sent some Dubsmash videos from moms house.   Too funny.  

DG: Did I tell you I like fried chicken? Well I do. With bacon. 

So it’s Halloween and here we are as far from any tricker treaters as we could possibly be. How depressing.  

So tomorrow we will get to our delivery location two days ahead of schedule. Please pray that someone will be there to take our load. 

We sit and wait. We wait for the world to catch up. So much is lost to inefficiency and apathy. 

Dignity is a thing of the past. Self respect has left the building. Being in public these days is akin to being in an insane asylum. Civilization has taken a hike. But we will get it back. Come quickly Lord. 

Good night and God bless. 

Up at 5:30.  Make the hike to the bathroom and since Greg is asleep and the alarm isn’t set to go off for an hour or so I stay and watch a bit of TV.  There are some stragglers coming in and out of the lounge.  Everybody looks so tired.  Do I look that tired?   You gotta be tough to do this job I tell ya.  

6:30 Greg texts and wants to know where I went.  Guess he’s awake.  So I head back to the truck and Greg says if we leave now we are going to get in the Atlanta am traffic so why don’t we wait a bit.   Hmmmm.  Sounds like a good excuse to go back to bed to me.  So back to sleep.  Only this time we don’t get up until 9.  Guess we needed that plus now we shouldn’t have to worry so much about am traffic.   

We are headed to Catawba, South Carolina to pick up a load to take to Rochelle, Illinois.   It’s a gorgeous sunny day but a bit cool at 55.   

We stopped for fuel in South Carolina and the comdata card for KLLM wouldn’t work.   Weird.   Tried again.  Still no go.   Greg called his dispatch who said this happens , no big deal, he can reset it.   Ok great. My go back through and card still doesn’t work.   Call again.  Reset again. Still not working.   We need to call another department now.  Great, out to lunch.   We might as well go to lunch too I guess.  This particular Loves has a McDonald’s so we have the southwest salad and wait.   No call yet so Greg calls them back.   Dispatcher didn’t reset card right.   Good grief!   Now it’s reset and we can get fuel.   Finally!! 

Only an hour and a half left to pick up. Supposed to be a drop and hook but surprise! It’s not. We are picking up paper and apparently there is some condensation on the inside of the walls of the trailer so we have to turn reefer on and let it dry for an hour and then they will come and get it and load it. Oh lovely! So now we sit in the row of other trucks waiting for their loads. And of course, no bathroom. Yikes! 

Greg walked over and talked to the guy at the guard shack and was told our order wouldn’t be ready for “quite a while” so we decided to go a few miles to the Loves so we would have a bathroom and dinner.  

Of course they had the usual Subway and Chesters Chicken. I opted for peanut butter and crackers. Just can’t do the other two. Greg and Precious had chicken.  
When we pulled in you could see this in the subway window. Isn’t it just Halloween tonight? What the heck? They have Christmas presents and now holiday candy in the truck stops. Wish they wouldn’t rush the holidays.  
    

Sadie had a little thing at school today where they got to wear their costumes.  So cute!  She’s Ariel the mermaid.  

Maddi had to get a filling today.  This picture makes me cry.   Poor thing. 

Well we have to get up early to go see if load is ready.   Night y’all. 
 

Good morning Arkansas.   There is fog on the ground.  Not sure if you can see it in the pictures or not.  
   
   

He is getting so big! 

Well, we made it back to Atlanta early which is a good thing.   We have a trip out in the morning to go to South Carolina and pick up load to take to Illinois.   

Got a shower and did some laundry tonight at the terminal.  We also ordered some curry delivered which was yummy.  I told them extra spicy and boy was it!  

Well, turning in.   Goodnight y’all. 

Up at 6:30.   Time to finish this leg of the trip to Arkansas.   Still rainy this morning but it’s warmer so that’s good.  

The sun finally came out around noon and it’s gotten a lot warmer.   Thank Goodness.  

Well, we made it to our stop but we are way early.  It’s not due until tomorrow but dispatch said go ahead and try.   Well, here we sit.  They can’t unload us until tomorrow but if we can get an empty trailer they will load it and we can get going. 

Found the one sole empty trailer on the lot.   Taking load back to Georgia but at least we will be moving when they get it loaded.   I wasn’t happy about sitting here until tomorrow.  

We made it to Hazen, Arkansas for the night.   We have about 7 hours to go tomorrow to get back to Atlanta.  

DG:  We delivered our cooking sherry and balsamic reduction to ConAgra in Russellville, AR.  When I got off the highway the GPS said “your destination is ahead on the left”.  When I looked up I saw that ConAgra IS Russellville. Huge food processing plant and warehouse. 

So we got a trailer and got loaded all 16 hours before the load I took in was even due. All the while I was thinking we were going to have to wait and feeling the penalty of efficiency.  

As I was pulling out of the truck stop that was just down the street from the plant there was a hawk sitting on a fire hydrant. I snapped a picture of him but just as I did a truck moved into the frame. If you look close you can see him right on top of the hydrant. 

  
When he flew off it looked like he landed on top of my truck but I couldn’t really tell. 

Oh, well, tomorrow we are off to Atlanta, again. God bless. 

Slept until 9 am.  Guess we needed that.   Now just hanging out waiting on the guy to get here with our load for Arkansas.  

Hung around in the lounge for a while until a group was going for food and Walmart so we tagged along.   The white folks wanted Cracker Barrel but the black folks wanted soul food so we went to a soul food buffet.  Only white people in the place for a bit but the food was good.   

Then we went to Walmart.   Got a few snacks but not much else.   I was hoping to make some copies but can’t seem to get them anywhere especially not color ones.   Oh well.   

Got back in the truck and found out our load arrived so we can get on the road.   Yeah!   

Gregory sent a new picture of the baby.  So sweet.   He’s getting so big!  

  
Stopped at a truck stop for dinner that advertised barbecue.   Hens and Hogs!  I had the hen and Greg had the hog.  Haha. Really tasty.   I get tickled by the guy in front of us when he was ordering.   He wanted the chicken but since it was a half chicken he wanted her to cut it up for him. He said he had never eaten a chicken that way.   She explained how tender it was and that it didn’t need cut up but he wanted the pieces all separated, leg, breast and wing.   Takes all kinds.  It was so tender it was easy to pull apart.  Didn’t even need a knife.    I ate the breast and brought the leg and thigh back to Precious.   

Precious and I took a nap.   She loves getting on the pillow and under the blanket.   This dog thinks she’s human.  

  
The rain has slowed down some here in Alabama but it has pretty much rained for two days.   Yesterday was pouring rain.  Today is more like misty nasty rain.   

We have stopped for the night as a rest area outside Tupelo, MS.  It’s quit raining and there is a nice breeze.  I hope it’s finished raining for a while.   
Turning in.  We have about 6 hours to go tomorrow to get to Russellville, Arkansas with our load of cooking wine, sherry and other cooking liqueurs.   

Goodnight y’all.  

DG:  Hang in there. We have had a request for more videos so we are going to attempt one or two for your viewing pleasure.  God bless. 

Up at 7.  Hit the snooze a time or two.   Still sleepy!   Glad the driver is awake and alert though.   We were in a weird mood last night.  Sleepy, tired and just feeling goofy. We got to playing with Dubsmash, an app where you lip sync to whatever and cracked ourselves up so much we couldn’t  quit, especially Greg.   He wanted to do another one this morning.   Haha   He hasn’t yet but it’s early still.   

I apologize to those who we sent these to at midnight last night.  

Stopped in Charleston, TN for fuel.  Only a couple of hours away from our stop.  It has rained almost the whole way.  Looks like the hurricane that hit Mexico is coming up this way.   

Precious seems worried about it.  

Arrived at receiver.   Pouring the rain.   Only have about an hour on our clock so not sure how far we are going to get tonight if at all.  

Well looks like we are staying at the terminal in Atlanta tonight.    Our load isn’t here yet.   The guy who has it is 400 miles out and needs a 10 hour break at 200 miles so he won’t be here until tomorrow afternoon.    Nooooo! 

Well, here I sit, in the drivers lounge with a bunch of men watching football.   Not as ideal as it sounds.    

DG:  Yep, sitting after driving 500+ miles.  I’ll take it. We’ll get out of here tomorrow. May have to do some night driving, but that’s the way it goes. 

Started to do some more dubsmash but couldn’t find anything I liked. Will keep looking. 

Coming around Atlanta traffic was heavy but it kept moving. Now we are in the yard. Apparently there are quite a few of us here. All waiting on loads. 

Well I’ve typed myself right into a stupor. You all have a great Tuesday and God bless.