2:45 am.   So glad I don’t have to drive!  Greg seems wide awake and ready to go though which is a good thing. 

6:45 Got our load delivered on time.   Now we have to go to Portage, Indiana to pick up a load to take to Aurora illinois to drop that load and pick up another load going to Arlington, Texas.   

Stopped at the first place to get the trailer.  Greg parked and then asked me if I wanted to go to the bathroom while we were here to save a stop later on.   Always a good idea in my case.   Anyway, I go to get out and see the great parking job he did.  I asked him if he wanted me to swim or walk on water?  His response – you don’t swim that well just walk on water.    Yes he is still alive.   Actually in his defense the parking lot was like this all over no matter where he would have parked.   

Pulled in to the Loves at about 4 pm.   Out of time so have to stop.   

Greg was through here, Dwight Illinois, and found a good little pizza place so we decided to eat there for supper.   It’s been a week since we ate “real food” so we decided we would be ok if we split a 10 inch and a salad.  We filled up on salad so we didn’t eat all the pizza.  Had a slice left over which is unusual.  It was pretty good pizza.  Thin crust which we like.   

I don’t know if you can see Precious or not in this picture.   She is the funniest dog.   She will not go to the bathroom if she thinks we can see her.   She will go as far away as she can or hide behind a tree or garbage can.   I’ve never seen a bashful dog before.   

  
The corn has grown a lot in two months.  We watched it be planted and now it’s over 6 feet tall.  It is everywhere.   

  
DG:  They’ve had some really bad weather in Illinois lately and we have been blessed to have missed it all.  It rained a little this afternoon but nothing bad. A lot of fields we pass are flooded and crops are ruined but from the looks of things there will be no shortage of corn. 

Good night and God bless. 

Up at 6 and headed to illinois again.  This time we have 27,000 pounds of Hubba Bubba bubble gum and those gum tape rolls the kids all like.    The smell is very pleasant outside the truck.   Smells like a bubble gum factory.  Haha 

A beautiful foggy morning in the Tennesse mountains.   

DG:  Short day.  Had only five hours on the clock. That means an early stop and an even earlier start in the morning.  With about four hours to go and a 7:00 am delivery time, well, you can do the math. We will be getting up not in the morning, but the middle of the night. 
Good night and God bless. 

Boy what a night and morning already.   We pulled in to a TA truck stop last night because Greg needs to get maintenance done on the truck, such as oil change and filters, etc. and usually the good thing about TA’s is they can do it at night while you sleep and you don’t lose any time on your clock but Bubba and his buddy Doofus run the night shift here in Atlanta so that’s when the problems began.  First off they were busy and could fit us in about 1 to 1:30 am.  They took Gregs number 3 times and apparently had never heard the name Greg before because Bubba asked him 3 times what his name was too.   So – They will “call us when they are ready for us”. Good.  No problem we will get a couple hours of sleep and then take the truck over to them.   Needless to say, no call came and I told Greg to call them.  “Nah, they are just busy they will call us when they Are ready”.  Ok.  Back to sleep.   5:30 still no call.   Greg please call and see what’s going on.   No they are just busy.   See how this went?   Anyway, he finally decided to call and the lady who answered the phone said we weren’t on the list but she would go check and see when they could get us in.  30 minutes.  Great!  By the way, she says, Bubba said he tried to call you at 1:15 this morning.   Uh no he didn’t.  We were awake at that time and we have no missed calls on the phone.  She says “that’s odd.  I have been hearing that a lot lately”!   Anyway, we head over and Bubba has decided to take another truck in front of us for some reason – did we just not call?- so it’s going to be another hour.   “They will call us”.    We know this because Bubba isn’t working on anyone’s truck but standing at the counter laughing and talking to another trucker.   Guess he gets paid by the hour not the job.   Anyway, back to the truck.    So the lady calls us back in about an hour and says they are ready for us.    Another guy came out to talk to Greg about what oil he wanted and stuff.  Guess bubba and doofus went home.  Finally – all set.  Wait and wait.   Guy #3 comes back to the window and says he can’t change the oil or do the maintenance because whoever did it last time torqued the drain plug on the FIBERGLASS fuel pan and he is worried if he pulls any harder he will bust the FIBERGLASS fuel pan.  Fiberglass in a semi trackter?   Who thinks of these things.   So now it is 9:30 and we have to head to the KLLM repair shop fortunately here in Atlanta and let them work on it.   

DG: And God comes through once again. Apparently we were not supposed to have the work done at TA.  KLLM shop had no trouble getting the plug out and the entire service will be cheaper than at TA. Life is so much less stressful when God is in charge. 

So we are waiting at the Morrow terminal, in the shade, writing on the blog. There is a nice breeze blowing. Another gift from our Heavenly Father. Otherwise the heat would be unbearable. 

Shouldn’t be much longer now. We should have time to get to our pick up with a little traveling time left on the clock. It will be an early stop which means we will be on the road early in the morning. 600+ mile trip to deliver by 9:00 am on Friday. 

Annie – Finally got on the move but only a little bit of time left on the clock.   We stopped at a Loves truck stop to weigh the load and trucks were piled high so we couldn’t stay there for the night.  Found a Flying J outside Dalton, Georgia to stop.   Pretty packed but had a few spots open.    Went in and got a shower.   Sitting out in the Georgia heat for three hours while they worked on the truck we worked up quite a sweat.  Now time to eat some dinner and turn in.   

DG: Snuggled in after a shower and dinner. Sleep comes easy these days as the hours of focussed concentration required to steer these behemoths down the road at highway speeds is a daunting task. This job is much more physically demanding than I first thought. But I do believe I am getting better at it. 

Long day tomorrow as we journey back north to Illinois. 

Good night and God bless. 

Up at 6:45 and ready to head south.  Not really looking forward to the weather in Georgia if it’s 95 in Illinois.   The humidity is so awful you can’t hardly go out.

DG:  We are way ahead on our loads as the one we just dropped off wasn’t due until six am in the morning.  Well that makes us look efficient but now we are waiting as I guess they weren’t prepared for us to be that early. Okay though as I need a preventive maintenance service so will get that done tonight. That will be good for another 20,000 miles. 

We are just south of Atlanta sitting through a big storm. God has been very good about keeping us out of the bad weather. 

That’s it for now. Good night and God bless. 

Up early only to not go anywhere just yet.  Horrible looking clouds and then it poured the rain and lightening.   Decided to sit tight a bit and see what happens.   

Arrived at the Wrigley warehouse outside of Chicago.   Very minty place.  Almost overhelming but after the meat packing places I will take this any day!   

DG: 43000 pounds of skittles were delivered.  Big boxes of them.  Then on to Nestle for 41000 pounds of Baby Ruth bars. We picked a good time to start our diet, huh.  

The road was clear for most of the way.  We are in southern Illinois stopping for the night. Three large truck stops at this exit, every one of them overflowing with big rigs.  Still amazed at the amount of freight moved on the highways every day of the year.  

Saw probably the most amazing sunset we have ever seen.  Dark clouds formed a line about 100 feet thick and 100 feet above the horizon.  In the space below the clouds and above the horizon was golden sunlight, very bright and above the clouds reaching clear across the sky we’re golden rays of varying thicknesses.  It truly looked as if the throne of God was behind the veil of dark clouds that highlighted the brightness of His glory.

A heavenly note upon which to say good night and God bless.

Ok.  Promise to do better today.  I literally had a lazy day yesterday and just got caught up on some TV and put my feet up.   

This morning we are in the middle of Missouri.   It is really a beautiful state.  Everything is all green and lots of rolling hills. 

DG:  And lots of corn. She didn’t tell you about the corn. Why do we need so much corn?  It’s everywhere. 

Now we are in Romeoville, IL. Just outside of Chicago. Have a five pm delivery tomorrow but we are going to try to move that to five am so we can get in to our next assignment. 

Stop at an independent truck stop. They are always interesting.  This has a huge parking lot, we are in the middle of an industrial area surrounded by warehouses and other businesses.  A very crowded area but the guy that owns this property has a gold mine. Showers, lounge, restaurant and big souvenir store. Interesting.  

Annie – The salad bar needs some serious help.   Lettuce, cucumbers, onions, tomatoes and radishes.  Nothing else.   No fat free dressing. I had a bowl of lettuce and a few cucumbers.   Lol. 

We did get a shower which is always nice.    You don’t realize how nice it is to have easy access to a bathroom until you don’t.   

Well, turning in.   Got an early start in the morning.   Goodnight y’all.  

Well, this is what happens when you have a long day on a trip with a due time that gives you time to rest. And that is what we did. So no blogging got done yesterday. So now it is almost 9:00 the following morning and I asked, “Did you do anything on the blog”? And Annie responded, “No, did you”? And I said, “No”. So here we are. 

Well, know that we are well rested and just taking our time as we have until tomorrow, the 13th, to go 400 miles. We will do that today and hope that we can deliver today. 

Have fun, enjoy your Sunday, we will be back on track soon. 

God bless. 

Up at 7 and ready to go.  Another beautiful day but it is so hot and humid.  Not a fan of Louisiana.    The roads too are horrible.  Feel like we are in an amusement park ride with all the bumps and ups and downs.  

Talked to Mary via FaceTime for a bit.  What a wonderful invention!   Trying to decide what’s the best chocolate! 

We stopped in Waco and dropped off our peanuts at the Mars facility and picked up more candy.   No samples like at Hershey here though (which is not the best chocolate). Headed to Wrigley plant outside or Chicago.  Got until Monday but still going to have to push it a bit.  

When Greg got the new trailer he noticed a mud flap was missing so we had to call repair service and they said take it to Petro in Hillsville Texas and get a new one.  Apparently it’s a big deal not to have one of those and if DOT catches you without it you can get it trouble.   I didn’t see what the big deal was but Greg said without it the trailer could hit rocks and throw them on to the car behind us and break a windshield.   Guess it is a big deal.  I had no idea.   So we got that fixed but by then time had run out so we are staying the night here. 

Up at 1:30 to go to the bathroom and this place is packed.   There were a few open slots when we went to bed but now all are full and they are even double parked and parked in the fuel lanes and down the side of the road.  When time runs out it is serious business. 

DG:  Round and round we go, where we stop nobody knows.  

Delivered the peanuts and picked up 41000 pounds of Skittles.  On our way to Illinois.  Got till Monday to get there.  

Up at 8 as requested by office and load was ready.   Paperwork wasn’t so we still had to wait a bit but we are finally on our way to Waco, Texas.  Good thing is that with the new company Greg does get a detention pay since we had to wait so long for the load.   Nothing at old company.   So that’s a nice bonus.   

Went through Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and in to Louisiana before stopping for the night.  Still have about 300 miles to go to get to Waco.   

Missing my babies something awful today.   Hope to get back soon.   

Goodnight y’all.  

DG:  Good day for driving.  Clear sky, not much construction and only one little delay due to an accident that was cleared in a hurry. 

Dinner took forever but we had a shower prior so it was easy to relax and wait. 

Pretty warm here in Louisiana so will be running the a/c all night. Gotsta keep cool. 

43000 pounds of peanuts headed for Waco to be included in your favorite candy bar. 

Gotta rise early to get a start on the day so good night and God bless. 

I know I have been MIA for a couple of days but it couldn’t be helped.    Play time with my babies.   What a joy they are!   We played and snuggled and watched movies and played some more.   We were painting toilet paper rolls to make flowers and looked and Maddi had mostly painted herself.    She said she wanted to look like a monster. LOL

We went to Parrot Key restaurant down by the beach for dinner.    The kids had to have the penguin poop for dessert.   It’s a brownie topped with coconut ice cream, chocolate syrup and gummy fish.   It was so awful, but of course I don’t like coconut, but the kids loved it.    I had a good steak.  Greg had the shrimp and grits.   They also had the calamari as an appetizer.   I can’t believe the kids eat that stuff but so glad they are willing to try new foods.    

We are back on the road this morning.   The girls made me promise to wake them up before I left.  I promised thinking they wouldn’t wake up but they woke right up and got lots of hugs and kisses and laid back down.   Before going back to sleep Maddi said “Mammie will you pray for us before you go?”    Of course I did.   Such sweet angels.  I sure miss them.   

Got to our stop in Albany, Georgia but our load wasn’t ready yet.   I could have stayed with my babies longer so they better hurry!  

Sorry the picture is bad.   We had a pretty good rain.  

DG:  No free sample here like at Hershey. Just waiting.  It was a seven hour drive so couldn’t really have waited in Cape Coral until the load was ready, but could have stayed a little longer. Oh well, no sense in postponing the inevitable. 

Had a fierce little thunderstorm come through a bit ago. Lots of wind and rain but not for very long. Lots of gnats around here. South Georgia, go figure. Drive about 40 med through farm country. Lots of peanut, cotton, soy beans and some other stuff I didn’t recognize.

Hoping for a load soon. Clock is running out.  

Annie – well load still isn’t ready and now they are saying it won’t be ready until am.   Going to go ahead and turn in.    

Goodnight y’all.   

DG:  And God bless.