Been so long since I tried this don't know if it will work. Had some frustrating problems with it and sort of just gave up

Just a test to see if this works.

Hello again

I am still having difficulty posting from the road. I am supposed to be able to post from my phone, but I sent 4 posts, the last two weeks, and none of them have shown up. I don't know what is wrong, and support for this site is weak, at best. I am considering using another provider if I can find one that isn't too expensive and I can post from a mobile phone. Anyway, had a real intense trip last time out. I was gone, from July 8th until Thur the 21, but went to AZ at 3AM on the 22nd and didn't get home until 11:30 that night. I drove 5766 miles during that time. Into Canada twice, I picked up a trailer in Corning, CA on the 15th from another driver, who took my trailer I loaded in Wenatchee back south and I took his to BC. That was after my first delivery to BC, and a trip to Spokane, Yakima, and Wenatchee to deliver furniture for two days. Got some good and bad pictures of the Columbia River. I am still amazed by the breadth and length of that river. When I retire, I am going to do a tour of it, from it's source to where it flows into the Pacific. It is so large, it is breathtaking. I will post a couple of pictures of it. In one, there is a bridge going across it. If you look hard at that bridge you will see a semi-truck or two on it to give you a perspective of how large the river is. Came all the way from Spokane, down to I84 that runs west and follows the river through the Dalles, and to Portland. What a beautiful drive, if you have never been, I highly recommend it. Things are going well. I finally got the A/C fixed in the truck for good, and it is a true blessing. Especially on hot nights when you are trying to sleep. Before I got it fixed, I got bit up pretty badly by mosquitoes on one particularly hot evening when I left the windows open a crack. I don't know what kind of mosquitoes they were, but the bites filled with puss, got huge, and lasted for a week or more. I still have marks on my hands and legs where they were. Never had that happen before. I am finally an official employee, I received my application for health insurance and had to have it in by tomorrow. So, I passed my probation period and they want to keep me around. In fact, I told my dispatcher I had to have Aug 6 at home because my family is throwing a birthday party for me and some of our friends. Said they would kill me if I didn't show. She sent me a message told me not to worry that she would have me home, I am too valuable to the company to have me get killed. My dispatcher is always telling me thanks, and what a good job I'm doing. It is good to know that at least all the hard work and time away from Friends and Family is appreciated.
Well, it was nice being home for a weekend, although most of my friends and family were gone to Vegas. Went to a party at the Legion, that the Legion Riders threw Saturday night and had a real good time. It was good to see some of my Veteran Brothers cutting loose. Yesterday just lounged around recupping, and then had dinner with my sister Mickie and her husband Bill. I am leaving in an hour or so for another trip. I will try to post from the road, but don't expect much.

Take care my friends

Larry

Hello from home

I am still home after getting here on Saturday night. Had a great day at my Sister Mickie and Bill's house on Sunday. I was still a little tired, but had a nice time. Fourth of July was spent at home mostly. Went for a little motorcycle ride in the morning with some friends. Had some breakfast, and stopped for a beer. Then I came home to meet up with my son. It was really good to see him, and we talked for a few hours. Then Becky and I just stayed home and watched the fireworks extravaganza from the comfort of the motor home. There was plenty to see, and lasted until nearly 10PM. I was pretty sure I was going to head out again Tuesday night, or at least tonight, but have not received a call. I am going to call in the morning. My truck was heating up a little and I left it at the shop when I got back Saturday, so it may be having some repair done to it. The last trip was a good one, as far as earnings go. I left out Friday night, went straight to Vancouver BC Monday morning, dropped my trailer and picked up an empty. Took that to the Puyallup WA yard and dropped it there. Had another trailer for BC Tuesday with 5 drops. Got back to WA late that evening, had some dinner with a driver and his wife who works out of that office, spent the night there and then I had a local delivery of about a half a trailer Wednesday. I was out of hours for the week, and had to reset my time there. Pretty boring. There is not a thing to do there, no driver lounge, or much of anything else, so you just pretty much have to sit in your truck for a day and try to keep from going crazy. After the reset, which was then Friday morning I had my load coming south, and headed out. I had 5 deliveries in Oregon for the way back, managed to get them all off on Friday, got to Corning, CA that night grabbed a few hours of sleep and headed out around 2:30AM Saturday morning. I did this to try and avoid some of the holiday traffic. It worked until around 7AM then it was pretty heavy traffic the rest of the way home. I broke off I5 in Bakersfield and took Hwy 58 over Tehachapi to avoid the LA area traffic. Worked pretty well, because traffic was light through Mojave and all the way into Victorville. Anyway, that pretty much sums up last week. Only real things of note, I saw two major accidents, both in WA, and both overturned cars. Honestly, how bad of a driver do you have to be to turn your car over on the freeway? I'm thinking pretty bad. Also coming through OR on Friday, saw a big diesel pusher motor home that had burned up. Totally destroyed. All the windows broken out and the interior totally burned up. Sad, an expensive 3 axle number that had to cost in the high 100's or $200 thousand. Other than that, no accidents the rest of the way home, which surprised me for a holiday weekend.

Take care everyone

Larry

Once again having difficulty posting from my mobile device. Been trying to resolve it at bigger.com with no success yet. Stay tuned.

In WA again

Missing post

Hey all, I finally managed to get the lost post. I had to email it to myself, copy and paste, but here it is. So, the previous post of "Back in AZ" should come after this one, but you'll get the jist of it. After all, you are all bright persons. :-)

Good morning Wenattchee, WA!!!! For those that don't know, (I didn't) it is a big Apple growing region. Tree Top has a big bottling plant here. I'm not here for Apple juice though. I'm getting a load of corrugated I think. Problem is the load is not ready, and won't be till 3 this afternoon. Then I have to take it to Phoenix. Looks like I won't be home for another 4 or 5 days. Worked out of the WA terminal for a couple of days. Day one was making deliveries in N WA. I actually made a delivery on an Island. That was a first. Granted I got there over a big suspension bridge, but still technically an island. It was beautiful, the weather was perfect. Saw a nice RV park right on the water I would like to try some day. 2nd day was in Canada. Not a whole lot to say about that, except I missed the truck turn off for the border crossing, (was talking with my dispatcher about this load) and had to be escorted back through the US side and come back through the truck entrance. They said it happens all the time, but I still felt like an ass. Which puts me where I am. I saw some absolutely gorgeous scenery on the way here, with the most impressive Wenatchee river following along the road for 45 miles. I will post a couple pics I took when I am on my computer. I am posting this from my phone, and the site won't accept pics from a phone for sine reason. Well, till later!!

Your traveling gnome,

Larry

Back in Arizona

Good morning everyone. Or those few that even check this blog anymore. :-) I sent a post a few days ago from my phone, but it never showed up. It was converted to a MMS message by my phone application and evidently, this site doesn't accept MMS messages. I have been trying to convert it, or copy it so I can post it here, but so far have not succeeded. I will try to get it posted in the next day or so. I think it is worth the effort. LOL.

Anyway, I am in Arizona today, after a week of driving to WA, into Canada for two days and then across WA to Wenatchee to pick up a load for Phoenix. I sort of explained al that in the post that won't appear. I went through Vegas on Sat, Sun and stopped in Wickenburg, AZ on Sunday to visit my friends Scott and Patti Colbath. We had a great visit yesterday, and Scott cooked up some extremely delicious Rib Eye steaks in his Big Green Egg smoker. What a meal!!!! It was so nice to have a good home cooked meal. Something I miss sorely on the road. I think I have mentioned before that good food is hard to find now. Most truck stops only have fast food, like Taco Bell, Subway, or Chesters Chicken. (don't ask) Anyway, stayed the night last night, got up and showered and am getting ready to head into Phoenix and make my delivery. What happens from there is a mystery, as always, but I am hoping to get to head home for a day or two. Looking forward to that.

I guess I should mention that I drove down from Central WA through Oregon, Idaho, skirted Utah into Nevada then down through Laughlin east into Arizona and eventually Wickenburg. There is just no good way to get here from there. That darn pesky Grand Canyon is in the way of a direct route. I pretty much followed State hwy 97 and 93 all the way down, with a little short cut here and there like hwy 6 and I think 318. I don't have the map here with me. I am on Scotts computer. Anyway, you sure don't want to break down out on those roads. There is some pretty desolate country there. Signs like next gas 79 miles and no services are not real encouragements. But some of it was quite pretty. I am still quite surprised at the amount of snow still on the mountains and hillsides. Even coming down through northern Nevada there was snow on the foothills. I think it must have been a heavy winter most everywhere and the cooler temperatures everywhere have slowed the melting. With the rivers and lakes full, it is probably a good thing. Anyway, I will try and get that other entry posted soon and get home too. Hope all is well with anyone still listening.

Take care,

Larry

Back out on the road again after a much welcomed week off. Got to spend some time with friends and family camping out in the mountains and at the beach. It was good having friends around and just bs'ing. That is one thing about being on the road. Nobody to talk to. I am on my way to Wa. And they want me to work a couple of days running into Canada. So, probably won't make it home till Sat or Sun. I am trying to slow down a little and not push so hard. A few less 14 hr days will be good for the soul. Get a few more hrs of sleep and feel better. It does no good to push to get home, cause they just find something else for me to do and I don't get home anyway. I have noticed a major increase in traffic since Memorial day. Vacationers!!! Lots of motor homes, trailers, boats, and cars stuffed with luggage. A real PIA. Well, got to get some of that rest I was talking about. Going to be running to Canada in the morning. Later, and take care everyone.

Took a week off work starting Monday. Went up to Kennedy Meadows on Saturday. It is a remote area in the mountains between Kernville and Ridgecrest CA. Myself and some guys have been riding our motorcycles up there and camping out for 10 years now. There is no power, running water, gas, toilets, or tables, fire pits, or any "luxuries". There is just one little general store there for necessities. Not for everyone, but we enjoy it. This year was a little cold. We got rain almost every morning, or early morning. By 7 AM it had always stopped. But it remained partly cloudy and windy much of the time. It only hindered us a little bit. But at night, it was a little cool. Definitely needed to keep limbs and head under cover to stay warm. Came back Tuesday, and have been trying to catch up on bills, and other things that get postponed while on the road. I am getting ready to take the RV down to Camp Pendleton this weekend camping. This will be much more comfortable. Going with some of my family and should be a great time. I will get a call Friday telling me where I am going next week. I am assuming it will be another trip to WA, but you never know.I will keep you informed as much as I can. In the mean time, be good.

Larry

Trip continued

I'll try it finish up that last post. Had to stop in Stockton to drop off about half the trailer and load up a bunch for WA, and a stop in Yreka, CA. They wanted me to deliver that on the way up to WA. The problem being that it was 2:30 in the afternoon before they got me loaded up, and Yreka is 5 hrs away. I called the store and arranged to deliver it the next morning. That was not what management had in mind, so after a bunch of going back and forth they decided that I would bypass that stop on the way up, load 6 stops for OR on the trailer coming back to Riverside, then put the Yreka on from my trailer when I get there. So, now I have 6 stops in OR on the way back, plus the Yreka I have to work around on the back. I'm not happy. For one, this makes another full day on the road to deliver this stuff. I don't know where any of the locations are, or what it is going to be like to deliver to them. Now, in my experience so far, these stores are in downtown areas, stripmalls, or shopping centers. I have a 53 ft trailer, and my tractor is about 23 feet long. Not exactly a delivery truck. So it can get exciting from time to time. I was asking them what the procedure would be if I could not make Yreka again. Our yard is 143 miles from the OR border, plus OR is 309 miles long. 6 stops, figure 30-60 min per including travel to and from the fwy, and 6 hours driving through OR. Yreka is about 40 miles over the border. Not looking too good. But, I try to keep a positive outlook. Got to Puyallup as early as possible, which was about 1:30. took me about an hour to get everything done, and I do mean me. Everyone was apparently gone for the weekend. Got back to the fwy about 3 o'clock. DEAD STOPPED. Oh yeah!! Memorial Day weekend. First big holiday of the summer. RV's, trailers, boats, dirt bikes galore. Wonderful. Did I mention it is pouring rain?? Swell. I managed to get back down to Portland around 7PM and had a wonderful dinner with Brittney and Brian. Plus had a couple of micro brew Porters to relax. :-) Got up early, was at the first delivery before they opened and busted ass all day in OR making those deliveries. Was on the phone with the nice lady in Yreka a few times, and told her when I was on my way to her place. She waited for me, bless her, and I was done at about 5:30 Sat evening. Hopped in the truck and headed for Corning. The halfway point between Puyallup and Riverside, more or less. Slept in a little late Sunday morning, had some breakfast, and headed home. Ended up getting home about 8:30 PM. What a week. Went about 3500 miles all told. Had a little bite to eat, watched a bit of TV and crashed out about 10. Got up Memorial Day morning hussled out the door to attend a MD ceremony with the American Legion Riders group, then headed out for a ride to Lake Elsinore. What a beautiful day it was. Perfect weather. Good friends, my girl on the back. Pure heaven. Got back home about 7:30 that night and was so tired could hardly sit up. But it was a good tired. Slept about 10 hrs, got up did a few chores and got the call to go back to work. Packed up, showered, made some sandwiches and coffee, grabbed a hour or two of sleep and headed out North again. But that is for another post. :-) Oh, wanted to add some pictures I took last time I was out but couldn't get them to load. Will try here. Wish me luck, travel wireless is not the greatest.

I'm Back!!! As the spirit would say

So sorry for the long absence. Last week was a LONG week, and I didn't have much time for anything much less blogging. Sleep was even on the short list. :-) Anyway, to fill you in, I started out Monday around 10AM for the yard. I was going to Phoenix, AZ for a 7PM delivery to Amazon.com. Made it as far as Indio before I has a blow out on an inside drive tire. F@#$. So, limp into a TA truck stop and arrange to buy a couple of tires. If one tire is really worn, and you put a new tire next to it on a dual setup, the new tire will wear out twice as fast, so it is advisable to replace both tires, so that is what I did, and strapped the old drive tire to the back of the cab. It can be used as a trailer tire when needed. So, that took an hour and a half, and suddenly, I was in jeopardy of missing my appointment at Amazon. You do not want to miss an appointment with them, as it takes four days for another appointment. Management would not be happy about that. :-) They give you 30 min leeway, so that helped. I made it at 7:18. Unfortunately I didn't get unloaded until 11PM. Part of the problem was a muslim, who was evidently a new driver, that couldn't park his trailer at the dock. He hit one trailer next to him, and had it so jacked in between that trailer and mine, he couldn't get it out, or backed in. He was asking guys for help, and unfortunately came to me. I have a hard time not helping when asked, and went to asses the situation. Ended up having to drop the trailer where it was, and back into it at a different angle on the tractor to be able to get it backed in without hitting anything else. I think the whole warehouse was out there after he hit the trailer, and that delayed everything for an hour or more. After I got unloaded I went to drop a trailer at another mfg'er to have them load. But the place was all locked up and had to wait till morning. Had a hard time finding the docks, the place was huge and they were all the way around the back of the building through a parking lot. Who designed this place??? Anyway, got it all figured out with the shipper, dropped the trailer, and as I was pulling out onto the street got a call that the order had been cancelled and had to hook up to the trailer and pull it out. Went to another place and picked up and order, then took that trailer to our Phoenix yard, dropped it, hooked up to a load for Wal-Mart, and delivered that. Afterward, I went back to the yard, dropped the empty, hooked back up to the trailer I had loaded before and headed back home. About half way back, got a call that there was a hot load for Yuma, that needed to be delivered by 7:30AM the next morning (Wed). Crap, by the time I get back to they yard, drop this trailer, pick up the Yuma trailer, do all the required paperwork, and get out of the yard, I have an hour and a half of available time to work. So, I stretch things a bit and get to Salton City and crash for 4 hours, get up and finish to Yuma. This was another fiasco. The address I have, the GPS is telling me to turn on a little dirt road next to a water canal in the middle of some agriculture area. This thing was about 8ft wide and was essentially a dike holding the water in with a dirt path. No WAY am I driving on that!! I call the customer, and leave a message. Fortunately he called me right back, and gave me directions to the place. The bad part was, they wanted the stuff delivered to a warehouse about 13 miles back the way I had come. Finally got that delivered, and headed back. I got about halfway back from Yuma, and dispatch called again. A load to Washington. Crap. It is Wednesday afternoon. Now, there is no way I can get home before Saturday night, Sunday. That is if I leave Wed. afternoon. Here we go again. So, instead of going home and getting some sleep, I head out for WA. Such is the life of a long haul truck driver. I will finish this off later. Right now, I have some stuff to take care of before I get called out again.

Larry

On my way back from WA. At the Casino again. Great showers here. All marble and tons of water pressure. It was a gorgeous day. The weather was perfect. Sunny and warm. So nice for a change. Can't get my laptop connected again, so am using my phone. I swear, it is much harder than it needs to be. Hustling home so I can be at my grand kids birthday party. TTYL8R

LARRY

On the road again, da, da, da da, da, da da

Well, a bad start to this trip. I was supposed to head out Tues evening so I could get back home for a birthday party for my grandkids. Well, they didn't get the trailer loaded until 10PM, and so I didn't get out there until quarter to one. By the time I got hooked up, checked out, and ready to go it was a quarter to two. I had tried to sleep before I left, but only got about an hour before the phone rang. Then couldn't get back to sleep, so got up, showered, made some sandwiches and coffee and headed for the yard. I drove until 5, but just couldn't safely go any further, so pulled over and slept for 3 hours. Felt much better and was at Stockton by 1. Dropped some stuff off there, and they filled the trailer up with some other stuff and I hit the road. Got up to Corning, which is my usual stop because it is halfway to Puyallup WA where the yard is at. Good Casino here, with lots of truck parking, showers, laundry, and a really good buffet. I get the senior discount and it is only $14.99. Really good food. Much better than some Las Vegas buffets I have eaten at. And they could get away with being bad. No competition around here except some Denny's and some truck stops. Thank God they are taking the high road. It is a great change from the usual truck stop fare. I was sitting at the bar having a beer to relax and get sleepy and another truck driver was playing video Keno a couple of seats away from me and won $8000. Boy, would that be nice!!! Anyway, had a good dinner, and am going to get some sleep. I need to get up about 3:30 AM and hit the road so I can bet to my stop in WA tomorrow evening. It is supposed to be just a drop and hook and head back south. It better be, or I am going to miss the party. I requested it, but ya never know with trucking. I took a picture of some nice clouds outside of Sacramento today. It was a great day, after raining all last night and this morning, it was nice to see the sun again. I also took a picture of Mt. Shasta on my way home last week with some clouds swirling around the peak, and a picture of Mt. Rainier on my way back from Canada last week. I will post them here for your enjoyment. Hope you are all well. I am working my way back home. Talk to you later.

Ahh hell, the connection is too slow to load the pictures. I'll do it some other time.

Larry

A respite

Boy, is it good to be home. I don't know for how long yet, but hopefully I will get today and tomorrow off. Although, I would rather leave tomorrow night if they are sending me on another long trip. A weekend home would be nice. I miss my family and friends.
I got up yesterday morning in Corning, CA about 90 miles north of Sacramento. I planned on getting home early as possible. So woke up at 3:30 and hit the road at 4:15. It was raining, but not terribly, and the road was pretty much empty except for the occasional car and a few trucks. Sunday morning coming down. :-) It was pretty nice all the way through Sacramento, then started getting some of the weekend travelers going home. Still not a bad ride though, until I hit Santa Clarita. Then I got the usual LA traffic and all the regular erratic and crazy drivers that come along with it. I only had stopped twice to complete the required bodily functions for about a half hour combined time, so I was doing well. Got home in about 10 hours covering 567 miles. Not bad in a truck. But, sitting for those long periods takes it's toll. I stopped and grabbed a hamburger and some beer after I dropped the truck at the yard and got close to home. Becky was here to greet me, along with Roxy she had stopped and picked up at my sister Mickie's house. It was good to get a greeting and good to finally relax for an evening. It didn't last long, since I was asleep by 9 or 9:30. Trying to catch up on lost sleep. I know it doesn't really work that well, but it felt good trying. :-) Have a few things to try and get done today, since I don't know when I am going out again, and it could be tomorrow.

A couple of things I have noticed on the road and been meaning to post, but get tired and run out of space sometimes. First is touring motorcycles. Of course, being a biker, I always notice bikes on the road. Of the bikes, I have seen most are touring, which makes sense, since I try to avoid cities during rush hour traffic and that rules out most of the commuters. Even in this unusually cool spring/summer, there are quite a few bikes out on the road. Of these, I would have to guess that close to 95% of them are Harley Davidson's. The other 5% are a mix of Japanese, BMW, and a few Victory's. The most of these 5% tourers are Gold Wings, with probably 3% of the 5%. Obviously this is just an observation, and hardly scientific, but I would say fairly accurate. I have driven nearly 20,000 miles in the last month, and have seen a lot of road and a lot of bikes. A good enough sampling for a wild ass guess. :-) So, I have to surmise that either Harley riders are the true adventurous nomadic bikers, or there are just THAT many more of them in the country. I suspect that except for the Gold Wing clubs and touring groups, there are guys that just buy a Gold Wing or other touring bike and only take it out on the occasional weekend. Now, the Harley rider, will take almost any opportunity to hit the road to some gathering or just to go somewhere for the hell of it. I know, I know, there are a lot of Harley riders that don't ever hit the open road, but imagine how many more there would be if they did. Kind of makes me want to get out there and do a little tour. I am itching to ride, even after 20K on the road. But, on a bike is a whole other story.
Now that I have eaten up a world of space on that rant, one other thing I will make short mention of is the difference in rivers in OR and WA. Now, both states have a lot of rivers, much more so than CA. In CA, we call creeks or runoff channels rivers. The other states have REAL rivers. For some reason, and I suspect grazing or farming land, the rivers in WA are much muddier than the rivers in OR. In fact, I only noticed a handful of muddy waters in OR. The rest are beautifully clear. In WA, it is hard to find one that is not muddy. Anyway, just some useless bit of trivia I happened to notice and probably not interesting to anybody but me. But it is funny the things you think about in those lonely hours on the road when you are tired of listening to music and there is nobody but you and God in the truck.

Take care my friends, I will be back with another brilliant observation of life on the road soon.

Larry

Finally home tomorrow

This trip has been quite the experience. Had some deliveries to make on the way up. One was in Mt. Shasta City, at the foot of beautiful Mt. Shasta of course. Neat little town, reminds me a little of Big Bear, or Idyllwild. Not a great place to be driving a 75 ft. big rig, but hey, it's not a job, it's an adventure, RIGHT?? But I got the chairs delivered and finally found my way back to I5. As I mentioned the other day, stopped and saw family, enjoyed that, then got up early and hussled to Puyallup. There was a driver waiting there for me to guide me to and over the Canadian border. This is no mean feat. It is actually quite a hassle, and can take up to four hours from what I hear. Everything is contingent on paperwork being completed and filed in advance, the paperwork you carry must match what was submitted, and they want your life history in order to cross. Coming back is not much better, you must do everything by the book, or they punish you. I didn't have my trailer door open, and didn't know the license number of the trailer. My punishment was taking the truck through an xray machine. That is one big xray machine let me tell you. But evidently they didnt find anything because they let me go. You do have to pay $10.75 for the priveledge of bringing your truck back over the border though. Neither side has any sense of humor at all, so it is best to just keep your mouth shut and do what they say. The driver that led me over, and explained where the deliveries were and the best way to go about backing in was a really nice guy. Helped immensley, and when we found out we had to go back on Friday with two more loads, he offered to bring me coffee in the morning. Which he did, along with a nice order of biscuits and gravy. What a guy!! Explained all the deliveries again to me, I had 5, so it was hard to remember everything he told me, but the guy has a memory much better than mine. I recognized everything he told me upon reaching each location. He is a Army Viet Nam Vet like me, is 63, started driving truck again after a failed business, anything here sound familiar?? Heck of a guy. Even came and woke me up after he returned from the border ( he had more deliveries and a pick up) took me to his house, let me take a shower, and fed me dinner. Then drove me back to the truck so I could leave early this morning. Even though the border guards are quite surrley, the people where I made my deliveries were all very nice, to a tee. All in all it was an interesting experience and not wholly unpleasant. Just finding out I had to go back on Friday to deliver again, instead of heading for home was the only real downer. But, I made some pretty good money by my accounting in these 7 days, so I guess it was worth it. I headed out at 4AM this morning, and made it down to Corning, CA to spend the night. Corning is about 25 miles past the halfway point from Puyallup, to Riverside, so is the perfect spot. It makes for 2, 11 hour driving days, plus breaks, but I can just make it home legal. My cousin Don turned me on to a Casino just south of Corning, and I stopped in on the way up to check it out. Good truck parking, nice and clean, a truckers lounge complete with showers, laundromat, internet, and the casino has a nice buffet. I joined the gamblers club, and won $25 in a half hour on the way up. Didn't gamble tonight, just want to get a good nights sleep and head out early. I only got 4 hours of sleep last night, and it was broken up into 2, 2 hour naps. Not good for a long day driving. I struggled a few times staying focused today. Anyway, I have some other things I wanted to mention but will hold off for another day. This post has gone too long as it is. I don't want to bore the patrons. LOL

Was fortunate enough to be able to stop by Portland again and.see my daughter. She also ran me by the hospital to see.my niece Wendy, Noah, and their new son Henry. Beautiful baby, and they are so happy. It is fun to watch our children grow up and become parents.
Got up early and headed for Puyallup. Got here dropped the trailer, grabbed another and headed for BC. Whar a pain the border crossings.are. On both sides they are a real pain. It is like they.are trying to outdo each other on being nasty. They.have absolutely no sense of humor. So, spent the day driving around delivering furniture and got back to Puyallup around 8. And the good news is, I get to do it again tomorrow. Looks like I won't be.getting home this weekend. Now, I need some rest. So till next time..

Larry

Had a bad start to this run. Originally I was going to leave at noon on Mon. I got a call and said that had changed to 6 because they were going to load some Vancouver BC on it. Great, a load to BC, that pays a bonus. But, I didn't want to go out there at rush hour so waited till 7. Good thing. Got out there and the load was still not ready. 9:45 it was done. So I.didn't get out of there till 10:30. Drove till 5 and HAD to sleep. I had gotten up at 6:30 the morning Monday and was dead tired, slept till 8 and drove.the hour and a half to Stockton. But I was there for 2.5 hours to unload some freight and load some other. Out of hours by then. So, I have to get up early.and make a delivery in Mt Shasta before heading to WA. HOPE THIS IS THE END OF THE HANG UPS. GOOD NIGHT

Off again

Well, I had a wonderful weekend home. Got back into town Friday at 5, had dinner with my Friday Friends group, went golfing Saturday with my Brother in law, and my friend Michael. Sunday was brunch with Mom and the family at Panda. It was a great weekend with family and friends. Just what a road weary trucker needs. It is now Monday afternoon and my load is finally ready. I was hoping to get an early start, so I could be back for the coming weekend, but there was a lot of shifting around of the loads. So, as it turns out, I am going out tonight for Stockton, CA, add some freight to the trailer and head to Vancouver Canada. This is what I have been waiting to do. I will get a bonus for going into Canada, and a few more hundred miles. Should be a good run and I hope it puts me in the $900 to $1000 range. Problem is, I probably won't be home till sometime Saturday. We will see. I am going to try and run most of the way to Stockton tonight, so I can get a run for the border early. You never know how things are going to go. Plus they said I will probably have some drops along the way up or back. Oh well, it all pays, so got to do what I am told. I need to get going, but will try to update this blog tomorrow. Thanks for a great weekend everyone, see you on the flip side. :-)

Larry

Hello everyone, back out on the road again. I left home Tuesday morning after a couple of wonderful days at home with those I love. I was hoping for one more day, but that was not to be. Another trip to Payallup, WA was ready for me. Payallup is just a bit southeast of Tacoma, and I one of our terminals. The weather has been unbelievably beautiful in stark contrast to my last trip. Mt Shasta was particularly a standout. Not a cloud in the sky, and full of snow. I got a couple of nice pix and will post them soon. Made I up to Portland on Wed, in time to have dinner with My daughter Brittney and my niece Wendy. Both are pregnant, and Wendy is overdue by aces days. Women are just so lovely when with child. It makes me feel good knowing I have left a mark on this world, and not a blot. :-) anyway, I am off to WA in about an hour so gotta run. Enjoy!!

Larry

The final stage

Sorry I didn't get around to posting yesterday. It was a very long day, and I ended up in Portland and had arranged a little visit with my lovely daughter and her equally delightful husband. Boy, since I last posted a lot has happened, and I took a lot of pictures, some of which I will add to this post. I think I will have to get a on line picture repository so I can just post all the pictures there and put a link here. I ended up in Missoula MT on Wed night. Very pretty place. The ride from South Dakota to there was amazing as well. Lots of high plains type landscape and then the mountains full of snow appearing on the horizon. Went past Sturgis early in the morning, and someone left the light on. It has been about 7 years since I was last there, and it has grown a lot. Had a pretty much uneventful night there in Missoula, but woke up to rain in the morning, which after about 30 min of climbing into the mountains turned to snow. It snowed for pretty much 3 hours. I do not like driving in the snow in the dark. After the initial thrill of it looking like a space warp drive trip with the stars flying past you, it gets old and distracting. The snow got so bad that at the highest point, there were snow plows out and we were down to 25 mph. I think we got through just in time and later might have had to chain up. Glad I missed that. Here are some really bad pics of the early morning snow storm. The pictures are coming out all out of order, and frankly, I am too tired to try and figure it out, so deal with it. :-) Finally managed to get out of the snow and into WA. Down through Spokane and west through the Snoqualami (sp)pass. Still lots of snow there too. More pics, but you won't know which is which. After leaving Spokane, I came up a pretty good hill, and just before dropping down, got a great view of the Columbia river. Everybody talks about the Mississippi, but I believe this river puts it to shame. What a mighty river, and a beautiful view. Finally got into Puyallup WA, which is just outside Seattle and where our terminal is. Dropped my trailer and was assigned another trailer headed for Riverside. One slight inclusion. 3 drop offs in Oregon. So, I had to deliver some sofas, recliners and chairs to some stores there. Which is not a big deal, I get paid for every drop, but I am anxious to get home. So that added pretty much another day. But got that done, and am sitting in Corning Ca as I write. Oh, just one thing I did want to mention, other than what a great time I had with my daughter and hubby. Thanks you guys for lifting my spirits and having a great dinner with me. It was so good to see you, and I am hoping for many more such nights. On the way south from Portland, I saw 5 or 6 large flocks of ducks, or geese flying in formations. There must have been a hundred or more in all of them combined. It amazes me, that they can fly so long, and so fast. They were going at least 50 mph, and as you may know, ducks and geese don't glide. They flap their wings constantly. I don't know what their limit is, but they have unbelievable stamina. I wish I had a tenth of that kind of stamina. Well, it is getting late, and I am about to fall out of my sleeper. So with that, I will say good night. I hope to see some of you tomorrow night. The rest, take care and I will begin a new adventure sometime next week. Until then, you will have to put up with my boring reports from home. LOL.

Larry

Another good day. Got up at 3AM and ran hard all day. Did 11 hrs driving with only 1.75 for breaks. Got to Missoula right at the 11 hr limit. Took a shower and had a bite to eat. Finished up the log book, and am too tired to fire up the laptop, buy an Internet connection and post. I took a lot of pictures today. Mostly of the mountains and snow. It rained most of the morning and even had some slushy rain for awhile. It was cold. The heater doesn't work real well when it is cold. I need a cove for the grill so it will warm up some. I will post pictures later. Maybe tomorrow. I am going to stop and see Brittney and Brian tomorrow for dinner. If nothing else, this job has given me the opportunity to visit loved ones I haven't seen in awhile. But after 8 days, I am ready to go home and see Becky, Roxy, and the fam. Dropping a trailer and picking up another in Seattle then hope I'm heading home. Let u know tomorrow.

Good night!!!

Back on the road

Well, had to get back on the road this morning. 4:30 AM. My cousin Don was no happier about it than I was. I left if up to him as to when we started, as long as it was after 4 AM to start my hours of service over at zero. For those that don't know, the Federal Govt. has requirements regarding how long you can drive and work a day and for 70 hrs in 7 days. Once you hit those levels, you can no longer drive until you take 34 hours off. It is complicated, so I won't try to explain it. Anyway, it was raining too, which made it even more enjoyable. I headed north from Cedar Rapids to get to I90, which will take me into Washington. Rained most of the day, hard till about 1PM then sprinkles and drizzles. It wasn't too bad, not a lot of traffic, so that was nice. Went north all the way to Minnesota and caught 90 and headed west. Stopped in Sioux Falls right over the South Dakota border and fueled up. I was a little concerned about fuel, since I have a malfunctioning fuel gauge, so I put 50 gal in at the truck stop I parked at in Iowa. Not sure it was necessary because I only took 177 gallons in Sioux Falls and I have 300 gallon capacity with about 250-275 usable. But I didn't want to end up running out again. There was not a lot going on today. The only thing that really did interest me was some birds I saw in a large pond across the hwy from me. There had to be a hundred or more, and at first I thought they were ducks, since they were mostly in the water. But as I got across from them, I noticed they had large thick bills, very much like a pelican. I find it hard to believe there are pelicans in South Dakota, but they must be some variation of them. Other than that the scenery was much as it was through Illinois, Iowa and then Minnesota, lots of farm land. South Dakota is more ranch land than farming, but still not much to see. I made it all the way to Rapid City, which is the gateway to Mount Rushmore. I am only about 50 miles from the Wyoming border. I'm hoping to get through Wyoming and Montana tomorrow, but am not sure. I will drive another 11 hours, which is the limit. I put 680 miles on today in 11 hours driving time. Not bad since the truck is governed at 65. In closing, I would just like to say how enjoyable it was to get to stop and visit my cousin (who is really much more like a brother and best friend) and his family. It was only a day, but after missing out on Easter, it was quite gratifying. Thank you Don, and Alica for making me feel at home. Love you guys.

I will post again tomorrow if possible, even if it is just a quick note from my phone. If I get to Montana and into the mountains there, should be pretty. I'll take some more crappy pics with my phone. That camera is moving higher on the shopping list every day. :-)

Good night all, till tomorrow.

Larry

Taking a layover in Iowa. I was out of hours to drive and close to Cedar Rapids, so stopped in to visit my cousin. Good being back here. Seeing some of my family. I will be back on the road tomorrow early AM.

Happy Easter everyone! I'm sure yours will be better than mine. I am still in KY this morning. I'm trapped behind a bunch of trucks that appear might have taken the weekend off. I'm having breakfast and hope I can get out after that. This day is already starting to get hard for me. I love and miss my family so much. I know everyone is going to be at my sister's house today and I won't. I never miss a holiday with family and this is tough. Something I am going to have to get used to I guess. I'm hoping to get a dedicated run to Canada, and that should put me home every week. I can only hope for the best.

Well, got my truck back and headed out at 3 ET. got through TN and a lot of KY. I am headed to Seattle WA. Ran into a vici

Finally!!!

In this day and age, it shouldn't be so hard to get internet connection. But then again, I have been in the south for 3 days. (ouch) Apologies to any of my southern friends. :-) Ok, the first day was interesting, only in that it was my first day back driving distance. I left Riverside, CA and took I15 north to I40 east, and that was my route the entire way to Morganton NC. 40 is a pretty good road all in all. Vast amounts of desert until you get to Oklahoma, and you trade desert for open plains. There were some pretty sites, and I will post some phone pics I took. I have to get a little camera I can shoot with while driving and takes good pictures. On my shopping list. But for now, my phone will have to do. Stopped in Gallup, New Mexico for the night. Slept at a T/A truck stop, right in front of a railroad track. I swear a train went by every 15 min. and was wailing on the horn. I thought it might keep me awake, but guess I was too tired for that. Can't go through Gallup without thinking about the Run For The Wall trip that Long Hair and I did. I get emotional every time I think about it. Next morning headed east again. Passed my favorite fireworks stand in Moriarity NM later that morning. Might have to stop there on my way through next time.
Some interesting things I noticed from the road. There are a heck of a lot of Fed-Ex trucks running on I40. I mean a lot!! Also, quite a few Red Bull trucks, but the little bobtail type trucks, and they almost always seem to be running in two's. Wouldn't it be cheaper to buy a bigger truck? Just saying! :-) Also interesting, was the windmill blades being transported. Now when you look at these windmills on the hills driving down the road they don't look all that impressive. But, just one blade being transported on a truck does. Wish I could have gotten a picture, but these things are at least 70' long on a special trailer. I'd say a good 8-10' in diameter. Huge!! On blade per truck and I must have seen 15 or more from NM all the way to Arkansas. I wonder if all these clean energy people think about how much it costs in fuel to get one of these windmills working? Just a thought. Ran out of fuel Tuesday afternoon. The fuel gauge on this truck is just plain messed up. It said half a tank, but going up a light grade it just quit running. Everything seemed normal, so that was the first thing I checked. Sure enough, no fuel. Made a call and got help pretty quick, but had to backtrack a little for fuel and all in all cost me about 3. 5 hours,. Outside of Amarillo TX, saw a bad accident. Well, the remains of it anyway. Only saw one car, on a trailer with the roof completely caved in. There was what was left of a big rig sideways across the west side of the road burned to the ground. Completely!! Tractor and trailer gone except for some scrap. Sobering visual. Sure hope the poor driver got out alive. No CB radio, so couldn't get the gossip. That's on my shopping list too. Stayed a little outside of Oklahoma City Wed night, drove so late I just pulled over and went to sleep. Got up early and headed into Arkansas. This is a real pretty state. At least what I saw of it. Lots of greenery and pretty flowers along the road. Was an overcast day, but nice. Weather was pretty good all the way, but woke up to rain Friday morning. Only had a 4 hour run to the terminal so not all that bad, but good rain, some fog, and the Great Smokey Mtns made for slow driving. Made it yesterday about 2PM, did some of my orientation, but it got late. They also looked at my truck and I need brakes, so they are doing that today. I hope to get out of here by this evening if they get it fixed. I will be heading for Seattle Wa. from here. Then I hope to get home for a couple of days. Take care my friends. Hopefully I will be able to post more often on this next leg.

Larry

Trouble with posting sorry

First day

New Beginnings

Well, I am sitting at home getting ready for a drive to North Carolina. I have never been there, and it should be an adventure. This will be the first day of my new life. I will be driving an 18 wheeler for a company called WorldWide Logistics. They deliver new furniture to stores and warehouses all over the US and Canada. I believe mostly I will be dropping a trailer and hooking another trailer at one of our terminals throughout the US. I hope to post to this blog every day I am on the road. I'll try to post pictures, and let you know where I am and where I am going. Just in case anyone is interested. :-)

Good night and follow me tomorrow.