Thursday, October 20, 2011
Monday, July 25, 2011
Hello again
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
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Hello from home
Take care everyone
Larry
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Missing post
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
Monday, June 20, 2011
Back in Arizona
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Larry
Thursday, June 2, 2011
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.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
I'm Back!!! As the spirit would say
Larry
Friday, May 20, 2011
LARRY
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
On the road again, da, da, da da, da, da da
Ahh hell, the connection is too slow to load the pictures. I'll do it some other time.
Larry
Monday, May 16, 2011
A respite
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
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Finally home tomorrow
Friday, May 13, 2011
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
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Monday, May 9, 2011
Off again
Larry
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Larry