On the road again....

Yep - vacation is over, but it was so nice!! Not as long as we had hoped - and it cost us a bit more than we wanted (parking ticket in the rental car - handicapped parking - it was NOT marked well at all!!) but we so needed the time out of the truck.  We went to one of the Smithsonians, Lincoln Memorial, National Cathedral - and drove around all over the place.  So many places we wanted to see - but just ran out of time.



So we are back on the road again - went from Washington DC to Pennsylvania and now in Utah... we are going to drop this one, pick one up take it to Nevada - they are going to unload then load us up with returns and back we come to Utah... at least that is the plan right now. Who knows if they will change it up for us or not - LOL!

Yawn - we are running back to back 10 hr shifts... 10 on then 10 off. I'm doing the day shifts now - the change up is nice, but Gary doesn't seem to sleep real well during the day - and needs a longer 'nap' at night.  However (me being a bit selfish here) I do enjoy sleeping at night <sheepish grin>.  We will probably switch it around every now and again - so neither one of us is 'stuck' with the night shift.  If I get enough sleep during the day/evening, I actually do pretty well (I think).  What really helps is talking on the phone - but not many people are up at 3am - LOL!  We have also been enjoying audio books... concentrating on what is happening in the story does help some.  Nothing but sleep though will cure the 'sleepies' when they hit - what sucks though, is that the truck stops/rest stops are usually stuffed full of parked trucks by that time (grrr).

Well ta ta for now...

Anticipation ...

I am so looking forward to tomorrow!!  One of the reasons I like this job - LOL - we are going to rent a car and head into Washington DC to sight see.  The load we have was suppose to deliver tomorrow morning at 0600 - but they squeezed us in tonight.  So tomorrow is all ours :) We are doing what is known as a 34 hour restart, but stretched it to a 48 hour... so two days off - contented sigh...

I've been doing the 'night' shift and sometimes I do OK and others - I feel like I drive 30 miles and have to stop and walk around because I'm going cross eyed!  Don't worry - I do stop - its just frustrating!!  So these next 2 days to 'repower' myself will be welcome.  We've been running pretty hard - figure this last load we left Salt Lake City on the 21st at about noonish and ended up in Jessup, Maryland on the 24th at about 1 pm... that's about 2100 miles.  Not too shabby...

Eating wise we are still eating bunches of nuts - LOL! Such an easy fall back snack.  We did pick up a small 2qt crock pot though... doesn't get as hot as the lunchbox cooker on the bottom, and has different temp settings for High and Low and Warm.  So with us being 'off' work for the next two days - not sure what we will be eating - but I'm not taking the nuts with us - LOL!

I did actually find one truck stop that had yogurt!!  Needless to say I picked a couple up.  I was craving either yogurt or cottage cheese - weird cravings, but we just hadn't had any for a while. The fridge we have is really tiny, so not a lot of room to 'stock' up.  Which is fine.  I am a bit of a food horder - left overs of my previous life.  Never want to run out of food!!  LOL - no fears of that here - LOL!  In fact I'm trying to work through some of the stuff we brought.  TUBS of protein - yea we need the supplements - but I grabbed multiple tubs!!  Those take up bunches of room.  We are working our way through them though...

This warm, humid weather - not sure if I will get use to it... I'm sitting in the truck right now (and its not moving - grin) and with the windows down - thank goodness for the slight breeze!!  I feel 'sticky'... I don't like the feeling!!  I sure hope they finish unloading us soon - the truckstop we are going to stay at is less than a mile away - but I want a shower!!

All in all - I'm glad we are doing this.  We leapt with faith, and are continuing on this path.  Such an interesting journey :)

Sigh...

I would love to only post 'happy/feel good' stuff... however I don't feel happy/feel good right now.  I'm just finishing my shift and it was a LONG one!!  I started driving @ 2200 and finished @ 1000.  We dropped at the same location we picked up from (which is nice) but the load we picked up was ass heavy... even w/slidding our trailer tandams we couldn't get 'legal' soooo... back to the shipper we go and they have to 'reload' it... I was able to get a nap while there, but Gary was up during his 'sleep' time to help me slide tandems and navagate through a serious rain and lightning storm.  Would have been fun to watch if I wasn't driving through it - and no it wasn't a tornato this time - LOL!  So this morning when we are changing shifts, neither of us are in the best of moods.  Sigh... now I get to try to sleep with him driving... wish me luck!!

Yawn!!

Arg... I just could not seem to sleep for more than 2 hours at a stretch today - and I tried!!  Now I'm tired and cranky and stuck in a closet w/my husband.  Bless his soul for putting up with me <mwah!> ... we are sitting at a T/S one hour from where we deliver tomorrow - (a truck load of potatoes) - then we get to drive 3 hours to pick up 150 miles from here... the only thing is they gave us all day to get there!!  Sigh... well maybe we will stop along the way and get some laundry done.  With me being tired - I don't feel like cooking, nor really eating... so we are going to check out the T/S restaurant and see what they offer.  Its a 'sit down' type so they would have soup or salad if nothing else.

Time and events get mushed together in my mind when I'm tired... not sure if I had my vitamins 2 or 3 times today - LOL - but at least I got them in!! Need to figure out a 'system' and form a habit for them. 

Well off to get a shower (might feel better, and will definately SMELL better) then hit the restaurant... maybe I'll be able to get some more sleep before we have to leave for our pick up :)

PS... this is the second time we are <___> this close to the Canadian Border - one of these times I want to cross it - so we can say we did!!

What's for dinner...

Driving and living in a truck is fun and a challenge... fun seeing all the different states (abet from the interstate for the most part) the challenge is eating healthy.  It is do-able though... however we haven't gone shopping for a while so it was a  look in the fridge to see what we got... and its a tiny fridge!!  We have a bag of lettuce and some cheese - so at a truck stop I picked up the 2 peices of the endless supply they have of fried chicken - I plan on skinning and de-battering them, picking off all the meat and chuncking up a couple cubes of cheese tossing them on some lettuce and calling it dinner.  Breakfast usually is a protien shake (2 scooper) and lunch is our 'munchy' foods. Nuts/jerkey and thanks to Ruth - baby carrots!!  (we ran out and need more - LOL) I'm liking the veggies though - got the crunch and some sweet and not the concentrated calories.  We also are cutting down on our coffee intake.  Why??  Because we like our coffee white and sweet.  Sweet isn't a problem - we use Splenda... the white part is though.  In truckstops they have creamer dispensers... you know the sweet French Vanilla or Caramel type stuff... yeah - we were LOVING that!! We are looking to cut back on some of the calories though - it might not sound like much but I've gained 8 pounds.  When I was 300+ I could gain/loose that in a day and it wouldn't make any difference - now my clothes just don't fit right, nor do I feel right.  I think 160 is the weight I feel the best at - so that is the 'number' I'm trying to stay at.  Needless to say, if I felt the best at 180 (which was the Doc's number) I would aim there - my aim is to be healthy - no matter what 'number' that is. (well if the number is too low - but then that wouldn't be healthy huh - LOL)

Anyway - I'm heading back to bed.  Drove last night and will be driving again the night shift.  We are heading to Detroit MI with a load of potatoes.  Who knows where from there???

PS one of these days I'm going to map out where all we have been on Google Maps and try to post it - that would be fun to see - LOL!!

On the road again!!

Well the Vegas Meet and Greet went well... got to meet a bunch of people that I've only ever just seen on-line, and see some I haven't seen in ages (at least a year - LOL).  However life goes on and we are back on the road... the batteries didn't keep a charge, even though we came out and ran the truck for a while yesterday.  So after borrowing a set of cables and jumping/charging from the refer we headed towards So. CA... then there came a request for a team to 'repower' a load heading to MI... well that's a good chunkdriv of miles and we wouldn't have to wait until Tuesday to unload, so we jumped on it... now we are heading back through Vegas again but heading towards Detroit MI. 

I put the ox tails that I bought up in WA in the cooker w/some chipotle Mrs Dash and water... man are they smelling good!!  I heard though that it is a tough cut of meat (although flavorful) so I'm letting it cook for a while... I'll add in some lentils about 30 minutes before we want  to eat to thicken things up and make a 'stew/chili/soup' type of thing... Mmmm I got a can of chopped tomatoes up in the cupboard... heading to toss that in right now... more liquid and flavor!! done...

Well we will be switching drivers at the SLC term... that will be about 8-9 hours for Gary driving, then I take over... so going to take a nap now so I can drive tonight :)

PS... its good to be home...

Awesome!!

This weekend it turning out totally AWESOME! First off - we made it to Vegas... that in it's self is a miracle that I didn't think was going to happen.  Our DM actually got us routed this way... we were a bit later than I thought we could have been, but hey - we're here!!  Then my wonderful husband surprised me with a great room... a room with a view!  Not that isn't sarcastic, it's on the 18th floor and the 'sitting area' is like a giant bay window - so yes it has a GREAT view. The king size bed is so not what we are use to anymore either. Almost got lost in it last night - LOL!  One of the best parts about this weekend though is meeting so many faces behind the names.  I never really realized just how open FB and the BLOG is, or how many people read it... when I write/type I try to write/type as if I'm letting a friend know what's happening in my life - or just me trying to work things out in my head... almost like talking to myself. - LOL what's really fun is when I argue with myself - I'm not sure who wins :) Anyway... we got here after the evenings events and everything was winding down.  Kinda bummed about that - but we met up with a couple folks that I had only read on-line and headed down a 'pub' for dinner.  Slept in a bed that wasn't moving and woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed!  The days events have been good - great speakers with meaningful words.  So many of us have our own journeys - but travel similar roads.  (got distracted - I had a great thought that was going to flow with that road analogy - SQUIRREL!!)

So Gary and I are taking a short break - and probably a nap (nice to have a BIG bed that doesn't move occasionally) then join up with everyone downstairs...

So bye for now...

The good and the bad...

The good and the bad - they go hand in hand... you have to have one to appreciate the other.  So the good and the bad of my new job - the good - today I got to meet a couple of great folks!!  Had a wonderful time talking and sharing experiences... the bad side was that we weren't rolling.  Needless to say the good out weighed the bad :) but the waiting SUCKS - however if we weren't waiting, we wouldn't have had time to visit... see what I mean about the good and bad going hand in hand.  We need the down time - but to have that down time, we don't earn any money. 

During the visit we were talking about eating post op while trucking - I mentioned about the nuts we eat. She mentioned baby carrots or other veggies that could be in easy reach while driving, but 1) not as many calories as nuts and 2) not as expensive 3) variety!! <smacking self on forehead> What a great idea!  We stop at Walmarts to get the nuts (way less expensive than the little packs at truckstops) so we can get the veggies at the same time... sometimes I totally don't see the obvious.  So we went shopping and I picked some stuff up for the next couple days.  I'm going to try to do something in the lunch box cooker - I'm going to attempt a custard.  There will even be enough eggs left (bought a 6 pack) to do up something quiche like.  I also got some ox tail - I've heard that there is a LOT of flavor in that cut - but it needs to be cooked for a longer period of time - like all day.  Figure I can start it in the morning and then mid afternoon debone it - add some more liquid and add in some lentils I picked up - I love experimenting!!  Cooking in the truck is a bit of a challenge though.  Trying to cut stuff up in a moving vehicle without lopping off fingers... trying to pour liquid from one container to another and not spilling... because the 'kitchen' is also the bedroom and let me just tell you - it could make a big mess!!

I'm really hoping to get to Las Vegas this next weekend.  There is a 'Meet and Greet' of WLS folk.  It is so cool to be able to meet the people you have only had contact with on line.  Sure you see pictures of the people, but that doesn't tell you the tone of their voice or body language.  This journey (the WLS one) has been such a blessing.  I have met some really great folk and I don't think I would have gotten out of my rut or shell without it.  I can't invision myself 3 years ago (I had surgery 2 years ago) going to meet people from on-line.  I would have found some excuse NOT to meet people.  I have more confidence in myself and better self esteem (I think) than I did 3 years ago.  Sure at the time, if you had asked me, I would have said I was fine, but looking back - I was miserable, I just didn't know any better. I'm still working on my 'mind' stuff... such as still eating when I'm not hungery - just because... Or occasionally sneaking some real chocolate - without my husband seeing - because what would he think of it.  I'm sure he would be fine, but I would feel guilty - so I hide it, and still feel guilty - LOL! Ah the games our minds play...

Well its late - and I'm hoping for a long day of driving tomorrow... WA to SLC to Las Vegas by the 13th - and tomorrow is the 12th.  Yeah - its not looking so good... but here is hoping!!

The 'Fish Run'...

This is a cut and paste (so I don't have to retype it) from a 'trucker's forum' that I read/post on - so some of the terms might not make sense - sorry... We are adjusting to the 'life style' though... true its not all peaches and cream, but its not so bad either - LOL!  Right now we are in CA - not sure where we will be heading from here - but we do have reservations in Las Vegas for the 'Meet and Greet' (second annual)... lets hope we make it!!

Whew - now I know why those fish loads are 'infamous'. Oh and I will state it here publicly - Gary was right!! Now for the rest of the story...

We spent the night in the Everglades because our DM 'highly' suggested not to spend the night in Miami - as in not the best neighborhood. Not a problem and now I get to say I spent the night in the Everglades So we make it to Miami and get the trailer wash done. That was fun, he didn't speak english and we don't speak spanish - sigh. Then we find out the fish missed the plane so the 1700 has been bumped to 2300... fine, we break out the BBQ and lawn chairs and relax for a little bit... we were told not to get there early, because there isn't much room - so we were good little company drivers and arrived the prescribed one hour before our appt. time. They have 2 doors that are being used (the third had a dumpster infront of it) and we check in and wait... and wait... and wait... finally at 0200 we go back in and make ourselves visable again and ask, so how much longer?? They say take the next door - nice! Now as we are waiting - another truck just slips his way in there!! We were good little drivers and read the sign that said check into the office before backing into a door.. no wonder these other guys were getting loaded before us - they didn't wait, they just went in! Anyway I digeress... we finally get backed up to the dock... now this one is a bit confussing... we get basically 2 loads - 1 to drop in Isola and in CA, but we will need to then go to Indianola to pick up more that will then be dropped in Tempe, AZ and CA.. or something along those lines. Gary (thankfully) dealt with the details - I was a log book for this run. So anyway we were doing the 8/3 split driving the last run and the first part of this run - trying to maximize our time and miles... its a pain to keep track of - and needless to say, we are NOT doing it anymore. Its just not worth the stress!! Now as to why Gary was right... on this load they wanted almost continuious updates on our eta to the next stop... well besides the fish missing the plane - our qualcomm took a dump for 'that' night (kept rebooting anytime ANY info was being transmitted) and the fuel stop they first directed us to was a card lock with NO READER!! So the next fuel stop (with us at 1/8 tank) was a 'treat' to find and ate up another 1.5 hours!! So when asked what our eta was going to be - I looked at the GPS and it said <____> hours... and I told the night DM in SLC <____> straight drive time. I was thinking that she would realise that the time I told her did NOT include time for 1) refueling 2) going to the bathroom!! It was strictly driving!! That was the time they set for our next appt!! GARY IS RIGHT!! You have to add your own time in and stick to that number!! So that was the beginning of our run... the rest is a bit of a blurrrrr... they dropped one stop - then changed another in route, only to change it back - LOL! Yeah the miles might be good - but I'm not sure if its worth the headaches...

So now we are in Fontana getting a new wiring harness for the Qualcomm (it was broken at the satillite hook up) and having them check the batteries too - although our refidgerator took a dump, so right now our batteries are doing ok - so will they find anything wrong?? Who knows...

Wow I wrote a book on this one - LOL! Gary is able to use his little notebook during his 'sleeper' time to get on line - mine is a normal size lap top so its a bit harder (and I'm sticking to that story) for me ... so off to read and catch up a bit!!

Nice day!!

Really nice day today - not that others haven't been as nice, but this is the one I'm 'blogging' about - LOL!  Woke up in the Florida Everglades in a truckstop that had seen better days. I don't think I will complain about Pilot or Flying J showers for a while!! We knew we had time - so no rushing and drove the 1 hour to a stop to get our trailer washed out.  It was a Pilot, but was in compition with the one we spent the night at.  It was a  lot busier though, that's for sure!! Again knowing we had time - we worked in the truck and got things more sorted and straightened... we now have the scanner unpacked - not running yet, but soon.  The scanner is to scan the paperwork for our runs... THAT will be nice.  Then we will have back up when (notice I didn't say if) they loose some of our paperwork.  So back to today... after we did the cleaning and straightening - still had time - so we broke out the BBQ!!  We had picked up some stuffed salmon the other day - needed to cook it soon, so took advantage.  It turned out GREAT!  There is a way to eat healthy on the road - but it takes time and planning. We split a bag of lettuce and split a filet - the package came with two filets, but the one was enough for the both of us... we were going to save the other one for another meal, but there was a lot kitty that we shared with instead - sigh - I miss my cats!! Anyways... so we are now waiting outside our first stop... in fact, it has been two hours since our appt. time - which means we start earning money just sitting here.  Don't get excited though - its not much and not worth it - LOL!  However, once we do get loaded and on the road - this run will be over 2000 miles.  Florida to California!! We were thinking maybe trying to get this load more often, however with this much time invested and we still haven't even started - the miles just might not be worth the time it takes to get them... sigh... So it has been a nice, relaxing, productive day... now we get to drive!!