OMG. . . winter is coming!

We passed snow on the roadside yesterday in Wyoming and it is getting COLD at night.  The weather is wonderful though and we are practicing some things for our winter driving.  Our total allowable weight (Gross Vehicle Weight) is 80,000 pounds.  We are currently weighing out at 79,020 pounds!  This is the heaviest we have ever been - we actually had to think about how much fuel to put in and decided on 120 gallons which weighed in at 1,000 pounds.  I did get to pull this weight up Cabbage Hill (my nemesis from last winter) and did great.  Getting to pull that much weight up the hill in clear sunny weather was a breeze compared to slogging up it in the snow and ice last year.   The weather in Oregon, Idaho and Utah can change in the blink of an eye and it is good to start thinking about these things early.  I say early, but read that a Con-Way driver has already had to chain up this year...ICK.

We are headed into Joplin for some winterizing on the truck and ourselves.  One of the most important things we will do is take all the chains out of the chainbox and lay them out and inspect them.  Then we will practice putting them on again (just to remind us of how bad we hate doing it!).  I'll take pictures and post them.

We are winterizing ourselves as well.  Taking most of the summer clothes off the truck and brining the warm woolies on.  I have ordered snow boots for Tony and I and we will pick those up as well.  Leo already has snow boots, but refused to wear them last year - we will work on that this year again!

Break time is over - got to get back on the road!

A better look. . .

After I posted the last piece and put the picture over to the right in our profile, it was obvious that you couldn't really see Leo.  Here is a better shot:

Don't we look nice?

We needed to take a day off to pick up mail, have the truck serviced, drink a glass of wine and just generally loaf for a day, so we headed into Joplin last week.   While we were there, we also had our name of choice "Fandango Travelers" put on the door of the truck.  As you can see at the right, it came out pretty good.  Leo seems to like it!

We also got the special pleasure of having a dispatch that took us through Neoso, Mo where we went to school to learn how to do this wonderful job.  The school is at Crowder College there in Neosho.  When we rolled in, they were having a cookout in the work bay there at the truck school.  I think it was graduation day for the current class.  It was good to see our two instructors, Lonnie and John and they really liked seeing the truck.  Our truck is actually a new one that they had not been inside of and so we were thrilled to show off our home.  The woman who was so helpful to me, Janice, was out and I missed getting to tell her how important she had been to me.  It was really gratifying to let Lonnie and John know that I had learned my lessons well and have become a pretty proficient driver.  I am sure that they could tell how happy Tony and I are with our new life.

Another plus of that day is that we were able to get a trailer that matched and had the time to stop and take a picture.  Aren't we beautiful?  I don't think this trailer makes my butt look big at all, do you?

We are on the turn-around part of a great set of dispatches.  We were on the West Coast - actually in San Francisco, and ended up with a dispatch taking us all the way to the East Coast where we dropped in Pennsylvania.  Now we have picked up another load in Pennsylvania and are cruising back through the MidWest headed for Sacramento.  This will be a nice fat paycheck!  

Catching Up

The bad part about not posting here for awhile is that I have to figure out how to fit in all of the posts that I write while I'm driving (and not posting). 

 

For instance, there is the "Cross Country Vignette" that I noted while driving through Kansas one night.

There is a beautiful half moon setting low on the western horizon.  Kept me company until about 1:00.  The sky was clear and bright, stars brilliant on the black fabric of it.  I laugh with delight as I drive by the signs for the town of Mittens.  How could you ever be in a bad mood if you lived in Mittens?

See, I really need to just stop and post at moments like that.  Instead, I have a digital voice recorder the I tell these thoughts to.  Here's another:

Tonight as I approach El Paso, it is a glittering necklace of jewels spread out from horizon to horizon.  The varied colors and density tell me where Juarez lies.  El Paso proper makes a wonderful string of heavy jewels thinning out as the necklace winds around the mountains that lie north of the city.  There is lightening in the night that reaches down and seems to recharge the jewels as it touches down.

Don't you wish you could ride with me for awhile?  If you did, you could share this delight of California fruit stand shopping with me.

These are Spite melons.  They are a wonderful creamy fleshed melon with a sweet milky taste.  We got to sample them outside of Bakersfield.  Here was the display that greeted us as we entered that great fruit market

 

Those dusty green and pink fruits on the bottom are Pluots.  From what we could tell, they are a cross between plums and apricots.  They have names like "Dapple Dandy" and "Dinosaur Eggs".  Tony and I tried them all and couldn't pick a winner.  We will have to do further sampling and get back to you with the results.

In addition to the driving and fruit tasting, I am relearning how to crochet.  I miss doing artsy fartsy things and  after pondering, decided crocheting would help fill the gap.  Right now, I'm working on a neck warmer/turtleneck dicky thing for us to use this winter.  After I try one in mass market acrylic, I've got some wonderful dusty pink alpaca to do one for myself.  I'll look for another super soft yarn for Tony's.  I have to confess that I've been brushing Leo and saving the fluff - thoughts of doing some spinning are running around in my head.  Could I get my spinning wheel in the truck?!?

So, that catches us up.  We are in the Midwest heading on into Virginia and then  back to Texas.  

Running Hard

We have been on this job now for just over 8 months and have almost 150,000 miles under our belts.  We thought we were running hard at times during that  period.  We thought wrong!  It seems that we have passed some kind of benchmark or test and we are now running with the Big Boys.  Our personal dispatch (thanks, Dad) has reported that we are on our way to a 25k month.  That was the goal that we had hoped to reach after our first year.

So if you see a streak of light flying low on the horizon, it is probably Con-Way tractor #24210.

We just thought we knew HOT!

 This is what we are dealing with now.  It went up another degree, but I figured you could get just as hot looking at this.

Lucky for us, we are waiting on a trailer to arrive from Mexico.  When it does, we will head out of here and on up to more reasonable temps in Memphis.

Last time we were in Memphis, I saw some peach and tomato stands just West of town.  I am definitely going to try for a stop there!

Roadside Agonies

When we get off the interstate, either to run smaller highways and byways, or to make deliveries; we often get to see into other people's lives.  Roadside fruit and vegetable stands are my favorites, because I can stop and buy something that only temporarily takes up room in the truck. 

Wonderful garage and yard sales are my least favorite roadside attractions.  Why?  Because I want to stop so badly!!!!!!!!!  

This beauty was in Kansas City, Kansas.  In the course of our delivery, we ended up going by this sale 4 times.  The first was hard enough, but 4 times was agony I tell you.  I would have bought those beautiful chairs.  I lust after those chairs.  Out with the ratty old Goodwill recliner and in with those babies.  Of course, I don't have room (or a ratty old recliner) in the truck and I doubt that they would fit in the storage compartment under the bed.  Damn.

As a result of regular fits similar to the one described above, we have decided to start thinking about looking for some kind of a landing spot up in the center of the country.  Now that I have discovered that there are in fact more states in the Union that just Texas, I would like to experience them more fully.  Eastern Kentucky, Tennessee and Western North Carolina are looking like likely spots.  

Tony would like to have his guitars in a more centralized spot and I, of course, need to have a place to utilize all the cool crap that I will find all over the country