Folks....you have to watch this!!

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In VA...heading for KY

I got unloaded Friday morning in Ford, VA....then drove over to Colonial Hts, VA and loaded out for Henderson, KY.  It is about a 1 day drive....and I deliver  Monday morning.....so a nice leisurely drive for the weekend!

I stayed in Colonial Heights for the night Friday, and most of the day yesterday!  Just chilled and relaxed and cleaned up a little more in the truck!  It rained and thundered and had lightening....it was a beautiful night for sleeping! And I did very deeply!!!  LOL

Had a few issues with my DEF (exhaust system) yesterday...but seem to have gotten it straightened out over the course of the evening...all is well for the time being....now just have to get my APU serviced and running.

I'm at the Welcome Center for TN on I-81S....got a few hours sleep and took the dog out and have had coffee (2 cups working on 2 gallons!!!  Heheheheheheh).  I'll be in Henderson, KY late this afternoon for delivery in the morning. Then where to?....who knows!  LOL

(And I might even get Bertha a bath today!! )

And as you can tell from the last picture....summer is getting here!  See the bug guts?!?!?!?!?!?  Almost makes you miss winter....at least the windshield stays clean for days!!!  LOL

Taking the day off for Easter....Basically!!

I'm at a little rest area about 20 miles north of Coffeeville, KS that I almost always stop at when I come thru this way. It is very quiet, peaceful, nice view and almost always breezy!  I got here yesterday and setup camp....and I'll leave sometime later this evening.  I'll be traveling thru OKC under cover of darkness...which is the best way to get thru OKC!!  LOL

I'll be in Duncan, OK for delivery in the morning and then load out for a run down to the Houston area. And I plan on running for the next 7-8 days straight. 

But it was nice to be still and cool and restful for a day without any worries about being on time for a drop....and not worrying about snow or ice!!  This past week was a long week thanks to that white lumpy stuff!!

Day before Easter

Had a good nite's sleep and in a quiet spot. I'm about 30 mi north of Des Moines,  IA.  I'll be in OK tonite, in time to pull a 34 and reload my log. All I can say is that I'm glad to be out of that white lumpy stuff. Supposed to be in the upper 70's today almost everywhere I'm headed!   :-D

Getting out of cold country!

About to load out from Woodville, WI with some hand built equipment frames for Halliburton in Duncan, OK. Just found out that I'll be here til after 6pm, the last piece still has to be painted.  So a couple of more hours of detention on this settlement.   :-)

An Interesting Day!

It was an interesting day today. It started with my delivery....it has been a while since I drove a tractor trailer into a cave!  It was rather neat....and the underground storage in Springfield is a lot better/nicer than the ones in Kansas City!

 It is a mining operation that is almost over/complete. They have been mining limestone from this area for several decades. It is almost complete, rather, they have almost used up all their mineral rights. So they are shutting down the mining and finishing up making "warehouses" out of it.

 Where I delivered to has been there a while. The guy that offloaded me said he had been working there for that company for 13 years. So it is well founded in the area.

 But what got me was just how "new" everything looked. It looks like it is just a few years old...not pushing 20 years as warehousing....not to mention just how old the mining operation is.

Then, once I got that delivery done and then fueled up and headed north for tomorrow's delivery....oh, what an interesting drive!

 The picture on top doesn't show it too well, but the radar shot from phone makes it pretty clear....I drove thru snow/sleet/rain/mess for about half of the day. And the wind was gusting up to 35+mph.  It was just a cruddy day to drive for the most part.

It is just the winter that just keeps on giving!!!!

In the morning I deliver to a wind farm....so it should be interesting...more pics tomorrow night. I will be in Minneapolis tomorrow night and Duluth on Wednesday morning.

From there.....who knows...chasing the dollar for now!!  :-)

Drove until late....a day of rest!

I made it to my load point in Oklahoma City by 12:30pm yesterday and got loaded with plastic (PVC) conduit again. I like these loads. Found a Home Depot just a couple of miles from my load point and parked behind it for "a break"...LOL...made some supper, watched some Ancient Aliens and got comfortable....and took about a 4.5 hour nap!  Needless to say it was late when I started driving.  It was late enough that Brad was headed in for his overnight run, so we talked and drove for several hours.  I finally stopped about 3:30-4am this morning.  Slept until about 8:30-9am and then drove on up to Springfield for the rest of the weekend.

I pretty well just rested today. Have cleaned up a little bit more, going to get another drawer or two tonight at Wally. That should be enough storage for me to just about have a home for everything and the floor will be clear except for the dog's bowl and my small toolbox.

I should have my drop off in Springfield by 8am Monday, hopefully.  Then it will be hammer down for Ft Dodge, IA...I might actually be able to get there for that drop before 5pm.  Going to try hard. That should set me up to be empty by either 2pm Tuesday or 0630 Wednesday morning.  The only problem with this run is.....

Have you been looking at the weather forecasts for the next 3 days???  There is a blasted cold front coming down into the US out of Canada that is gonna be GOOD!!!!  Bah-humbug!  The highs in Duluth while I'm there is supposed to be basically freezing, 31°-33° degrees with lows of 12°-15° degrees!!  Sheesh!!!  And I have been in shorts for the past week! Will have to break out my heavy coat and cap for a couple of days.  This is the winter that just keeps on giving!!!

Found a Jackie Chan movie that I had not heard of the other day...."Chinese Zodiac".....I'll probably be watching it tonight. Hopefully it is good....I haven't seen a bad movie by him yet.

Oh, back to the weather....the wind is also going to get pretty bad here tomorrow. They are calling for 20-30mph today and basically tomorrow with gusts up to 35mph. But tomorrow is also supposed to rain for most of the day....oh joy!

It is getting a little cooler now, sun going down and wind still blowing. It was 80 here today. Need to get my stuff together to hit the shower in a while and probably go ahead and do my laundry later tonight.

More tomorrow....hopefully I won't forget to get in here and keep this current. Trying to get to the point that I hit it every day!  Now, that is a challenge to me from me!!!  LOL

Cya later....  :-)

Run to KY to OH to OK....Stillwater tomorrow morning..OKC to MO/IA/MN also!

Another post that is just a little bit behind the curve in time!!!  LOL  But I'll finish it and the bring it up to date!  :-)

On the road again!  And back at home in Bertha. Had to get 2 new steer tires and had the alignment checked/done again. She is running like a new truck and handling much better.

I'll be at Ok State Univ in the morning unloading concrete forms that I have onboard. Can't make it there today due to traffic and construction....oh, the construction!....in every state. So will meander on down there over the evening, stopping in Joplin and fueling and get Bertha a bath there. Then find a spot close to Tulsa/Stillwater for the night, probably find a Home Depot for decent wifi or maybe a Staples.

  

I ended up spending the night on a wide spot just past a highway intersection about 17 miles from my drop in Stillwater.  It was nice and quiet...so quiet that I slept right thru my 2 alarms and a call from Brad!  Ahhhh, peace!!!  LOL

Made it to my drop this morning. And a very typical job site...in a city....the concept of "room" to move a large vehicle around just does not exist!  LOL

 
As you can tell from the pic above, there just was not much space to get around. I came in from the east side and it was so tight to get in that I had to drive about 2 miles down the road to find a spot to turn around and come back to be able to get thru the gate.

Once in...well, you can see how little room there is to unload.

Then once I got settled in, had to wait for a skylift to get from the other side of the site to unload me. It was a lift that is able to reach up 3 or 4 stories...so it was a tight fit for the driver.

Now in the next pic you see a small blue dot in the middle rear of the lot....that is the lift taking the items from my truck to where they had to store them for now.  About 100 yards away....nice!!!

Then, once I was unloaded...I had to back out of the lot, two guys had to go out in the street and stop traffic so I could back up into the street across from the lot entrance to be able to get on the road.

There were a couple of cars that almost decided that they were not going to stop...until they realized that I was coming out of the lot and my trailer and I would win any fight over who was going to have control of that little piece of asphalt!!  LOL  Then on top of that, there was a university cop sitting in the street that I was backing into that just sat there and watched as we did battle with the morning traffic to get me out. He did back up a little as I started down the street in reverse at a gaining speed attitude towards him!

I have made it to OKC, OK to load and head out. Made it here by lunch time to get another load of plastic conduit. Have drops in...Springfield, MO...Fort Dodge, IA....Minneapolis and Duluth, MN. I haven't taken any pics of this load yet, I'll add them later.

I can't deliver in Springfield until Monday morning at 7am, so I have another weekend to sit and relax....oh, joy!!  But that is the way it goes.

I did find 2 of the drawers for my truck storage that I had been looking for, so it is getting better each day as far as storage in here goes. I think tomorrow I'll be trying to get my work and backup lights on the truck and wired in.  And I might just try to get my tv antenna mounted too!!!  :-D

A Weekend at Gadsden :-)

It has been a pleasant weekend at Tabitha and Jason's house.  I have not had a chance to visit since Christmas. And man are the kids growing!  And boy am I getting old!  LOL  But that is the way of life and we just carry on.

Friday was basically spent at the Petro shop here getting Bertha worked on. She is now, I believe, in top condition and I will be rolling out of here sometime Monday morning and will be out on the road for the next several weeks.  So there is no telling wehre I will be come Monday night!!  LOL

I spent the day today (Saturday) running around with the boys.  We ran down to Trussville to go to the Sprint Store.....which is no longer there!  A great drive down to spend time visiting with the boys.  :-)   We took the long way back up Hwy 11 and the boys got to see Sleepy Hollow Road and the backwoods of Attalla.  In fact, there is an area of the woods there on the southern end that is "swamped" out and you can see the beaver lodge that is the result of the daming of the creek.  It was really pretty.

Then lunch at Zaxby's...my first trip to Zaxby's....not bad!!!!  And the fries are fabulous!!!  :-)

Josh and I ran down to Best Buy in Oxford, to take a look at the new Galaxy Note Tablet....and of course they didn't have one there. They had the Tab Pro and my main concern was the new UI in the new models and the new OS.....and I was pleasantly surprised with it. In fact, I was very impressed.  But that will be coming in several months....all things in due time!

Back at Tabitha's for the evening....then I am going to crash in my truck for the night and work on it some tonight and in the morning.  It is supposed to rain here most of the day tomorrow, so I will work in Bertha and get it cleaned up and throw some more stuff out and then do some more rearranging.

Time to eat some sever layer mexican cassarole.....YES!!!