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May 3, 2010

Hang on to Toto...

...cause the winds blowing agian!
After a long weekend dragging our feet to kill time, we finally delivered this morning in Quincy, WA. It was a load of Calcium Nitrate that went to a fertilizer distributor.


From there we drove down to Wallula, WA where we are now waiting to load meat and bone meal at the Tyson kill plant here.


Along the way we drove east on WA-240, which is kind of a lonely road. Not a lot out there, but it dumps you out at Pasco. Its kind of sandy, dusty country and the wind was blowing for all its worth. We were empty too, and the wind was pushing the trailer around pretty bad.
We also ran into another issue...gee this looks familiar!
Who says the southwest is the only area that has dust storms?
It was only this bad for a couple miles or so, but it was pretty impressive!


And I missed them in all the pictures, they travel too fast, but there are about a zillion tumbleweeds traveling today!

Now its starting to drop big fat random rain drops on the windshield, and the hills and river that were clearly visible to the south of us have disappeared in a sheet of white. Keeping our fingers crossed that it holds off a while longer. They'll stop loading us if it starts raining, and we've just gotten started.
From here its back down US97 through Oregon and into California where we'll hit I-5 and shoot down to CA 99 to Turlock, delivering in the morning.
This week marks the one year anniversary of our working with Northwest Trasportation as our broker (if you don't count the summer before last when we worked with them for a few months). Last May we spent practically the entire month running up and down US97 taking fertilizer to Washington and meat and bone meal to California, over and over again! Do you think its just coincidental that we've just finished a fertilizer load and are now picking up the meat and bone meal, or do you think we'll be on that same freight lane again this year for May? Only time will tell!
As a side note, have you seen the pictures from Nashville, TN? Amazing! I've only seen a few but need to look some more up on the internet. I talked to my sister, Meagan, this morning to make sure she was good to go (she lives just south of Nashville in Murfreesboro) and also to check on interstate conditions for a friend of ours who has a load on its way to Atlanta. She said I-24 and I-40 are both closed in places and that TDOT has so many roads closed that they have run out of barracades and arn't even listing the roads that they've closed. There are just too many! I'm looking forward to her blog post about the whole thing. I'm sure there will be one. She said they'be been stuck at home for two days unable to go anywhere and are going stir crazy. I laughed and told her that sounded like heaven to me, but I guess when you CAN'T go anywhere, verses choose not to, its a little different. School was canceled today, but she's hoping it gets back on schedule tomorrow. She teaches middle school. Anyway, I may live in Montana, but part of my heart will always be in Tennesse and I was heart broken to hear about all this. My favorite places to shop in the Nashville area are underwater, including Opry Mills mall, and the adorable and historic town of Franklin. I'm just in awe of the whole event, and thankful that it didn't drown my home area of Chattanooga as well!

4 comments:

Yankee Girl ~ Missy said...

I just saw something on the news about the flooding in Hendersonville and on Broadway in Nashville. TONS of water. WOW

Becareful driving in all that wind.

I have an award for you on my blog!

frugalmom said...

You were right near me! Pasco!! Wasnt that wind incredible....and all that dust? The little guy and I were out in that running errands and stuff....we were cracking up at all the tumbleweeds blowing by. Altho, Im sure that can be very dangerous. Ive seen people swerving like crazy to miss those tumbleweeds...

bali said...

hello there ^^!
warm greeting from Bali island.

Terri said...

HI!! I HAVE SAID BETWEEN ME YOU AND THE FENCEPOST ALL MY LIFE SO I HAD TO CHECK YOU OUT!
My name is Terri and I live in Texas. I blog as well, but I am a newbie.Long time writer tho.
We talked about trucking years ago, but with kids it would be hard to do. Our baby is now 19 but don't think our bodies would allow it now.
We live in the country w one horse, 5 goats, 4 dogs and thank goodness I got rid of the llama!
I hope you will come see me. Until then, be careful and happy trails!!!! mysticequus.blogspot.com