Catching Up

Since our visit to the house at Thanksgiving, time has been dragging. Freight this year has slacked off significantly, or at least it seems to have. Probably a person would think that it was the holidays causing it, but really, we've kept moving through the holidays in years past. And talking to other drivers, we're hearing the same complaints. Slow freight, low rates, and boggled up loads.

 

Overall, it's working out alright, but we've hit a slump here and there that left us bored and cranky. We had a couple of loads rejected too and that's always frustrating because it wastes our time, even though we still get paid for hauling the stuff.

 

And we had a couple days, both Monday's actually, where a decent load couldn't be found and we wound up sitting all day twiddling our thumbs. Something we're not used to doing.

 

With all that, my motivation for blogging was down. You'd think with all that spare time I'd have been on it. Something to entertain myself with! But given the blah mood it brought on, and the fact that I've had my nose glued to my Kindle during every spare moment lately, as I've stumbled across some really good books, the blogging got neglected.

 

So it's time to play catch up.

 

Two weekends ago, we headed north out of Phoenix, spent the night at Las Vegas, and the next day drove up US93 through eastern Nevada.

There's a lot of vacant land out there. US 93 goes up through the Great Basin National Park. We take a short cut and go off 93 for a bit in order to stay going straight north instead of swerving east. So we miss the park itself, but the scenery on the rest of 93 is still admirable. I think the most striking things about the region are...

 

...the almost absolute emptiness. We passed through about 4 "towns" in about 300 miles.

 

And also the patterns in the mountain sides are quite interesting. With a lack of trees and really much any kind of vegetation, you can admire the geology of the area from your car window. There was a lot of activity here eons ago. You can tell the ground was busy moving around.

fascinated by that black stripe of rock running through the mountain

its hard to tell what was going on here. Earthquakes? Floods? Those swirling lines of rock could keep you guessing for quite a while.



We delivered northeast of Boise Idaho on Monday morning (Dec. 3) and then sat all day long waiting to see what would come up. And the answer was nothing. Finally, Monday evening, we got directions to head to Caldwell, ID (near Boise) to load apples in the morning.

 

So Tuesday morning we loaded up apples...

...and headed to an unexpected location. The times in the past that we've hauled apples, they either went to Petaluma, CA or to Wisconsin. But these apples went to a town near Grand Junction, CO.  There was, to my great surprise, several wineries, vinyards, orchards, and this little juice making company where we delivered. I never would have thought the arid climate in western Colorado could have supported fruit, but apparently it does.

 

From there, we bounced down to Monte Vista, where we were a couple weeks earlier, and loaded canola.

 

Back to Idaho, near Rexburg, for a Thursday morning delivery and then we went down to southern Idaho and loaded fertilizer.

 

Interesting frustration occurred in Colorado. Out of the blue, I got wrapped up in a massive allergy battle. Violent sneezing, itchy watery eyes, sniffles......in Colorado....in December! I was very aggravated, as the winter is supposed to be my time of allergy liberation. What was up with that? The allergies followed me all they way to Idaho and persisted in annoying me throughout the day on Thursday.

winter skies near Soda Springs, ID







In fact I didn't find relief until I climbed into the mountains of the Yellowstone area near the MT/ID state line. My allergies cleared up right about the time the tires started slipping and sliding around on icy roads. And by Yellowstone the freezing rain had turned to snow, and I was breathing clearly. I guess there was just enough dust and garbage in the air to make us allergy victims suffer. Clearly, it's a dry winter following a too dry summer.

 

Crossing into Montana was like flipping a switch. All of a sudden we found winter, and it's been following us around ever since. We were on snowy roads almost all the way to Billings, and past that, though it dried up, it was still bitterly cold.  By the time we got to North Dakota Friday morning with our fertilizer, it was 6 degrees and a heavy fog was just lifting, at least the fog that hadn't frozen to every surface available.

Frozen fog can be messy, but it sure is pretty!

w

Since the load of apples, things had run smoothly, but we hit another glitch in North Dakota. After unloading, we were going to take a load of flax to Ohio. But the trailer had to be washed out first which presented a huge problem.

First and foremost, the closest place to washout was 160 miles away, in the wrong direction, from our reload, which was only 20 miles away. And a bigger issue was that even if we could find a place to wash out, at 6 degrees, the trailer doesn't wash. It freezes. The broker asked if we could just sweep really really well, but they turned that request down. No washout, no load.

So we sat around in northern ND for most of the day, and finally towards evening we got a load of safflower from Fairview, MT and headed south towards Colorado. 600 miles and the whole weekend to get it done. So we took our time, played some, rested lots, and made the best of it.

 

I'lll tell you about the weekend in the next post.





Western Travels and A Story of Devoted Friendship



in Illinois on Monday

 I snapped that picture just as we were leaving Illinois on our way west. Funny how sometimes my "quick snap it and cross your fingers" pictures turn out to be my favorites.

Right after that we crossed the mighty Mississippi River...

...and entered a very famous and historic town in Missouri.

Do you recognize the name of this town and why it's famous? Hannibal is the boyhood home of author Mark Twain, as well as the setting for two of his most famous novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn! We didn't get to see much of the town, because it's not right on the main highway that we passed through on, but it was still neat to be in the area, and we did get a glimpse of town as we crossed the river.

We drove all night and all the next day and reached Reno by midnight Tuesday to deliver.

The next morning, we headed south into Nevada's vast and rustic wilderness. For a while we were on the main highway that cuts between Reno and Las Vegas, where we were traveling with other trucks and tourists, though not too many.

 After a hundred miles or so, we cut off onto a more obscure road and headed over towards a little place called Silver Peak.

Silver Peak is one of the oldest mining towns in Nevada. Silver was discovered in the area in 1863 and the town was established the following year. We didn't get to actually see the town, or what there may be of one still, because we had to leave the main road just north of town to go out to the Heart of Nature mine where we picked up a load of gypsum.

Of all the types of trucking you can do, I think maybe this one gives you the most diverse experiences and takes us to the most exotic places.

The mine wasn't an underground one. It was a big pit, with just two men there working.

They had a pile of pick axes and other debris they had gathered as they ran across it. The mine had been in operation since the 1800's so they were coming across lots of old and interesting things.

The gypsum went to Idaho, taking me on a long drive diagonally across Nevada's outback on highway 6. It was an awesome way to spend the day. I think I only passed 15-20 vehicles the entire day, and it was about 250 mile across there! I love driving around in Nevada's empty spaces!

love this! It's the never ending road!

We delivered in Soda Springs, ID the next morning,



I always admire this old homestead lost in a vast wheat field. Everytime we drive by it draws my attention.

 and from there we went to Pocatello and reloaded fertilizer. Then we headed north to Fort Benton, MT. We stopped last night in Great Falls and had dinner with Malcolm's sister and her husband. We hadn't seen them in almost a year and it was so much fun to get to catch up over pizza with lots of laughs and stories to share. Hope we can do that again soon.

After dinner, we drove the last 40 miles to Fort Benton, where we are unloading now.

The fertilizer place is up on one of the hills overlooking the town, so I've been enjoying the view, the cloudy weather (hope it rains for them!), and the cool breeze. It's in the mid-70's which is just comfortable enough to have the truck turned off and the windows open.

We are parked along the rail road tracks here...

 ...and across the tracks, as we pulled in last night, we noticed an odd monument on the hill, all lit up by spot lights and over looking the town.


it's over on the tip of the hill to the right



Malcolm asked about it this morning, while we were waiting our turn to unload, and then came back to tell me the story and have me look it up. Turns out the monument is the grave of a locally famous sheep dog.

a picture of Shep, from the website linked to below

I know many of my blog friends are animal loves, and there are many dog enthusiasts among you. I had to share this story with you because I was so touched by it. You simply must take the time to go read Shep's story here. There is also a statue in the town square that I would love to see, but we won't be able to. This truck enables me to see so many sights, and also restricts me in my touring. It's a bitter sweet thing for me! But maybe one day I can come back and go to the square so I can see the wonderful tribute this town has made to a good and faithful dog, as well as many others. And if you still have time, you also need to go read the Eulogy on the Dog that is on the website. I found it very touching and even almost teared up a bit, thinking of how every word of it is so true. God did an amazing thing when he created dogs and gave them a love for us. I think He knew there would be times when we would need a friendship that another human just couldn't provide.

We're reloading south of here. Another load of barley headed to Minnesota for the weekend. We're thinking we'll just take a lazy weekend to get across. A few miles one day, a few more the next, a trip to get groceries and supplies, and maybe dinner with Malcolm's other sister in Bismarck.

Dedicated

There are different ways to truck. Some drivers go all over the place, a different load every time. That would be us.
Some drivers are "regional" drivers, meaning they do different loads but stay mainly in the same part of the country, such as the southeast, or northeast, etc.
And then there are drivers that are "dedicated," and those drivers mostly do the same load (sometimes a little handful of loads) over and over and over again. Just the same destinations, back and forth, and back again.

This past week, we got to pretend to be "dedicated" drivers. It wasn't our plan to try it out, just the way the broker needed the loads run. Apparently there was a shortage of fertilizer in Idaho, and so we, along with several other trucks, spent the week going back and forth hauling in their fertilizer for them.

It isn't easy to see I know. I had a hard time getting my reflection out of the picture. But the green line is our route.

We started last Friday in Stockton, CA on the port. The fertilizer is brought in from overseas and they unload the ships cargo into warehouses there. Some of the port buildings are in the old Rough and Ready Naval base that closed in 1996. It's neat to go in there and see the old buildings and warehouses.

After loading, we'd head north to Sacramento, and then turn west on I-80 and drive into the Sierra Nevadas, crossing Donner's Summit, dropping down past Truckee, CA and making our way towards Nevada.

still a little bit of snow up top

back on the bottom, almost to the state line

Have you ever noticed how sometimes the landscape changes dramatically at state lines? Clearly geography played into the determination of boundaries and territory lines when such things were being determined. When you cross into Nevada, the mountains almost immediately fall away and appear only in the rear view mirror. There are a handful of large hills when you get east of Reno, but they are short lived. After that, it opens up onto the high desert.

It is so dry here this year! It's terribly dry at home, but as we've been driving around these past few weeks, we've come to recognize that eastern Montana is not alone. There is a serious lacking of the color green in most of the western states we've been in so far this spring. Nevada usually is rather brown and tan, but there should be a little bit of a green glimmer in there this time of year. It was missing.

At Winnemucca (try saying that fast several times), we turned north on US95. This two lane highway stretches in a nearly straight line for 120 miles before veering off to the east.

This is a long stretch of empty highway. There are only 2 towns in the 120 miles before the road bends east. They are itty bitty towns that the highway just shoots straight through with hardly a slow down.

Long valleys of cattle country and hay farms stretched between rocky mountain ranges.It's beautiful and open, vast and empty. You'll pass a sign that warns "Next gas 100 miles" and later "Open Range next 130 miles." I love it!

When the road does bend to the east at Burns Junction, a little intersection with three boarded up buildings and a weigh station that's open randomly, you still have another good 100 miles or so of open empty land. And one and a half more towns, the larger being Jordan Valley, before you get back to "civilization." There is a cafe at Jordan Valley that we enjoyed meals at this week. The JV Cafe had excellent home made soup, and other things to enjoy as well.

Malcolm and I really like this part of Oregon. We have discussed it numerous times and feel that if we ever have to move again, if we don't go back to TN, we'd like to live in southeastern Oregon, maybe somewhere around Burns or Jordan Valley.

The last stretch of road takes us over some steep hills and past an Idaho weigh station, and 20 miles later we pull into Nampa, ID where we delivered the fertilizer.

The whole run was 586 miles one way. Between last Friday and this morning, we did it 4 times, bouncing empty the entire distance back to Stockton to reload. Easy driving through beautiful country, and I'll look forward to being out there in the Oregon outback again soon. But for now, we're grateful for something different. It was time for a change. Apparently we're not ready for dedicated driving. It was getting a little bit old.

After delivering this morning in Nampa, we're headed east to the other side of Idaho. Got a load of potatoes waiting on us that have a date Monday morning with a french fry cutter in North Dakota.

Before I go, a sneak peak at the "new" truck. This is the '99 W900L Kenworth we picked up in Pennsylvania a few weeks ago.

 It's being tweaked at the shop in Billings. It's nearly ready to come home though. So far the plan is to probably take it out for it's maiden voyage towards the end of August. That is, unless anyone walks up and offers to take the gray truck off our hands. Anyone interested?

Malcolm in Heaven

We have driven 1,158 miles since loading on Friday in Colorado. It's been an easy weekend, except for a few moments of nasty weather. There was the wind in Wyoming that I told you about yesterday. And then last night, right at dusk, we ran into some of the nasty snow that's been in the weather reports. This was just across the Nevada line after leaving Utah.

Today, we've been relaxing in Reno. We had breakfast, showered, went shopping at an outlet mall, and then Malcolm went to heaven. (I'll explain in a bit.)

After he was done in heaven, we headed on west to get across the Sierra Nevadas. We were put out a bit, because they had reinstated the chain law and we were going to have to put on the snow chains, or "throw iron" as another trucker friend of ours says.

There are two ways of looking at what happened. On the one hand, you could say "well at least you don't have to put on the snow chains now!" On the other, you might say, "well sh**!"

At every entrance to California, at least within 50 miles of the border, all vehicles have to go through an agricultural inspection station. They look to see if your hauling any fruit or house plants or such with you. And if you are, they take them away. For us, they check our paperwork and take a sample of our product. And as it turned out, and this is our first experience with this scenario, they needed some papers we hadn't been given by the shipper, and so they won't let us in!
Yep, California has kicked us out of the state, sent us packing, tails tucked back to Nevada!!!

Malcolm has made some phone calls and we have to wait till tomorrow to see what happens now. I figure it will be one of three possibilities: either they will work out the details and we'll go across the border tomorrow and make a late delivery (provided the road is still open b/c they are supposed to get a ridiculous amount of snow tonight in the mountains) - or -  we'll be haulin this corn back to Colorado - or - they'll sell it to someone else and we'll take it wherever that may be. HUGE inconvenience and irritation, but never fear...we get paid, regardless, for all miles no matter where we end up going with it. It just is very irritating and a waste of our time.

Anyway, I was going to explain heaven, Malcolm's heaven at least.

Having been ousted from California, we are now parked in the parking lot of the heaven in Reno. There are, in truth, 34 heavens in North America, soon to be 37! They are adding three more sometime soon! More are added every year.


this and the following pictures were taken at the Lacey, WA store

 We're talking about Cabelas, folks. The Mecca for all hunters and outdoors men! There are 34 Cabelas stores in the country. I counted.

We have been to 15 of them. Malcolm has set a personal goal to get to as many of them as he can. Guess trucking is good for some things after all!

Have you ever been to a Cabelas store? If not, your missing out.

They have thought of everything and everyone! Outside the stores they have provided facilities where your dogs and horses can relax in comfort while you shop...

...and inside they've even put consideration towards those of us who are not hunters, fishers, or serious outdoors men. It's pretty darn interesting to go in and  take a look around! It's not just about men! They have thought of the hunters prettier counterpart and have stocked some nice items that appeal to the interest of the wives!

Ok, in all seriousness though, they do have a pretty nice clothing department and I've found some pretty sweaters and nice jackets and such there.

Outside of clothing, they have all sorts of camping supplies, including stuff for cooking at camp. I like to look at that too.

For Malcolm, the draw is the guns and such. He's big into reloading ammunition and shooting it too. Guns are kind of his thing. All the stores have a wide selection of new and used guns, and most stores have a special room for special guns, and if your a special person who has lots of money, you can buy one of these.

In addition to the gun library, all the stores have a "general store" where there are lots of goodies for sale to tempt the taste buds...

...including a large supply of various fudges, all of which can be sampled free of charge. I love free samples!

And if your hungry now, many of the stores have a grill inside where you can order buffalo burgers or roast elk sandwiches. They specialize in sandwiches made from specialty game, pretty much anything from buffalo to ostrich to elk. After several hours of browsing, the grill comes in handy!

Here's one of the things I do really find interesting to go into the store and see. Each store has a display of mounted game. It's usually pretty interesting, and usually displays animals from the region, though not always.

I grew up with family members that hunt, and I'm married to a hunter. I'm not bothered by it as I know some are. And these pictures might bother some of you. But I support hunters and believe it has it's merits and is part of wildlife management. And I think these displays have educational use. There are plaques for each animal telling what they are and a little about them. It's very tastefully done, and there are usually some really nice pieces of taxidermy work.

All the mounts have been donated to Cabelas, or purchased by them, from hunters or estates. None of these were just randomly shot for the purpose of decorating the store.

And a number of the stores, particularly the ones in regions where fishing is a great interest, also have a walk through aquarium where the regional fish are on display.

 Always fun to walk through there and watch the fish at face level.

Cabelas....sportsman's paradise. In Billings, the guys at the gun library are on a first name basis with my husband. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. Hmmm...

There are 34 Cabelas stores in the country and my husband wants to see them all. He's seen the 15 he's gotten to on multiple occasions. We've been to this one here in Reno, where we're parked now, at least a dozen times. I don't resent his time at Cabelas. It's one of the few recreational activities he really enjoys. I don't go in much anymore though. For me, once you've seen it, you've seen it. But if you ever get the chance to go to one of the stores, go in and take a look around. Don't just sit in the car and read a book while your honey is shopping. You might just find some cute sweater, or a coffee mug, or a camouflage bikini you can't live without. At the very least you'll get a free sample of fudge!

And after you've gone to Cabelas a handful of times, then come join my new campaign. I'm going to petition them to start building Barnes and Noble bookstores next to every Cabelas! That way Malcolm and I both get to spend some time in heaven!

Switching Gears

I realize we were just discussing Autumn and how much we all enjoy it, but we're going to have to switch gears here for just a moment. It is the first week of October after all, and so there shouldn't be any issue in moving ahead and thinking about winter, or seeing it in action for that matter. Do you mind?

There will be no complaints about bug splatter on the windshield in this post. That is not what is interfering with my pictures. And though, at a glance, it might look like innocent rain, it was not that either that caused an out of focus photograph of lodge pole pines south of Yellowstone.

No, my friends, those would be splattered snow flakes. Not convinced? How about now? Can you see them here?

Still not good enough for you? Well you can try to be in denial all you want, but no one can ignore the evidence I present in the next picture.

Yesterday morning we were traveling south through the northeastern side of Idaho, making our way towards California. The pictures above were all taken while in the higher elevations. At Ashton, ID, the road descends a steep hill, aptly named the "Ashton Hill" and drops down onto lower, flatter ground. About 60 miles later we stopped in Idaho Falls to shower and have breakfast.

We had left the snow flurries in the mountains, so we were a bit surprised when, as we pulled off the exit ramp, suddenly the sky filled with snow flakes...and we're not talking flurries. I said snow flakes, quite a lot of them.

We showered and then went to the cafe and enjoyed a nice brunch while watching the heavy snow showers very quickly and efficiently cover...everything!

 Mind you, I'd been keeping up with the weather, having noticed that the mountains in numerous states were expecting a decent first winter snow. But we had not expected to see snow once we left the mountains, especially since it wasn't snowing in the mountains we'd just left.

By the end of breakfast, there were golf ball size wads of snow falling rapidly out of the sky and splattering and sticking to lots of things.

And I suddenly had three very disgruntled Chinese Cresteds on my hands.

To them, the wet and cold is bad enough, but having to put clothes on is a HUGE insult! However, at 33 degrees, I figured we might as well get the initial "I hate my lady b/c she puts clothes on me" fits over with.

Those fits will continue with Jean throughout the entire winter season. Paris eventually puts two and two together and seems to understand that she's warmer. (she is the smartest one in the lot after all) And Ella has always been kind of indifferent to clothes season, though she did back away from me some this year when she saw what was coming. We'll see how she handles it in the months to come.

The snow was over just south of Idaho Falls and we were in rain till we got to the Nevada line at Jackpot, NV. But those golden hills of my post from last week had a new show to put on. They all got dressed up in lace Wednesday night.

About 70 miles south of Jackpot is I-80, some glorious mountains, and the town of Wells, none of which could be seen. Apparently there were still some lingering snow showers.

In fact, there were a few more scattered showers here and there, but they all stayed well south of the interstate, and we only had a few stray spatters on our windshield through the evening.

There had been some moments of irritation earlier in the day when we read that California was requiring snow chains to cross Donner's Summit in the Sierra Nevadas. Our snow chains were in the garage at home. Nice place for them don't you think? We were holding out as long as possibly so we didn't have to haul around the added weight, but plans this year were to buy new chains, and so we picked up the necessary number of sets while in Idaho Falls and got that over with. Luckily, and we figured it would go this way, the chain laws were lifted long before we got to the NV/CA line around midnight on Thursday. But we've got the chains now, so let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Ok, not really. I love winter, but I'd like to enjoy a few more weeks of Autumn if you don't mind? After all I just got started on my celebration! We'll think about winter later.

End Notes:

Annette, thank you for the blog award! I am touched. I am so glad you enjoy my blog!

To all: If your just catching up with me, be sure to check out the following post. I'm sharing some of my favorite seasonal (that would be Autumn seasonal) piano music with a lucky person. Winner to be announced on Monday.