Monthly Chores and a "Tour"

 The end of July. Can you believe it? I know it's been asked a million times over the ages, but....

Where did this month go? For that matter, what happened to 2012? It flew by when I wasn't looking!

The end of the month brings with it a paperwork job for me.

Every month, at the end, I have to print off our trip sheets that I've created at each delivery.

We have to report to the government how many miles we drive in each state, keeping record of the odometer reading as we enter and leave the states to prove the mileage we report.

In addition we have to report the gallons of fuel purchased and the amount spent on fuel in each state during that month.

I have to match up each trip sheet with the fuel receipts that go with that trip.

And then we mail them, or drop them off if we're passing through, to our prorate service.

Our prorate service is wonderful. They take care of all our permits, vehicle registration renewals, and calculate our fuel taxes each quarter for us. Then they just tell us how much we owe. I'll gladly pay them to do all that, so I don't have to worry about getting it done correcly. I've heard it's easy, but they are good and they are afordable and I am happy to let them do it for me. One less thing!

Another age old argument.....
If we fought for freedom from England in part due to their taxing taxing taxing (without representation I know), then how on earth did we get to this point where we are taxed taxed taxed?

We pay an annual "Heavy Highway Use" tax of $550 because we drive on the roads and cause wear and tear. But then we also pay a quarterly tax based on how many miles we drove in each state and how much fuel we bought in that state, and so on and so on.....(rolling eyes and heaving sigh of irritation).

I'll stop the complaints because regardless of all those frustrations, we still have a TON of privileges compared to other countries and I wouldn't trade for a million trillion dollars. I just hope we can hold on to all those privileges. But I'm not going to get on a political soap box here, so don't worry. You can keep reading and not get preached at.

For the month of July, we drove roughly 19,000 miles and spent somewhere around $13,000 on fuel. Last year, third quarter IFTA was a light bill because we basically were home for most of July and August helping to hay. This year, there is no hay to cut, so we'll be on the road all of third quarter, racking up miles and fuel expenses. We'll see what kind of impact that has come tax time next Spring.

This morning, we're in Sunnyside, WA. Isn't that a delightful name for a town? We've not been here in over a year, which is a real tragedy on the culinary experience. We found a little hole in the all Mexican restaurant here a couple years ago, that we really love and we've missed it! So last night I had tacos and Malcolm had Carne Asada and then we enjoyed Fresas con Crema for desert, because we've not found a place that makes it to compare to this one.

As soon as we're unloaded here, we'll head to Boardman, OR to pick up potatoes. But on our way out of Sunnyside, we'll stop at the dingy little truck stop that happens to have the best ever taquitos. I'll have one with chicken and cheese, and one (I can't wait!) with cherries and rolled in cinnamon sugar! Yes, we do love this little town of Sunnyside. Wish we passed by more often! Breakfast is going to be good!

As I was in the back working on my paperwork, I realized I've never given you the official tour of the new truck, and someone even requested it! I'm sorry! Let me show you around.

This truck is a 1999 Kenworth (I think it's a 900L?...but that's more Malcolm's knowledge and he's not in here).

You've already seen the outside, but here's a reminder photo.

Some have asked, or wondered but didn't ask, why we've bought an older truck with less room and more miles. There are three good reasons:
1. it's Malcolm's dream truck
2. the payment is SOOOOOO much smaller than the newer trucks
3. more than likely (unless I change my mind so don't hold me to it) Paris, Ella, and I are abandoning ship come the end of the year (or next Spring) and Malcolm and Carlie Jean are going out solo. So we figured we could live with being a little cramped for a few months so that he can have his dream truck with the smaller payment.

As far as the cab goes, there's about the same amount of room.

Unlike the old truck, where the cab had a rubber mat covering the entire floor, this one is carpeted all the way through. In addition, the exhaust system crosses under the truck right beneath the seats. The girls quickly discovered that this set up means they have a heated AND carpeted space to lay on. And they all three take advantage of it frequently, especially Paris, the sun/fire worshiper.

The sleeper is where we got a little crunched. This truck is what is referred to as a "flat top sleeper." It looks cool! It looks classic. But it means we lost some space. Regardless, it was fairly easily managed. We left some things at home that we hardly ever use, like the TV and DVD player and I don't carry around so many books and magazines. I have my Kindle now and that solved that issue.

the home office and clothes closet

We have to store the dog food and water bottles in the side box and access them from the outside of the truck, but that's not a big deal. It's tight, but cozy, and we adjusted quickly and are pretty comfortable.

the rest of the home office, clothes closet, and food pantry. I found those woven buckets at Bed Bath and Beyond and they fit perfectly! Works good since there aren't any doors or curtains on these storage spaces like in the former truck.

The flat top sleeper also means we lost a bed! The other truck, which was the traditional modern style, had bunk beds in back. Top bunk for me and Paris, bottom for Malcolm and the other two girls. Now we're in the flat top, with one bed, a slightly larger than average twin size bed I might add, which makes for forced snuggling. The girls have been ousted and now sleep on a blanket pallet in the floor, something they were not to impressed with at first, but have adjusted to. And in the mornings, as soon as Malcolm starts to get out of bed, they all three waste no time in reclaiming their spots under the covers in the bed.

one perk is we lost a bed but we gained a window. This truck has a window on the back wall with a lovely boring view of the front of the trailer. But is sure does let in lots more sunshine and us girls like that. He'll just have to wait to live in a "man cave" till three of us have moved out.

Our girls are not early risers. It was 7:50 when I took these pictures and we'd been up since 6:15. Don't see the girls anywhere in these pictures do you? Look closer. See the lumps under the covers?
The running joke in here is that Ella is always saying that she doesn't sleep so good on the floor. So as soon as we've abandoned the bed, the girls move in, and catch a few more moments of sleep. Eventually they emerge, more rested I supposed.


Paris was first this morning. She must have been warm and happy because she immediately started bouncing and wallowing all over the bed, which disturbed the beauty rest....

another lump rises

....of Ella. Ella is funny. Of the three, she is the biggest (literally and figuratively) sleepy head. She doesn't "do" mornings. If we get her up before 7:30 to go potty, you can almost certainly count on her being half asleep for the job and immediately returning to bed when we get back in. She is never fully awake and energized till at least 8:00am.

And now it's an hour later, 8:50am, and I have yet to see Carlie Jean. She's still under the covers. She hasn't emerged yet. Ella and Paris have curled back up for another nap, but they are at least on top of the covers now where they can see what's going on. They like their pillow piles, especially Paris.

Sorry for the blurry images of the girls. Without the flash, any movement from them almost always makes the picture blurred. But, smart girls, they have figured out that when the flash is on, there is a sensor light on the camera and when they see that light up, they turn their faces away. It has ruined many a cute moment. So I try to leave the flash off and accept blurred ears and tails.

Yesterday we delivered sunflower seed chips to a bird seed company north of Spokane.

Then we drove south to Pasco and loaded meal which we brought over here to Sunnyside. Now we're just about finished here and heading just across the border, about 75 miles, to pick up some potatoes in Oregon. And tomorrow we'll be back in North Dakota, and then heading home for a few days, maybe a week. Maybe longer, we'll see. Might possibly have a local job to do, if the timing is right and if that's the case we'll stay a few extra days to get that done.

PS: If your curious and missed it three years ago (?????THREE YEARS AGO????? REALLY????) here's a link to when I gave the tour of our then new, but now "old" truck. You can compare and see the differences. I like the new truck better. It feels more western, more cozy, the colors are prettier, and so on.

Cheap Thrills

We are blessed in that our girls, unlike real children, are easy to entertain. And a lot cheaper. Whenever we have a long weekend and the weather is nice, we try to find a place to pull off the road and let the girls run. Their preference is to find a place with nice grass, not too prickly, not too wet, not too thick, not too dry, but just right.

 The temperatures should be, preferably, over 70, over 90 is even better. Sun shine is the favored condition.

 This past weekend, we knew we were going past a nice rest area on the Washington banks of the Columbia River. We've stopped there before. They have a nice large patch of near perfect grass for running.

 And there's not a lot of traffic so we mostly have the rest area to ourselves. We set them loose and watch them go.

 The girls also prefer that the wind is calm. Wind is not one of their favored weather conditions. Carlie and Ella try to overlook all but the strongest of breezes, but the princess does not "do" wind of any strength.

 She has also outgrown the thrill of running. Running is beneath the princess. She prefers snooping. But on this day, though the grass was soft, and not too wet, and not too prickly, it was only just 50 degrees, the sun was not shining, and the wind was too brisk for princesses.

 She snooped for about 5 minutes and then took up residence inside my jacket where she snuggled in to observe the peasants running. Good thing for princesses that they are small enough to fit into the jacket. Peasants wouldn't fit.

Eventually, even peasants begin to tire, though Carlie Jean could probably run all day long and be completely happy in an exhausted state if we'd let her. But the other two get bored waiting for her to wind down, so we shut her off earlier than she'd like.

 While we watched the girls run themselves out, we also took a few minutes to take in the view, which along this stretch of road, never gets dull.

I said our girls were easy to entertain. And they are! I didn't say they weren't picky though. Perfect grass conditions, perfect temperatures, perfect moisture, no wind.....well there's no such things as perfection, but we do our best. They still enjoyed it, and I hope appreciate our efforts.

I told you in the last post that we would be home last weekend, but then a change of plans. We found out we could deliver on Friday after all, and so we went through the night to Spokane, and then took a short load to just south of Portland for the weekend. And then this week.....well your lucky I'm blogging, because I'm about dead on my feet and half starved. We went from a lazy 350 mile weekend into a week of driving straight through the night, every night so far, and every day as well! From Oregon to Iowa, back to Utah, and on, we started Monday evening and haven't stopped going yet! Looks like things are winding down for the end of the week though, so some rest tonight and then another lazy weekend. It has been tiring, but feels good as well because it makes up for the poor miles the week before.
Hope it's a good and relaxing weekend for all of you as well!

Takin' It Easy

On Thursday, we loaded in one of my favorite parts of Idaho. From I-15, you take US30 into the mountains of southeastern Idaho, past Lava Hot Springs,

and on into Soda Springs, where you turn north on a state highway that goes out to Conda, ID.  As you leave Soda Springs, there is a sign that warns of "no gas for 70 miles." My kind of place!

The colors on the mountains are amazing this time of year! And the vistas are always beautiful!

Conda, ID...I've seen no town by that name, though our GPS can find and lead us to "Conda." Maybe there is a town tucked away somewhere. I have no idea. But what IS there that we go to frequently, is a huge fertilizer plant.

We loaded fertilizer and hauled it to Othella, WA, delivering Friday morning. The plan was to load sunflower seed at Moses Lake and head to Minnesota. But we were told up front that the seed wasn't quite dry enough and we might have to wait.

By Friday evening it still wasn't dry enough, and so Malcolm decided since there was a chance we'd be here for a couple days, we'd splurge on a hotel room at the hotel across the road from the truck stop. So we loaded up our stuff, and the girls stuff, and the girls, and got ourselves settled in.

The lady here who has the seeds has been staying in touch with us. The seeds are close to being ready and we're hoping today is the day. We'd like to be sitting in Minnesota in the morning. We should know if we can load in a couple hours.

In the mean time, we've been enjoying the luxury of showers every day, sometimes two just for fun! And watching TV in our pajamas all day, catching up on rest.

The girls haven't had any complaints. They had lots of new spaces to explore, lots of fun running around and over the top of the bed, and to their great delight, the room has a king size bed, which means all 5 of us fit!

It has been nice for a change, relaxing, and good to be out of the truck for a spell. But its still not home, and we're getting restless, tired of watching TV, and being stationary for so long.

Hope we get on the road today!

More of the Same

My sister and her family just returned home from a magical trip to the Magic Kingdom,

and Mom and Dad are driving around the Oregon coast as we speak on an incredible dream vacation.

What are we doing? We are on yet another trip from North Dakota to California. All 5 of us are getting really bored with the scenery on this route. The dogs don't even come up to the cab much any more. Even the stuffed ones are sick and tired of this trucking thing.

Which is why I haven't blogged for a while, a little over a week actually. Seeing the same thing over and over does not inspire much. I just haven't been in the mood, haven't had much of interest to share, and quite frankly, I've been too tired to care much about anything. Tired from driving and weary of the road. Which sounds pathetic, and I'm not shopping for sympathy. Just telling you where I've been.

But for whatever reason, the blogging mood struck this morning around 3:00 and I composed three blog posts in my mind as I drove, and then had to choose. I decided to just go update you on what we've been up to and then share other stuff later.

Mt Shasta as viewed from Weed, CA

Last week I think I told you, after our long weekend waiting in Sacramento, we took a load of pears to Portland? Did I tell you or was that on facebook? Well, anyway, that's what we did, and from Portland we bounced empty over to Moses Lake, WA to load more sunflower seeds. Yes, sunflower seeds. I think its the only thing anyone grows anymore!

Along the way, we drove the Columbia River Gorge again, which is always enjoyable, and stopped at a little rest area to take a quick break, and even though we were in a hurry, I took the time to take a picture of Beacon Rock and read the plaques there. It was interesting. I have a dream of taking a vacation like Mom and Dad's with no agenda in which I stop at every single roadside point of interest, all the ones I've driven past over the last 5 years and not gotten to stop to see. Maybe I'll stop at them all twice on my dream trip just to make it up to myself.

 Also on the way to Moses Lake, after leaving the river and heading across the high plains of Washington, we found the Columbia again, and crossed it again. I love the way the sky looks in this picture, like that gap in the mountains is sucking not only the river water up, but the sky and clouds too. Kind of interesting.

 And on the other side of the river, we climbed the big hill, passing this little water fall...

 ...and also Wild Horses Monument.

 All of those things can be seen from I-90 in central Washington, and we've seen them all before. More of the same for us. But I've not put them on the blog, I think, so it was new stuff to show you so there you go!

And then we arrived in Moses Lake to load our sunflower seeds.

 From there, it was off to Breckenridge, MN, once again, more of the same. Drove through Montana which took all night, and morning found us in western North Dakota on a beautiful morning driving past Theodore Roosevelt National park. Doesn't this picture just make you ache to climb on a horse and go explore?

Miles and miles of exploring to be done there. One of these days....

After our sunflower seed load, we took a load of beet pulp pellets to California. More of the same. We made record time so we could get there and deliver early (like 3:00am) Saturday morning, so we could drive back to Sacramento and load sunflower seeds for Fargo. More of the same.

We left Sacramento with what was to be the last load of sunflower seeds from there until November...probably. They were too moist and so they stopped harvesting for a while until the seeds have time to dry out more.

By Sunday morning sunrise, I was west of Billings, MT passing the Crazy Mountain range in a mist of rain with a rainbow behind me and a gorgeous sunrise in front.

We delivered in Fargo yesterday morning, then sat most of the day waiting for Devils Lake, ND to have enough product to load us.

We left there around midnight last night, and this morning we were west of Billings again, looking at the Crazy Mountains from a different angle with a little more snow on top, and a lot more sunshine.

We're hauling another load of pea flour to that mill in Sacramento. More of the same. And from what I hear, we're loading in Stockton tomorrow morning, and heading to Idaho.

From Idaho, who knows. But we're supposed to get home next week sometime...preferably early on. And I swear! If I see California again before we go home for a break, I'll scream!

Ella agrees. She's already practicing. It's been a very successful round on the road, but I think we're all in agreement. Nine weeks is too long to be gone!

I know this whole post sounds rather negative, but I have to share the ups and downs if this is truely going to be a representation of my life. And right now, even though I still enjoy my job and don't want to be doing something else, its just time for a break! I'm physically and mentally weary. But one more week, and I can rejuvinate and boy howdy, am I looking forward to it! Home and Horses... two things that are a garuntee to make me feel better.

Crossings

It seems like whenever I've reached the end of my strength, energy, or patience, God creates a situation to give me a boost. Today was such a day. I was beyond tired, worn down, dragging my feet, and not expecting to make it much longer. I need a break. And though one is not visible as of yet, other things, it seems, can pick me up and get me going again. Things like incredible beauty and a visit with friends!

This morning we delivered a load of pears in Vancouver, WA. Vancouver is just across the state line and the Columbia River from Portland, OR. As we crossed the river into Washington, sunrise was just finishing up its show. It was looking like it would be a really pretty day on the Columbia River.


if you look close you can see Mount Hood in the haze on the horizon

 We had to wait a little while to unload because some of their equipment was broken. But after a while they had it repaired and were able to unload the pears. They use a conveyor to pile them into wood crates. These pears were for juicing.

Afterwards, we skipped back across the river to Portland to washout the trailer, and then another jaunt across the river for the third time today to hop on US14 and head east towards Pasco, WA.

I know I've shared again and again about driving along the Columbia River Gorge. Its just one of those scenic drives you never get tired of. At least I don't, and so I hope you don't get tired of seeing it.


Mount Hood viewed from US14 near Vancouver, WA

 You can't drive along this river and not gape at the scenery. Whether its foggy, windy, raining, sweltering hot, or icy....it doesn't matter. There is always something to admire. And my favorite spot is a break in the trees that provides a spectacular look at the gorge and all its glory.

The pavement and the railroad twist and wind along side by side, sharing the space on the banks and matching each other tunnel for tunnel, though sometimes the railroad tunnels aren't as dressed up as the roadway's. But I actually like them better in their rawness. I'd like to go in one and see it's insides.

The entire morning was very enjoyable. We are tired and drained and don't have a break anytime in the immediate future, but something about the morning seems to have energized me a bit. I think it had to do with the beauty of the day, the delights of God's creations...

...and probably a big boost to my mood was a visit we had about half way to our reload.

As it turned out, the farm girl of Critter Farm, her husband, and her faithful farm dog, Roxie, were finishing up what sounds like a marvelous vacation at a delightful little spot along our route! I can't wait till she gets home and posts about all their fun! It sounds like it was just what I need! I'll just have to experience through her blog posts. Anyway, they were out there camping near our route, and since our paths were crossing, we couldn't just drive by and not say hello. Plus I had to meet Roxie!

It was a  very short (basically long enough to let the girls out to potty and hug Danni and Roxie) but wonderful little visit. I just think the world of Danni and her husband and her critters! She is such a delightful lady! And as if her great company wasn't enough, she is so thoughtful. She brought Malcolm and I a couple of cool drinks to enjoy and a baggie of cookies for Roxie to share with the girls. We were touched by their thoughtfulness and generosity!

We couldn't stay and visit near as long as I would have liked. The sooner we get over here to the Pasco area to load, the more likely it is we might have a few moments to park and sleep before delivering. And when I say moments, I mean mere moments, if that! So we rushed our visit and then hit the road in a hurry. But Danni certainly boosted my spirit and energy just in those few moments of shared time. Her energy and enthusiasm is infectious!

If your not familiar with her blog, you MUST visit, and be sure to check out her most recent post about her hen Honey, and the little vacation she's taking while the Critter Farm owners have been on their own excursion! Honey had me and Malcolm chuckling and breaking out in grins even in our tiredness of the morning.

 After our visit, we skipped over the river to the Oregon side to finish the last leg of our trip. And on the Oregon side, we passed beneath the rocky hillsides that seem so steep you'd think nothing could be there but grass and rocks. But on occasion we see some surprising critters there, and this morning there were a number of them grazing on their favorite rocky slope, and Malcolm spotted them in time for me to manage to grab the camera and get off a shot, though it came out a bit furry.

 We'll skip back across the river again here in a bit and load in Washington. Let's see...that makes 5 crossings of the Columbia River today! And actually it will be 6 by the end of the day, because once we're loaded, we'll cross it again and head south. We'll deliver in Sacramento in the morning, and then its another sunflower load bound for Fargo, ND!
I don't think we've worked this hard in years! We're both feeling it too, weary doesn't begin to describe. But the payoff will be well worth it. I just hope there is a bit of a break somewhere in our future. I'm not sure I can keep going at this pace for another 5 weeks! And that's how long we plan to stay out before taking another home time leave!