Sunday, August 21, 2011

This morning I'm going to go play some tennis with Brian. I've been putting it off the past week because I've either had a tummy ache (or just didn't feel like it)... or got in too late on Saturday morning to want to go... I would rather just take a bath and sit on the couch and watch chick flicks or recorded "Americas Got Talent" show.

Yesterday, Mike went out and got us a new fax machine; something he's wanted for quite some time. I've finally told him that we're going to start enjoying some of the money we make out here on the road and spend it on ourselves instead of just putting it away for a rainy day. We can't take it with us and "Why not?" We deserve some things too. In fact, i'm going to be looking into getting some Lasix surgery for my eyes because my glasses are just putting holes in my nose from the little pads on them. I don't feel comfortable in wearing contacts because although I can get them out ok, I find it difficult to get them out without scratching my eye balls up in trying so.

Well, the sun will be coming up in a minute or so, time for tennis... so off we go.

Finding some new friends out on the roadways!

HiWithAY here. Sorry, but I haven't updated in some time. I will try to be a little better at blogging. Lately I've been working on a new diet for my hubby, which consists of things that don't taste so well. NO salt, NO Sugar, low oxcalate foods (which is weird to me) and so far, so good. Mike and I have both lost weight.

We are still driving our dedicated route which consists of the following: We leave early Sunday evening from the Oklahoma yard, heading to our first stop which is Bradley, Illinois. Get there about 07:30 and they unload me by 0900 local time. Then I drive to the Chicago area, or West Aurora, Illinois. We usually get a purina load coming back from there and are home by Tuesday morning; We leave Tuesday afternoon and go to Elkhart, Indiana. Sometimes we get have Battle Creek which is in Michigan, on the rear and therefore, we have to leave the yard a little earlier due to the distance being farther out for the first stop, but most of the time it is just Elkhart alone. I really love the Elkhart Store; they are my favorite. Mary is the manager and she is a real kick; so much in fact that I enjoy buying the store bakery goods every week from the Amish bakery that is in the mall. She surprised me last week and called CalMar (the bakery) and told them to not charge me; that this was on them... How nice, huh? It's good making a good rapport with your customers! It usually pays off in the end--Oh, and by the way, I got a dozen freshly baked sugar free cookies (chocolate chip) right from the oven--nice and hot....Can't beat that, now can you. Now usually when we finish at Elkhart, we have store clean up, which usually consists of Kokomo, Lafayette, Michigan City, and sometimes, Mishawaka and that is our backhaul which gets us back home on Thursday morning; We leave Thursday afternoon about 1600 to head to Columbus, Indiana, which is another of my favorite stores--the last week, I took out some of the big construction cones (you know, the big fat orange ones); they have been doing some construction outside of the store parking lot and i Flattened one of them; found out another one was in front of my tandum tire, being pushed down the street; so I had to set the brakes, and get out and move the cone physically... Oh well, stuff happens... they never leave room to come out the exit--this week, I've decided to go out the same way I came in which is to turn around in the dock area which isn't that easy due to the cars parked in the back, but it makes more sense then to take out more of their prescious cones... when we finish at Columbus, Indiana, we usually have a RED Gold tomato back haul which gets us back into Oklahoma early saturday mornings--off work again til sunday evening, where it starts all over again....

I've finally uploaded alot of pics, and did some well-needed blogging

Pulling into this customer and saw all the crazies pulled in all over the place, I decided to back into the only open dock.... and when the guy asked me if i was in a door, I said yes! They started unloading me right away. I was outta there in about 1/2 hour. Being our only backhaul for this trip, we were headed home; no store clean ups, nothing else to get on the truck and....by our ETA on the GPS, we should be home by 0300 Saturday morning... Yippee, another weekend with a 34-hour reset... Eat your heart out Julie...hahahaha...After this blogging, another BUBBLE bath coming up




a Lovely day in the neighborhood....la la lalala. I'm hoping you all love these great pics as much as I do




Honey, it's time to get up, so please put your shoes on so we can get going.





After it rained a little bit, for a moment on our ride home it cleared up and look what I found... a wall that was made of ROCK... Indiana again.... heading home



Maybe we can make it home before these clouds let loose!

Ok, after these entries of Michigan and Illinois...AGAIN, I'll be done for a minute

WOW! These colors are just amazing aren't they? I have never in my life saw such bright, vivid colors as I did this day. My eyes were deceiving me...or were they? What a B-E-A-UTIFUL day! Yes, do I love being "back in the driver's seat"? Yes, I do think me does...


Sun comes up and the sun goes down...

This is actually the first time I'd ever been to Michigan... Doesn't this tree look like it has a halo around it? Cool huh? Check this out! It's an old fashioned Horse and Buggy, driving right in front of me... In case you don't know what this is all about--In Indiana, there are alot of Amish people who live in these little towns and I just happened to get behind one of them out on a country-go-to-market day...They are cute, but they are slow! And it did slow me down a bit. The signs all over the place show a picture of a horse and carriage, and say, "share the road"!

I'm on a roll....Blogging blogging, and more blogging!

Picture yourself in this exact spot, lying under the stars on a red and white picnic blanket with your honey and some wine and cheese---To die for...

You know me and my Sunrises... YES, gotta Love em'.

Still in Indiana....

These back roads of Indiana are really something else. I couldn't get enough of this so I took a whole lot of pics for you all to see. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did... taking them... One thing I CAN say, is that these roads are NOT very "Trucker Friendly"...
Gosh, too bad it couldn't look like this all year! Winter will be here soon and things will be RUINED as far as I'm concerned... A day and a half and we're back home, but wonder what it will be like in the SNOW...? Good thing we have found all our stores and their locations in the fall, so at least we will know the route and know how to get into the back loading docks (and going in the right way too, hehe)...
This was definitely a gorgeous day, but it was rather slow-going! No U-Turns on these mountain roads--Check it out Jules, 15mph hair pin curves! It took us a long time to get where we needed to go that day...but relax, no deadlines to get back...hehe.

Nice to see such beauty all over the country.

Beautiful pictures of Indiana..... IN THE FALL

Awww, Take Me Home Country Roads---this one is for you, Pister! If I remember correctly, you used to sing this song when we used to go to Calla High...lol

Indiana is just beautiful in the fall, but during the winter time; Forget about it!



Just some beautiful scenery as we were heading down the road. I know all of you like to go to beautiful places, so enjoy the pics.

What a nice day this was--Gorgeous outside....Lovin it today... Yeah!