So... Kentucky. And Tennessee. I thought that since they were sorta south that they would be sorta warm.
Wroooong!
Kentucky was very snowy and very icy. We got snowed on the two days we were there. It was coooold. And then we headed to Tennessee. And holy hell. We were on a US road, which Rick said were the freeways like ten, twenty years ago. Two lane roads that go through small towns and the occasional stoplight. We go on these alot, and they're not so bad. But this time, we drove about 45 miles down the road and suddenly, they had the whole thing fenced off and signs saying the pavement ended. There was room enough to turn around at least, which we had to do and backtrack like 13 miles back. My guess is they were blasting into the rock and the road collapsed. They had signs for quarry entrances along it so anyways, that's my guess :) sooo we backtracked onto this evil little backroad that was all uphill, downhill, 20 mph curves (semi speed was like 15...) yeah. It was terrifying. After a while there was ice on it and we had to go even slower. But finally we made it to Tennessee.
We parked at the Pilot and went to go inside to potty and stuff, and we were having trouble breathing in the air. I checked the weather and it was 8 degrees! Wtf? And we were wearing our flip flops, Rick was wearing his usual shorts. It was effing cold. And to top it off, the heater in our truck that keeps the back warm, it's separate from the other heaters, crapped out on us. Ugh. But it rained and made it warm thank goodness. We got a nice wash yesterday from the pouring rain :)
Oh yeah... And before all that shit with the roads, our tire wore out and popped off the rim. A great start to the day... well night... At least the repair truck got to us fast. Sometimes it takes like 6 hours to get someone out to you, but it only took him two to get to us. We weren't on the freeway or anything, we just had started driving on a road when we were like, something doesn't feel right. Dur. It was awesome.
So we came to Georgia from Kentucky, and got to drive through downtown Atlanta on the freeway :) at night too. They had some really awesome buildings and the lights made them look even cooler. I wish I had a camera that would take pictures at night :( so we've been at the terminal here just chilling, waiting for our registration stickers. But it's cool, they have a driver's lounge, bathrooms, and free showers! Our favorite! :)
While we were here I filled out an application so they can get it in the system so I can start when we get back home. Eeeek. Getting closer to the time we go home... A week from today is when we are supposed to be home! Yay! After I finish the training frocess and we become Team Drivers, we will probably not come home so much because we will be making good money and wont want to take time off... We hope so anyway!
Until next time,
Happy New Years! From the Big Red Truck
Friday, December 31, 2010
Friday, December 24, 2010
Christmas and Other... er... Stuff
Well, Christmas is finally upon us at last. Must I say, I'm relieved. We are people who dislike crowds, who prefer driving at night and shopping at 3 in the morning. So it will be a relief to go back to empty roads and stores :) yay!
We got to go to Florida to visit my grandparents, and it was the best Christmas present ever :) I hardly get to see them because they live so far away, and to be able to go see them especially near Christmas was awesome. It was lots of fun, we hung out watching movies, talking, and went to the beach. I'll post pictures when I get home. It made my Christmas :)
And today is me and Rick's three year anniversary! Amazing, we haven't killed each other yet :) surprisingly, we've only had like three fights since we've started trucking, and got over them pretty quickly. We are definitely still going strong so that's good :)
As far as weather goes, I was hoping to have a palm tree Christmas, but after our Florida load we got sent up north to Ohio :( right now we are sitting in a Pilot watching Law and Order Criminal Intent while waiting for our laundry to finish, and talkin to another trucker. It's different from our usual Christmas Eve, but it fits us well. We are random people, so being in Beaverdam Ohio for Christmas at a truck stop is pretty cool.
I'll probably blog again tomorrow because right now I'm pretty distracted :p so Merry Christmas y'all!
Happy Holidays from Rick, Lola, and Kitty
We got to go to Florida to visit my grandparents, and it was the best Christmas present ever :) I hardly get to see them because they live so far away, and to be able to go see them especially near Christmas was awesome. It was lots of fun, we hung out watching movies, talking, and went to the beach. I'll post pictures when I get home. It made my Christmas :)
And today is me and Rick's three year anniversary! Amazing, we haven't killed each other yet :) surprisingly, we've only had like three fights since we've started trucking, and got over them pretty quickly. We are definitely still going strong so that's good :)
As far as weather goes, I was hoping to have a palm tree Christmas, but after our Florida load we got sent up north to Ohio :( right now we are sitting in a Pilot watching Law and Order Criminal Intent while waiting for our laundry to finish, and talkin to another trucker. It's different from our usual Christmas Eve, but it fits us well. We are random people, so being in Beaverdam Ohio for Christmas at a truck stop is pretty cool.
I'll probably blog again tomorrow because right now I'm pretty distracted :p so Merry Christmas y'all!
Happy Holidays from Rick, Lola, and Kitty
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Where Work Feels More Like A Vacation
So it's been pretty nice not having to deal with snow much this winter. I dislike cold very much. Rick loves it. I was pleased to see him finally admit that it was too cold when we were in Illinois, that doesn't happen very often. We barely escaped the evil snowstorms that are tormenting Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio and made a break for Arizona.
Ahh.
I love Arizona. I was born there, and lived there the first 9 years of my life. If I had the chance I would move back there in a heartbeat. I love it. Rick's never seen a saguaro (sp?) cactus in person before, so I made sure to show him one. Kitty tried to rub up against it but luckily didn't get too close.
We took Kitty out on his leash to show him around, and he didn't like it too much. But I got some awesome pictures which I will be sure to post when I get home. Right now we are in Texas on the I-10, and it takes us through the longest part of the state. Gah. We got to drive through El Paso and we think we saw Mexico. And there are tons of Border Patrol cars everywhere, and we went through an inspection station. It's pretty awesome since we have nothing to hide, so we can just enjoy it. We are on our way to New Orleans right now, this load is a multi drop load so they take part of it there and we continue partially loaded to... Florida! Some random place is our first stop, then we head down to West Palm Beach! We will be driving by Melbourne, where my grandparents live, so we are going to drop by and give them a Christmas heart attack. Not really, but I'm so excited! Then off to Palm Beach. We can't wait to show kitty the beach- it should be interesting.
Everything is good, we are good, we miss family though. It's getting closer to the time for me to go through the training class, I'm nervous but excited!
Until next time,
Lola, Rick, and Kitty
Ahh.
I love Arizona. I was born there, and lived there the first 9 years of my life. If I had the chance I would move back there in a heartbeat. I love it. Rick's never seen a saguaro (sp?) cactus in person before, so I made sure to show him one. Kitty tried to rub up against it but luckily didn't get too close.
We took Kitty out on his leash to show him around, and he didn't like it too much. But I got some awesome pictures which I will be sure to post when I get home. Right now we are in Texas on the I-10, and it takes us through the longest part of the state. Gah. We got to drive through El Paso and we think we saw Mexico. And there are tons of Border Patrol cars everywhere, and we went through an inspection station. It's pretty awesome since we have nothing to hide, so we can just enjoy it. We are on our way to New Orleans right now, this load is a multi drop load so they take part of it there and we continue partially loaded to... Florida! Some random place is our first stop, then we head down to West Palm Beach! We will be driving by Melbourne, where my grandparents live, so we are going to drop by and give them a Christmas heart attack. Not really, but I'm so excited! Then off to Palm Beach. We can't wait to show kitty the beach- it should be interesting.
Everything is good, we are good, we miss family though. It's getting closer to the time for me to go through the training class, I'm nervous but excited!
Until next time,
Lola, Rick, and Kitty
Where Work Feels More Like A Vacation
So it's been pretty nice not having to deal with snow much this winter. I dislike cold very much. Rick loves it. I was pleased to see him finally admit that it was too cold when we were in Illinois, that doesn't happen very often. We barely escaped the evil snowstorms that are tormenting Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio and made a break for Arizona.
Ahh.
I love Arizona. I was born there, and lived there the first 9 years of my life. If I had the chance I would move back there in a heartbeat. I love it. Rick's never seen a saguaro (sp?) cactus in person before, so I made sure to show him one. Kitty tried to rub up against it but luckily didn't get too close.
We took Kitty out on his leash to show him around, and he didn't like it too much. But I got some awesome pictures which I will be sure to post when I get home. Right now we are in Texas on the I-10, and it takes us through the longest part of the state. Gah. We got to drive through El Paso and we think we saw Mexico. And there are tons of Border Patrol cars everywhere, and we went through an inspection station. It's pretty awesome since we have nothing to hide, so we can just enjoy it. We are on our way to New Orleans right now, this load is a multi drop load so they take part of it there and we continue partially loaded to... Florida! Some random place is our first stop, then we head down to West Palm Beach! We will be driving by Melbourne, where my grandparents live, so we are going to drop by and give them a Christmas heart attack. Not really, but I'm so excited! Then off to Palm Beach. We can't wait to show kitty the beach- it should be interesting.
Everything is good, we are good, we miss family though. It's getting closer to the time for me to go through the training class, I'm nervous but excited!
Until next time,
Lola, Rick, and Kitty
Ahh.
I love Arizona. I was born there, and lived there the first 9 years of my life. If I had the chance I would move back there in a heartbeat. I love it. Rick's never seen a saguaro (sp?) cactus in person before, so I made sure to show him one. Kitty tried to rub up against it but luckily didn't get too close.
We took Kitty out on his leash to show him around, and he didn't like it too much. But I got some awesome pictures which I will be sure to post when I get home. Right now we are in Texas on the I-10, and it takes us through the longest part of the state. Gah. We got to drive through El Paso and we think we saw Mexico. And there are tons of Border Patrol cars everywhere, and we went through an inspection station. It's pretty awesome since we have nothing to hide, so we can just enjoy it. We are on our way to New Orleans right now, this load is a multi drop load so they take part of it there and we continue partially loaded to... Florida! Some random place is our first stop, then we head down to West Palm Beach! We will be driving by Melbourne, where my grandparents live, so we are going to drop by and give them a Christmas heart attack. Not really, but I'm so excited! Then off to Palm Beach. We can't wait to show kitty the beach- it should be interesting.
Everything is good, we are good, we miss family though. It's getting closer to the time for me to go through the training class, I'm nervous but excited!
Until next time,
Lola, Rick, and Kitty
Thursday, December 9, 2010
What a REAL Winter Feels Like...
It sucks. It freezes every bit of you off. Even kitty stays away from the doors when we open them, smart bastard. We thought Utah winters were bad.
HA!
In Illinois, we spent the day waiting to be unloaded (which happens a lot lately (-_-) ) and it was 5 degrees. As if that's not enough of a 'holy shit' moment already, wind chill brought it down to -14 degrees.
'Say what?' You ask. 'You heard me' is my reply.
Holy shitness. Boyyy did that wind make it cold! Even during the day! Argh. We had spent the previous half week in awesome Laredo, Texas where there were palm trees and it was 70 the whole time we were there. Nights were like 60. When we went straight to Illinois from there, it was a very cold slap in the groin. Yes, it hurt that bad. Yikes.
So we've been tooling around Illinois, Ohio, and now we are in Iowa. I wish they would send us back south, but nooo, they want us to freeze to death. We usually sleep with the truck off, but there is this thing trucks have where it turns on randomly to charge the batteries, and we can set it up to turn on when the truck gets too cold. We've tried sleeping without it, but it gets just sooo cold. Aargh.
Kitty has adapted so well to being in the truck. Now he mostly sleeps either on the top bunk, the floor by my feet, or up in one of the cupboards. When I get up to do stuff in the back, he also steals my chair, the little thief :) he spends most of his time being freaking cute, something he is great at. I'm so glad we got to bring him!
Speaking of cats, we saw the fattest cat in Morris, Illinois! Most people wouldn't know about him, because he belongs to the Adult Video store manager. The cat lives in the store, and it's good because itms a 24 hour store. We talked to the manager for like 2 hours about his animals, religion, and farm life. He saw that we were from Utah and asked about polygamy, it was funny. We are going to start telling people I'm Rick's third wife and that he switches us out when they direct him home >:) it's awesome. He was nice and we told him we will probably visit him again just to see his awesome cat. The cat loved me because he prefers women :)
So we just got our load details and we are going to my home state, Arizona! I'm so excited!! :) And it's getting closer to me getting my CDL, I'm so nervous! Aaah!
Until next time,
Rick, Lola, and Kitty
HA!
In Illinois, we spent the day waiting to be unloaded (which happens a lot lately (-_-) ) and it was 5 degrees. As if that's not enough of a 'holy shit' moment already, wind chill brought it down to -14 degrees.
'Say what?' You ask. 'You heard me' is my reply.
Holy shitness. Boyyy did that wind make it cold! Even during the day! Argh. We had spent the previous half week in awesome Laredo, Texas where there were palm trees and it was 70 the whole time we were there. Nights were like 60. When we went straight to Illinois from there, it was a very cold slap in the groin. Yes, it hurt that bad. Yikes.
So we've been tooling around Illinois, Ohio, and now we are in Iowa. I wish they would send us back south, but nooo, they want us to freeze to death. We usually sleep with the truck off, but there is this thing trucks have where it turns on randomly to charge the batteries, and we can set it up to turn on when the truck gets too cold. We've tried sleeping without it, but it gets just sooo cold. Aargh.
Kitty has adapted so well to being in the truck. Now he mostly sleeps either on the top bunk, the floor by my feet, or up in one of the cupboards. When I get up to do stuff in the back, he also steals my chair, the little thief :) he spends most of his time being freaking cute, something he is great at. I'm so glad we got to bring him!
Speaking of cats, we saw the fattest cat in Morris, Illinois! Most people wouldn't know about him, because he belongs to the Adult Video store manager. The cat lives in the store, and it's good because itms a 24 hour store. We talked to the manager for like 2 hours about his animals, religion, and farm life. He saw that we were from Utah and asked about polygamy, it was funny. We are going to start telling people I'm Rick's third wife and that he switches us out when they direct him home >:) it's awesome. He was nice and we told him we will probably visit him again just to see his awesome cat. The cat loved me because he prefers women :)
So we just got our load details and we are going to my home state, Arizona! I'm so excited!! :) And it's getting closer to me getting my CDL, I'm so nervous! Aaah!
Until next time,
Rick, Lola, and Kitty
Monday, November 29, 2010
Dance With the Devil
So. We finally got routed home! It was a headache and a half for everyone involved, but it finally happened, and in time for Thanksgiving too! We were so relieved to be home and just crash. We planned it so one day was with one family, one with the other, and one with Rick's friend. We hardly slept either, we wanted to enjoy being home as much as possible. Rick got the new Call of Duty and played it alot, he loves it. I'm more of a Halo fan so I didn't.
We had saved our laundry for a while because we knew we were going home, so I did a mountain of laundry the first night in. Since we were only staying three days, I didn't bother putting it away, so the basement was pretty messy. Since we are used to living in a small space, we spend most of our home time in the bedroom anyway. Kitty was so happy to see us, I cried when we first saw him because it had just been way too long. He didnt quite know what to do when he saw us, and he was still sad while we were there. It broke my heart. I'm so glad we got to bring him with us!
All in all, being home was nice just to see people, but we couldn't relax. We knew we would be leaving soon so it wasn't all that fabulous. Honestly now, the truck is our home. We feel more comfortable being out on the road than being at home. It's our life now, and we love it.
Now. Kitty. We were so worried about bringing him because we thought he wouldn't be able to handle it. When we left, it was really sudden and we just threw him in the truck and left. At first he didn't like it of course, mostly because his first car ride was to get his balls chopped off... he does this thing where he pants like a dog but he looks like one of those taxidermy bobcats because of his fangs, and it's really sad but we laugh because it looks so freaking funny. He did that for a while, then explored the truck, and meowed constantly like a siren. That was the first day. The second day he was still edgy but started to mellow out, and now, he just sleeps most of the time. We are so surprised and relieved that he's taking it so well now :) now we are a truckin family! He has a harness and leash in case he wants to go outside, and he hates that harness with a passion, I have to get a picture of it. We took him out once but it was super windy and the truck's air brakes went off so he got scared, so most of the time he just sleeps when we leave the truck. Every time Rick gets out though he goes on the driver's seat and looks out the window, meowing. He is such a daddy's boy.
I have to say, all in all, I love this trucking thing. We get to be together all the time, we are always moving and seeing new places, and getting paid to do it.
Life is good.
Until next time,
Lola, Rick, and Kitty
We had saved our laundry for a while because we knew we were going home, so I did a mountain of laundry the first night in. Since we were only staying three days, I didn't bother putting it away, so the basement was pretty messy. Since we are used to living in a small space, we spend most of our home time in the bedroom anyway. Kitty was so happy to see us, I cried when we first saw him because it had just been way too long. He didnt quite know what to do when he saw us, and he was still sad while we were there. It broke my heart. I'm so glad we got to bring him with us!
All in all, being home was nice just to see people, but we couldn't relax. We knew we would be leaving soon so it wasn't all that fabulous. Honestly now, the truck is our home. We feel more comfortable being out on the road than being at home. It's our life now, and we love it.
Now. Kitty. We were so worried about bringing him because we thought he wouldn't be able to handle it. When we left, it was really sudden and we just threw him in the truck and left. At first he didn't like it of course, mostly because his first car ride was to get his balls chopped off... he does this thing where he pants like a dog but he looks like one of those taxidermy bobcats because of his fangs, and it's really sad but we laugh because it looks so freaking funny. He did that for a while, then explored the truck, and meowed constantly like a siren. That was the first day. The second day he was still edgy but started to mellow out, and now, he just sleeps most of the time. We are so surprised and relieved that he's taking it so well now :) now we are a truckin family! He has a harness and leash in case he wants to go outside, and he hates that harness with a passion, I have to get a picture of it. We took him out once but it was super windy and the truck's air brakes went off so he got scared, so most of the time he just sleeps when we leave the truck. Every time Rick gets out though he goes on the driver's seat and looks out the window, meowing. He is such a daddy's boy.
I have to say, all in all, I love this trucking thing. We get to be together all the time, we are always moving and seeing new places, and getting paid to do it.
Life is good.
Until next time,
Lola, Rick, and Kitty
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Woot!
Well I figured out, I can upload pictures from my phone to the blog! But it takes forever so I've been putting it off. I know I mostly sit while Rick is driving, but sometimes I work on my stories, download songs from my phone, make food, clean the truck, and space out, so it doesn't leave me much time to do anything else. Hee.
Today I started reading Rick's CDL books to kind of prepare to take the class. We've been talking about me taking the class in the spring, then January, and now I might take it when we get routed home. We will see...
In the meantime, we are supposed to be sleeping, but are too busy being giggly to fall asleep right away. It's great.
Safety tip day is tomorrow possibly, we shall see...
Until then, peace out!
Lola and Rick
Today I started reading Rick's CDL books to kind of prepare to take the class. We've been talking about me taking the class in the spring, then January, and now I might take it when we get routed home. We will see...
In the meantime, we are supposed to be sleeping, but are too busy being giggly to fall asleep right away. It's great.
Safety tip day is tomorrow possibly, we shall see...
Until then, peace out!
Lola and Rick
Well, Shit.
So.
Rick and I have been out for five weeks and a day now without going through or even near home. It's time for us to go home and visit the fams, nab kitty, do a shit-ton of laundry, and relax for a few days. So last week we sent a request for a day off. They had to have 9 days in advance so we just planned to have three days off which happened to be Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Well today is Thursday, and where are we now? Still in Illinois, taking a load to- Texas.
Um, last I checked we lived in Utah...
They supposedly don't have any loads heading to Salt Lake City right now. Wasn't that the point of us sending in that request 9 days in advance????
And to add insult to injury, we would have had a load taking us to Sarasota, Florida a few days ago. I would have been able to see my grandparents most likely. But no. No grandparents, no family, no kitty.
So if a storm hits Salt Lake coming from the East to the West side, that would be my frustration with the whole clusterfuck here making it's way to the company, which happens to be based in Salt Lake.
I guess there's a tiny bit of consolation; we ran out of oil so Rick had to use him company card to buy some. It was expensive. Usually we get oil at the company's terminal for free but ha they had to pay for this stuff. Suckas!
I'm gonna make a post about winter safety and some driving tips, Rick thinks it's stuff people should know and I agree. So it will be a post we worked on together!
Until next time,
Lola and Rick
Rick and I have been out for five weeks and a day now without going through or even near home. It's time for us to go home and visit the fams, nab kitty, do a shit-ton of laundry, and relax for a few days. So last week we sent a request for a day off. They had to have 9 days in advance so we just planned to have three days off which happened to be Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Well today is Thursday, and where are we now? Still in Illinois, taking a load to- Texas.
Um, last I checked we lived in Utah...
They supposedly don't have any loads heading to Salt Lake City right now. Wasn't that the point of us sending in that request 9 days in advance????
And to add insult to injury, we would have had a load taking us to Sarasota, Florida a few days ago. I would have been able to see my grandparents most likely. But no. No grandparents, no family, no kitty.
So if a storm hits Salt Lake coming from the East to the West side, that would be my frustration with the whole clusterfuck here making it's way to the company, which happens to be based in Salt Lake.
I guess there's a tiny bit of consolation; we ran out of oil so Rick had to use him company card to buy some. It was expensive. Usually we get oil at the company's terminal for free but ha they had to pay for this stuff. Suckas!
I'm gonna make a post about winter safety and some driving tips, Rick thinks it's stuff people should know and I agree. So it will be a post we worked on together!
Until next time,
Lola and Rick
Saturday, November 13, 2010
The Windiest City Of Them All...
Ahh Chicago.
I so love it.
Yes, the cold is not my favorite, but maybe that could change. It was so invigorating. Walking through real downtowns is one of my favorite things to do. Seattle has been my favorite up until today. If I could live and work in an apartment in a big downtown, I would be content. Traveling is the next best thing though, so I'm still pretty happy :)
Rick has a fascination with trains, and so this time we went on the CTA. It's a monorail and a subway, and pretty cool. It kicks the Trax's ass to the moon. We went downtown, took some awesome pictures, and walked around. Can I just say, people are so nice here! We didn't have enough cash for a round trip fare, and we dont have the pin number yet for his card, so we couldn't get cash. The ticket people had us buy the one way card, and let us on the train for free! And when we got downtown, a taxi driver gave us directions to a pizza place called Gino's East for some Chicago pizza. I guess it's a famous place, alot of celebrities eat there. It was so cool! And very yummy.
Of course there were some scary people, but it wouldn't be a big city without them. And they weren't that scary. All in all, it was a pretty awesome day :)
Peace out for now
Lola and Rick
I so love it.
Yes, the cold is not my favorite, but maybe that could change. It was so invigorating. Walking through real downtowns is one of my favorite things to do. Seattle has been my favorite up until today. If I could live and work in an apartment in a big downtown, I would be content. Traveling is the next best thing though, so I'm still pretty happy :)
Rick has a fascination with trains, and so this time we went on the CTA. It's a monorail and a subway, and pretty cool. It kicks the Trax's ass to the moon. We went downtown, took some awesome pictures, and walked around. Can I just say, people are so nice here! We didn't have enough cash for a round trip fare, and we dont have the pin number yet for his card, so we couldn't get cash. The ticket people had us buy the one way card, and let us on the train for free! And when we got downtown, a taxi driver gave us directions to a pizza place called Gino's East for some Chicago pizza. I guess it's a famous place, alot of celebrities eat there. It was so cool! And very yummy.
Of course there were some scary people, but it wouldn't be a big city without them. And they weren't that scary. All in all, it was a pretty awesome day :)
Peace out for now
Lola and Rick
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Updates continued...
Sorry I didn't finish the last post all the way. We got internet put back on our phones! So now I can blog whenever I want! I haven't figured out how to upload pictures on it yet, hopefully this phone will let me. We shall see.
So we put in a request for two days off, I'm super excited! It might not happen but I'm hoping it does. We are going to get kitty, and visit both the families, probably go on a date too :) you have to put a request for time off 9 days prior to the actual day you want off so they can route you to home. So far our load now is to Minnesota, and then going back to Ohio :( rawr. We usually dont get our new load info until the day before the current load is delivered, which kinda sucks but it would get confusing keeping track of the different loads. Oh well.
Chicago is amazing! We've been around it a zillion times, but today we got to go almost through it. The buildings were so cool, the traffic sucked, and the landing planes were awesome. We want to come back for a vacation so we can explore and ride the monorail and shiz. :)
Peace out for now,
Lola and Rick
So we put in a request for two days off, I'm super excited! It might not happen but I'm hoping it does. We are going to get kitty, and visit both the families, probably go on a date too :) you have to put a request for time off 9 days prior to the actual day you want off so they can route you to home. So far our load now is to Minnesota, and then going back to Ohio :( rawr. We usually dont get our new load info until the day before the current load is delivered, which kinda sucks but it would get confusing keeping track of the different loads. Oh well.
Chicago is amazing! We've been around it a zillion times, but today we got to go almost through it. The buildings were so cool, the traffic sucked, and the landing planes were awesome. We want to come back for a vacation so we can explore and ride the monorail and shiz. :)
Peace out for now,
Lola and Rick
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Updates!
Hi y'all!
Today marks our fourth week being out on the road and not being home at all! Time's seriously been flying by, it really does not feel like it's been four weeks. That's a good thing though!
Problem is, we miss our baby. It's been hard to hear that he's been moping around and really sad that we aren't there. Rick and I are so tightly bonded to him and each other that it just doesn't work when we are separated. So we are going to bring him with us. Yay! We miss our families too, so we are taking a weekend off soon to visit and get Kitty. The closest we have gotten to Utah recently was Kansas and Nebraska; mostly we've been ripping up the East Coast.
Before I go to bed, I just have to say we love the Ohio Turnpike! Free showers, laundry is only $1.50 for each the washer and dryer (compared with $2 each!) and it goes across the whole state on I-80. Whooo!
Peace out,
Lola
Today marks our fourth week being out on the road and not being home at all! Time's seriously been flying by, it really does not feel like it's been four weeks. That's a good thing though!
Problem is, we miss our baby. It's been hard to hear that he's been moping around and really sad that we aren't there. Rick and I are so tightly bonded to him and each other that it just doesn't work when we are separated. So we are going to bring him with us. Yay! We miss our families too, so we are taking a weekend off soon to visit and get Kitty. The closest we have gotten to Utah recently was Kansas and Nebraska; mostly we've been ripping up the East Coast.
Before I go to bed, I just have to say we love the Ohio Turnpike! Free showers, laundry is only $1.50 for each the washer and dryer (compared with $2 each!) and it goes across the whole state on I-80. Whooo!
Peace out,
Lola
Sunday, October 31, 2010
We're Not In Kansas Anymore
Wow. So we have been all over the East coast for the past week. We went from Indiana, to Illinois, to Pennsylvania, to North Carolina. In the meantime we’ve gone through Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, down to North Carolina. Now we are headed back to Illinois and the route we’re going on takes us back through Virginia, West Virginia (where we’re driving through right now), Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, then Illinois. It’s been awesome, I still love it out here and so does Rick. Last night before we went to bed we were looking at pictures of Kitty, and we realized we miss him too much. So if we ever get directed through Salt Lake City again we are going to see if he likes it in the truck. We didn’t take him before because 1, the whole shitbox issue; and 2, I’m afraid he will run away. If he ever got lost, it would be the worst ever. But it’s too hard to leave him at home. We’re a family, and it just doesn’t feel right leaving him behind L
Anyways. When we were in Illinois, we started listening to the weather channel. First of all, the voice is totally creepy. You can tell it’s one of those computer voices, where they type stuff in and it just reads it. And they go on a loop, occasionally updating where the storms are and stuff. It was really windy in Illinois and Indiana, and we were listening to it. They said winds 40 MPH with gusts up to 70 MPH, and we were like, what?? Because semi’s are pretty much moving walls. And in Illinois, there are lots of corn fields on both sides of the road and you can feel the truck swaying. Very nerve wracking. So we took our load to Indiana, and we got there a day early so we got to dink around a bit while we were waiting for our unload time. We checked out a casino in Michigan City, and it was pretty cool. A huge hotel, it was called the Blue Chip casino. Then we went to a truck stop and slept until it was time. Our load was due at 7 in the morning, but they opened at 5, so we decided to go and see if they would unload us early. They didn’t, so we just chilled in their truck lot for a while just listening to the weather channel, and feeling the truck rock from the wind. There was a severe thunderstorm warning, a tornado warning, and high wind warning. We were like oh shit! And it just happened to be in the area that we were at, and the area back in Illinois where we were heading- two more stops, and getting unloaded each time. Yeeeah. So it starts raining, like really raining, not the piddly shit we think is ‘rain’ in Utah. Sheets of rain being pelted against the truck by the high winds. We were getting nervous and we told our dispatch that we might have to pull over because the weather channel told everyone to ‘seek shelter immediately’ and was giving tips on where to hide in your house- ‘in the basement or a closet, with blankets wrapped around you, and stay away from windows.’ Rick and I had a disagreement on where we would go if we were stuck on the highway if a tornado came. He said he would get under the concrete bridges and hang on tight, and I said you’re supposed to get in a ditch. I won that one, the radio guy said to get in a ditch if you’re not near a house. So ha! Anywho.
So they finally finish unloading us, and we are getting ready to drive away cautiously, when a siren and then a woman’s voice came over the intercom system (it was a warehouse and it broadcasted outside too where the trucks are sitting) and it said “Everybody get into the tornado shelter immediately!” Rick and I looked at each other in panic, then grabbed our wallets, phones, and purse (mine) and just booked ass back inside. We followed everyone to the tornado shelter, which was a huge concrete room with lots of racks. You could tell we were still in the warehouse, I guess it was in the center of the place because it looked the same as everywhere else. We talked with another trucker, a lady named Holly from Missouri, and it really helped us to not freak out. She had grown up in Kansas so she was like, “this is just like school all over again.” She had the Southern accent, which is oddly soothing. We hear it a lot lately, and I really like it. Anyways, nothing happened, the truck didn’t blow away (thank God) and we headed back on our way. Zoom zoom!
When we got to Ohio, it was pretty exciting, we drove on the Turnpike the whole time. It was badass. Instead of rest stops, they had a nice fancy building with a food court, bathrooms, travel information, free WiFi (I know, but we didn’t have time to get on the computer L), and the showers were free! We wanted to stop there so bad but we couldn’t because we had to hurry. And we ended up stopping at a truck stop as usual. They also had laundry facilities and they were pretty cheap. It was so cool. We didn’t know if the ones in Pennsylvania had the free showers and shit, so we just went to a truck stop. Did our laundry, and showered. Showers at truck stops cost ten dollars. Ten dollars! But we have a points card, so if we fill up, we usually get a free shower. Which is nice.
Anyways. We headed through Maryland, and the traffic sucked monkey butt! It took us an hour to get like 5 miles. And in Virginia it sucked too! Ugh. But we still made it on time, yay! And now we are on our weekend load. A weekend load is usually a load where they give you plenty of time to get there, so you can kinda take it easy. And it’s a load with plenty of miles, so it’s nice J the more miles, the more money in the bank!
Until next time,
Peace out,
~Lola
Anyways. When we were in Illinois, we started listening to the weather channel. First of all, the voice is totally creepy. You can tell it’s one of those computer voices, where they type stuff in and it just reads it. And they go on a loop, occasionally updating where the storms are and stuff. It was really windy in Illinois and Indiana, and we were listening to it. They said winds 40 MPH with gusts up to 70 MPH, and we were like, what?? Because semi’s are pretty much moving walls. And in Illinois, there are lots of corn fields on both sides of the road and you can feel the truck swaying. Very nerve wracking. So we took our load to Indiana, and we got there a day early so we got to dink around a bit while we were waiting for our unload time. We checked out a casino in Michigan City, and it was pretty cool. A huge hotel, it was called the Blue Chip casino. Then we went to a truck stop and slept until it was time. Our load was due at 7 in the morning, but they opened at 5, so we decided to go and see if they would unload us early. They didn’t, so we just chilled in their truck lot for a while just listening to the weather channel, and feeling the truck rock from the wind. There was a severe thunderstorm warning, a tornado warning, and high wind warning. We were like oh shit! And it just happened to be in the area that we were at, and the area back in Illinois where we were heading- two more stops, and getting unloaded each time. Yeeeah. So it starts raining, like really raining, not the piddly shit we think is ‘rain’ in Utah. Sheets of rain being pelted against the truck by the high winds. We were getting nervous and we told our dispatch that we might have to pull over because the weather channel told everyone to ‘seek shelter immediately’ and was giving tips on where to hide in your house- ‘in the basement or a closet, with blankets wrapped around you, and stay away from windows.’ Rick and I had a disagreement on where we would go if we were stuck on the highway if a tornado came. He said he would get under the concrete bridges and hang on tight, and I said you’re supposed to get in a ditch. I won that one, the radio guy said to get in a ditch if you’re not near a house. So ha! Anywho.
So they finally finish unloading us, and we are getting ready to drive away cautiously, when a siren and then a woman’s voice came over the intercom system (it was a warehouse and it broadcasted outside too where the trucks are sitting) and it said “Everybody get into the tornado shelter immediately!” Rick and I looked at each other in panic, then grabbed our wallets, phones, and purse (mine) and just booked ass back inside. We followed everyone to the tornado shelter, which was a huge concrete room with lots of racks. You could tell we were still in the warehouse, I guess it was in the center of the place because it looked the same as everywhere else. We talked with another trucker, a lady named Holly from Missouri, and it really helped us to not freak out. She had grown up in Kansas so she was like, “this is just like school all over again.” She had the Southern accent, which is oddly soothing. We hear it a lot lately, and I really like it. Anyways, nothing happened, the truck didn’t blow away (thank God) and we headed back on our way. Zoom zoom!
When we got to Ohio, it was pretty exciting, we drove on the Turnpike the whole time. It was badass. Instead of rest stops, they had a nice fancy building with a food court, bathrooms, travel information, free WiFi (I know, but we didn’t have time to get on the computer L), and the showers were free! We wanted to stop there so bad but we couldn’t because we had to hurry. And we ended up stopping at a truck stop as usual. They also had laundry facilities and they were pretty cheap. It was so cool. We didn’t know if the ones in Pennsylvania had the free showers and shit, so we just went to a truck stop. Did our laundry, and showered. Showers at truck stops cost ten dollars. Ten dollars! But we have a points card, so if we fill up, we usually get a free shower. Which is nice.
Anyways. We headed through Maryland, and the traffic sucked monkey butt! It took us an hour to get like 5 miles. And in Virginia it sucked too! Ugh. But we still made it on time, yay! And now we are on our weekend load. A weekend load is usually a load where they give you plenty of time to get there, so you can kinda take it easy. And it’s a load with plenty of miles, so it’s nice J the more miles, the more money in the bank!
Until next time,
Peace out,
~Lola
We're Not In Kansas Anymore
Wow. So we have been all over the East coast for the past week. We went from Indiana, to Illinois, to Pennsylvania, to North Carolina. In the meantime we’ve gone through Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, down to North Carolina. Now we are headed back to Illinois and the route we’re going on takes us back through Virginia, West Virginia (where we’re driving through right now), Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, then Illinois. It’s been awesome, I still love it out here and so does Rick. Last night before we went to bed we were looking at pictures of Kitty, and we realized we miss him too much. So if we ever get directed through Salt Lake City again we are going to see if he likes it in the truck. We didn’t take him before because 1, the whole shitbox issue; and 2, I’m afraid he will run away. If he ever got lost, it would be the worst ever. But it’s too hard to leave him at home. We’re a family, and it just doesn’t feel right leaving him behind L
Anyways. When we were in Illinois, we started listening to the weather channel. First of all, the voice is totally creepy. You can tell it’s one of those computer voices, where they type stuff in and it just reads it. And they go on a loop, occasionally updating where the storms are and stuff. It was really windy in Illinois and Indiana, and we were listening to it. They said winds 40 MPH with gusts up to 70 MPH, and we were like, what?? Because semi’s are pretty much moving walls. And in Illinois, there are lots of corn fields on both sides of the road and you can feel the truck swaying. Very nerve wracking. So we took our load to Indiana, and we got there a day early so we got to dink around a bit while we were waiting for our unload time. We checked out a casino in Michigan City, and it was pretty cool. A huge hotel, it was called the Blue Chip casino. Then we went to a truck stop and slept until it was time. Our load was due at 7 in the morning, but they opened at 5, so we decided to go and see if they would unload us early. They didn’t, so we just chilled in their truck lot for a while just listening to the weather channel, and feeling the truck rock from the wind. There was a severe thunderstorm warning, a tornado warning, and high wind warning. We were like oh shit! And it just happened to be in the area that we were at, and the area back in Illinois where we were heading- two more stops, and getting unloaded each time. Yeeeah. So it starts raining, like really raining, not the piddly shit we think is ‘rain’ in Utah. Sheets of rain being pelted against the truck by the high winds. We were getting nervous and we told our dispatch that we might have to pull over because the weather channel told everyone to ‘seek shelter immediately’ and was giving tips on where to hide in your house- ‘in the basement or a closet, with blankets wrapped around you, and stay away from windows.’ Rick and I had a disagreement on where we would go if we were stuck on the highway if a tornado came. He said he would get under the concrete bridges and hang on tight, and I said you’re supposed to get in a ditch. I won that one, the radio guy said to get in a ditch if you’re not near a house. So ha! Anywho.
So they finally finish unloading us, and we are getting ready to drive away cautiously, when a siren and then a woman’s voice came over the intercom system (it was a warehouse and it broadcasted outside too where the trucks are sitting) and it said “Everybody get into the tornado shelter immediately!” Rick and I looked at each other in panic, then grabbed our wallets, phones, and purse (mine) and just booked ass back inside. We followed everyone to the tornado shelter, which was a huge concrete room with lots of racks. You could tell we were still in the warehouse, I guess it was in the center of the place because it looked the same as everywhere else. We talked with another trucker, a lady named Holly from Missouri, and it really helped us to not freak out. She had grown up in Kansas so she was like, “this is just like school all over again.” She had the Southern accent, which is oddly soothing. We hear it a lot lately, and I really like it. Anyways, nothing happened, the truck didn’t blow away (thank God) and we headed back on our way. Zoom zoom!
When we got to Ohio, it was pretty exciting, we drove on the Turnpike the whole time. It was badass. Instead of rest stops, they had a nice fancy building with a food court, bathrooms, travel information, free WiFi (I know, but we didn’t have time to get on the computer L), and the showers were free! We wanted to stop there so bad but we couldn’t because we had to hurry. And we ended up stopping at a truck stop as usual. They also had laundry facilities and they were pretty cheap. It was so cool. We didn’t know if the ones in Pennsylvania had the free showers and shit, so we just went to a truck stop. Did our laundry, and showered. Showers at truck stops cost ten dollars. Ten dollars! But we have a points card, so if we fill up, we usually get a free shower. Which is nice.
Anyways. We headed through Maryland, and the traffic sucked monkey butt! It took us an hour to get like 5 miles. And in Virginia it sucked too! Ugh. But we still made it on time, yay! And now we are on our weekend load. A weekend load is usually a load where they give you plenty of time to get there, so you can kinda take it easy. And it’s a load with plenty of miles, so it’s nice J the more miles, the more money in the bank!
Until next time,
Peace out,
~Lola
Anyways. When we were in Illinois, we started listening to the weather channel. First of all, the voice is totally creepy. You can tell it’s one of those computer voices, where they type stuff in and it just reads it. And they go on a loop, occasionally updating where the storms are and stuff. It was really windy in Illinois and Indiana, and we were listening to it. They said winds 40 MPH with gusts up to 70 MPH, and we were like, what?? Because semi’s are pretty much moving walls. And in Illinois, there are lots of corn fields on both sides of the road and you can feel the truck swaying. Very nerve wracking. So we took our load to Indiana, and we got there a day early so we got to dink around a bit while we were waiting for our unload time. We checked out a casino in Michigan City, and it was pretty cool. A huge hotel, it was called the Blue Chip casino. Then we went to a truck stop and slept until it was time. Our load was due at 7 in the morning, but they opened at 5, so we decided to go and see if they would unload us early. They didn’t, so we just chilled in their truck lot for a while just listening to the weather channel, and feeling the truck rock from the wind. There was a severe thunderstorm warning, a tornado warning, and high wind warning. We were like oh shit! And it just happened to be in the area that we were at, and the area back in Illinois where we were heading- two more stops, and getting unloaded each time. Yeeeah. So it starts raining, like really raining, not the piddly shit we think is ‘rain’ in Utah. Sheets of rain being pelted against the truck by the high winds. We were getting nervous and we told our dispatch that we might have to pull over because the weather channel told everyone to ‘seek shelter immediately’ and was giving tips on where to hide in your house- ‘in the basement or a closet, with blankets wrapped around you, and stay away from windows.’ Rick and I had a disagreement on where we would go if we were stuck on the highway if a tornado came. He said he would get under the concrete bridges and hang on tight, and I said you’re supposed to get in a ditch. I won that one, the radio guy said to get in a ditch if you’re not near a house. So ha! Anywho.
So they finally finish unloading us, and we are getting ready to drive away cautiously, when a siren and then a woman’s voice came over the intercom system (it was a warehouse and it broadcasted outside too where the trucks are sitting) and it said “Everybody get into the tornado shelter immediately!” Rick and I looked at each other in panic, then grabbed our wallets, phones, and purse (mine) and just booked ass back inside. We followed everyone to the tornado shelter, which was a huge concrete room with lots of racks. You could tell we were still in the warehouse, I guess it was in the center of the place because it looked the same as everywhere else. We talked with another trucker, a lady named Holly from Missouri, and it really helped us to not freak out. She had grown up in Kansas so she was like, “this is just like school all over again.” She had the Southern accent, which is oddly soothing. We hear it a lot lately, and I really like it. Anyways, nothing happened, the truck didn’t blow away (thank God) and we headed back on our way. Zoom zoom!
When we got to Ohio, it was pretty exciting, we drove on the Turnpike the whole time. It was badass. Instead of rest stops, they had a nice fancy building with a food court, bathrooms, travel information, free WiFi (I know, but we didn’t have time to get on the computer L), and the showers were free! We wanted to stop there so bad but we couldn’t because we had to hurry. And we ended up stopping at a truck stop as usual. They also had laundry facilities and they were pretty cheap. It was so cool. We didn’t know if the ones in Pennsylvania had the free showers and shit, so we just went to a truck stop. Did our laundry, and showered. Showers at truck stops cost ten dollars. Ten dollars! But we have a points card, so if we fill up, we usually get a free shower. Which is nice.
Anyways. We headed through Maryland, and the traffic sucked monkey butt! It took us an hour to get like 5 miles. And in Virginia it sucked too! Ugh. But we still made it on time, yay! And now we are on our weekend load. A weekend load is usually a load where they give you plenty of time to get there, so you can kinda take it easy. And it’s a load with plenty of miles, so it’s nice J the more miles, the more money in the bank!
Until next time,
Peace out,
~Lola
Fun Fun Stuff
Yes I know I am the biggest slacker in the world. So sue me We are still trying to get the hang of our driver logs. They are the biggest pain in the ass. We are supposed to be able to drive 11 hours a day, but we haven’t had 11 available hours to drive in a while. We have 11 hours driving, 10 hours in the sleeper berth, and then 3 hours for like fuel stops and rest stops. Then we have four ‘duty’ lines, so when we start driving, it puts us on line 3. Line 2 is sleeper berth, line 4 is on duty not driving, and 1 is off duty. If you don’t do it right, you can lose driving time and then you get in trouble for being late for your load. Plus, you want all the driving time you can get, because we get paid by the mile, not by the hour. I know, it’s kinda lame, and definitely hard to get used to. We are trying to not take any time off either, for many reasons. One, because we don’t get money if the truck isn’t rolling. Two, because sometimes it’s hard to get a load that takes you close to home. Some people don’t get to go near home for months at a time. Three, because we are trying to be able to take time off in six months for when we get married, we want to take two weeks off for our honeymoon, so we figure if we kiss ass for the next six months we can get it J We miss the families, and our baby so much, but this is what we have to do if we want a life someday. We want our own house, and kids, and cats. Hopefully we can be able to work locally in a few years after saving our trucking money, and when I team drive, we will be making a lot more.
Anyways. The last post was written when we were driving out of Oregon, heading to Wisconsin. So, we went North through Washington a little bit, and I got to see my bestie! It was only for like ten minutes, but I was so happy! She lives so far away so I don’t ever hardly get to see her, and I was glad Rick let me J that was when we were able to drive 11 hours a day. So I got to show her and her kids the truck, which we keep pretty clean compared to other trucks we’ve seen. It helps that I can vacuum while he’s driving though, and just clean while he drives, and he helps too a lot. Anyway. So after we said goodbye, we headed off to Montana. Ugh. Trucker’s nightmare, in my opinion. We went through it long ways, and it took us freaking forever just to get through. Yes, it was really pretty in some places, but so not worth how long the drive was. And we kept having to slow down because of the canyons. We drive slow uphill because we’re heavy (durr) but we have to drive slow going downhill too otherwise we could roll the truck. So it’s slow both ways, and hard to do without burning the brakes up unless you know what you’re doing. Lucky Rick knows what he’s doing, so I don’t have to worry about him rolling the truck. That’s how his dad died, so he’s overly cautious because of it.
So we finally after two days of driving made it to Fargo, North Dakota, which was the first state we got to go to that I’d never been in before. I’ve been in all the western states, plus Texas and Florida, so I was definitely excited to visit the East side. I’ve only read about the East, but never been there. We stayed the night in Fargo because it was our fuel stop, and the next day we started driving again. (Sorry, all the days go really fast and run together so it’s hard to keep track of what day it is and how long we’ve been out lol.) We went through North Dakota, which I’m sorry, was boring as hell. We hit some fog, which was pretty exciting, but the rest of the state was filled with fields and hay rolls. I’m not kidding, there are more hay rolls than people in that state. I don’t think I got too many pictures, because there wasn’t really anything to take a picture of, haha. Finally we got to Minnesota, which I kinda slept through, because I wasn’t feeling too good, and it was night anyways, so we couldn’t see anything. Finally we got to Wisconsin, and dropped our load. Then we got another load to take to Illinois, so that’s where we were putting around for a couple days. Picking up trailers and dropping them off at other yards. It’s hard to remember all the loads we’ve done, because they switch stuff on us all the time. It’s cool if we get loads that are more miles, but when they switch and it’s a low mile job, it kinda blows. Oh well, that’s trucking for ya J
Driving through Illinois was interesting. First, the areas we drove through had corn field after corn field, with an occasional dilapidated farm and sometimes a creepy random cemetery. No kidding. It was very creepy and I was glad it was during the day and not at night. I still have yet to see a spirit walking on the highway, which is something I kind of want to see, kind of not. Morbid curiosity J Anyhoo, I really didn’t like driving through Illinois. We took an empty trailer from one city to another, and the wind going through the corn fields was pretty strong. When I was learning to drive, when I was like 15, I had a semi tip over in front of me going down Point of the Mountain, and it was very scary. It almost fully crushed a car, but thank god everyone was alright. I found out years later he tipped because he was empty. You don’t drive through extremely windy areas when you’re loaded, because you could die from tipping over. Common sense here. Anyways, the wind wasn’t too bad for us, just enough to freak us out a little. We got to our place seven hours early, and they would have loaded us but the night crew was in charge of our load so we just had to sit. It was alright, we ate at Ihop, and there was a little blue shack across the street that we walked to. The sign on it said “Over 21 Only,” which translates to us as dirty bad fun J we thought it would have a shitty selection of videos and a few magazines, but holy shit. There were so many videos there, we spent an hour looking around. They had other stuff too, and it was a pretty cool place! Beat the one in Evanston Wyoming for sure, and their place was three times bigger. After we finished there, we went down to the Walmart to look around. It’s so cool seeing the huge aisle of wines. Just wines. It’s still new to me, and I love it. And at the gas stations, there’s the lottery and power ball, and wine, and the alcoholic energy drinks, and Mike’s Hard Lemonade- basically all the good stuff that is banned in Utah. Sigh.
So we finally got loaded, then waited until morning to drive. This one was going to Wichita, Kansas. We learned first hand why they say to ignore the GPS and just use our Qualcomm (they communicate with us through it, send our loads and fuel routes, and other routes, through it to us. It’s like a really ghetto computer, it’s green and black, no color haha. Pretty handy.) So the GPS told us to go through this city, instead of the way we came, and we ended up going down one of those one way roads, and there was a bridge in our way. We were like, “oh shit, we probably wont clear it,” but there was really no way for us to turn around. Rick found a construction worker, and he tried to guide us under the bridge, but we were two inches too tall to get under, so we backed up. Eventually, Rick found an alley we could go down, and it took us back to the main road. Phew! We were really lucky, sometimes they have the police department and fire department close off the road for us, and they charge because it’s the driver’s job to not get effing stuck. So we finally got back to the main road, and off we went!
We’ve been in Kansas for the past few days now, and I have to say, I really like it here. Yes there are a lot of fields, and we’ve seen corn, random green fields, barley, and even cotton; but for some reason I just really like this state. The wind is bad here too, and we saw a wind farm with lots of windmills which was cool. There are random forests everywhere, random little towns, and random creeks and rivers. It is so pretty here though, and you can actually see for miles. I like not having stupid mountains block my view J now I just have to convince Rick to let us move here, hehe.
Yesterday we got to Dodge City to get a load of raw meat (I know, yummy) and it took us forever to get loaded. We talked to a bunch of other drivers from our company, and one guy had been there for a whole day and a half waiting to go get loaded. I guess it’s normal for meat loads, which we didn’t know before because we’re noobs, but now we know. So right now we are loaded with raw meat (don’t worry, this company hauls mostly refrigerated shit- the refrigerated trailers are mostly called reefers, and they run off diesel fuel so when they aren’t connected to a truck they still run, and they just run by themselves anyway. Pretty cool stuff!) and we are taking it from Dodge City to Westville, Indiana. They will unload some of it, then we are taking it to Oak Lawn, Illinois, and then some other place in Illinois. We have to go to all three locations in just one day! All within a few hours of each other. So, they better book ass when they unload us.
I’ll try not to slack so much next time, because then I forget stuff :/ soo yup! It’s been fun so far, it has been hard too, but mostly fun. I’ve gotten sick a few times and had to put myself in the back, but for the most part I’ve been up here with Rick.
Until next time,
Peace out
~Lola
Anyways. The last post was written when we were driving out of Oregon, heading to Wisconsin. So, we went North through Washington a little bit, and I got to see my bestie! It was only for like ten minutes, but I was so happy! She lives so far away so I don’t ever hardly get to see her, and I was glad Rick let me J that was when we were able to drive 11 hours a day. So I got to show her and her kids the truck, which we keep pretty clean compared to other trucks we’ve seen. It helps that I can vacuum while he’s driving though, and just clean while he drives, and he helps too a lot. Anyway. So after we said goodbye, we headed off to Montana. Ugh. Trucker’s nightmare, in my opinion. We went through it long ways, and it took us freaking forever just to get through. Yes, it was really pretty in some places, but so not worth how long the drive was. And we kept having to slow down because of the canyons. We drive slow uphill because we’re heavy (durr) but we have to drive slow going downhill too otherwise we could roll the truck. So it’s slow both ways, and hard to do without burning the brakes up unless you know what you’re doing. Lucky Rick knows what he’s doing, so I don’t have to worry about him rolling the truck. That’s how his dad died, so he’s overly cautious because of it.
So we finally after two days of driving made it to Fargo, North Dakota, which was the first state we got to go to that I’d never been in before. I’ve been in all the western states, plus Texas and Florida, so I was definitely excited to visit the East side. I’ve only read about the East, but never been there. We stayed the night in Fargo because it was our fuel stop, and the next day we started driving again. (Sorry, all the days go really fast and run together so it’s hard to keep track of what day it is and how long we’ve been out lol.) We went through North Dakota, which I’m sorry, was boring as hell. We hit some fog, which was pretty exciting, but the rest of the state was filled with fields and hay rolls. I’m not kidding, there are more hay rolls than people in that state. I don’t think I got too many pictures, because there wasn’t really anything to take a picture of, haha. Finally we got to Minnesota, which I kinda slept through, because I wasn’t feeling too good, and it was night anyways, so we couldn’t see anything. Finally we got to Wisconsin, and dropped our load. Then we got another load to take to Illinois, so that’s where we were putting around for a couple days. Picking up trailers and dropping them off at other yards. It’s hard to remember all the loads we’ve done, because they switch stuff on us all the time. It’s cool if we get loads that are more miles, but when they switch and it’s a low mile job, it kinda blows. Oh well, that’s trucking for ya J
Driving through Illinois was interesting. First, the areas we drove through had corn field after corn field, with an occasional dilapidated farm and sometimes a creepy random cemetery. No kidding. It was very creepy and I was glad it was during the day and not at night. I still have yet to see a spirit walking on the highway, which is something I kind of want to see, kind of not. Morbid curiosity J Anyhoo, I really didn’t like driving through Illinois. We took an empty trailer from one city to another, and the wind going through the corn fields was pretty strong. When I was learning to drive, when I was like 15, I had a semi tip over in front of me going down Point of the Mountain, and it was very scary. It almost fully crushed a car, but thank god everyone was alright. I found out years later he tipped because he was empty. You don’t drive through extremely windy areas when you’re loaded, because you could die from tipping over. Common sense here. Anyways, the wind wasn’t too bad for us, just enough to freak us out a little. We got to our place seven hours early, and they would have loaded us but the night crew was in charge of our load so we just had to sit. It was alright, we ate at Ihop, and there was a little blue shack across the street that we walked to. The sign on it said “Over 21 Only,” which translates to us as dirty bad fun J we thought it would have a shitty selection of videos and a few magazines, but holy shit. There were so many videos there, we spent an hour looking around. They had other stuff too, and it was a pretty cool place! Beat the one in Evanston Wyoming for sure, and their place was three times bigger. After we finished there, we went down to the Walmart to look around. It’s so cool seeing the huge aisle of wines. Just wines. It’s still new to me, and I love it. And at the gas stations, there’s the lottery and power ball, and wine, and the alcoholic energy drinks, and Mike’s Hard Lemonade- basically all the good stuff that is banned in Utah. Sigh.
So we finally got loaded, then waited until morning to drive. This one was going to Wichita, Kansas. We learned first hand why they say to ignore the GPS and just use our Qualcomm (they communicate with us through it, send our loads and fuel routes, and other routes, through it to us. It’s like a really ghetto computer, it’s green and black, no color haha. Pretty handy.) So the GPS told us to go through this city, instead of the way we came, and we ended up going down one of those one way roads, and there was a bridge in our way. We were like, “oh shit, we probably wont clear it,” but there was really no way for us to turn around. Rick found a construction worker, and he tried to guide us under the bridge, but we were two inches too tall to get under, so we backed up. Eventually, Rick found an alley we could go down, and it took us back to the main road. Phew! We were really lucky, sometimes they have the police department and fire department close off the road for us, and they charge because it’s the driver’s job to not get effing stuck. So we finally got back to the main road, and off we went!
We’ve been in Kansas for the past few days now, and I have to say, I really like it here. Yes there are a lot of fields, and we’ve seen corn, random green fields, barley, and even cotton; but for some reason I just really like this state. The wind is bad here too, and we saw a wind farm with lots of windmills which was cool. There are random forests everywhere, random little towns, and random creeks and rivers. It is so pretty here though, and you can actually see for miles. I like not having stupid mountains block my view J now I just have to convince Rick to let us move here, hehe.
Yesterday we got to Dodge City to get a load of raw meat (I know, yummy) and it took us forever to get loaded. We talked to a bunch of other drivers from our company, and one guy had been there for a whole day and a half waiting to go get loaded. I guess it’s normal for meat loads, which we didn’t know before because we’re noobs, but now we know. So right now we are loaded with raw meat (don’t worry, this company hauls mostly refrigerated shit- the refrigerated trailers are mostly called reefers, and they run off diesel fuel so when they aren’t connected to a truck they still run, and they just run by themselves anyway. Pretty cool stuff!) and we are taking it from Dodge City to Westville, Indiana. They will unload some of it, then we are taking it to Oak Lawn, Illinois, and then some other place in Illinois. We have to go to all three locations in just one day! All within a few hours of each other. So, they better book ass when they unload us.
I’ll try not to slack so much next time, because then I forget stuff :/ soo yup! It’s been fun so far, it has been hard too, but mostly fun. I’ve gotten sick a few times and had to put myself in the back, but for the most part I’ve been up here with Rick.
Until next time,
Peace out
~Lola
Just Keep Rollin!
So early Wednesday morning we got ourselves ready, finished grabbing our shit, and then Grandma took us to the yard. Tuesday was spent setting the truck up, plugging our stuff in and Velcro-ing most of the stuff down so it didn’t fly and hit us in the head. We didn’t get much sleep that night because we stayed up late working on the truck, but it didn’t matter because we were very excited to finally hit the road!
We got the orders to pick up an empty trailer in the yard and take it to the Hershey factory in Ogden, and they would load it for us there. But there wasn’t an empty trailer in the yard. While Rick was putting around the yard looking for a trailer, I put our things away and noticed that we had forgotten some important things. The atlas that he had bought a while ago, which we definitely needed in case the GPS decided to be a piece. Our pillows, which would be handy when we need to sleep. And my winter jacket. So while we waited for our dispatcher to tell us what to do next because there was no empty trailer, we called Rick’s little sister to bring our things up from downstairs. Grandma drove back there, picked up our stuff, and by that time they told us to just go pick up a full trailer from Hershey’s and we would be taking it to Portland. We met Grandma on the road where Bangerter leads to the freeway, and she gave us our stuff. One last hug and we were off!
Bobtailing means you’re driving without a trailer, and you’re usually not supposed to do that because Central has soooo many trailers, but we didn’t have a choice. We bobtailed over to Ogden to pick up the trailer, and finally we got it. I helped Rick get it on the trailer and he showed me how to plug it into the truck, and lift the ‘landing gear’ (basically the jacks that hold the trailer up when it’s not attached to a truck). It was pretty fun. He bought me gloves to wear so I wouldn’t get my hands dirty. They are huge- I have small hands so it’s hard to find gloves to fit. Grr. But at least my hands stayed clean!
We drove through Idaho, and were in Oregon in no time, even though Rick had to pull over a lot for me to pee. Sorry my bladder is so small! I inherited that from my mum J hehe. Anyway, we slept at a random truck stop in Oregon and surprisingly, the bed was really comfortable. We slept great! And yes, we actually slept. Haha.
The next morning we woke up and continued to Portland. We dropped the Hershey’s load off in a yard, and picked up an empty trailer so we could get it loaded in Salem. So our first load was done! They had changed things on us, which happens all the time, so we have to keep an eye on our Qualcomm, which is a computer thing that we use to log our hours and communicate with our dispatcher. My job is to make sure we enter in everything we’re supposed to. Oh, that and making sure to secure the shit that falls on our heads. The Clorox wipes tried taking me out three times before I just threw them on the bed.
We also have a thing called E-Zpass that secures to our windshield on the inside. It’s for when we pass through the weigh stations, it scans us and is supposed to make it so we can drive through and not stop at the weigh station. If we get a green light we get to keep on driving, but when the red light flashes, it beeps at us and we have to pull into the next weigh station. We have had to stop at every effing weigh station so far. It was kinda a joke yesterday, I was like, “I think they flagged you on purpose because you’re a newbie.” He was like “Probably, ha ha ha.” We had a good laugh about it- until we got another red light. Today is Saturday and he was like, “They should all be closed on the weekends.” So we drive through the scanner, and we get a red light. Oh yes, more laughter, but sprinkled with annoyance. This E-Zpass is supposed to make it so we don’t stop, but so far, it’s not working so well. Anyway, he said that the weigh station could still be closed but nope, it was open. Roll over the scales at 3 MPH, and we get a green light to go.
ANYWAYS
We took the empty trailer to a place that has tons of frozen food, and we got there two and a half hours early. Sometimes they’ll load you early, other times they will make you wait. It depends on a lot of things. Well, there were other drivers ahead of us so we had to wait. We were going to shower at a truck stop but didn’t have enough points for a free one, so we just bought Taco Bell and watched some Family Guy in the truck. Then we waited back at the place to get loaded. I fell asleep, and Rick napped with me for a while until they finished. He drove us to the truck stop to sleep for the night. I woke up for a little bit, went in and brushed my teeth and stuff. Then we went to bed for the night.
This morning we found the truck stop that we were going to shower at, and we found out we had no points there either L but we needed the shower so bad and just paid for it. Ten bucks for a shower! But it was so worth the money. I pulled a stupid because the machine only took cash, and went over to the quarter machine and put a $20 in… Oops… So now we have $20 worth of quarters rolling around. Rick thought it was funny and called me a duh, and yeah, it was a pretty duh move. Haha. After we showered we got chicken from Popeye’s, with mashed potatoes and a biscuit. Mmmm. And now we are headed to Wisconsin! We have to take the trailer to one place, have them unload some stuff, and then go to another place in Wisconsin and they will unload the rest. It’s frozen food this time.
So Oregon. Omg. We want to move here really bad. It’s so gorgeous. I took plenty of pictures and junk, and will try to post them up. We drove through Portland downtown, and the freeway was like a roller coaster, it was so awesome. And we saw a bunch of bums living under an overpass, it was kinda sad. We’ve been driving next to a big river for forever (I think it’s the Hood river? I dunno.) We also saw Mt. St. Helens, and Mt. Hood. I didn’t get a picture of St. Helens, but I told Rick about how it erupted the year we were born- 1989 (correct me if I’m wrong, I think it was that year) and stuff. He teaches me about cars and stuff, I teach him random shit. It’s awesome. We keep passing by wineries, there’s about a million up here. I want to stop at one sometime J And we saw tons of windmills yesterday, lots and lots of them, I took pictures of those too. It’s interesting to see how different places can be!
So finally I’ll be going through states I’ve never been through before! I’m psyched for that. Been trying to take plenty of pictures, hopefully I can find some internet service soon! But if you’re reading this, I obviously found some. Lol durrr.
Well, peace out for now!
~Lola
We got the orders to pick up an empty trailer in the yard and take it to the Hershey factory in Ogden, and they would load it for us there. But there wasn’t an empty trailer in the yard. While Rick was putting around the yard looking for a trailer, I put our things away and noticed that we had forgotten some important things. The atlas that he had bought a while ago, which we definitely needed in case the GPS decided to be a piece. Our pillows, which would be handy when we need to sleep. And my winter jacket. So while we waited for our dispatcher to tell us what to do next because there was no empty trailer, we called Rick’s little sister to bring our things up from downstairs. Grandma drove back there, picked up our stuff, and by that time they told us to just go pick up a full trailer from Hershey’s and we would be taking it to Portland. We met Grandma on the road where Bangerter leads to the freeway, and she gave us our stuff. One last hug and we were off!
Bobtailing means you’re driving without a trailer, and you’re usually not supposed to do that because Central has soooo many trailers, but we didn’t have a choice. We bobtailed over to Ogden to pick up the trailer, and finally we got it. I helped Rick get it on the trailer and he showed me how to plug it into the truck, and lift the ‘landing gear’ (basically the jacks that hold the trailer up when it’s not attached to a truck). It was pretty fun. He bought me gloves to wear so I wouldn’t get my hands dirty. They are huge- I have small hands so it’s hard to find gloves to fit. Grr. But at least my hands stayed clean!
We drove through Idaho, and were in Oregon in no time, even though Rick had to pull over a lot for me to pee. Sorry my bladder is so small! I inherited that from my mum J hehe. Anyway, we slept at a random truck stop in Oregon and surprisingly, the bed was really comfortable. We slept great! And yes, we actually slept. Haha.
The next morning we woke up and continued to Portland. We dropped the Hershey’s load off in a yard, and picked up an empty trailer so we could get it loaded in Salem. So our first load was done! They had changed things on us, which happens all the time, so we have to keep an eye on our Qualcomm, which is a computer thing that we use to log our hours and communicate with our dispatcher. My job is to make sure we enter in everything we’re supposed to. Oh, that and making sure to secure the shit that falls on our heads. The Clorox wipes tried taking me out three times before I just threw them on the bed.
We also have a thing called E-Zpass that secures to our windshield on the inside. It’s for when we pass through the weigh stations, it scans us and is supposed to make it so we can drive through and not stop at the weigh station. If we get a green light we get to keep on driving, but when the red light flashes, it beeps at us and we have to pull into the next weigh station. We have had to stop at every effing weigh station so far. It was kinda a joke yesterday, I was like, “I think they flagged you on purpose because you’re a newbie.” He was like “Probably, ha ha ha.” We had a good laugh about it- until we got another red light. Today is Saturday and he was like, “They should all be closed on the weekends.” So we drive through the scanner, and we get a red light. Oh yes, more laughter, but sprinkled with annoyance. This E-Zpass is supposed to make it so we don’t stop, but so far, it’s not working so well. Anyway, he said that the weigh station could still be closed but nope, it was open. Roll over the scales at 3 MPH, and we get a green light to go.
ANYWAYS
We took the empty trailer to a place that has tons of frozen food, and we got there two and a half hours early. Sometimes they’ll load you early, other times they will make you wait. It depends on a lot of things. Well, there were other drivers ahead of us so we had to wait. We were going to shower at a truck stop but didn’t have enough points for a free one, so we just bought Taco Bell and watched some Family Guy in the truck. Then we waited back at the place to get loaded. I fell asleep, and Rick napped with me for a while until they finished. He drove us to the truck stop to sleep for the night. I woke up for a little bit, went in and brushed my teeth and stuff. Then we went to bed for the night.
This morning we found the truck stop that we were going to shower at, and we found out we had no points there either L but we needed the shower so bad and just paid for it. Ten bucks for a shower! But it was so worth the money. I pulled a stupid because the machine only took cash, and went over to the quarter machine and put a $20 in… Oops… So now we have $20 worth of quarters rolling around. Rick thought it was funny and called me a duh, and yeah, it was a pretty duh move. Haha. After we showered we got chicken from Popeye’s, with mashed potatoes and a biscuit. Mmmm. And now we are headed to Wisconsin! We have to take the trailer to one place, have them unload some stuff, and then go to another place in Wisconsin and they will unload the rest. It’s frozen food this time.
So Oregon. Omg. We want to move here really bad. It’s so gorgeous. I took plenty of pictures and junk, and will try to post them up. We drove through Portland downtown, and the freeway was like a roller coaster, it was so awesome. And we saw a bunch of bums living under an overpass, it was kinda sad. We’ve been driving next to a big river for forever (I think it’s the Hood river? I dunno.) We also saw Mt. St. Helens, and Mt. Hood. I didn’t get a picture of St. Helens, but I told Rick about how it erupted the year we were born- 1989 (correct me if I’m wrong, I think it was that year) and stuff. He teaches me about cars and stuff, I teach him random shit. It’s awesome. We keep passing by wineries, there’s about a million up here. I want to stop at one sometime J And we saw tons of windmills yesterday, lots and lots of them, I took pictures of those too. It’s interesting to see how different places can be!
So finally I’ll be going through states I’ve never been through before! I’m psyched for that. Been trying to take plenty of pictures, hopefully I can find some internet service soon! But if you’re reading this, I obviously found some. Lol durrr.
Well, peace out for now!
~Lola
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Landslide
So, Rick is going to be home in a few days!!!! (Cue applause). YES I will no longer have to sleep alone. I hate sleeping alone, mostly because I'm scared of the dark. That's one of the reasons I don't go to bed until the sun comes up. And I work better at night. My body just likes night so much better than day.
ANYWAYS
I'm so excited!! He gets a few days off so we can spend it with kitty, and family, and getting ready to hit the road! We probably won't be coming home much, which is fine with me, it will make us miss it more. Plus I'm tired of Utah, for a zillion reasons, maybe I'll elaborate some other day. But not right now. :)
So my brother turns 19 today, sweet! I get to go down to celebrate at my mom's on Monday. It might be the last time I see them before I leave! :( Must get Skype... And then Tuesday, I babysit for probably the last time. I'm sad, because I've been babysitting for the same people for a year. Their kids are really cute, and fun. And they are really super nice people. I will miss them for sure :( And my friends too. I'm going to miss the people but the state overall? HELL NO! :)
I will hopefully have the opportunity to see family while I'm out though. I have a cousin in Texas, a cousin in Georgia, grandparents+aunt/uncle in Florida. And my best friend lives in Washington state, I hope I get to see her too! *Crossing fingers* I know I'll be going to the East coast a lot, Rick's been there most of the time he's been training. Woot!
Soo anyways not much else to say, I can't wait to get going and be able to write about how fun it is to travel on the road, and take tons of pictures for y'all :)
Peace out,
Lola
ANYWAYS
I'm so excited!! He gets a few days off so we can spend it with kitty, and family, and getting ready to hit the road! We probably won't be coming home much, which is fine with me, it will make us miss it more. Plus I'm tired of Utah, for a zillion reasons, maybe I'll elaborate some other day. But not right now. :)
So my brother turns 19 today, sweet! I get to go down to celebrate at my mom's on Monday. It might be the last time I see them before I leave! :( Must get Skype... And then Tuesday, I babysit for probably the last time. I'm sad, because I've been babysitting for the same people for a year. Their kids are really cute, and fun. And they are really super nice people. I will miss them for sure :( And my friends too. I'm going to miss the people but the state overall? HELL NO! :)
I will hopefully have the opportunity to see family while I'm out though. I have a cousin in Texas, a cousin in Georgia, grandparents+aunt/uncle in Florida. And my best friend lives in Washington state, I hope I get to see her too! *Crossing fingers* I know I'll be going to the East coast a lot, Rick's been there most of the time he's been training. Woot!
Soo anyways not much else to say, I can't wait to get going and be able to write about how fun it is to travel on the road, and take tons of pictures for y'all :)
Peace out,
Lola
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Hummingbird Heartbeat
So if you're going to marry a trucker, you need to either be able to get along without each other or be comitted to going with them over the road. For Rick and I, we are so attatched to each other we have to be around each other or we go crazy. But when we are around each other too long, we want to set each other on fire. I guess that's love, though- if you don't want to set each other on fire every day, then you're doing it wrong :) So basically, we've decided the only way to keep our relationship working is for me to go over the road with him. Which I can't wait for! I want to get the hell out of Utah, and I love traveling. Talk about a win-win! Plus Rick and I will be together.
So he will be done with his training by the 6th! That's about two more weeks, which sucks, but it's nice to now have a date when he'll be home. We will get to spend 3 or 4 days here, preparing to leave, and then we will be gone! Then I will get to write more about what it's like out there, and put up a buttload of pictures. I'm so excited!
And Rick got to stop by for like three hours last night! It was good to see him again. I miss him so much. I've been keeping busy by babysitting, which is good because it's basically a job for me. And I got Halo Reach! I'm too tired to play it right now, but I'll be starting to play tomorrow. I'll be saving the Forge part for Rick, because he loves to Forge on Halo. I love to play the multiplayer and campaign. Rick's more of a Call of Duty dork. How cute.
Soo, right now I'm watching my show, Law and Order SVU and going to write more on my story.
Peace out,
Lola
So he will be done with his training by the 6th! That's about two more weeks, which sucks, but it's nice to now have a date when he'll be home. We will get to spend 3 or 4 days here, preparing to leave, and then we will be gone! Then I will get to write more about what it's like out there, and put up a buttload of pictures. I'm so excited!
And Rick got to stop by for like three hours last night! It was good to see him again. I miss him so much. I've been keeping busy by babysitting, which is good because it's basically a job for me. And I got Halo Reach! I'm too tired to play it right now, but I'll be starting to play tomorrow. I'll be saving the Forge part for Rick, because he loves to Forge on Halo. I love to play the multiplayer and campaign. Rick's more of a Call of Duty dork. How cute.
Soo, right now I'm watching my show, Law and Order SVU and going to write more on my story.
Peace out,
Lola
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Another Day
So Rick made it to Seattle, and now he is headed to Nebraska. No chance of him stopping through Salt Lake City again though :( who knows when I'll see him next? Meanwhile, I have to head back home tonight so I can work tomorrow. I babysit for a family so I can bring in some kind of income. And I love it, the kids are great, the parents are super nice. I'm excited to see my baby tonight, I'll post a picture of him up at the end. :)
Anyway, something I forgot to mention on the other post is that Rick's dad was also a trucker. Rick got to go with him alot, and so that's why Rick loves it. But Rick's dad died in 2002, the truck he was driving rolled and it killed him. It's really sad, and Rick doesn't really like to talk about it. So I worry even more. I hope he stays safe.
So, not much else to say, so good night for now!
Anyway, something I forgot to mention on the other post is that Rick's dad was also a trucker. Rick got to go with him alot, and so that's why Rick loves it. But Rick's dad died in 2002, the truck he was driving rolled and it killed him. It's really sad, and Rick doesn't really like to talk about it. So I worry even more. I hope he stays safe.
So, not much else to say, so good night for now!
Our Blog
Hi! My name is Lola. My other half is Rick, and we are both 21 right now. Rick's lifelong dream is to drive trucks, and finally, after a few setbacks, he is now employed at a trucking company! He works for Central Refrigerated Service, currently he is out with his trainer. For now, I'm a writer (nonprofessional for now) and I'm waiting for him to complete training, and get his own truck so I can go with him. We aren't meant to be apart, so either I could try to stay at home without him, or go with him. And I've chosen to go with him.
So he has been all over so far, from here to Georgia, up the East Coast, and back to the West Coast. Here means Utah, our home base and where our families live. Since he's headed to Washington state, he got to stop by home for a little bit. It's been almost a week and a half since I've last seen him, so it was really nice to see him today. It's been so long we both look different to each other. Weird. I wish he would have gotten to stay longer, but he had to rush his load to Washington, and they are crunched on time already. Blah.
Oh, and we have a baby. Well, he's really a cat, but for all intents and purposes he is our baby. His official name is Q-Tip, but we call him Kitty. We love him so much, so you will see pics of him occasionally up here. We are unsure if we want to bring him, because he's a little shit and might run away just because he's curious. If he ran away, we would be so sad. So we will probably just leave him at home. Which is fine. We live in Rick's mom's basement, and she's pretty good at keeping an eye on him for us while we're gone.
So while Rick has been gone, I've been moping at home for the most part. Taking care of our baby and the basement, and moping. I hate being alone, much less in a freaking scary basement, with creepy spiders. And I'm a night person, which is good, because Rick's trainer lets him drive during the night, so Rick gets to sleep during the day. So we are pretty much on the same schedule. I hate being awake during the day, I guess I'm part vampire or something? That's what my mom says, anyway. Speaking of, I'm actually staying with my mom right now. I have three younger siblings- the older brother is 19 and lives in Salt Lake city kinda near where I live, my younger sister turned 16 just barely (scary, I know!), and the youngest brother is 12 and a half. I know, two boys and two girls. It's cool having siblings, but most of the time it sucked being the oldest. Rawr.
When I come hang out at my moms, I bring my Xbox for me and my little bro to play with. Yes, I am a gamer girl, my favorite is Halo. No, I do not have the new Halo Reach yet :( but I will be getting it soon! Yay! Rick is a Call of Duty dork, so he's stoked for Black Ops to come out. Weirdo. And I bring movies and such. It's fun, a lot of the time, we just hang out on our separate laptops. We are weird like that, computer nerds.
Rick thinks I'll be bored in the truck while he's driving, but I disagree. I love to read, so I just need to bring books. And my camera, so I can show all of you where we go and what fun stuff we see. And, I'll be writing my stories. I write short stories, I love it. Plus I'll be sleeping alot too, hehe. Hopefully I'll find work that I can do online, until I get my CDL too.
Anyways, that's all for now, I'll probably write a lot while Rick is gone, because it sucks. But I just gotta keep thinking, soon I'll be with him in our own truck! Whoohoo!
Peace out,
Lola
So he has been all over so far, from here to Georgia, up the East Coast, and back to the West Coast. Here means Utah, our home base and where our families live. Since he's headed to Washington state, he got to stop by home for a little bit. It's been almost a week and a half since I've last seen him, so it was really nice to see him today. It's been so long we both look different to each other. Weird. I wish he would have gotten to stay longer, but he had to rush his load to Washington, and they are crunched on time already. Blah.
Oh, and we have a baby. Well, he's really a cat, but for all intents and purposes he is our baby. His official name is Q-Tip, but we call him Kitty. We love him so much, so you will see pics of him occasionally up here. We are unsure if we want to bring him, because he's a little shit and might run away just because he's curious. If he ran away, we would be so sad. So we will probably just leave him at home. Which is fine. We live in Rick's mom's basement, and she's pretty good at keeping an eye on him for us while we're gone.
So while Rick has been gone, I've been moping at home for the most part. Taking care of our baby and the basement, and moping. I hate being alone, much less in a freaking scary basement, with creepy spiders. And I'm a night person, which is good, because Rick's trainer lets him drive during the night, so Rick gets to sleep during the day. So we are pretty much on the same schedule. I hate being awake during the day, I guess I'm part vampire or something? That's what my mom says, anyway. Speaking of, I'm actually staying with my mom right now. I have three younger siblings- the older brother is 19 and lives in Salt Lake city kinda near where I live, my younger sister turned 16 just barely (scary, I know!), and the youngest brother is 12 and a half. I know, two boys and two girls. It's cool having siblings, but most of the time it sucked being the oldest. Rawr.
When I come hang out at my moms, I bring my Xbox for me and my little bro to play with. Yes, I am a gamer girl, my favorite is Halo. No, I do not have the new Halo Reach yet :( but I will be getting it soon! Yay! Rick is a Call of Duty dork, so he's stoked for Black Ops to come out. Weirdo. And I bring movies and such. It's fun, a lot of the time, we just hang out on our separate laptops. We are weird like that, computer nerds.
Rick thinks I'll be bored in the truck while he's driving, but I disagree. I love to read, so I just need to bring books. And my camera, so I can show all of you where we go and what fun stuff we see. And, I'll be writing my stories. I write short stories, I love it. Plus I'll be sleeping alot too, hehe. Hopefully I'll find work that I can do online, until I get my CDL too.
Anyways, that's all for now, I'll probably write a lot while Rick is gone, because it sucks. But I just gotta keep thinking, soon I'll be with him in our own truck! Whoohoo!
Peace out,
Lola
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)