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