HOME IS WHERE THE TRUCK IS: January 2019

Ohh no she didn't...ahh but yes I did.

When last I left you we were snowed in, in Ohio. (Now we are snowed in or about to be in Illinois, but that's getting ahead of myself)

We had been stuck in Ohio just 25 minutes from my mom and I was a whiny baby. On Sunday morning around 11am Mark decided that has soon as the PA Highway ban was lifted, we were going to go back to PA to our shipper to get loaded so we could get out of town.We had been trying to call them for two hours to find out if they were even open and could not get through. I was a little annoyed that we were going to risk driving out there not knowing if they were open, but he is the captain of this ship and so I deferred to him. We left at noon and the roads were ok while we were in Ohio. Almost the moment we hit the PA line they went to poop. It was a 30 mile ride that took us an hour to get to. I won't lie, I may have shed tears. I was scared to death. Mark's knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel. When we finally got there I told him I did not want to leave, until spring. He went inside to find out if they could load us and I called my mom because I just needed someone to decompress to. It was that stressful and I was only the passenger! Anyway, they said that they would work us in so we got settled in. It took over four hours for them to get us worked in an loaded and by now it was dark. Now we had to travel back to Youngstown in the dark. All the roads that had been slushy were now icy. It took us almost 85 minutes to get back. It was mentally and physically exhausting. Oh but wait, there's more! We got back to the truck stop and had to get a weight ticket because we were carrying nearly 45,000 lbs of pet food.. After getting on the scale we discovered that the load was overweight by 280 lbs and we would have to go back to the shipper to get it reworked. I told him I would stay at the truck stop but I was NOT going back there in the dark. He decided we would just do it in the morning.

Monday morning we were up bright and early and shocker the roads were still ca-ca. We got back to the shipper and they got us in a door and reworked the load in about 45-60 minutes. We then had to go back to the scales in Youngstown to check the weight again and we were ok. YAY! Score a victory for us. We hit the road and headed south to get out of the snow and ice! We made it as far as Corbin, Kentucky before calling it a day around 830pm. What a day! It was super cold all day, I dont think it got above 32. We ate McDonald's because it was so late when we stopped and it was terrible. Blech.

We made it from Kentucky to our stop in Fairburn, GA on Tuesday morning. It was a live unload but since we were two days late due to the weather, we had to wait again for us to work us in. While we were waiting I cooked my taco meat for dinner that night, and precooked my sausage for my sauce for Wednesday, and also cooked a batch of breakfast sausage. Just as I got all that done, they were done unloading us. From there we headed to another pick up and then off to Florida. We actually got to our delivery in Florida early and were able to drop Tuesday night. It was quite shocking to see that there was still so much Hurricane Michael damaged being cleaned up. There were still trees all over, houses without roofs, furniture in front yards. It was kinda crazy to see the trees just snapped in half like toothpicks.

We stopped for the night and it was 74 degrees! We slept with the windows open in the truck and it was GLORIOUS! However, was to be short lived. Tacos were our dinner of choice and they were super yummy.

Wednesday we were off to Georgia again to pick up a load going to Golden, CO. The drive was ok, the weather was clear but the further west we got, the colder it got. When we stopped for the day in McTeagle TN. The windows were firmly closed that night. Tonight we had sauce with Italian Sausage over some Barilla Ready Pasta. This stuff is great! I wish it were not so hard to find.

Thursday was just a crappy day all together. Mark and I fought most of the day. That does not happen often but for some reason it's all we did most of the day. It's hard to fight out here because there is really not a lot of space to have time to yourself. I used to be a "stomp, stomp, stomp, slam" kind of girl, but there is no room to stomp and no door to slam here so I am now a " yell, yell, yell, flop" kind of girl, Honestly though, our communication has really improved since I got on this truck. It's just he and I our here and so we had to learn to get over our differences really quickly. But for whatever reason, Thursday that was just not happening. It was a long day of travel. I did get to talk to one of my best friends on Thursday afternoon so that was uplifting. It was 24-28 degrees most of the day. We had Wendy's for dinner since it was so late when we got stopped.

Friday we were in Missouri, Kansas and Colorado. It went from cold, to colder to how on earth to people live like this? By the time we stopped for the night it was 15 degrees. Dinner was beef roast with potatoes and carrots. It smelled so good. Made me think of my dad all day long because as kids, he used to cook that at least once a week. Oh yeah! I also got to see the Arch in St Louis. I could not believe how huge it was and I was so excited to see it!

We were going to get up and shower on Saturday morning but it was 7 degrees when we got up at 4am and I said "nope. I would rather stink then go out in that temp" so we decided we would shower when we stopped that night. We made our delivery at Coors and then went to pick up our next load that was heading to Addison, Illinois. We dropped the trailer at the terminal in Denver and then made our weekly WalMart run. That done, we got the trailer hooked back up and headed out of town. We stopped finally in Nebraska for the night and it was 24 degrees. We had $5 WM pizza for dinner and were in bed by 830pm!

This morning was 27 degrees and we thought that was a heatwave so we headed to the showers at 430am. The further east we drove today the snowier, and colder it got. When we stopped in Rochelle, Illinois this evening, it was -1. Its obscene that people have to live this way. I would cry every single day. It is super pretty if only it could be like 75 degrees and snowy I would be all for it.
I made crock pot macaroni and cheese today. It was yummy.

Which leads me to now. Currently it is 8:18pm and 5 degrees, but feels like -10. We are supposed to get 5-8 inches of snow and ice overnight and tomorrow it is supposed to be 32 but we will not be leaving until Tuesday when it will be 4 but feel like -22. Umm, yeah ok. Not leaving this truck.