What did I do?

Wow, I’m not quite sure what we’re in for now. We sat in Houston from Monday afternoon until we finally got a dispatch for early Thursday morning. We headed for Baton Rouge again. Our Gypsy got us almost there. She is so hilarious. She likes to mess with our heads. She will get us right there and say, “Look for your destination on the right.” And she knows full well that it is on the left, but we are so trusting and some of these, no, most of these areas are large cities with traffic and buildings crammed together. So we turn into the business on the right and they tell us, “We never heard of that company.” Turns out it is right across the street. Isn’t she funny? Not!

So we pick up three barrels of cleaning solution and take off for Washington, NC.

Our friend, Ralph called us while we were fueling in Slidell, LA. He was just leaving Baton Rouge and heading toward Slidell. We were close but we had to keep moving. Too bad. It would have been nice to meet up with him. (After one month on the road I know one thing for sure, I would not want to be out on the road alone. No Way!)

I got to drive during the day on Thursday as we made our way along the Gulf Coast through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. We crossed back over bayou, inlets, lakes, river deltas, and of course the Mississippi River, so I got to cross a lot of bridges, oh my. But how beautiful.

I wish I could describe the oil wells and refineries in Houston. It is like tall, lighted cities made of pipe and metal. They are endless it seems and stretch on forever. They are amazing in the daytime, but at night when they are lit up it is spectacular.

Pops took over driving somewhere in Georgia and I went to sleep. I woke up in time to get us some coffee and get dressed and cleaned up for our delivery. FedEx always asks us if we are wearing our FedEx Apparel. Once again Gypsy got us in the right neighborhood but no cigar. Oh well, we found it. Brrrr, it is much colder here than Texas was. Our average temperatures while in Houston was 92, even at night it only dropped down a few degrees. So yeah, North Carolina seemed chilly. I had to break out my long sleeved shirt.

Okay so now what? It is Friday morning and we only had 1 trip? FedEx wanted us to go to Parkersburg, WV or Canton, OH for our layover. Are you kidding me? Why would we drive that far for nothing. No thanks, we told them we would go to Charlotte, NC. It is much closer. (FedEx does not have forced dispatch.) We no sooner typed in where we were going when load opportunities for trips to California started to come across our screen. Okay, I’ll go there. We tried for both of those and no deal they went to someone else. Then one came on for Washington State, we tried and didn’t get that one either. Next came one for Las Vegas. Pops was in the truckstop paying for fuel. What should I do? You only have 10 minutes to accept the load or not and it takes almost all of that time to see the details of the trip and figure out how much you get paid. So by the time I did that, he still had not come back out. “Accept” I typed and we got it! Oh no, what did I do? Is Pops going to be upset with me?

It turns out that he wasn’t too upset, although he did tell me that now we might not get back in time for the Ladies Tea at our church or the meeting that he had set up for Camp Meeting. I really hope that is not the case. I want to be at the tea so badly. We have store displays for Walmart on board. We have six stops. The last one delivers on Monday. That gives us four days to get back. It could happen. Then when we got to our pick up there were several other FDCC trucks there. At least 8 trucks dispatched to go out west with these same deliveries. They all began to tell us how hard it might be to back this direction. So I started to pray. I prayed that God would see to it that we a load coming right back across. Please, friends, pray for us. I really want to be home by Saturday and I know if God wills it He can make it happen. And then a new message had arrived from FedEx, Delivery day changed to Tuesday.

We got our pickup and got moving. Total mileage for this trip, just out there is 3020 miles. I was still on the driving clock so I was driving. Pops needed to try and sleep. He has such a hard time. He doesn’t trust me with directions and to be honest, I don’t always trust me either. And we all know Gypsy can’t be trusted. And just to prove that point, just as Pops fell asleep in the bunk she pulled a slick one on me. I was driving up through the big cities of Raleigh, Durham, North Carolina and for some reason she told me to go right onto Hwy. 86. Now Pops and I had talked over the directions before he laid down and he never mentioned 86, so I didn’t think she was right. But I got off the exit anyway, then she told me to take a left at the end of the ramp, then an immediate left again. Well, that was putting me back on the same interstate I was on only going the opposite direction!!!! What the World? I knew this wasn’t right. Okay, so I’ll get on drive down 1 exit, loop around and be back the right direction. Pops woke up and then he couldn’t sleep because he was afraid I would get us totally messed up. Once we got moving again after about an hour, Pops went back to sleep. This time he slept good until I made a fuel stop. I pulled in to the fuel pumps to get fuel and another FDCC truck pulled in beside us. I didn’t think anything of it really because of all the trucks dispatched with us and heading out west. But when we looked again it turns out it was Mark and Elyse. Remember them? They drive for the same owners that we do? We met them our last trip to Ohio. Man, what were the chances of meeting them here? We talked with Mark for a while and then got moving again. It wasn’t long before I was in the bunk. I woke up once when we stopped at a rest area and then right back to sleep. We stopped again and Pops was very tired. He said he was going to lay down for awhile. He slept about 1 ½ hours before we got moving again. I got washed up and dressed, made up some coffee, got us a good breakfast of a Little Debbie cake and we got moving. We were somewhere in Kentucky.  We are looking for a Walmart. We need groceries. I mean, we really need groceries. We are down to nothing. We will soon have to start munching on the dog food. Haha

Oh yeah, I almost forgot,  for all you Facebook game players, I found Farmville. It’s off Route 64 in North Carolina. Hahaha For Real.

Pops says to tell everyone he says Hi.

So keep us in your prayers. Pray that God wants us back by Saturday and that He will make a way. I have faith that He will. He is a big God. He can do anything. And if we don’t make it back, then I believe He has a reason for that too. He knows all. And I trust Him.