California

California Experience

Don’t you just love what is happening to us? Honestly I am not making any of it up! I promise.

Our load cancelled, now what? Seriously, I want to go home! We just sat in stunned silence in Campers Row for a while trying to collect our thoughts and work through our individual frustrations. I think we were each in such a state of mind that had we spoke we might have been unreasonably grouchy with each other.

I looked in my mirror and saw the sheriff’s car coming up and stopping at each of the trucks and campers. I guess we are being run out of here. Now what? We need a plan. I have a book that has all of the Walmarts in the US. So we searched for one we thought wasn’t too far from us. There is one in Long Beach about 11 miles away. Okay let’s go. It turns out that the city is called Long Beach because it is right at the Pacific Ocean. It is really pretty but there isn’t anywhere to park a truck and stay. There was a Walmart for sure but smack in the center of the city and no where to even get off the road. So on to plan B. Pops wanted me to try to go in behind Long Beach Walmart to the docks. “They’ve got to have docks.” Well my nerves were on edge and this wasn’t turning out the way I expected and traffic was wanting to move behind me so I went right and then right again and we aren’t staying here! “What are you doing? You could’ve went back there. They have to get deliveries. There’s got to be docks.” Pops said, loudly. Well, that was it, I started to cry. Between the load getting cancelled and no where to go and realizing that I was not getting home in time for the tea, I was so upset, I just wanted to go off somewhere and blubber like a baby.

“Let’s get ourselves together.” Pops said. I know what that means, “Get hold of yourself.” So we pulled along the highway and searched for another Walmart. There is one about 13 miles away. We like to park at Walmart because it seems safe, and they leave you  alone and you have clean bathrooms.  So back into the traffic and through the city to another Walmart except it wasn’t a Walmart, it was a Sam’s Club. No way! And they were under construction. Well we pulled in behind and parked at their docks for about an hour. This wasn’t gonna work either. We can’t sit in the middle of their construction. So we looked for another Walmart. (There are only 2 truckstops in the LA area, they each have parking for about 550 trucks and they are about 40 miles from where we are and busy and not so clean.) There is another Walmart about 8 miles from where we were. It is in Rosemead. Okay, we’ll go there.

Turns out Rosemead Walmart was a great choice. It was close to LA and it was upscale. The Walmart was all stone cased with big brown gables in the front and brown tile roof. There were tall palm trees all around it and instead of the metal cart returns. It had cemented, landscaped cart returns. And the carts had locks on their wheels so that if someone tried to take them out of the parking lot, the wheels would lock. It was so pretty. So we parked at the upper end and went in to get some food.

They had security there too. He kept driving around the parking lot and several times I saw him run some young people out. I went to bed around 8:00, 11pm eastern. I don’t know what time Pops came to bed but about 1:30am eastern someone was pounding on our door. It was security. He told us we could not stay here overnight and the store would soon be closing. He was pretty nice about it though and gave us directions to an all night Walmart not far away. So we drove to that one and it was nice too. There were a few other trucks so we knew it would be okay to stay.

I took the dogs for a walk before  going back to bed. While walking through the parking lot, Lucy grabbed something and was eating it. I hate when they do that. It was a hot dog. Someone had bought a pack of hot dogs and the whole pack was laying there except for maybe 2 or 3. Well now there was one less.

The next morning we thought we should drive up to the truckstop and shower. So we did. I find it interesting how a good shower can improve your mood. It’s true. After our shower we decided to eat in the restaurant. I ordered fish and French fries. Pops ordered Soft chicken tacos. It was good. I was starting to feel much better. After we ate we went back out to the truck. We were out there about an hour when a load opportunity came through. It was for Chicago for Monday. We had been turning down load after load because most of them delivered right in California and we wanted to go east. So Chicago seemed like the right opportunity. Good, we got the load. Now we could relax and settle down. It picked up tomorrow afternoon right in downtown LA.

The next day we got up and went into the restaurant for breakfast.  We got up around 8:00 pacific time. But I did get a phone text at 5:30am pacific time from my wonderful son in law, wishing me a Happy Birthday. It was my birthday. But 5:30am? I love you, Bill. I ordered steak and eggs, yummy. Pops got what they called a Farmer’s omelet. It was an omelet with all kinds of vegetables and cheese inside and topped with sausage gravy. It said it was fantastic. I know mine was good.

After breakfast we went out and cleaned the truck. I cleaned the inside and he cleaned the box in back. By that time it was time to head for our pickup.

When we were leaving the truckstop there were motorcycle cops that had a car pulled over. We were waiting at a red light and they were right beside us. It dawned on me that they were “chips” California Highway Patrol. I wanted to take a picture but Pops said no, He said I would get in trouble. I think he just didn’t want me taking a picture of the men in uniform. Haha

I was driving because Pops thinks it works better when I drive and he watches the navigation. I think he just likes making me drive in the cities. Lol. It’s ok, though I don’t mind and he is a good navigator. The city looked pretty, although not as many skyscrapers as I had though there would be. We passed the LA Times building. We saw the Hollywood sign. I liked seeing that. It wasn’t as far away as the picture makes it seem. We saw every make of fancy car. We saw so many amazingly beautiful homes, oh my, what kind of job would you have to have to afford this? Wow! And the city was already decorated with Christmas decorations. And we saw a lot that was selling “live Christmas trees.”

We got to our destination but it was 3 different buildings and we weren’t sure which one so Pops went to find out while I parked on a side street and sat and admired the homes. I took some pictures but I didn’t want to appear like a peeping Tom or something so I tried to be inconspicuous. Haha. I think I saw the house that Kevin from Home Alone lived in. Lucy wanted out here. See, she likes upscale too.

When Pops came out he directed me around the block and into a dock. It wasn’t long before we were loaded and ready to go. Pops said that the guy there was strange. He was really worried about this load. He wondered what we would do with it over the weekend. Well, we will be driving it, duh.

Oh it felt good to get away. My mood was better just knowing we were leaving California. We drove out of LA a different way then when we went in. We drove through San Dimas and San Bernadino. I drove and drove. Traffic coming out of LA on a Friday afternoon was pretty bad. It seemed to take a long time. Finally we were out into the desert and moving. And it was starting to get dark. We passed Barstow and not long after that we got a message from FedEx to stop, Load needed to go back to LA. What! Are you kidding me? I just wanted to burst into tears. I cannot believe this stuff. Pops’ phone rang and it was FedEx. The shipper wanted us to bring the load back. We were at a place called Zzyzx. How do you say that? I am so mad. They were not cancelling our load we just needed to return and he wanted to take off two packages. We were 183 miles out!!!! So, we turned around. And went back to LA. We were kind of quiet the whole way.

Once there it didn’t take long for him to get his 2 boxes off and for us to get moving again but honestly can you believe we had to do that? We did get compensated for it though, but still.

We really did a lot of speculation as to what could possible be so valuable that he would turn us around for 2 boxes. I will not even go into what we imagined. But hey, it could have been anything.

We lost about 7-8 hours during that whole ordeal and we didn’t even make it back to where we turned around before we had to stop to sleep. We were both so tired and it was about 3:30am eastern. We decided to sleep for about 3 hours, which turned into about 5 or so. It felt like 5 minutes. I can’t believe how tired my body gets from driving. My arms actually ache after 11 hours and I won’t even talk about my back pain.

Pops bought me a really nice Bluetooth headset for my birthday. So now I can talk while driving and it isn’t noisy. That will make my driving time easier especially when Pops is sleeping.

Well, we just entered Nevada. It won’t be long before we see Las Vegas. Whoppie!

I am going to take a nap now. Pops is driving. He has 5 and a half more hours than it’s my turn.

Hopefully, it will be a nice, enjoyable ride.

I heard the Ladies Tea at Wills Mountain was really nice today. I am so glad to hear that. I hate it that I missed it. I love you, ladies.