On the road again

It feels good but yet sad to be back on the road again. I am glad to be back doing what I like to do, Drive. But it was sad to leave my family again especially when Starla is not feeling good and so far the Dr. hasn’t come up with what is going on and she cannot go back to see him until she pays a lot of money.  That doesn’t seem right to me, but what can you do? She has a pacemaker and needs care, so she will have to go.

We left the house Monday morning and drove to Cumberland, MD to get some new tires on the truck. It took about 5 hours to do that. While we were there we were offered a load picking up about 60 miles from home  and delivering in Savannah, GA on Tuesday evening. That would give us an opportunity to go back home for the evening. So that’s what we did.

I cleaned my bedroom and washed the sheets when I got home and fixed supper for Bill, Starla and us. We had pork chops and applesauce, no we didn’t. We had pork chops, parsley potatoes, and cauliflower. It was nice spending the evening with them one more time. We got ready and left home about 10pm.

We drove to our destination and slept until our load came. It was a truck to truck transfer that was coming in from Canada. He was almost 2 hours late, which started us off late. We were hauling airplane landing gear, cool. Once loaded we set off for Savannah.

It wasn’t long before Pops needed to sleep, so he went to the bunk. In a little while I saw a really pretty river flowing through a gorge. It was amazing. I’ll have to remember this, I thought. Where are we? Route 19 in West Virginia. It is called the New River. Wait a minute! Wait a cotton picking minute. I know this route, I know that name. Oh no!

I was with Pops once when he hauled potato chips and we crossed this BIG, AND I MEAN REALLY BIG!!! Bridge. The water below looked like a thread that’s how high up we were. He explained to me that people parachute off this bridge. It is the highest, arched suspension bridge in the Western Hemisphere.

And I was going to have to drive across it, or was I? I could wake him up and make him do it, right? Why didn’t he warn me? He knew how I felt about this bridge. Oh boy. I still had 12 miles to go until I got there. Trust me, I was in a sweat. What was I going to do? I kept on going until 1 mile to go. There is a pull off, a place for people to take pictures of the bridge. He is sleeping so good. Well, I could close my eyes and hope for the best. No, I didn’t do that. I sucked it up and drove. I did not look away from right in front of me. I just drove. Whew, I was finally across. I did it. Whew, I did it. I hate bridges. Did you know that I hate bridges?

Anyway, I kept on passing pickup trucks with trophy bucks on the back. It must be good hunting here in West Virginia. I saw one with brown antlers. I never saw brown antlers before. Once Pops woke up he told me they are called “chocolate” and they get that way from the deer rubbing their antlers on nut trees, like walnut or chestnut trees. Hmm, I learned something.

Traffic was starting to really pick up around 3:00 in the afternoon. I guess everyone is going over the river and through the woods to Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving. When we pulled into rest areas they were filled with people and pets. Twice at two different rest areas we saw cats in the grass. I wonder if they got away from their owners and had to be left there. What a shame. How heart breaking would that be to love your animal so much to bring it along only to lose it at a rest area? Oh my. I couldn’t stand it.

As we got further down south it stopped raining and got warmer. By the time we got to Savannah it was 8:30pm and still 70 degrees. I could live here, at least this time of year.

We had to be escorted through the airport to the garage type building that we needed. They had us unloaded and on our way in under 15 minutes. We put our unloaded call into FedEx and were told to go to Fayetteville, NC for layover. So here we are, waiting for a load. I think with this being a holiday week, we may have some trouble getting a load, who knows?

Oh well, I have some stuff to do. I just made us breakfast of blueberry pancakes with real PA maple syrup, Yummy. I got the truck clean, and the dishes washed. So if I am going to be stuck somewhere I am glad to be here where there are palm trees and the warm weather.