Southern Utah

Southern Utah looks like what I might imagine the moon looks like. It is a desert. There is some vegetation, but not much. It’s sandy and dirty and hilly and there are craters. Then we entered a gorge, Virgin River Gorge. It was like a small canyon. The river wound around the road and it was so pretty.

I took a lot of pictures, but most are through the windshield and you can see the bug guts. Haha When we came out of the gorge, we back into the desert. There were a lot of scrub plants and cacti. It looks a lot like the deserts you see on TV in the old westerns.

We stopped at a truckstop in the desert about an hour outside of Vegas. I took the dogs for a walk through the sand. I found a desert flower and took a picture. I bought my dad a cowboy hat there.

We saw Las Vegas rise out of the desert. It looked like 3 miles ahead, Pops said. Turns out it was 12 miles ahead. There really isn’t too much to it. A bunch of buildings, casinos, standing in the middle of the desert. What is the fascination? Of course I don’t gamble, so it didn’t interest me.

We found our Walmart and made our delivery. There is a big casino right next door and a bunch of shady characters everywhere you look.

We are on layover now. We will be heading to a truckstop soon. I am waiting on the Lord to show me what He can do. I want to be home by Saturday, does He want us home by then? If He does then something is going to happen soon.

When we left the parking lot of Walmart and begin to move toward Ontario, California for our layover we drove parallel to the Las Vegas Strip on highway 10 South. We could see all of the big name Casinos, The Trump, Caesar’s  Palace, The Wynn, The Encore, Mandelay Bay, And so many more that I can’t remember. It was eye catching and hard to stay in my lane as I gawked around. Lol

It didn’t take to long to get away from there though. As I said there really isn’t much to it. Pops was talking to our son, Frankie via text. Frankie wanted us to take pictures. Pops said he wasn’t taking pictures because we were in a hurry to get out of there because it reminded him of Sodom and Gomorrah .  Frankie told Pops to tell me not to look back or I would turn into a pillar of salt. Very funny, Frankie.

It didn’t take us long before we entered into Arizona. We were cutting through the corner of Arizona to get into California. We only drove 26 miles through there.  We were in California before we knew it. We saw signs stating that we were now in the Mojave National Preservation Area. The Mojave Desert. It was interesting. The sun was beginning to set and the mountains were red and pretty. We entered the San Bernadino Mts. And when we started down the other side San Bernadino City stretched out like stars on the ground. It was amazing. The mountains were lesser now but still pretty substantial, 3000-4000 feet. In the valleys in between them were lighted up cities that glowed so pretty.

We started to enter more populated areas as we got closer to LA. Ontario is a fairly large city just to the east of Los Angeles. I passed a lot of places that I had heard of on TV: Pomona, West Covina, Loma Linda, Riverside, Paramount and into Long Beach. Look up Long Beach on the map. We are so close the Pacific Ocean!

We wanted to find our shippers so we drove to the address. And we got really upset with Gypsy because once again where she brought us was not right. But this time it wasn’t her fault. I noticed that our dispatch address did not match our GPS address which means that one of the dispatchers typed a wrong address into our navigation. So we did find the place.

There were trucks and many campers parked along side the road. So we did too, rather than have to go find somewhere else to sleep. It was ok. I didn’t mind, but Lucy did. She was nervous and wouldn’t even pee there.

When we got up in the morning almost all of the trucks and campers were gone. I don’t quite understand what the campers were doing there. Pops thinks maybe migrant workers waiting to see if one of these businesses could use their help this morning. Maybe.

So we came through the gate and into our shipper. We are sitting here now because they have more for us than what we can haul so we are waiting while they decide what to do. It doesn’t seem to ever be easy. And,…. While we were here a man came by and asked us if we came down route 605 last night. We told him that we did and asked if he saw us. He said he did and wondered if we got our headlight fixed yet. You have got to be kidding me right? After all we just went through with our headlights. Well, sure enough it wasn’t working so Pops and I changed that while we are waiting.

If and when we get loaded we are supposed to be headed for El Paso, TX for a delivery tomorrow morning. Tomorrow is Thursday. Will we get a load right away? Is there any chance that we can home by Saturday morning? God knows! And He isn’t telling me. He is teaching me patience. Why am I such a slow learner?

Keep praying for us. Love you all.

Oh, I cannot believe this!!! Our load was just cancelled. It is a dry run. So now we have no load, we are not moving east and we made no money. It seems that God is trying very hard to teach me the lesson that I was going to teach on Saturday. Maybe I have more to learn before I can teach.

It really now seems impossible that I will be home. I don’t know what to do. I really want to be there and I don’t have anyone lined up to teach it. Lord, what are you teaching me? Help me to learn easily.