Last Sunday we were on layover in the Jackson, TN area. We were parked at the TA truckstop and I was outside after our noon meal gazing at the flowers near where we were parked.
I didn’t know what kind of flowers that they were so I took a picture and ask the facebook people for info. Sure enough within minutes I was getting answers.
I found out they were passion flowers and the vines also produced fruit called passionfruit. These vines did have fruit,but it was still green and not ripe or I would have tried it.
We did try some interesting food while there. There was an item in the prepared foods case that neither Pops nor I could recognize. It looked intriguing so I asked the cashier what it was. She said it was Chicken meal on a stick. Here is what it was, you will have to use your imagination to picture it because I forgot to take a picture. It was 3 big pieces of chicken breast on a stick with green peppers chunks, chunks of onion and thick slices of potatoes and then the whole mess was dredged through batter and deep fried. When done it was the size and shape of a batter fried Pringles can. But, buddy let me tell you, it was some seriously good stuff. And then I got a piece of chocolate cake from the restaurant and I am glad I only ordered one piece because their one piece equals at least 3 of my size pieces of cake. And it was good.
That evening we drove up to Walmart to restock our supplies. And Pops waited in the truck while I went in to shop. After the deep fried mess and the cake I figured I better buy some more healthy stuff so I picked up a lot of fruits and vegetables from the produce section. And then finished with the other stuff I needed.
When I got to the check out it was exactly 11pm and just as I pulled in to an aisle the young man turned his light off. But he waved me into his line. I told him that it was okay I would go to the next line but he insisted. He told me that he was supposed to get off work at 11 and that he was hungry and couldn’t wait to go home and eat. I felt badly for him and again offered to go to the next line but he said no.
Well, once he started to ring up my items we both realized that most of the produce that I had put into my cart did not have the necessary codes so each item he would have to call for a price check. I felt so bad that this was taking so long. Finally my last item was a small seedless watermelon so he called back and asked for a price on a baby watermelon, I heard him say, “I don’t know, it’s a baby one.” Well no one could give him a price on a baby watermelon so we had to wait until someone walked up to the front of the store and then go see what the price was. When they came up to the front with the code the young man punched it into the register but made a mistake when he punched it in and it rang up as $829 for the watermelon. I told him to put it back that I didn’t want it. We all laughed until they realized that his mistake would mean that my whole entire order had to be rung up again. Oh no.
But we finally managed to get it all done and I left the store. When I got to the truck Pops helped me load the groceries into the truck. I handed them up to him and he put them on the counter and on the bed. Then I heard him scolding Lucy and asked what was going on. He told me that Lucy jumped up to the bed and knocked the watermelon down and it broke when it hit the floor. Hahaha My $829 watermelon! That’s funny. But it was still in the bag, no part of it touched the floor, so I just scooped it out and put in into a bowl, simple.
We got a load the next day picking up in Kentucky and going to North Carolina. We took a lot of back roads to our destination in Kentucky. We saw a lot of farmers harvesting their tobacco crops. We saw a lot of it on racks to dry and hanging in barns. We even saw what we first thought was a barn on fire but we found out that sometimes tobacco is cured in barns with smoke.
Then in North Carolina we saw a lot of cotton fields.
We delivered in North Carolina and then got a load leaving there and going to Canada. While we driving north from NC we found out that our family back home had just had an earthquake. For real! An earthquake. And then we found out that the whole east coast had felt the earthquake. Wow!
I am still nervous going in and out of Canada. So Pops decided to drive us across the border this time. We were hauling wine bottle corks. We got right in, no big deal and no delays.
We got to our delivery and got unloaded and then headed back out of Canada. This time we got detained at the border because someone from our company typed something wrong when they sent our clearance papers to the border. But it didn’t take very long and we were on our way.
We got to the truckstop on the other side of Buffalo, NY and was waiting for a load. By evening we did get a load. But we needed to go into Canada to pick it up and bring it back to NYC.
So we drove up and crossed the border with no problems. And then drove to our destination. It was at a Casino right at Niagara Falls. So while our truck was getting loaded, I walked down to the falls. I didn’t stay long and I’m glad I didn’t because it started to rain and within minutes the streets were flooding.
We drove out of Canada and found a rest area to sleep. We got up the next morning to drive into the city. We had to go 39 miles into the city and then back out. We were in such heavy traffic that it took us mostly all day to go in, get unloaded, and then drive back out.
It was evening by the time we got 13 miles away from the city.
Now the news is talking about Hurricane Irene getting ready to hit the US. So our company was trying to get us to haul water loads into the city. We declined. We were too long in the city today and our nerves were shot from the stress of trying to drive around there. But our company was persistent and kept calling far into the night. So in the morning we drove more inland to Harrisburg, PA. We hoped that by doing that they would stop asking us to go back into the city.
By evening we got a load. We needed to drive up to Rome, NY, it is near Syracuse. We picked up our load and then got on our way toward North Carolina. The hurricane was due to hit NC in the am but we would be over 300 miles inland.
We only ran into a few sprinkles on our way to our destination.
We made our delivery and then were told to go to Greenville, SC for our layover. That makes me happy because we usually get a load out of there right away. And we would be able to attend church in Spartanburg with David and Linda Wilson. This, you will remember, is our church home away from home.
So we sit here and listen to the radio tell us how bad the hurricane is hitting and we wait with the world to see how bad it is going to be.
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