Oh my Gosh

Oh my gosh, we have been running ragged, it least it seems that way. We barely have time to do laundry or even stop long enough to eat while sitting still. I have mastered how to brew the perfect pot of coffee while traveling down the highway and also (and this is a bit trickier) how to do dishes while Pops drives, without all the dish water splashing down his back.

We left Minneapolis; it now seems ages ago, to go for a pickup in South Dakota that was going to Garland, Texas. I was happy because South Dakota is another new state of us. The very first thing that we saw when we crossed the state line was a casino. Well, so much for first impressions.

It was getting toward evening and our pickup was not until morning so we found a rest area not real far away from our pickup. And as usual when we went inside we grabbed some brochures and info of the local area.

When we got back out to the truck Pops was busy with facebook and texting his friends and I began to look at the brochures. There was a state park only 6 miles from us called Sica Hollow. So I started reading all about it. The brochure told how when the American Indians found the spot they noticed that the area was a very deep, wooded, swampy ravine with some vertical drops of more than 200 hundred feet. They also noticed that the swamp and the stumps in the swamp seemed to glow and some of the artesian springs were bubbling up red water that looked like blood and that there was foaming quicksand. All of this frightened the Indians and they concluded that the place was evil so they named it Sica, meaning evil, and it is pronounced, She-cha.

The legend goes on to tell of a man named Mr. Roy who decided that because of all the wildlife there that he was going to make his home there and the Indians were afraid of him and called him crazy to do such a thing.

Later in years several explorers wanted to settle in the area and were never seen again. At one point, some were sent in to find the settlers but never did find any sign of them.

Well, I decided that I did not want to visit there and I didn’t even like staying within 6 miles of the place. Of course, I ended up having bad dreams that night.

We got up early and made our pickup. The scenery was beautiful. I loved the landscapes of South Dakota. It was nice rolling hills and deep ravines and at times miles of prairies. It really was a very pretty state. We saw horses running along the highway. They were running free, not fenced in. I don’t know if they were running loose because they got out of a fence or if they just run free. We couldn’t really tell.

We also saw many wild turkeys. And they were different from the ones we have back home. They had a lot of white on their backs and tails.

We finally passed  through South Dakota and was driving through Nebraska. I was searching for postcards for my dad so we were stopping at several little places all along the way.

We drove through a town called Norwalk, and I saw a house that had a sign that claimed this was the boyhood home of Johnny Carson. Well, that was cool.

We traveled through Oklahoma and then into Dallas. We made our delivery and then we waited. There were 13 other Fedex trucks ahead of us on the dispatch. Oh boy, this is why I don’t like to come here.

We ended up staying all that day and the by the next morning we were the number one truck on the dispatch list. Pops got a phone call and we got a message from Gypsy that his name was pulled for a drug test so we got directions and took off to get that done.

By late afternoon we were dispatched to pick up in Little Rock, AR and delivering in Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh.

While driving through Arkansas we saw a lot of deer. I also smelled a wildfire. I drove through smoke for about 4 miles and it was really beginning to choke me and then I was through it. I never did see any fire though.

As we drove north it got more and more chilly. And by the time we reached PA we actually turned on the heat.

We made our delivery in the evening and were already pre-dispatched on a load that picked up the next day only 38 miles away and was going to Syracuse, NY. So we found a Walmart and spent the night in their parking lot.

The next day I did some grocery shopping and then we went to make our pickup but the load wasn’t ready and we had to wait. When it was ready we were told to be in Syracuse by midnight so we high-tailed it out of there.

We were about 15 miles away from delivery and had about ½ hour to get there when we got pulled in for a random DOT inspection. Oh boy, now we will be late. We sat and waited while the inspectors went over all the paperwork and trucks of two other drivers in front of us. And then they waved us out, just like that. Whew, we still had 20 minutes.

We made it to the gate with about 3 minutes to spare only to be told that our company had not made an appointment for us and that meant that we would have to wait until morning to get unloaded. They were so kind as to allow us to park at their gate. So we slept at their gate with their floodlights on us all night long.

They did unload us very early in the morning though and we got moving. We headed toward Albany for a layover. We wanted a shower and we needed a new tire on the truck. So while they were putting the tire on we showered and by the time we were finished we already had another load.

We were heading to NJ to pickup and then taking that load to Texas.

Oh my the traffic going into and coming out of New Jersey was crazy. It was so heavy and everyone was in some big hurry. And it continued to be that way for so many miles. I know it was like that the whole way through Pennsylvania, down through Hagerstown and then began to thin down. By then it was time for Pops to drive so I hit the sack.

When I woke up we were in Crossville, TN. I made some coffee and got started driving right away. I drove the whole way across Tennessee, all of Arkansas and a good ways into Texas. By the end of my turn I had driven 684 miles. Wow, that’s a lot, especially for the end of a busy week already.

I did enjoy all of the scenery though. I especially liked seeing all the cotton fields that are ready for harvest. We did see some that had already been picked and baled. Those are some big bales, the size of truck trailers. And I was very glad to be back where the weather was warm. Actually Dallas was showing 90 degrees and it was nearly sundown.

So we were Texas to Texas and several places in between all in one very busy week. Whew, I’m tired and the laundry is needing done again.