First snow

We were making a pickup in Gaithersburg, MD. It was an evening pickup and so traffic wasn’t too bad, considering it is close to Baltimore and Washington, DC. We were picking up cartons that would be used for packing light bulbs. We got to our pickup sight and no one was there. Fortunately we had a phone number for our contact person and he told us that he was at dinner and would be there very shortly. It was less than 10 minutes until he showed up and another 15 minutes later we were driving away. We were delivering in Illinois.

Our trip was uneventful and we delivered and then went to a rest area for our layover. I made us a taco salad for supper and played outside with the dogs until dark.

We got a trip the next morning that picked up in Terre Haute, IN. As we were driving through the town I saw a place that had a sign stated that it was the birth place of the coke bottle.

It was starting to get colder and I was worried that it might snow. We stopped at a truckstop and showered. Now I had to drive with wet hair and I was really cold.

Our next trip was to pickup in Romeoville, IL and going to Springfield, MO. We were hauling appliances. We met a nice couple there. The husband also drives for our company and the wife was riding along for the week to see if she would like to do this for a living. She asked if she could take my picture to prove to her mother that there were other women who actually drive truck. She was very nice and asked me many questions that I answered as honestly as I could.

Once we delivered in Springfield, we began to turn down load opportunities that didn’t bring us near home. We passed up quite a few really good trips that I would have loved to be able to take. By late afternoon we still hadn’t gotten a load and then I was told to go for a random drug screen. So we headed directly there and that took up about an hour and a half.

We talked with our truck owners and made a decision to go to St. Louis. We thought we might get a better chance of heading east from there.

It was the last night of the World Series games and they were taking place in St. Louis. We saw the stadium lights and the blimp overhead and the city was light up with so many beautiful lights. We listened to the game that night and heard the Cardinals become the World Champions of Baseball.

The next morning when we woke up we were noticing that many of our family and friends back home were waking up to snow and cold, a lot of snow! Oh brother, it’s still October!

We chose a load that picked up in St. Louis and was going to Landover, MD. Landover is just outside of Washington, DC and is less than 3 hours from our home. So we will be picking up our load on Friday and it delivers Monday morning and after that our two week vacation would start.

We drove to our pickup and we were hauling airplane parts to the Belgium Military. But it wasn’t a high security load so we had the entire weekend to drive about 9 hours.

We took our time and stopped frequently. We were in no hurry to drive in snow. Then we realized that we could stop and attend our own home church on Sunday. We decided to keep that part a secret and planned to surprise everyone.

We did not run into snow until we reached the PA stateline. Then we stopped in Grantsville, MD to get showers and do laundry. Then we drove to Hyndman, PA and parked in the lot at the church and spent the night.

Everyone was surprised the next day and we enjoyed a wonderful service with our family and friends. We stayed in our truck throughout the afternoon and then attended the evening services. After church that evening we drove down to Landover. We parked in the parking lot of the Redskins stadium which is the same location as our delivery. We weren’t scheduled until 9:30 the next morning so we slept there in the parking lot.

At 7am the next morning someone knocked on our door and I could hear a man with a german accent talking to Pops and telling him that he would unload us now. So we backed into the dock and within 20 minutes we were unloaded and our vacation was beginning.

We were going home.