Come along for the Ride!

I am so glad you are here. Stay with us as we travel everywhere. I hope you will enjoy the ride.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Rock Island Arsenal

It was so cold and chilly when we woke up. It was raining really hard too. We got a load that was picking up in Ithaca, NY and going to Michigan. But for some reason Gypsy didn’t want to give us directions. No matter how we typed in the address or even just the city name she said she couldn’t generate a route.
It was frustrating but thank goodness Pops is good at reading and following a map. We stopped on the way to our pickup so that I could get some paper plates and bowls that we needed but then we drove in the rain across miles and miles of back country roads until finally we reached the town of Ithaca.
It is a nice place. There is a lake and a lot of neat little shops that I would’ve liked to stop at but time and Pops wouldn’t allow it. Haha
We made our pickup and realized that we had a lot of extra time built into our trip. So we didn’t hurry we drove at a relaxed pace and looked in the directory for a church along the way to attend in the morning. Pops located three churches and tried to reach all three but no one answered or returned our calls.
We stopped at a rest area and slept for several hours and then Pops drove us into Sandusky, OH. There was a church there so we drove to it and found plenty of parking.
As we parked the truck someone greeted us and invited us in for donuts and coffee, but we weren’t ready yet so we declined.
We got ready and left the dogs out for a little while and then went into the building. A man, I think his name was Scott, showed us to where the adults have their Sunday School class. It was a good class with about 20 in attendance. The lesson was about our future glory with Christ. It was a good discussion but of course, as some of the best discussions tend to do, we got a little sidetracked. I enjoyed that class a lot.
After Sunday School we went to the auditorium for worship. It looked like about 85-95 in attendance there. They sang a lot of songs. They had a praise team and a powerpoint screen. I like all the singing and the team was very enthusiastic.
The evangelist is Don Spurlock and his wife is Cherie and it just happened to be Cherie’s birthday. They were very nice people and Don gave a great sermon. He was very interesting and easy to listen to.
We met a really nice man, Jim,  who is originally from Indiana, PA. He still has a farm there that he come to and hunts. Oh boy, the magic words to catch Pops’ interest. They talked and talked.
After services, Jim wanted us to go eat with him, but we couldn’t because of our afternoon delivery and we still had some miles to travel.
It was so good to once again meet such wonderful people. We liked this church and the people. We will remember this one and mark it in our book for the next time we travel through here on a Sunday. That could be next week or not for 3 years, who knows? But it is good to have a good place to worship on our routes.
So we made our afternoon delivery and then drove to Ft. Wayne, Indiana for our layover.  We spent the night at a Walmart.
The next day we got a visit by a young man of a certain religious affiliation. He wanted to share with us. But the weird thing was, he knew my name. He called me Ms. Ryan. I asked him how he knew my name and all he said was that it was his ministry to visit truck drivers and share. But it bothered me that he knew my name and he could tell. He didn’t stick around long. We do not have a number on our truck or our names so I can’t figure it out.
We got a load picking up in Rock Island Arsenal, IL which was over 300 miles away and delivering to Dover AFB. They wanted us there by 3pm but we couldn’t make it on time so they rescheduled for the next morning which gave us the day off. So we used the time to get 2 new tires put on the truck and drove closer to our destination.
We had to drive the outskirts of Chicago and believe it or not we saw a live coyote right along the interstate highway. I couldn’t believe there would be one that close to the city. Wow.
The next morning we drove to Rock Island Arsenal. It is a huge military base and the story of the place is very interesting. Look it up on google and go to Wikipedia. You will not be sorry.
After getting through the gates the first thing I saw was the cemetery. There were so many tombstones, all of them in rows and all of them white. It was something to see for sure.
Everyone there was so nice. It didn’t take us long to get our load on and get moving. Once again this was a high security load with satellite surveillance. We were hauling military weapons.
I began to drive now and it was 9am. I drove all day through Illinois, Indiana and into Ohio. I saw so many policeman stopping vehicles. There must have been some kind of sting going on or something. I have never seen so many stopped vehicles. I’m just glad I wasn’t one of them.
We made our delivery to Dover which was a piece of cake now that we had been here before. We still have to take the dogs out of the truck while they searched it though. But in no time we were unloaded and now we are in Trenton, NJ on layover waiting on a load.
Pops is sleeping because he drove most of the night. I am trying to get caught up on some of my stuff that I need to, like paying bills, catching up the blog and of course Drawsomething, the game I am addicted to on my ipod. Lol
Our daughter, Starla had a medical procedure done yesterday which is preliminary for another upcoming surgery that she is having done on May 16th so please keep her in your prayers.

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