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.

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

The most beautiful week that we've had so far

We were in Iowa, but got a load picking up as quickly as we could get there in Madison, WI. So we got a move on. This load was going to San Diego. It was a classified load. 
Since we were in such a rush to get to Madison and it was mostly rural country roads there wasn't much to see. So while Pops caught some sleep, I drove and listened to an audiobook. I sure keep Itunes audiobooks in business. haha
Once we got the load on we backtracked almost back to where we were that morning and then kept on going. It stormed so severely through Iowa while I drove. The rain was extremely hard and the lightening was harsh flashes that snapped very close by. Because of our previous loads being constant surveillance loads we were out of sync. I was driving at night and Pops would drive through the next day. So I pushed on through the dark and storms until morning came and we had just entered Colorado. I stopped at a Walmart and we got restocked.
Pops drove us through Denver and up, up, up and over the mountains. I woke up late in the afternoon.



'
We were at a rest area that was also a memorial to the Vietnam Veterans. It was very nice.


Shortly after that, we were in Utah. We stopped at a place called Ghost Rock. It was a rest area with a scenic view. We spent about 2 hours there, taking pictures and enjoying the scenery. There is a pretty huge canyon there.

















By dark we were almost to the southern end of Utah, about to go into Nevada. We were running way ahead of schedule so we stopped for the night. I stayed awake for most of the night and monitored the load while Pops slept and then very early he got up and took over while I slept some. 
Then we got going, I was driving. 
We entered Nevada and enjoyed the beautiful scenery there.




We drove through Las Vegas in the afternoon.



After exiting Nevada, we were in California. Shortly after coming into the state Pops and I began to see donkeys all through the desert. We saw 5-6 small herds of them, including little ones. It was so cool to see the wild donkeys. 

We reached San Diego by dark. We found a great secluded parking spot that was only 6 miles from our delivery. It was a very pretty place. We have been all around San Diego before but never right there, so this was nice to get to see it, especially at night. I was surprized by the mountains there, and the greenery. I was expecting flat, desert-like places. But no, it was gorgeous.



After our delivery in San Diego, we got another load. It was picking up in Los Angeles and going to Tucson, AZ. So we headed north, but we had many hours to do it. So we lingered at a rest area along Route 5 that was next to the Pacific Ocean. Oh, how serene it was to spend the late morning hours there. 







Our pickup location was very near to the Los Angeles airport. We were scheduled to pickup at 8pm. However, 8 pm was 5 pm on Pacific time so we got so entrenched in LA traffic as we were coming out. It took us almost 3 hours until we got far enough away from the city to actually be able to drive the speed limit.


After delivering that the next morning we got another load back to San Francisco, but that load cancelled. Almost immediately we got another load. It was picking up in Calexico, CA and going all the way east to Georgia. 
Calexico is a town right on the border, half California, half Mexico. It was such an awesome ride there. We passed desert made of gigantic sand dunes. We stopped at a rest area and took some pictures but we didn't stay long because it was so hot that you could almost feel your skin blister. 









103 degrees.

These two pictures are out of order. We took these once we reached Atlanta.


The drive from Calexico, CA was a pretty drive as well. Even the normally brown, boring deserts near El Paso and all of western Texas were kind of pretty because of the recent rains. We saw many blooming cacti.
Morning in New Mexico was just amazing. I stopped for a bit at a rest area overlooking Los Cruces. The place got it's name, The Crosses, because it is a major travel route and during the early days, there were so many crosses on the graves of those killed by Indians.



We drove through Midland, Texas which is mainly oil wells. The place smells like oil. And the desert is filled with hundreds of oil wells, maybe thousands.

We got to Atlanta and 4:20pm in the afternoon. The workers went home at 4. Ugh! So we lost a predispatch load that we were on and had to spend the night at the customer and wait for morning. In the morning we got unloaded and then drove 2 miles to a truckstop. Then we got another load that was picking up there and going to New Jersey.
After we picked up the load we got trapped in the rush hour traffic of Atlanta. It took us 4 1/2 hours to get far enough away to travel the speed limit. That was almost twice as bad as the LA traffic!!!


We got to drive right by the New York skyline on our way to our delivery in New Jersey. It looked so pretty. Our delivery was simple. We got unloaded and then drove to a truckstop. 



It is Saturday. We had a long, busy week. This is Labor Day weekend and we have a trip but not until Tuesday. So we get a chance to rest and relax. Too bad this part of New Jersey isn't as scenic as some of what we have seen this week. 
But I can't complain. We have really seen a lot of beauty this week. Our God is so wonderful to prepare all of this for our good pleasure.