Stormy week

We ran over the weekend at arrived at our delivery in Indiana before they were open on Monday. While we waited to get unloaded we ate our breakfast. Pops had driven all night and he was tired. Shortly after, the load was off and pops slept while I drove us to Louisville, KY.

We were predispatched, but weren't picking up until late this evening. 

Pops called ahead to Memphis to set us up for a needed repair.

I got caught up on paperwork and kept quietly busy while Pops slept throughout the day. Then around 10 pm we drove a few blocks to our pickup. 

There were 3 other trucks besides us picking up at the same time but all going to different locations. 

The truck beside us was brand spanking new. And it was being driven by a couple in their early 20's. He said it was less than a week old and his father in law surprised them with it last weekend. It has a shower! I was envious. And believe I also coveted. Lord, forgive me, please.

We got loaded, pops was driving, I went to bed.

I woke up in Memphis. Our load was already off and we were almost to the repair shop. Our air conditioning unit had stopped working in the fall. In October we came to this shop to be repaired. Of course, the parts had to be ordered, however it was covered under warranty. So the parts were ordered. But this is our first opportunity to get here and have extra time. 

We planned to take ourselves out of service to reset our work hours. 

The repair took all of 20 minutes. 

We then drove to the truckstop that was less than 2 miles away to spend the day. 

I watched a Stephan King mini series in its entirety while Pops tried to sleep. 

Around supper time we got a dispatch picking up in Atlanta and going to Charlotte, NC. It picked up in the early morning and was a pretty big deadhead so we left that night.

The weather forecast was calling for severe weather in the south. Many states had tornado warnings and New Orleans and Baton Rouge had already had damage and some deaths. 

We knew that we would be driving through the areas under warning. I went to the bunk and hunkered down in prayer while Pops drove on.

The red is storm areas, the green line is our route.

Moon and star

Moon through the raindrops

We were told that this truck was blown over from the storms.

I woke up as we were entering the airport at Atlanta. We were getting our load right off an incoming plane. We made it through the storms of the night, yet the winds were still quite strong. The south had had many tornadoes and thunderstorms, the mid west had blizzards.

On our way to Charlotte, we sat in a traffic jam for over an hour. We heard that they were cleaning up freight and up righting a truck that had blown over in the windstorms.

We already knew that after this delivery we would be coming right back through this area for another pickup. 

We got to Charlotte and the load came off quickly. It was research items to help find a cure for the Zika virus. 

Now we were heading south again to Greenville, SC for a pickup. And again we sat in a traffic jam for a little over an hour for the same clean up activity.

Once we reached our Greenville location, which is a very large facility, we got signed in at the guardhouse and asked where our docks were located. At big plants, it sometimes is easy to get lost trying to find the right building and docks. We were told to follow the wide blue painted line on the pavement. There were also green and red lines. Easy,peasy. We drove right to our dock, backed in and was handed two buckets, yep, "handed" TWO BUCKETS. Now we were driving these all the way to Minneapolis.

Peach water tower in Gaffney, SC

Our 2 buckets

It was dark now and Pops was driving. We had to cross through the Smokey Mountains. It was snowing and rainy through there. Once we made it to the Tennessee side it was just rain, but still very windy and at one point, we were on a long bridge crossing the Holston River and the wind caught the side of our truck and blew us out of our lane. Oh my, I gasped, and my heart actually hurt. It scared me so badly. I wanted to go to bed and cover my head, but I was too scared. 

Then we got held up in another traffic jam. It was the third one in one day that lasted an hour or more. This time it was a rock slide. 

After we got through that one, we heard that it got even worse. In fact, it completely closed down the interstate and it is said to be closed for several weeks of clean up and repair. Wow, these storms are bad. 

And we saw even more.

As we drove through Indiana and Illinois, we saw so many abandoned, wrecked vehicles. These were casualties of the blizzards.

I drove all day. We stopped at the welcome center in Minnesota. We slept there. And then we woke early and drove to our destination. We weren't sure of where to go. We had 3 different sets of directions. When I got off the exit ramp, I needed to turn right then immediately get into the left lane for a left turn into the plant. 

I came off the ramp and waited for traffic. A car stopped to allow me out, but just as I made my move a car came out of the lane behind the stopped car and came around blowing the horn. They were right behind me now and followed as I turned left into the plant entrance. This is the same named company where we picked up but there were no painted lines to follow here and there were buildings all over the place and we had no idea where to go. So, I put my four way flashers on and tried to pull to the right hand side but 2 cars quickly passed me on the right. Then the horn blower passed me on the left, again blaring their horn. Wow, rude. 

After unloading our 2 buckets we drove east into Wisconsin to the closest truckstop. We had another dispatch but it did not pick up until later.

We watched tv and relaxed then drove to our next pickup. It went very quickly and without incident. So I started the drive to give Pops a chance to nap so that he could drive throughout the night. We were headed to Flint, MI. 

I like driving through Wisconsin. And yes, I did stop to buy some cheese curds and some other cheese products. 

On Saturday morning we made our delivery in Flint.

One of my most often photographed scenes, Castle Rock in Wisconsin.