It’s been a whirlwind visit here in Las Vegas.We hit the ground running when we got here between prepping for my brother’s surprise birthday party, quickly followed by all the last minute things to get ready for Christmas.We had lots of family coming and going.My niece Allison came up from California and my mom brought her fiancé Joe (wedding to occur next month) from Tennessee.We had a houseful for a few days.In between a couple trips to the casinos, we managed a trip to the Hoover Dam, a lunch at the top of the Stratosphere for a great view of the Las Vegas valley, and a viewing of the overhead lights at the Fremont Street Experience.We will take off the rest of the week here to recover from all the excitement.This Saturday, January 1st, we will head to San Francisco from here and will stay on the road until May.We have a couple cold months ahead and possibly many miles of treacherous winter driving to boot. We're just grateful we missed the big blizzard in the east this week.I’m already wishing for spring.
Here’s a bunch of pictures we took over the past few days.
As we saw the big snow storm coming to the Midwest, we fretted a bit about our trip from Charlotte to Chicago last weekend.As it turned out, we were the last truck to get loaded and by the time we left Charlotte at three o’clock Monday morning, the snowplow crews had pretty much done a fantastic job of cleaning the roads up for us.We heard warnings from other drivers who had left before us about the slippery Kentucky roads with jack-knifed trucks.Our only problem was the Tennessee roads and as soon as we hit the Kentucky border, it was smooth sailing for us.We made it up to Chicago with time to spare.It wasn’t the snow that bothered us but the cold temps were almost unbearable.The windchill that night we stood out there backing our truck and trailer into this little alley was -19.As much as I could hardly stand it, I really felt for poor little Rocky.
Once we finished with that trip, we headed to Kalamazoo, Michigan to pick up our next load.It was a loaded trailer for the show Wicked that needed to get to Tucson, Arizona.No problem – we were more than willing to head south and to warmer temps.We drove the 1900+ miles nearly non-stop and were rewarded for our efforts with temps in the 80’s.
Our work is done until the end of the year.We decided to take some hometime and will be hanging out in Las Vegas until New Year’s Eve weekend when we are scheduled to be in San Francisco.Let it snow – we won’t have to drive in any of it until January.
Merry Christmas to all my friends and family!
This is never a good view from our office window. I took this picture just north of Knoxville, Tennessee on our way to Chicago.
We were happy to see the sun come out and see the more beautiful side of the snow storm.
We love our job! We delivered the show to the theater in Durham, NC on Tuesday and have until Sunday night to occupy our time with anything we’d like.We only had to drive about two hours down to Charlotte, NCbut other than that, what are a couple truck drivers to do? Some things we accomplished - we finished up our Christmas shopping, wrapped gifts, and found a little post office to ship it all off around the country.Work has begun on Christmas cards as well.Mostly we have just relaxed, watched television, and surfed the web.Does truck driving get any easier than this?We do have challenges ahead for the weekend as we take the next show from Charlotte up to Chicago.We’re thinking it’s cold here but apparently it’s nothing compared to what we’re going to find in the Midwest when we get there Monday.
Speaking of surfing the web, a friend of mine recently asked me how I can find so much to do on the computer. This is a perfect example of how I while away the hours and entertain myself on these days we have to wait while a show plays. As usual, when we have the time we check the map for a back road, get off the interstate, and take a route we have never travelled before. Not only is the trip more scenic, most of the time the roads are smoother too. That’s what we did yesterday.One thing we were watching for is cheaper fuel.We can always get a better deal at a mom and pop store than the big commercial truck stops.We saw a good price at a station as we zoomed thru Concord, NC but were going too fast to make stop so we broke our own ‘never go back’ rule and found a place to turn around so we could take advantage of the good price. However, the point of my story is not the price of the fuel, but what we saw when turned down a side street to make the u-turn.Across the road from the fire department that we turned around in, we noticed several huge old abandoned buildings that looked like a backdrop from a horror movie. There must have been five or six of these huge brick structures that had been boarded up, dilapidated, and were somewhat overgrown.What in the world was this place, we wondered - possibly an old school or college, a state hospital facility, or even a prison? It was all very eye-catching but we saw no signs around to explain what we were looking at.So I snapped a couple quick pictures and took to the internet to figure it out while Jorge took off to fuel. My curiosity was piqued.I’ve heard you cannot trust Wikipedia on a lot of things but it, along with many other websites, did clarify the answers to my many questions.As it turns out, these grand old buildings we had happened upon were what remained of an old detention center for white, male juvenile delinquents of the early 1900’s.They called the place the “Stonewall Jackson Training School”.Wikipedia had this to say about it…
"Boys were generally incarcerated for relatively minor scrapes with the law, including school truancy. At the school, the young men lived in a series of dormitory style buildings, and received an academic education as well as learning a trade. Students worked in industries including shoemaking, printing, barbering, textiles, and a machine shop. Many of the young men worked on the school’s farm, learning modern agricultural techniques, and maintaining the fields and cattle herds that supported the school. The print shop produced a small newspaper called The Uplift."
By the time I was done reading about it, I had learned quite a bit about the people who had lived there and this place I had never heard of before and will probably never see again.I just wish we hadn’t travelled so far past it so we could have gone back for a second, more thorough peak at the place.It was sad to see what had once been such fine architecture crumbling and no longer useful.Check out the picture I took from the truck window.It happens to be the exact same two buildings that I found on a picture from back in the day. So it’s not just sitting around, this job is an excellent learning experience as well.
This is obviously the picture that I took. What I first noticed was how the front of the building on the right was complete covered by trees and ivy. There were several more buildings nearby that looked very similar.
This is a picture of the very same two buildings that I found on the web.
I checked to see if I could find a copy of the the newspaper they published and found this issue from 1909 - over one hundred years ago. I don't know what the contents of the publication were but the paragraph on the front is showing off what was then their brand new dormitory. lt is also the very same dormitory that's overgrown in the picture I took above.
It’s time to get caught up on the past couple weeks.It’s not like I haven’t had the time to do it.We drove from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania from Schenectady, New York on some serious back roads of Pennsylvania and New York. I love to go thru all the little towns along the way. We got there just in time for Thanksgiving and as truckers had the advantage on the Black Friday shoppers since we parked in the mall parking lot overnight. All I had to do was roll out of bed and into the mall bright and early in the morning.We saw our first snow of the season there as we toughed out the cold temps, knowing our next destination would be Florida. We brought ‘White Christmas’ to Tampa last weekend.While in the Tampa area we are lucky enough to have family (my sister Linda) and friends (our fellow Clark drivers, Don and Dale) to visit and so we did both.Wouldn’t you know we brought the cold with us? It was funny to see the Florida locals all bundled up with hats, scarves, and boots complaining of the cold although to us it was still nice after our time up north.We did enjoy a couple of nice days though and our hearts went out to all the drivers stuck in the lake effect snow on the roads in New York. We got out of there just in time.
There’s been a couple schedule changes made but we’re in Orlando this weekend picking up ‘Young Frankenstein’.It will be a short little trip to Durham, North Carolina and back to the cold. Might as well start the winter and get it over with.
This would have been my dad’s 79th birthday so I’m especially remembering him today.I miss him so much.
The pictures below were taken as we cruised thru the little towns and rural areas of northeast Pennsylvania. It's typical for the homes to be so close to the busy roads. We also saw alot of Christmas tree farms gearing up for the upcoming season. There is the obligitory picture of Rocky modeling his new sweatshirt and another I took of this cool palm tree at the theater in Tampa.
Combining a love of travel and history, not to mention the need to work and fund those travels~ we found the perfect solution to satisfy our wanderlust ~ as over-the-road truck drivers. The nomadic lifestyle is surely not for everyone but it has worked well for us for several years. It has taken us to countless places we would never have gone and we've met many friends along the way. Join us, Jorge and Rhonda ~and Rocky, the trucker dog ~ in our adventures on our perpetual, mobile camping trip...