an old Johnny Cash song...
Well my ocean is four lanes wide my waves are mountain high
I sail a twenty ton schooner with the will of do or die
And my cargo must go through to the port that waits for me
I live on luck for I drive a truck ~I'm a sailor on a concrete sea
So here's to the unsung hero though he don't make history
From coast to coast let's drink a toast
To the sailor on a concrete sea.
|^^^^^^^^^^^^^^| ||
|Jorge, Rhonda, & Rocky |||'|';, __.
|_..._..._______===|=||_|__|..., ] -
'(@)'(@)'' ''''**|(@)(@)*****''(@)
Greetings from Shelbyville, Kentucky
12.31.09
We went to bed last night in St. Louis with dry ground and woke up to about an inch of snow. We had considered spending another day with Danny but thought we should just get to our next destination since the weather map was looking a bit ominous. We are on our way over to Norfolk, Virginia and it's proving to be a rainy trip the whole way. If we plan it just right and cross the Applachian Mountains in the daytime, we can avoid the snow there. I-64 from Indiana to it's end in Virginia is a winding, hilly road that would be a challenge if we were to get caught in snow anywhere along the way. Saturday night we have to turn right back around and head to Tulsa, Oklahoma with "Legally Blonde".
We don't have any real New Year's Eve plans tonight. Jorge is planning to make dinner here in the truck and I suppose we'll watch all the other partiers on TV. We will count our blessings and thank God for all we have - especially good family and friends and a job we love. Happy 2010!
We wish you all a very Happy New Year!
Greetings from Naples, Florida...again
12.28.09
Have any of you ever spent a night inside a Walmart? We did - but not by choice. We were parked in a Walmart parking lot and were getting ready to go pick up a few items after our long trip the night we got up to New York. Just at that moment some friends in a couple other trucks showed up at the very same Walmart. I asked Jorge if he had a key before we got out to chat with our friends. He said he had one so I figured I didn't need to grab one as I was leaving. That was my first mistake. It’s a long story about how Rocky got up on the window sill and locked us out, and how we made phone calls to locksmiths for hours and hours inside Walmart to no avail. They all claimed they couldn’t open a semi truck window. Jorge kept insisting he must have dropped the key and scoured the Walmart floor looking while I insisted he’d never had it to begin with but rather had left it in the truck. Many hours, telephone calls, and $220 later, we were finally back in our truck when one guy graciously attempted to open the door for us. Thankfully he succeeded. Oh- there on the driver’s seat was the key Jorge had been looking for… Rocky was sitting on it.
Indianapolis is only a couple hours west of our house. We were told we would have nothing to do workwise once we dropped our trailer in Indianapolis, so we made plans to go visit family in Toledo for a couple days over Christmas. We figured we’d still have a few days at home and were looking forward to getting some things done there as well. About 24 hours after arriving at home and on our way to spend an evening with my daughter, Mandy, and her husband, Orville, we got a call from the company informing us they needed us back in Naples, Florida again. Based on the weather map this week, Naples wasn’t a bad place to be. Needless to say, we had to scrap our Toledo plans and geared up to go right away before the snow reached Ohio. That’s how we ended up back down here very unexpectedly. We have to stay flexible and be ready to change plans at the last minute. This is a good example of that.
While we were near Tampa, we were graciously invited to spend some down time at the home of our friends – Don and Dale Beuckman. They are also drivers for Clark Transfer and have a little chiquaqua named Gizmo that may quite possibly be the only dog more spoiled than Rocky. We sure did appreciate their hospitality and felt very much at home while we were relaxing there for a couple days.
After leaving their house, we met up with my cousin Pat and his family who were vacationing for the week in Bonita Springs, a town not far from the theater in Naples. It’s a small world as we had expected we’d maybe see them in Toledo had we gotten there for Christmas, not in Florida. It was good to see and meet them for dinner.
We’re trading the warmer weather for cold once again when we leave Naples tonight. We’re off to deliver this show to St. Louis, Missouri.
We didn't take too many pictures this week and I figured it had been awhile since I've posted any pictures of Rocky, the Trucker Dog. He's such a handsome fellow. He looks like he's eyeing a McDonald's cheeseburger in this photo.
It's not quite a Florida sunset but I felt the need to embellish this one.
Greetings from Naples, Florida
12.13.09
From San Antonio, Jorge jumped off the truck and flew to see his mother (she’s recovering nicely from her recent surgery) since we were that close. Meanwhile, Rocky and I spent the past week driving to Florida. Destination Naples, with a two day layover to see my sister Linda and her family in Seminole. We picked Jorge up at the airport last night so we’re back to being a team again.
Now tonight we’re on our way from Naples to Newark, NJ….back to the cold. We’re taking “The Color Purple” show this week. It plays there for a week and we’ll wait for it to finish before we pick it up again next week and move it all to Indianapolis. I’m hoping to use the week of sitting around to finish up my Christmas shopping and shipping. ‘Tis the season…
This is what really cold looks like in Montana. I was fighting a losing battle with the windows frosting up until the sun started to peek over the mountains.
Jorge took this picture of the mirror while I was driving thru the ice storm in Texas. It was a few inches thick on the back of the mirror, headlights, windows, and everything. It was truly by the grace of God we made it thru that storm without incident.
This is my sister Linda and her husband Jorge out in front of their home in Seminole, Fl. What are the chances we would both marry a guy named Jorge Eduardo?
Greetings from Spokane, Washington
12.4.09
That night a big group of us went bowling. My mom was in town visiting my brother, Steve, and Steve’s girlfriend, Francis, was there with her brother and mother too. We keep our own bowling balls in the truck so we’re always ready to go bowling. Plus I had even brought my bowling shirt sporting all my bling earned bowling on leagues in years past. In spite of all that, it was one of the worst games I ever had bowled- barely getting to the 100 mark. It was still fun and I lost no money on wagers with my brother. Every ball we throw it’s ‘I’ll give you 10 bucks if you can get that’ or ’20 dollars if you can get a strike.’ Afterwards Mom and I went to the casino where I quickly turned $20 into $100. I eventually lost all that but it’s more fun losing their money, not mine.
It was a short visit and we managed to get some Christmas cookie decorating in before we had to take off for southern California on Saturday. We even took my niece, Allison, with us, back to her home in Riverside. From Costa Mesa, we took a show up to Denver. It’s only just over 1000 miles which is not much for seasoned truck drivers like ourselves but it sure seemed long. We slept like babies once we finished up with that. We’d been lacking sleep ever since we left Tempe the week before but had been just too busy to get caught up. It was one thing after another.
After Denver, our next stop was Spokane, Washington. It’s another nice long ride up there thru lots of mountains and pretty western scenery but the weather turned so cold, we could hardly stand to get out of the truck for any length of time. Poor Rocky is really missing southern California this week. On the ride yesterday from Bozeman, MT to Post Falls, ID the temps ranged from -7 to 7. As luck would have it, our generator, which provides us with heat when we stop for the nights, sprung an oil leak and we couldn’t use it. So we ran the truck 24 hours a day to keep warm wondering where in the world we were going to find somebody to fix our generator up here. I emailed the guy who designed and built it and who usually does the work we need done on it. I remembered him telling us he was originally from Idaho so I thought maybe he could suggest a repair shop for us. Better than that, he hooked us up with his brother who is also a generator expert and lives only about five miles south of the interstate. He told us to stop by and get it fixed and so we did. These Idaho guys are pretty hardy. Poor Jorge was out there for a couple hours all bundled up in his winter gear and this guy was just wearing a flannel shirt, not even a hat. It’s back to working again and that’s the main thing. We can heat the truck using the generator for a quarter of what it costs to run the truck nonstop.
Our mission this weekend will take us from Spokane, Washington all the way down to San Antonio in two days. The show we are hauling is ‘Lion King’. Jorge intends to spend some time with his mom again next week as long as we’re that ‘close’ to the border while Rocky and I make another solo run – this time to Florida.
When you drive into Las Vegas from any direction, you can see the famous Las Vegas strip from many miles away, day or night. It's a great view of the valley, even with a lame cell phone tower disguised as a palm tree in the foreground.
This is the moon over the Montana mountains. As you drive thru Montana, it's one scene after another just like this. It gets more beautiful the further west you go.
I love this picture of the frozen pine trees in Idaho. The temps were averaging around 0 on this trip.
Greetings from Tempe, Arizona
11.22.09
Jorge got a call from one of his cousins in Mexico last Saturday that his mom had been diagnosed with colon cancer and needed to have surgery right away. We spent a night in a Denver hotel while we made plans on just how he was going to get there. We have to be flexible on this job but taking off work on a moment’s notice is sometimes impossible. Since we were headed to Cleveland the next day, we booked a flight from there to south Texas. He was to leave on the morning we were supposed to arrive in Cleveland. Rocky and I were going to make the drive by ourselves out to Tempe, AZ which was fine because I had all week to get there and I didn’t think it would be a problem.
We were somewhere in western Nebraska in the absolute middle of nowhere when the truck gave me some kind of error message on the dashboard. I pulled off to the side of the road, stopped then started the truck, and it started working again and away we went. We got as far as Des Moines, IA when Jorge was driving. He decided to stop for fuel and as he was getting ready to leave, the truck did the same thing but this time it wouldn’t go into gear. We were on a very tight schedule not only get the load to the theater, but also to get Jorge to the airport. Long story short, we ended up calling a tow truck to pull us a couple doors down to where there was a Volvo dealership. I explained our predicament to the mechanic and he said he’d make it a priority to take a look at it. A couple hours later, he told us the bad news. The clutch on the truck had busted and it would be a day or more before the truck would be done. We had no choice but to rent a semi truck and continue the run without all the comforts of our home. It was a dirty, nasty truck with a stick shift that I had forgotten how to drive since ours is an automatic. The cruise control was broke and there was no radio but Jorge was the hero on this trip. He drove all the way to Cleveland and then back again (because I couldn’t shift that truck) to return the rental to Des Moines. I had to change his flight from Cleveland to Des Moines and delay it a day. When we finally got back to Des Moines, Jorge was able to leave but our truck was not ready as they had promised. I had to hang around as the mechanic was still waiting for some parts he ordered to come in. Rocky and I spent an extra day in a hotel just hoping and praying the mechanic could fix the truck so we could begin our trek from Des Moines to Phoenix. Finally about midnight Wednesday it was ready and we took off. If there is a bright spot in this story it's that if we had to break down, at least it was right next to the truck dealership, tow truck driver, and rental truck place. It could very well have been western Nebraska. Lucky for me, I crossed paths with some friends in Oklahoma City who were also heading to Phoenix and I was able to tag along with them to help keep me moving. We finally made the 1400 miles from Des Moines. I picked Jorge up at the airport today after making several circles around the terminal in our semi truck. Just that in itself was enough fun for one week. So at least for now, we’re back to being a team.
On a sad note, Jorge’s mother came thru the surgery for her colon cancer with flying colors but during the operation, the doctor found what he suspects is more cancer that he wasn’t able to take out. They’re awaiting some test results to figure out where to go from here.
Tonight we’re loading up ‘Phantom of the Opera’ here in Tempe. We will be in Durham, North Carolina on Wednesday morning.
Happy Thanksgiving from our little home to yours!
We got to Denver on a Thursday afternoon and it was about 70 degrees. It started snowing Saturday afternoon and by Sunday morning, this is what we woke up to.
Snow accumulation on the mirrors in Denver.
On our solo trip to from Des Moines to Tempe, Rocky and I took the scenic route which is just about anywhere in Arizona. It's a beautiful state. I took this while negotiating the hairpin curves.
Greetings from Denver, Colorado
11.13.09
We have been covering some miles in past couple weeks. We did make that trip to Philadelphia and that was interesting. Thankfully we don't go there too often as it's just one of those towns just wasn't made for semi trucks. I think Ben Franklin probably drove his horse and buggy to the same theater we and several other trucks were parked in front of to unload the show that morning. We like to get into these places in the middle of the night when there is no traffic because it would be impossible otherwise. The streets are so narrow that in order to get a big truck to the theater, we had to make a left turn off the main street, back across thru the intersection, then back it down to the theater. Of course by the time we left later that morning, it was rush hour traffic and getting out of town was a nightmare. In addition to the regular morning traffic, there was a transit strike going on to add even more to the mix. A simple little turn onto the interstate and we could have been on our way but no- they had traffic cops out that morning and we weren't allowed to make that turn we so desperately needed. So now we had no idea where we were going and wandered aimlessly thru the city trying to find a way to get onto that road that would lead us out of town. You never notice how many low clearance bridges are in Philadelphia until you try to drive a semi thru town. We went under one arched bridge that we surely missed by a hair and were never so happy to finally get moving westbound after our trek thru downtown Philly.
From there we drove over to the company headquarters in Harrisburg, PA. Our company recently decided to sell off a bunch of 48' trailers they were no longer using and we decided to buy one of them. We had been racking our brains as to what we would do with our furniture and all our belongings once we sell the house. The last time we were happily homeless, we put all our stuff in a storage unit in Las Vegas before moving it all to Ohio. We thought of all options - renting another storage unit, maybe putting it into a small apartment, or even just selling everything we own as we're not using it anyway. Then came the word about these trailers for sale and it seemed like the perfect solution. So we are now the proud owners of a trailer that we will little by little eventually fill with stuff on our rare trips home. That way, if or when we decide to settle down again, we can just be our own moving van and pull our stuff to the next place. We figure one day we'll take the wheels off of it and make it a great big storage shed, stained glass shop, chicken coop, or whatever. The possibilities are endless! So we pulled it back to Englewood, Ohio, dropped it off, and headed down to Houston, Texas by the following weekend.
This was our third or fourth trip to Houston in recent memory. Other than some good Mexican food, I don't have too many memories of Houston as I usually just hunker down in the truck and stay close to the air conditioning the whole time we're there. This time of year wasn't too bad though. We'd been noticing a little trouble with the truck's starter so we zoomed down there and had a shop that had done some other work for us previously, install the new stater for us. It's working very well and it should after that $600 repair. We do have to spend money to make money though and I will just write it off as a tax deduction and chalk it up as reinvesting in our business. After hooking up our trailer, we spent the night at the local truckstop awaiting our turn to go down to the theater and get loaded up with 'Mary Poppins' gear. After nearly six years of truck driving and having to park in many questionable areas of the country, we never had a night like we did at that truckstop. Apparently there were several 'working girls' or as the truckers refer to them - lot lizards- combing the lot looking for 'work'. We had somebody knock on our door three times in less than an hour while we were trying to get some sleep. Rocky is usually pretty laid back but he can make a good guard dog when he has to and somebody knocking on the door in the middle of the night is one thing that really gets him barking. Sleep was becoming impossible and I finally got up, opened the window, and before she could barely get a "hey baby" out of her mouth, she saw it was me. We had a few choice words and then I called the police on them. We headed downtown near the theater to get some sleep. And from there it was on to LA.
We were one of the first of about sixteen or seventeen trailers to get unloaded in LA. That gave us the headstart we needed to hurry up and get to Denver. We saw the weather reports of snow coming in the mountains so we didn't waste any time getting here. The snow is great when you can just sit and watch it fall but definately not what you want to be driving thru in the high mountain passes in Vail and surrounding areas. They can get alot of snow at 10,000 feet. So today we did just that - sit and watch it snow. Yesterday when we got here it was nearly 70 degrees. This evening it must have snowed about four inches in just a couple hours. That was fine with us. Jorge made a nice spaghetti dinner in the truck while we watched our satellite tv and the snow fell around us. We have all the comforts of home.
Congratulations are in order for my son, Danny today. He is wrapping up his last days in school and today was big because he found out the 80+ page thesis he'd been working so hard on was approved and accepted, paving the way for him to receive his master's degree in mechanical engineering in December. I will be the proud mother of two lawyers and two engineers. Mandy falls into both catagories. Now does anybody know where he can find a good engineering job?
Sunday we get back on the road and we'll be taking 'Wicked' over Cleveland. Looks like we might get one day at the house after that so I may just start packing up boxes once again - now that we have a place to store them.
You can barely see the theater here in Philadelphia for all the trucks parked in front of it. We're in the middle of the row.
I took this picture at the Ahmanson Theater in downtown LA. Talk about a tight squeeze...the other truck was in there first and Jorge did a perfect back into the loading dock. We managed to get in and out of there without hitting anything.
It's kind of hard to tell what this picture is at first. I leaned out the driver's side window to get a shot of how close these two trucks really are to each other. This is why I don't do backins. I'll stick with driving forward and doing the paperwork.
Greetings from Cedar Falls, Iowa
10.31.09
Once done in Hollywood, we had several days to ourselves and decided to head to Vegas to spend time with my brother Steve and his family as well as celebrate Jorge's 40th birthday. What a coincidence that Jorge's cousin Lulu and her husband, Henry from Brownsville, Tx just happened to be visiting Las Vegas at the same time as we were there. We all got together on Fremont St. and had a great dinner and lots of sangria. We tried our hand at the roulette table. Jorge won some, I lost some. It just wasn't a good night at the tables. More fun at the country bar topped off the birthday celebration. It was nonstop activities while there between bowling, a helicopter ride, and a trip to the korean spa- a first for me.
Back to work after that. We went from Costa Mesa, California near LA and took 'Rent' to Cincinnati. My daughter Mandy's law office was only a couple blocks from the theater there and it was nice to be able to meet her for brunch once we got unloaded. Sixty-something miles north of Cincinnati is the Casa de Martinez- our house. It had been July since we'd spent a night there and the weeds had pretty much taken over the flower beds again. One day and lots of wheelbarrows full of weeds and we were able to see what was left of the flowers that hadn't been frosted yet. We got to spend two beautiful fall days in Union. It was looking good when we left yesterday for Cedar Falls, Ia. Tomorrow we pick up 'Mamma Mia' and head over to Philadelphia.
Happy Halloween and Reformation Day!
This is one of many pictures we took while on the helicopter ride over the Hoover Dam. It's a good shot of the huge bridge that's still under construction. That's being built as a bypass since the big trucks can no longer cross the dam since 9-11.
Lulu and Henry, me and the birthday boy!
The youngest Palenske- 13 month old Emma with her Aunt Rhonda. More than one person pointed out that we have the same haircut!
I took this parting shot as we were leaving home yesterday. I should have done a 'before' picture with all the weeds so you can see the difference but there was alot of work done on this yard in one day.
Greetings from North Bergen, New Jersey
10.16.09
From there, we had little time to spare to make a run over to New York state last night, pick up an empty trailer, and get down to New Jersey with it where we are today, getting a load we'll take out to Hollywood, California by Wednesday. That's another nearly 2800 mile trip. Cha-ching! For a few weeks it's almost like the old days where we'd run coast to coast non-stop. We'll even get to stop by our house briefly on our way thru Ohio. We haven't been there since July and we need to turn some heat on and empty the water pipes so they don't freeze. We are going to get home again in a couple weeks but it's been cold enough lately we don't want to take a chance of broken pipes while we're out on the road. The calendar says October but it feels like winter in this part of the country this week. We're seeing way too much sleet and snow than I care to this early in the fall.
I've included a few random pictures we've taken over the past couple weeks. We've been too busy doing the "hurry up and drive then sleep" routine rather than being the tourists we generally like to be.
Last night it was pouring down rain. Rocky was none too thrilled when I got out his little rain slicker. I like the way it matches his eyes.
This was part of a huge crowd of people leaving the Paramount Theater in Seattle. These folks are our 'bread and butter'. So long as there are people buying tickets, we have work to do.
This was one we took out by the Oregon coast a couple weeks ago. We will be doing that again first chance we get.
Greetings from Little America, Wyoming
10.7.09
Driving down the I-80 in Wyoming can be pretty boring. Especially twice in two days. There's not too much to see, that's for sure. To make matters worse, there is barely a telephone signal, let alone a signal for the internet - my main source of entertainment. Without that to keep me busy while Jorge was driving, I had to resort to something else to do. I began pointing and clicking and eventually got my creative juices flowing when I found the paint program. It's been awhile since I've messed around with that, I thought. Check out the results of my efforts. Okay, it's no Bob Ross but look at the attention to detail. I even put me in there on my laptop. And 100 miles came and went in no time at all.
Greetings from Seattle, Washington
10.04.09
We took so many pretty pictures this week it's hard to pick a favorite. This is just one of many.
Rocky and I found a big old log to rest on.
This was taken near Florence, Oregon.
Greetings from Tempe, Arizona
9.27.09
The nice cool weather we had on the trip down and even thru the mountains came to an abrupt halt once we got to Phoenix. Today's high was a whopping 105. Thankfully we're not spending much time in it.
Today we are loading up a show called 'Legally Blonde' and taking it to Sacramento, California. Then on to Seattle by next weekend. Time to bust out the long sleeves and sweatshirts.
Driving down I-40 there is a little indian town called Laguna, New Mexico. The old route 66 goes right thru the town but on the interstate there is just a pullout that has a great view of the old mission church. The mission, seen in the background of this picture, is San Jose de Laguna - built in 1699.
As we drove down the Salt River Canyon, I made many stops along the way to take pictures. This was just one of many.
The pictures we took were nice but really don't do it justice. Around every hairpin curve was a different and beautiful sight to behold.
The runaway truck ramp is one trip we hope we never have to make.
When we get to the Phoenix area we love to stop and visit these folks who are my godparents, Bill and Pat Bein. Way back in the day when my dad was the missionary on the Apache reservation in Bylas, Uncle Bill was pastor at the mission in Cibeque, Az. We always appreciate their hospitality!
This was new to us. In Phoenix they have a Super Walmart just for the latinos. Hmmm...
Greetings from Nashville, Tennessee
9.20.09
We are taking 'Wicked' to Des Moines, IA tonight. It's supposed to be a quick trip as we're supposed to be there by noon on Monday. After looking at the map, there is no quick way to get there from here. Illinois keeps the truck speed limit at 55 and the alternative is US 61 up thru Missouri and Iowa. In other words, traffic and traffic lights. We'll have to hammer down on the straight stretches when we can.
Right in the heart of downtown Nashville is the Ryman Auditorium- the original Grand Ol' Opry. I've been in every corner of this old building as I worked here for four years when we used to live in the Nashville area. After Jorge and I got married, I got Jorge hired on too. It was a great way to see every country music act - both old and new and get paid for going!
Before going to the Nashville theater, we stopped at Centennial Park to give Rocky a good workout. That way he sleeps good on the trip. We paused to give him a chance to catch his breath and take family picture on the swing.
Another neat place in Nashville is the Parthenon. I was inside there many years ago but as far as I'm concerned, it's just a good place to throw Rocky's ball and take a walk. That's what we did here.
Greetings from Atlanta, Georgia
9.14.09
Here's something you don't see everyday. Our truck's odometer just turned over 700,000 miles! (see bottom right corner) They say these motors are good for a million miles with good maintenance so we're praying that's the case with our truck. I probably shouldn't brag but it's been running really good lately.
Greetings from Greensboro, North Carolina
9.9.09
We were treated to a nice visit with Mandy and Orville, and Danny too, while we were in Winona. They all had come up to spend Labor Day weekend with their grandparents and our visits overlapped so we had quite a crowd on Saturday. Mandy and Orv brought my grand-weenies Hank and Elvis with them so Rocky had company too. They all played well together though. After a great bbq steak dinner complete with fresh Minnesota sweet corn, we hit the road again and drove to Chicago in the wee hours of the morning.
That’s where we picked up ‘The Color Purple’ and spent all day Monday driving it thru lots of thunderstorms, up and down the hills across the Appalachians, and down to Greensboro. We’re staying here while the show plays this week and then we’re moving it to Atlanta this Sunday.
There are several blocks of shops and restaurants along this street in Galena, Illinois. We took a driving tour around town and saw the home of former president Ulysess Grant, as this was his hometown.
Here is Hank getting a little laptime from his great-grandpa...
The kids and dogs walked up the infamous Sugarloaf mountain where you can get a great view overlooking Winona. Here's Danny and Elvis after the climb.
Mandy and Orville posing on Sugarloaf...
Greetings from Carbondale, Illinois
8.28.09
We're out of the truck and hanging out with Danny for a few days. It's a chance to raid his refrig for a change.
Crossing over the Ohio River into Illinois, there is one long old bridge with no room to spare on it. I was driving, Jorge was snapping pictures and holding the camera with white knuckles.
While driving anywhere in the southeast, kudzu is a familiar scene. This vine grows wild and covers entire trees, old barns, and they even cut it back to keep from growing across the roads.
Rocky usually hides in his pile of pillows behind me while Jorge is cooking dinner on the bed - which doubles as the kitchen counter. This day Rocky got curious when he smelled the tacos Jorge was making and leaned up over my shoulder to see what I had on my plate.
Greetings from Houston, Texas
8.23.09
Last weekend we were in Clearwater, FL. The theater is only about 15 miles from my sister Linda's house so we were able to spend time with her crew for a couple days. No trip to Florida is complete without a trip to the beach, even if it's to take a few pictures just before the storm rolls in. That's what we did before enjoying a pizza at a beachside italian restaurant. I also got to meet my 15-month-old great-nephew Jonathan for the first time. He's a real sweetie but also the only baby I've ever seen who eats lemons and really likes them.
We picked up 'Mamma Mia' in Clearwater Sunday night and made the long trip down I-10 over to Dallas. We finished up there on Tuesday morning and really didn't have anything particular to do until today- Sunday. Once a year there's a huge truck show in Dallas but we've never been there at the right time to attend. The show was going to be held for three days this week and with five days to kill, we hung around to see what we'd been missing. We walked around the entire Dallas Convention Center on Thursday this week, looking at all the pretty trucks and picking up all kinds of free stuff. Everything from pens to t-shirts, chapstick to even a cowboy hat, we were both loaded up by the time we left. Mostly it was an opportunity to see how much chrome can actually be put on a semi-truck. Believe me, we saw alot of it. Jorge couldn't resist all the light displays and before we left, he had bought himself four new little strobe lights to put on the front corners of our truck. In an attempt to justify this purchase, he told me it would be a great safety item as we're often backing into a theater loading dock at night in the heart of many different downtowns. This would keep us from getting hit, he reasoned. So far we've only been hit once, and that was in broad daylight but oh well... you can never have too many lights - that's what I learned at the truck show. At least they're cheaper than chrome! One more highlight for Jorge - he got to meet the star of the Ice Road Truckers show.
From Dallas we bobtailed down to Houston- about five hours away. On the trip down we stopped for a night in a hotel for a change of scenery and a nice afternoon swimming in the pool. We are picking up 'The Color Purple' tonight and will rush it over to Charlotte, NC by tomorrow night. Then back up to St. Louis. Our trek continues...
We took this picture on Clearwater Beach. I wanted to get my feet into the white sand and I did.
There we are cruising down the interstate with our 'Mamma Mia' trailer watching the Texas sunset...
No- this is NOT our new truck. Just one of many very shiny chromed-up trucks we saw at the Great Amercian Truck Show this week in Dallas.
Greetings from St. Louis, Missouri
8.10.09
Last weekend we did a run from Houston, TX going up to Milwaukee. I guess that was the ‘Kid Tour’ as we were able to stop on our way up thru Illinois to have dinner with Danny. The next night after we finished up in Milwaukee, we fought the traffic to meet up with Shari and Andy and have dinner with them near their home on Lake Shore Dr. in Chicago. Since our next destination was Cleveland and we had five days to get there, we took a swing a little south so we could do some things around the house. That night we had a BBQ dinner with Mandy and Orv at their house before they left town on their Scandinavian trip. It was highly unusual but I got to see all the kids in three days. Very nice!
We weren’t even home twenty minutes and Jorge and I were both out in the flowerbeds picking weeds. It took us three days but we finally got that mess cleaned up. It’s been a lot of cleaning, weeding, mowing, raking, and dusting. We were never so happy to get back in the truck so we can finally relax. We really have no business being homeowners. We feel like if we don’t own a home, we won’t feel the pressure to get back to it. I’m switching realtors at the end of the month so I’m hoping my luck will change. Our house has now been on the market nearly six months and so far only five people have scheduled a viewing. I guess it’s a sign of the times.
Once we get done with Mary Poppins here in St. Louis, we are Clearwater, FL bound. We’re anxious to start heading that way so we can stop by Danny’s place in Illinois again. While we were home we loaded up the 42” flat screen TV we bought at the beginning of the year to take to him so at least somebody can get some enjoyment from it. His television got fried in a big storm they had in early summer. So for a couple nights it’s not only Jorge, me, and Rocky in our twin size bed, but we’re also sharing it with this big TV too. Needless to say, we are cramped. Danny’s been keeping busy wrapping up his master’s degree and will soon make job hunting his full time job. Anybody need a mechanical engineer?
After Clearwater it’s on to Dallas. Back to the heat and humidity we go. We had work done on our generator on our last trip to California so at least we have the a/c working well because we’ll surely need it. Not for much longer though. The summer is slipping away faster than I’d like. Can’t believe fall is just around the corner. It’s my favorite season but always seems too short.
We arrived in downtown St. Louis about midnight and walked around the theater district and park with Rocky. Here he poses in front of the famous Fox Theater.
Jorge and Rocky at the park near the theater.
Greetings from San Diego, California
7.27.09
On our way to Tempe this week, we decided to accept an invitation to the home of our friends, Frank and Donna, in Nogales, AZ. (On a side note, they are also drivers at Clark Transfer- in fact, we met them by chance at our last company and they talked us into following them to this one. It’s a decision we don’t regret too often. Check out the video from the company website kind of giving an overview of our job… www.clarktransfer.com/videolink.htm ) Back to Nogales, we had a great time at their place out in desert. I’ll include some pictures we took while there. Our southern tour continues as we must be in Houston by this coming Sunday.
O’er the distant mountains breaking
Comes the reddening dawn of day;
Rise, my soul, from sleep awaking,
Rise, and sing, and watch, and pray;
’Tis the Savior, blessèd Lord,
On His bright returning way.
I took this picture of an Arizona sunrise while out walking Rocky this week and it brings to mind this hymn we would often sing in grade school at the start of our morning school day. Being a child of the midwest one could only imagine what was meant by those first two lines.
It's been a few years since my four-wheeling days but we had a chance to run thru a little desert mud after the afternoon monsoon rains in Nogales.
One afternoon we took a pickup truck ride up to a canyon where Frank and Donna told us that due to the seasonal rains, we'd find some waterfalls and swimming holes. We drove quite a ways only to find a dry creekbed. It was a beautiful area but we did find a few other unexpected things. We saw one illegal alien sneaking thru the woods and another little camp where apparently another had to leave in a hurry without his clothes. Donna and I were hoping to find a bag full of money but that didn't happen. Frank did help himself to a nice leather belt he found hanging in the tree next to a knapsack and a pair of jeans.
In what I am sure must be some kind of federal crime, I have the evidence of Jorge picking a cactus off the canyon wall. Donna spotted it but we had no tools to get it. So Jorge used a stick and an cardboard envelope - the only things he could find- to scrap it off. It's now growing in Donna's cactus garden.
Their house is practically a bird sanctuary. All day long you can sit and watch up to four hummingbirds at a time, a tree full of finches, and many others. I missed a great shot of their favorite road runner when my camera batteries died on me. Donna told me they spend about $20 a week on birdfood when they are home.
Greetings from Hollywood, California
7.1.09
Normally that would be it for our work week but there was an extra gig to do this week. We had to zoom right away over to Hollywood, CA and pick up another show – ‘Dirty Dancing’- and we’re taking what is left of it back east. I say what is left of it because I guess it was a pretty big production but the show didn’t do so well as far as ticket sales go. So they closed it up and take everything such as wardrobe, sound, lighting, etc. back to the shops it came from. A lot of it we watched being pitched into the dumpsters out back.
It was a slow load out so we had 24 hours to explore around Hollywood. The old theater itself was very nice. It had once been used back in the 1950’s for the Academy Awards show and was also owned at one time by Howard Hughes. It is located right at the famous intersection of Hollywood and Vine and is also on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Looking at all the names on the stars was interesting. Who knew Big Bird, Rin Tin Tin, and even Judge Judy have their stars on the sidewalk? Now I am sure that back in its heyday, this was a glamorous place. However we walked about four miles around the heart of downtown and we found it to be very dirty and filled with all kinds of interesting characters. We all got out our lawn chairs, set them up under the theater marquee, and just watched the parade of people walking by while we waited for our truck to get loaded.
Our trailer full of sound equipment was supposed to be going back to New York City but there wasn’t enough time for us to pick it up, drive it all the way to New York, then be back down in Charlotte, NC on Sunday for the next show move. So we dodged a bullet and avoided a trip to New York when we were told to just take it to Charlotte and somebody else would take it up to New York from there. Whew! Now once we get to Charlotte, we’ll pick up ‘Phantom of the Opera’ again and take it to Houston. We are people on the move this week.
Coming across the deserts of west Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona we were running in and out of rain showers. The storms are funny because you can see the rain coming from so far away. This is common to see a big downpour right next to the sunshine. It's hit and miss with these storms.
A trip down the Hollywood Walk of Fame is not complete without a good memorial. Did you all hear that Michael Jackson died?? We saw lots of shady T-shirt salesmen trying to make a quick buck off the crowd of mourners. I resisted the urge to buy one.
Now HERE is a real rock star!
Greetings from Austin, Texas
6.23.09
Then it was on to Toledo, Ohio. All last week while we were there it stormed off and on and that kept us from making the two hour ride south to finish up a couple more things on our ‘to-do’ list around our house. Instead we stayed in Toledo and got to visit my mom, aunts, uncles, and cousins who all live there. It was good to see everyone. We saw more family, well sort of, a couple hours after we left Toledo as we were driving thru Cincinnati headed south on I-75. We passed Mandy and Orville coming back from a weekend trip as they were heading north. It would’ve been a great picture but I missed it as we were all honking and waving.
We left Toledo yesterday-still with “Mamma Mia”- about 5pm and planned to drive straight thru to Austin, Texas. It’s about a 24 hour ride. While I was driving in the middle of the night somewhere in southern Kentucky, I noticed that all the lights were completely out on our trailer. After several failed attempts by Jorge to try to fix them, our company finally called a local repairman to come over and help get us going again. It took the guy nearly an hour to get there but finally Bubba- with Bubba’s Fix-it Shop- showed up and we were back on the road again. I kept hearing Jorge call him bubba and I thought that was rather presumptuous. I had to laugh when I saw the receipt and that really was the guy's name! His timing was good though because I had put a beef roast and potatoes in the crockpot when we left the theater and it was ready to eat about 2am. That’s what we did with our time while we sat waiting for Bubba. There is no set schedule in trucking. The only time that means anything to us is the time we need to arrive at our destination.
Every now and then Jorge makes mention that we should move to Texas. After arriving here today, I refreshed his memory as to why he’ll never get me to move here. It was over 100 degrees today and the humidity is extremely high. It makes Las Vegas seem balmy in comparison. I honestly don’t know how people make it thru the summers here.
Once our trailer is unloaded tomorrow, we don’t have far to go to our next assignment. We’ll only go about 80 miles south to San Antonio to pick up “Wicked” and take it to Tempe, AZ next weekend. Meanwhile with five days to kick around, we’ve decided to make the five hour drive south to the Mexican border to visit Jorge’s mom and other family whom we haven’t seen in a year and a half. The family tour continues…
On our trip to Toledo we got off the beaten path and saw about six of these Amish buggies along the highway in Indiana. You'd think the horses would be afraid of our truck convoy. I wonder if they are as curious about us and our lifestyle as we are about them and theirs?
Greetings from Reno, Nevada
6.7.09
Our next destination was Reno. That’s over seventeen hundred miles to bobtail- that’s trucker talk for driving without a trailer - from San Antonio but we had five days to do it so that’s is plenty of time. With our extra time we decided to make a little side trip this week. Way back in the day when my dad graduated from the seminary, his first church was in a little town called Bylas, Arizona on the San Carlos Apache Indian reservation. That’s where I spent the first couple years of my life and I had never been back there to see what the old place looked like. It was quite interesting actually. The original church was no longer there. It had long since been torn down and replaced with another. The old house we lived in was also gone. In its place was a dumpy-looking double-wide that looked like it could be replaced any day. The pastor wasn’t there but I got a chance to speak with the principle of their little school. He gave us a tour of the church and told us that sadly, the school had closed its doors for good just days earlier. Same old story…not enough money to run it. After our visit there, we headed on down the road to Las Vegas.
It’s funny how it worked out for us to get a trip to Nevada. As truck drivers and operators of a commercial vehicle, we must submit to a D.O.T. physical once every two years. Our medical cards that allow us to keep driving are expiring on June 11th and we had to show the DMV our new cards to verify we passed the physical and keep from getting our license suspended. Since we kept our Nevada licenses when we moved from Las Vegas , it worked out perfectly to stop by and take care of that little item. For once we were in the right place at the right time.
This trip to Las Vegas had a ‘first’ for us. We never get to drive our big truck over the Hoover Dam due to restrictions against that sort of thing since 9-11. Because we weren’t pulling a trailer this trip, we crossed right over it with no problem. Oh, they did conduct a ‘search’ of our truck before we could cross. That consisted of the officer sticking his head inside the truck and declaring it safe to cross. Not a very thorough search in my opinion but at least they didn’t harass us. It’s a great view and beautiful scenery around the dam. I classify it a ‘must-see’ if you get to this area of the country.
While in Vegas, we took a day off to visit my brother Steve, his girlfriend, Francis, and my eight-month-old niece Emma. It wasn’t a typical visit involving casinos that one generally makes to Vegas. It was more like making a dinner of eggrolls and wonton soup while Francis tried her hand at making a pitcher of sangria. It all turned out excellent and was followed by a happy evening of playing dominoes. It was great family fun. We weren’t going to be able to leave yesterday until I accompanied Francis to her Saturday yoga class. That was another ‘first’ on this stop for me and I’m already feeling the benefits/pains of stretching every muscle in my body. Take my word for it, it’s hard to get in and out of a semi truck with sore muscles.
We've made it up to Reno now. It’s a bit chilly here for this time of year but it makes for good sleeping weather. Tonight we load up ‘Mamma Mia’ and take it 1500+ miles down Interstate 80 to Des Moines, Iowa. Back to the beautiful Midwest where there’s nice green grass… and cornfields again. By the time we get there, we will have made a big 4200 mile circle around the country in a little over a week.
We parked at the edge of Bylas to take this picture. We had no idea where the old church was so we stopped at the little post office in town and got some directions.
I guess I was Jorge's favorite subject for photos that day. Just after you cross the Hoover Dam is a great overlook of Lake Mead. The sun was going down and created a beautiful sunset in pastels. It was also very windy out there.
I took this picture as we were crossing the dam. It shows the Colorado River that forms Lake Mead. The white part of the mountain shows high water mark and how much the river has dropped. It is a big concern for Las Vegas' water supply.
Greetings from Union, Ohio
5.27.09
Today we celebrated our 9th anniversary. Amazingly enough, more than half those years were spent in our little 8x10 box we call our home on wheels… it must be love. We met at the end of January and four months later got married on the 27th of May in 2000. Here’s a photo from the archives. This picture was taken on one of our first dates.
Greetings from Boston, Massachusetts
5.24.09
Tonight we leave Boston with a show called "Spring Awakening" and head to Pittsburgh, PA. Oh boy, we get to go thru New York City but thankfully it will be in the middle of the night so traffic won't be a problem.
Just across the street from the Colonial Theater is Boston Common. It's a huge park in downtown Boston that is full of history. One thing I learned - among other things, it was where the British camped out during the Revolutionary War.
In the Boston Common park is an old cemetary. Here are the graves of some old patriots along with some of the British soldiers as well. I thought this was an odd thing the way there are graves behind all the little black doors. Hmmm...
As we were walking around the park, we noticed this cool old church nearby. We went to go check it out. It turns out this is where the Massachusetts convention met to ratify the Constitution of the United States in 1788. We really should take a few days next time we're in this area to check out all the history in Boston.
Greetings from Hartford, Connecticut
5.10.09
The picture is our view of the Capitol from our front window as we’re parked on the street.
The video shows our trip to the carousel. In the park is a museum and 100 year old carousel that only costs a dollar to ride. Being mother’s day it was only fifty cents so we went with a bunch of other drivers. This is a good example of how we pass the time.
Greetings from Wappingers Falls, New York
5.08.09
So do you believe in miracles? We do! We had one happen to us today.
A couple weeks ago we had the truck in the shop to fix a few issues. One of those issues was a problem with a fuse that kept blowing. This isn't just any fuse- it's an inline fuse that is directly connected to the transmission. When it blows, the truck loses power completely and will not start or even shift. It's been an ongoing problem -off and on- for the past year or so. This is the very same fuse that one time cost us $750 to have the truck towed to the shop only to have the mechanic replace it for less than a dollar - plus labor of course. Okay... that's background. Here's what happened today...
After leaving our house yesterday and a lovely day of traveling the back roads Ohio, we spent the night at a rest area not long after we crossed into Pennsylvania. We have plenty of time to get to our desination so we weren't in any particular hurry to get up to Hartford. The truck was running along just fine. Suddenly it started to give us this warning beep and a several messages popped up on the dash. One said it's the brakes, another says it's the ABS, and the other read 'system malfunction'. We hadn't a clue what was going on but we knew enough to see the truck was getting ready to shut down. To top it off, we were in a long single line going thru about 20 miles of construction and there is nowhere to pull off the road. We could envision all the angry drivers that were going to be stuck behind us while we wait for a tow truck, right? Out of the blue, the truck regains it's power but now the automatic transmission is not working- we can only shift it manually- but at least we can shift it!. The engine is running good but we're still seeing 'system malfunction' on the dash. So now at least it's moving but we were afraid if we'd stop or shut it off, maybe it wouldn't start again.
Thank goodness for the internet (what did the old-timers do in this situation?) because I got right online to find the closest Volvo dealership and discovered it's still two hours ahead of us. The truck was moving along fine so we decided we should try to make it over there. I called them up and they were only a couple hours from closing for the weekend and didn't know if they'd have time to look at our truck. We chose to go there and wait anyway. So by the grace of God we made it to their parking lot. Not long afterwards, it was in their shop and the mechanic went straight to that fuse and found it had heated up and melted into the thingie it goes into- so much that he couldn't even pull it out. He had to cut it out and replace the whole connecter thing (these are highly technical mechanical terms) but to bottom line it... it was fixed in less than an hour. The mechanic came over and told us that we should have broken down on the road and shouldn't have been able to drive it the two hours it took to get there! I'm hoping he may have finally fixed it for good now. Long story short- we're back on the road, there's a beef roast cooking in the crockpot, and we're still on our way to Hartford! It was a good day.
This weekend we're taking 'Phantom of the Opera' from Hartford, Ct to Minneapolis. God-willing, we plan to spend a day or two with the folks in Winona, Minnesota after we deliver.
Since we had taken a show to Columbus, we figured we should at least run home and pick up the mail and run a few errands. Mostly we just worked out in the yard though. Here is Jorge standing next to some of his hard work. We were pleasantly surprised to see that the tulips were still in bloom. The next one is me and Rocky sitting on the front steps waiting to get on the road again.
Greetings from Kansas City, Missouri
5.3.09
We have covered a few miles since my last update from Cincinnati. Our next stop from there was directly over to the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania area where we ended up putting the truck in the shop for a couple days. According to the mechanic who fixed it, we were lucky to have made it that far with what we learned was the fan clutch going bad. Evidently if it breaks while driving down the road, it can go right thru the radiator. Thank God that didn’t happen to us. A couple other little things to fix and $2200 later we were back on the road. There is no such thing as a cheap repair when it comes to a semi truck.
Last Sunday night we were picking up ‘Happy Days’ from Hershey, Pennsylvania for a run down to Melbourne, Florida. Every now and then the opportunity comes up for us to see the show and such was the case with this one. It was a good production but I’m glad I didn’t pay any money to see it. Then it may have been disappointing. The theater in Melbourne was not far from the beaches and we enjoyed a good night’s sleep with the sea breezes blowing. It was a good time to get in and out of Florida before it gets too hot and unbearably humid.
From there our next destination was Kansas City, Missouri. We had about five or six days to get here which is plenty of time. Along the way we were able to stop in Carbondale, Illinois and give Danny a chance to entertain his mother for a couple days. I hadn’t seen him since last summer so we were glad for the opportunity to visit. He is finishing up his master’s degree in mechanical engineering at SIU and fervently looking for a job.
Today we are in Kansas City waiting for the show-The Color Purple- to finish. We’ll leave around midnight and be in Columbus, Ohio with it by Monday afternoon. We’ve decided to spend a couple days at the house this week. I haven’t picked up my mail since the beginning of April and I’m sure I can find a few other errands that need to get done as well. I shutter to think what the flower beds must look like by now. One day of yard work is in our future. We’ll get that done and be at our next pickup in Hartford, CT by next weekend.
Here's a picture of Danny and I taken before we left his apartment. It's also a good shot of Jorge's latest project. Apparently you cannot have too many lights on your truck so he has been busy installing a dozen amber lights along both sides of the truck.
Greetings from Cincinnati, Ohio
4.21.09
We left Austin, Texas at midnight Sunday and got to the Cincinnati area almost 24 hours later. We missed most of the rain storms except for some showers in Kentucky that produced one of the most brilliant and full rainbows we’ve ever seen. The loading dock at the theater in Cincinnati is always a fun one to squeeze into. I took the video below to show the challenge Jorge faces as he tries to line up the trailer perfectly to fit between the low fire escapes that are hanging onto the sides of the building. They never intended for trucks this big to fit into these alleys when they built this city. What the video doesn’t show is how he has to drive way up onto the sidewalk to get enough room to barely make this turn. Now there is some professional driving!
We had a couple issues with the truck while in Austin that had us sitting on the side of I-35 with no power for several minutes while we wondered what to do next. Surprisingly it finally reset itself and started right back up. My prayers were answered and it ran just fine coming up here. We’re not going to press our luck so we’re putting it in the shop tomorrow to fix what seems to be an electrical problem. After we finished at the theater, we were close enough to our house to go home but decided against it. Since we’d done such a good job of cleaning it up for the realtors to show the last time we were home, we didn’t want to go mess it up for just a couple days. Instead we’re heading over to our next stop in Hershey, Pennsylvania and to some mechanics we are familiar with.
Greetings from Austin, Texas
4.17.09
We didn't get to Mexico as we had been planning. We would've only had a couple days to spend there and Jorge wants to go when we can enjoy more time and not be so rushed. So we've been hanging out with a fun bunch of truck drivers that are doing the same show with us this week. Yesterday we went to the bowling alley for entertainment. It's been quite a while since we'd been bowling and I showed them I haven't lost my touch. I was able to eek out an impressive 181 for the high score of the day. Today was a stormy and rainy day here in central Texas so we designated it "girl's day out" and I headed to the mall with a couple of friends. I don't need a thing nor do I have room for much more in the truck but we had a fun day mostly browsing the sales. Weather permitting, tomorrow is going to be a day at the riverside park for bbq and fun with the dogs. It's a tough job but somebody has to do it!
We stopped for a night in El Paso, TX on this trip. I took this picture of Juarez, Mexico as we were passing thru on Interstate 10. It's only a stone's throw from the road. You can barely see the border fence on the other side of the train tracks.
Trucking halfway across the country can sure tire out a weenie dog.
Greetings from Costa Mesa, California
4.12.09
Happy Easter to our family and friends! It's been a beautiful spring day here in California with everything in bloom.
We took our time this week bobtailing down the roughest road in the country ~ California's I-5. Apparently California has no money for road construction. I thought we were done with snow but we saw more of it as we came thru the mountain passes in Oregon and northern California. Hopefully that's it for the season! I'm ready for summer where all we have to worry about is the occasional tornado or maybe a hailstorm.
We are picking up a show here in Costa Mesa called Avenue Q and taking it to Austin, Texas. This week we're waiting with this same show to play for a few days in Austin. As long as we're that close to Mexico, we're thinking we'll make the eight hour trip down to visit Jorge's mom for a couple days in Matamoros, Mexico. That's just across the border from Brownsville, TX. It's been over a year since we've been down in that area and we do have a couple days to visit so I'm pretty sure we'll make the trip. I just hope sweet and loving Rocky can survive a couple days with his cousin Chacho, the mean little Mexican chihuahua that protects his mom's place.
California has some of the prettiest flowers and trees...especially this time of year.
The down side of a trip to Southern California is a long trip down one of LA's crowded freeways.
Greetings from Portland, Oregon
4.9.09
We successfully made the trip from Cleveland to Tacoma with little excitement. We did hit the snow around Toledo not long after we left and saw several cars in ditches all thru Indiana. Jorge kept telling me to relax and go to sleep but who can sleep thru that? Especially when I can see him passing slow cars on the left lane that is snow-covered. I drove thru Chicago just in time for the morning rush hour and it was sunshine all the way after that. We were lucky most of the snow stayed to the south and by the time we got to Montana, it was a beautiful spring day in the 60's.
One of the perks of this job that we really love is eventually we get around to visit so many friends and family. Such was the case this trip as we passed thru Winona, Minnesota just in time to have a lunch with my dad and step-mother Gerry. It was basically eat and run as we had to keep moving but it was good to see them, if only for a short time.
While in Portland, we're taking advantage of the 'no sales tax' and purchasing a big mirror for the driver's side of the truck. It's been vibrating since we bought the truck and at some point, the bracket that connects it to the truck broke causing it to bounce around even more. We were going to buy it once before but it's an $800 mirror (it's electric and heated but not gold-plated) and they said it would be about $300 to install it. Needless to say, I had to give my Mighty Putty a chance to work. It didn't. So as long as we are back in Oregon, we figured the mirror is a pretty important part and we better pick one up. We were happy they gave us a little break on the price ~only $650 ~ and Jorge is going to try to install it when we get down to California tomorrow.
Here we are after our quick stop in Winona. That's us with my dad in the middle and our friends Frank and Donna on the left. They were traveling with us on this trip.
They don't call Montana 'Big Sky Country' for nothing. I read on the sign at the nearby rest area that this is the Crazy Mountain range. Something about some pioneer woman crossing these mountains and going insane. Guess she didn't have a cellphone and laptop to keep her busy like I do.
Passing thru the little part of Idaho on I-90 only takes about an hour of driving, but it's some of the most beautiful scenery in the Rockies. We passed thru the town of Coeur d'Alene just before the sun set to get this picture. It's on our list of places we want to stop at when we have time on a future trip.
Greetings from Cleveland, Ohio
4.5.09
All good things must come to an end and we are back on the road again. We drove up to Cleveland yesterday and are loading up today. Weather permitting, we will be in Tacoma, Washington on Wednesday. It's just 2500 miles from here to there. Once we get to Tacoma, we drop the trailer at the port where all the trailers are put on a barge and floated up to Anchorage, Alaska. The show will play there for a couple weeks. We have to get back into driving shape as we've been totally spoiled by that last tour. After successfully avoiding most of the winter snow, who would have thought we'd hit a big snowstorm in April?
Once we get to Tacoma, we'll start heading south to LA. It looks like we'll be spending our Easter in southern California this year. One good thing about time off is that it gives us a chance to clean out the truck. Our top bunk accumulates plenty of stuff along the way so we're back to having all kinds of room again. We've done our spring cleaning at home and in the truck so we're ready to roll.
There's our truck waiting for the show to end so we can get loaded up.
Greetings from Union, Ohio....again!
3.31.09
Week two of our rare hometime is underway. The 'honey-do' list has nearly been completed. The truck is still in the shop awaiting a part before it's road ready. I think we're both getting a little anxious to get back on the road. We definitely get more R & R when we live in the truck as opposed to the house. Jorge has painted his way through seven gallons of paint to complete all his projects. Tonight we're nursing our aches and pains of spreading two yards ~that's alot~ of mulch around every tree and over all the flowerbeds. On the plus side, the house looks great inside and out. With luck, somebody else will think so too and buy it.
The BEFORE picture of the basement...
The AFTER picture of the basement. It's like having another big room in the house. Not that we'll ever be here to use it though.
Greetings from Union, Ohio
3.24.09
We made it back home safe and sound. We can barely believe we'll be home for nearly two weeks. That's unheard of. It's a tad too early to plant anything but we spent the day outside yesterday just cleaning up the flowerbeds, picking weeds, and raking. All my wildflower seeds from last year were already sprouting a new crop and I'm doing my best to get it under control before they take over while we're gone. On the plus side, I was happy to see all my tulips coming up nicely too. Sadly, I doubt we'll be here to see them bloom this year.
A trip home is nice but we seldom sit still long enough to enjoy being home. Jorge has already been busy working on the 'honey-do' list I've prepared for him. So far he's already painted the living room and started taking the wallpaper off the basement walls. Since this was once the model home, at some point while fixing the place up the builders or some overly zealous decorator hung some funky wallpaper that caused us to refer to the basement as 'the zoo'. It's covered with elephants, giraffes, and zebras which would've been fine had I been operating a day care down there. However, the nicest carpet in the house is in the basement but the walls were hard to look at. We're hoping it may help with the sale of the house. Or should the house not sell, at least it will look alot nicer down there for us.
We'll be home until April 5th when we have to be in Cleveland. We'll be picking up Spamalot and heading to Tacoma, Washington. After two weeks of hard labor, we'll be ready to get back in the truck and relax!
La Casa de Martinez
This is the wallpaper that just has to go. What were they thinking?
Greetings from Chino, California
3.18.09
Our tour with the Dublin Philharmonic is officially over. We delivered their stuff back to the airport at LAX this morning and we're homebound now. That's something that I can't say too often. With the exception of my birthday where we just happened to be passing by the hacienda and stopped to do laundry, we haven't been home since January 4th. We were supposed to be taking some instruments back to lower Manhattan but our company was gracious enough to let us go straight home to get some work done on the truck and let another driver finish the trip to New York City. We have to stay on top of the truck repairs or we're basically out of a job. It's definitely better to do the preventitive maintenance than break down out in the middle of nowhere. Trust me, I have a $750 tow bill from last year to prove that.
However no trip to Southern California in March is complete without a stop at the strawberry fields in Chino. I'm a firm believer that by the time these luscious morsels of goodness get around the country and into a grocery store, sitting under a 'California Strawberries' sign in the produce section of Kroger's, they lose a little something in transit. I'm proud to say we're carting around some of the freshest berries in the country. Just as soon as we find a grocery store to pick up the shortcake and cool whip, they're history! Chino is a little farming community about and hour east of LA. Even in Los Angeles it's not far to the nearest cow farm and fresh country aroma. We had to go there several times a few years ago when we were hauling freight and discovered this place. Nobody there speaks english but that's what I've got Jorge for!
So unless things change~ and they can~ we're looking at nearly two weeks off. That's fine with us. We've got alot to do around the house, especially now that it's on the market. Jorge has a 'honey-do' list that consists of alot of painting and yardwork, among other things. It's never relaxing to go home because we always find something that needs to be done. When we want to relax, we go back to work! Once this 'vacation' is over, we could be gone til Christmas or later. We just never know.
Spring is just around the corner. Even the desert is green right now, growing future tumbleweeds. The California hills that usually look like dry straw all summer long are now green and sporting blooming poppies and lavender. I hope you're seeing signs of spring wherever you are too!
See what I was talking about?
Here's Rocky ready to celebrate St. Paddy's Day. His shirt says 'Hair of the Dog'.
This picture of the orchestra was taken at the concert hall in Costa Mesa. What a fun bunch of people to travel with for the past two and a half months!
This tired trucker dog fell asleep on the steering wheel.
Greetings from Modesto, California
3.14.09
We have gotten so spoiled the past couple months with our short little one to two hundred mile moves we've been making since January. When the time came to do our longest trip of this tour last weekend -1680 miles from Kansas City to San Diego - it totally exhausted us. We drove nonstop except to fuel and made it in about 30 hours. We no sooner got there and had to turn back around and head 675 miles to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Just when we thought we've been everywhere, that was a new stop for us. If you're in the market for torquoise jewelry, this is your place to find it. From there it was on to Las Vegas. We spent the past couple days there and never even saw a single slot machine. I managed to run some errands, pick up the mail (we get mail in both Ohio and Nevada), and had a belated birthday celebration with my brother Steve. Plus we got some quality time with my youngest niece, six-month-old Emma. She is a sweetie.
Three shows left and our tour will be over. Today we're in Modesto, which is in central California. It's back to southern California again tomorrow with stops in Palm Desert and finally in Costa Mesa. Our last show is on St. Patrick's Day so it will be intersting to see how the real Irish people celebrate that. Did I mention that the bulk of the Dublin Philharmonic are actually from Bulgaria? Evidently they're willing to work for cheaper pay than the Irish. Jorge has buddied up to some of the Bulgarians who were pretty excited to experience lunch with us at his favorite Mexican restaurant while in Las Vegas. They are all a friendly bunch of people in spite of the fact that many of them speak very little english. One of the guys is very fluent in english though and translates to the rest of them. They've invited us to come visit them in their country sometime in the future but it's not likely to happen anytime soon. Good grief...we can't even get time off to visit Jorge's mom just south of the Texas border in Mexico!
Just east of San Diego are some of the most unusual mountains. For several miles it's just big piles of huge boulders.
This is what you'll see alot of in Arizona on the mountain sides.
Now there is a majestic mountain. This is just one of many that surround the Las Vegas valley.
Ok.. I had to add one of Emma Grace and her favorite Aunt Rhonda
Greetings from St. Louis, Missouri
3.5.09
We spent today in St. Louis, Missouri. This is a place I've been to many times ~ and that was before I started truck driving. No, we didn't get to the Arch or even Six Flags. Our destination today was the old St. Louis Cathedral. Our group of Irish were playing a concert here tonight. We took Rocky on a long walk around this neighborhood, then put him back in the truck hoping we could go peek inside the church. We got more than we expected. Since I love to make stained glass, the big rose windows were really what I was wanting to see. I figured we snap a couple pictures and get out. However we met a guide inside who took us all around the place and gave us a detailed tour. As I learned on the tour, there are only two surfaces in the church ~ marble and the walls and ceilings are all little pieces of mosaic glass. Quite the beautiful building!
We've finished up the northeast portion of this tour and missed the big snowstorm there last week. I looked at the weather map and saw that every place we had been in the east was getting dumped on with snow. We counted our blessings to have missed that as we've spent the past couple weeks in Illinois and Missouri- with a quick trip up to Lincoln, NE just for kicks. Once we leave St. Louis tonight, we have one more stop to make in Kansas City before we have to zoom out to San Diego at record speeds in order to make the show there by Sunday. That begins the last leg of the tour. We'll have stops in Santa Fe, NM along with several places in California. We even get to stop in Las Vegas which works out well to pick up mail, run errands, and even get a quick doctor's apppointment in. We've decided once the tour is over and we've taken all the instruments back to New York City, we're going to take a week or so off at the house in Union, OH.
Speaking of the house in Union, OH... it's for sale! In the process of preparing our taxes this year, I have to add up how many days were spent at the house and how many out on the road. We actually had only 16 days where we were out of service. After all, it's not like this is hard work and we need to take time off to relax. We did get to stop by there now and then if a trip we were on got us close to home, but we came to the conclusion that as long as we're doing this job, what's the point of home ownership? We're going to try and make the switch back to being 'happily homeless'. We'll see how that works out for us with the market being what it is. We may still own it this time next year.
Rocky had a big day yesterday. We were on the campus of the University of Missouri in Columbia. The weather has warmed up enough that I don't mind getting out and walking around these nice places we've been in. So I was playing with Rocky and throwing his ball when one of the students asked if he could film Rocky for a school project he was working on. Now he's a movie star too! Not to mention a fierce squirrel hunter. I'll include pictures of that.
He's also caused quite a stir one night in Lincoln when we sneaked him into a party the crew were having at their hotel. Evidently there was a 'no dogs allowed' rule and he had two security guards looking for him. He's such a trouble maker.
That's it for now. We're on the road again...
Rocky has been trying, without success, to catch a squirrel since we've had him. It was so funny yesterday while we were just sitting in the truck, a squirrel came and sat right under the window. It was pure torture for Rocky to watch, especially when we threw the squirrel some of his peanuts to snack on.
I just thought this was cute the way he was holding his toy.
There's Rocky in front of the Cathedral.
This is the inside of the St. Louis Cathedral. The picture doesn't really do it justice.
Greetings from Hershey, Pennsylvania
2.20.09
As avid lover's of chocolate, hershey bars in particular, we were excited to see what this town looks like. It's a neat little town of big well-kept houses that is definately all about chocolate. Alot of candy bars must have been consumed to build the big theater we are at today. Just across the street is the chocolate factory but since we are both recovering from colds, we overslept and missed the tour with the rest of the crew this morning. We did our own litte walking tour of the town as you'll see in the pictures below.
My prayers have been answered for good weather. we have been missing most of the snow while we're covering the northeast. In the past week we had three shows in New York and one near Boston. Tonight we'll drive over to New Brunswick, New Jersey and then to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania before we start moving west to Kentucky and three stops in Illinois for next week. We are still enjoying this job and grateful to be working at something we really love doing.
These are the waning days of my forty-ninth year as I approach the big 5-0 next wednesday. Time flies when you're having fun! I told Jorge the other day, God willing and the creeks don't rise, I'm up for another ten years of driving before I send him out here solo. Where else can I work and see so much from the office windows?
I saw a good sign of spring today... tulips barely peaking out of the frozen tundra right here in freezing, cold Hershey. I cannot wait!
This may not look like much but I see spring in there somewhere.
This is one spoiled-rotten weenie dog sporting his new hand-knit sweater we bought for him at a doggie boutique a few towns back.
Hershey Theater is on the corner of Chocolate and Cocoa Avenues.
This was one of the neatest things in Hershey. All the streetlights look like Hershey Kisses.
Greetings from Charlottesville, Va
2.9.09
We're still trucking around the country with the Dublin Philharmonic. Today is another gorgeous day here in Virginia but I've looked at the weather map and see what's coming so we're enjoying this while we can. The past week we've been to Annapolis, Maryland at the Naval Academy, in Alexandria, Virginia near Washington D.C., and in Newport News, Virginia near the coast. We missed the Kentucky ice storm by just one day. That was fun trying to get thru downtown Lexington with power lines heavy laden with ice. We were barely able to scoot under them without causing even more power outages. Last night I drove from Charleston, West Virginia over here to Charlottesville. So we're seeing our share of the mid-atlantic area. It's very hilly and scenic and we're even more grateful for the good weather. As I was driving down some pretty steep hills last night I was just imagining how much fun that would be with a glaze of ice on it. The tour is doing very well and we're getting to alot of little theaters that we wouldn't normally go to with the broadway shows. The one we're at today is a good example of that. We got here about 2am this morning and tried to find this little theater but three times we had to turn around and find a different route to get here as this town is full of old bridges that our truck will not fit under. Once we finally made it down here to the old historical district, of course there was no place to park the big truck. We went another block down and tried unsuccessfully to squeeze into a few spots between the crosswalk and the bus stop. We sat there for about 30 minutes waiting to see if the cop car that we'd seen passing by several times would stop and ask us to move. He didn't, so we finally went to bed. About 4:30 am there was a knock on the window. Now this is one sound you don't like to hear while parked in strange cities. Alot of things go thru your mind but I got up to check it out. There stood the officer we'd been expecting ~ standing out there telling us we had to move. I explained our predicament that we were afraid to go anywhere else due to all the low clearance bridges and he was very nice about not giving us a ticket. He told us to follow him and he led us to another place a few blocks away where we'd be okay to hang out until it was time to unload at the theater. He even turned on his blue lights and stopped traffic until we were safely parked. There's alot to be said for southern hospitality. If that had been New York or alot of other places, we'd have gotten the ticket and no police escort for sure.
Tomorrow is a day off but we're continuing our trek northward. Next we're on to Delaware, New Jersey, and a couple places in New York state before the end of the week. This Sunday we even have one show in the Bronx, NY and they've given the musicians a day off there to explore New York City. That's all well and good for them but we're looking forward to more parking issues as we try to figure out where we'll be staying for that one day. It should be interesting as it always is in that part of the country. That's our short story today. As always, I'm including a couple pictures we took this week.
This is another picture in the series entitled "where in the world is Rocky today?" Here he is in Charlottesville, Va in front of a statue of Robert E. Lee. Who knew his middle name was Edward? (Robert's-not Rocky's)
There's Rocky keeping warm in Lexington. That's ice, not snow out the window behind him
Greetings from Savannah, Ga
1.25.09
We're nearing the end of January and have completed nearly one-third of our tour with the Dublin Philharmonic. We are really enjoying this gig so far but then again we've spent the entire month criss-crossing the deep south. As truck drivers in January, you can't ask for much more than that. Amazingly, we haven't had to wash the salt off the truck even one time.
We are going to some big theaters but also alot of smaller ones at several different universities. Our favorite theater and favorite stop so far has been in Savannah, Georgia. We've driven thru there on the interstate many times but had never gotten a chance to stop and explore the town, especially the downtown area. If you ever get a chance to go there, we highly recommend it. It's just one of those old cities that is chock-full of history. In this case there's much to see and learn of both the revolutionary war and the civil war. After walking several miles around the town we decided to take a tour by bicycle. We found a cemetery not far from the theater that we just had to stop and take a look at. It's one of the oldest in the country and pretty interesting as far as cemeteries go. Lots of old generals were buried there. I'll include pictures...
That same night we went to the theater to watch the concert. Now that we've been carting these instruments and wardrobe around for a few weeks, we figured we check them out. I had heard a rehearsal or two and was impressed but these Irish folks sure can put on an excellent show. I especially liked it because it was unusual to see the orchestra playing with a guy playing the bagpipes and banjo. They've also got a couple numbers with singers and an Irish dancer just to keep it interesting.
Our new years resolution was to take advantage of all these cities and towns we go to and visit more museums this year. So far we're doing pretty good with that. I have always liked history anyway and Jorge is learning alot of Americana. Might as well make it educational when we can so that way we can justify all the time we spend just sitting around watching tv and playing on the computer.
We're thinking of changing Rocky's name this week to Rockstar. He is an absolute hit with everyone on this tour. He has had his picture taken by so many of the musicians and the bus drivers just love him too. He has his own fan club. One day I was supervising the unloading of our trailer and I looked down at the front of the truck to see him entertaining about 15 people who had gathered around to take his picture while he was hanging out the window. He is truly an international dog. Not only has he been in all 48 states, Canada, and Mexico, but now his picture will be all around Ireland too.
Our time down south is running short. In fact by the end of next week we'll have been to stops in Virginia, Ohio (nowhere near the house of course), and Lexington, Ky among other places. It's from the deep south to the deep freeze for us.
That's our story today. We're keeping the show on the road... Meanwhile, here's a few pictures we took while in Savannah last week.
The old Lucus theater in downtown Savannah
Check out the graves at the cemetary we found. There were alot like this that look like beds.
The spanish moss is everywhere and this is typical of the trees in Savannah.
Greetings from Orlando, Fl
1.9.09
I know you've all enjoyed the Christmas and New Year celebrations and are now back to the ol' grind. I know we are. We had thought we'd end up in Las Vegas for Christmas but we should know by now that anything we plan can and usually will be changed at the last minute. So it was for us again. Instead of stopping in Vegas on our way to Des Moines, the company sent us to Nashville, TN. Once we drove over there from LA and got unloaded, they found something that had us going to St. Paul, Minnesota next. That was an unexpected surprise for us and for Dad and Gerry as we pulled the big truck into their little driveway. We ended up spending a cold, snowy five days in Winona with them. That was a very nice Christmas for us all. From there we finally got to Des Moines and took a show from there over to Cincinnati which got us close to home. Knowing we'd be out on this tour for the next three months, we decided to take a few days off at la casa de Martinez. At least we got a chance to take the Christmas tree down and put it away before April. It was too cold for yard work and we were too lazy to paint so for the first time, we just sat around and enjoyed the house. We even rang in the new year in Union, Ohio. One night Mandy, Orv, and two of our grandweenies- Hank and Elvis- came over and spent the night. That was fun for us and good exercise for Rocky.
Oh.. This is a public service announcement. Tragedy struck one day while I was working on my computer. I accidently deleted my entire picture album. I was sick about it but thankfully Jorge had most of them on his computer. but i had them so nicely organized and had saved many that people had emailed me. I will be spending the next several weeks trying to recoup what I can of those. Lesson learned... always save your work!
All time at home seems short and soon we were back on the road again. We could see Florida in the distance but not before making a trip to New York City. We are taking the Dublin Philharmonic on their first U.S. tour and they decided not to ship all their instruments over here. We were to pick up several cellos, tymphany drums, and a harp. Don't ask me why we couldn't get these somewhere besides downtown New York City but that's where we had to go. That took us right thru Times Square among many other places. Add that to the list of places our semi truck should NOT be. Jorge was driving and I was taking pictures. We just barely made one turn onto this narrow street where we had to make one pickup. Cars were parked on both sides of the street and there was barely enough room for Jorge to squeeze the truck down the middle. We were happy to see Manhattan in our rearview mirror, if we had one. We spent $110 in tolls that day just getting out of that area. It cost us $54 just to go over one bridge. Somebody is making good money yet the roads are horrible. I hope these Irishmen appreciate our efforts.
We made it to Orlando yesterday, just missing the cold and snow that's coming to the northeast. We'll be enjoying the warm weather of Florida for the next couple weeks. Even after we leave there we'll still stay south in Georgia and Alabama for the rest of January before we start working our way back up north in February. The show makes short moves nearly everyday. We met some of the people we'll be traveling with the next 12 weeks today. They were excited to see our big green truck and thought that was an appropriate color for this group from Dublin. Jorge is already getting acquainted with the drivers of the three motor coaches that will carry the musicians. They seem like a good bunch of guys to work with over the next couple months. I think Jorge is working on his next career as a bus driver if this trucking thing doesn't work out! Tomorrow is the first performance and then we move to Naples and beyond. My pictures this time were mostly of New York City. I'm adding several of those at the end. There was sooo much to see there. We'll get a chance to see it all again at the end of March when the tour ends and we take all these instruments back. Woowho!
That's our story as 2009 begins.
Oh look..there's me taking a picture of the Brooklyn Bridge. Trucks are not allowed up there since 9-11
Times Square and lots of famous New York City taxis