We made it without a problem down to Fort Worth, Texas. The next morning we went about an hour north of there in Gainesville to pick up a short load going to the west Texas oil fields. We were lucky to just miss the big dust storm that blew thru that area the same evening we were there. We were treated to a beautiful lightening storm just after dark that had me watching for funnel clouds. We fought the headwinds all the way out to the middle of dusty nowhere to deliver that load. Then on to El Paso we went to get the next one.
In El Paso we picked up another load of ATVs and snowmobiles that needed to be delivered to five different dealerships in Minnesota. We left west Texas late on a Wednesday afternoon, and by Friday morning, we were making the first of our deliveries in Minnesota. We finished up with those on Saturday morning up in Minnesota’s North Country. We were lucky to have been there with such beautiful weather for late October. It was cold nights and frosty mornings but the sunny, warm days made up for that. It couldn’t have worked out better if I had planned it, but we ended up getting to spend the weekend off in Winona, MN with my stepmom, Gerry on the first anniversary of my father’s death. We were able to visit with much of our Minnesota branch of the family tree and that worked out so nice.
Yesterday we left Winona and picked up a load about 70 miles from there that was going a short distance up north of St. Paul. It was our shortest trip ever but also our best paying one. We knew a tarp was required on this eight foot high load and we were really wondering how we were going to accomplish that feat because that huge tarp weighs about 75 lbs. We recently tarped a six foot high load and immediately thereafter, swore we would never do that again. Here we were now faced with and even taller load. I had seen them load this big piece of machinery with their overhead crane and just knew it could be utilized to help us. We hooked it to one end of the tarp and asked the guys there if they could pick it up and just drape it over the load for us. It worked out great. In fact, we know we never would have made it on our own. Knowing we just got lucky on that tarped load, we really and truly are promising to never accept another one like it.
We have an appointment we’re hoping to be at this morning. Our satellite dish has not been working for the past week or more. Jorge is missing his favorite shows and I’m out of the loop myself since I usually have my finger on the pulse of the daily news shows. Once that’s done, we’ll be back on the road to who knows where. Just a couple more weeks of travel and we’re taking over two weeks off in Las Vegas around Thanksgiving. I can imagine the closer we get to winter, the more tarped loads there will be. We will definitely slow down a bit once that happens.