We had a very nice trip from California to Ohio last week. The weather was perfect and we missed all the storms around the country getting there. A highlight of the trip was stopping to visit in my son, Danny in Carbondale. We ended up spending the night there and the next day, Danny invited us to stop by his workplace so we can see exactly where he goes and what he does everyday. He works for a company called CAI Industries which specializes in making equipment for coal mines. He is one of their mechanical engineers that helps to design or modify the machinery as needed. It was all very interesting, yet overwhelming, to us. We were able to enjoy a quick BBQ lunch with Danny before hitting the road to finish the trip to Ohio.
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Here is Danny doing his best to explain to a couple of truck drivers how these complicated machines work.
We finished up with that load Saturday morning and spent the rest of the day with my daughter Mandy. Her law firm had recently relocated to Cincinnati's newest and tallest skyscraper and she gave us the tour of her workplace and the beautiful view of the Ohio River and surrounding countryside. After a good lunch at one of the local restaurants, we hung out at her house the rest of the day playing with her two little dachshunds and Rocky's buddies, Hank and Elvis. That is always a good time for us all.
Here's Mandy at her new building. I've seen enough episodes of Judge Judy to know what this place is all about.
That was the end of the fun for us this week. First of all, it rained cats and dogs for three days straight. That set the scene for what was to be some long days ahead. We had intended to do several UPS runs for the rest of the month before Christmas. We knew it was going to be boring but we thought it would be profitable so we were willing to take the bad with the good. I'll spare you all the frustrating details but we did end up running two UPS loads and then threw in the towel on the remaining eleven runs they wanted us to do. They had been expecting us to pick up a load in Cincinnati every night at 9pm, drive to Secaucus, New Jersey (just across the Hudson River from New York City), and then back to Cincinnati in time to get the next load leaving that night at 9pm again -about 1250 miles round trip. It didn't take us long to figure out that this is NOT what we wanted to spend our time on so we opted out of that and are now enroute to southern California at a much slower pace. We will deliver this load Monday, pick up a container full of auto parts at the Long Beach port, and right back down the I-40 to Atlanta we'll go next week.
Here's my grandweenies, Hank and Elvis. Surely they are dreaming of when Rocky will be back to visit.
Here's my grandweenies, Hank and Elvis. Surely they are dreaming of when Rocky will be back to visit.