I have a lot of pictures from the Christmas activities to post. We made it up to Mt. Charleston for sledding on Steve's birthday and that was so much fun. There are also a bunch of pictures from Christmas, of course.
Happy 2013 to all!
Sailors on the Concrete Sea |
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It has been a whirlwind of activities since we arrived in Las Vegas. Just unpacking the truck for a two week vacation is like moving out of your home. It was wrapping and sending gifts, making and frosting cookies, and board games and relaxing in the hot tub nearly every night. Emma was so much fun to watch both in the Christmas program as well as just unwrapping her gifts this year. Her excitement oozed with every box she opened. She's asked several times if we can do it all over again. As quickly as the years flip by for the rest of us, it's an eternity in her world. Things are settling down just a bit now that Christmas has come and gone but the board games and hot tub, not to mention the computer and Words with Friends, are what is keeping us busy these days. Jorge and I did finally make it to see the Lincoln movie a couple nights ago. We highly recommend it if you like historical dramas. We will be hanging out and keeping the couch warm here in Las Vegas until around New Years. We don't have our next load scheduled yet but are working on it. Our new year resolution this year is to work a little harder than last year. After adding up the days we were off, it seems like we are vacationing as much as we are working. It's easy for me to say that now but we'll see what happens in the months ahead. I have a lot of pictures from the Christmas activities to post. We made it up to Mt. Charleston for sledding on Steve's birthday and that was so much fun. There are also a bunch of pictures from Christmas, of course. Happy 2013 to all!
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Here we are on our way back to Las Vegas to celebrate Chriistmas and New Years. We actually worked all week long for a change and with no repairs! Spent the past week picking up and delivering UPS packages all around the South and mid-Atlantic - back and forth from Louisville, Kentucky. We drove over 5500 miles in total. Now I just have to get home so I can wrap up and send all of my own packages. We have plans to go about thirty minutes north of the house up to Mt. Charleston. There they have snow and ski slopes. Most importantly, we’re going sledding. We stopped in Gallup, New Mexico on the way home to buy a couple snow boards so that should be a lot of fun. It’s been a few years since I’ve done that. We’re also going to do the usual traditions of baking cookies and the twisted Palenske tradition to see who can make not only the prettiest cookie, but also the ugliest. My little niece, Emma, is going to be fun this year. She’s over four years old now so opening gifts will be a thrill for her. Plus my other niece, Allison is home from college so there. I see lots of family fun ahead. We will be home until just after New Years. We say our New Years resolution this year is to go back to work. I’ve added up all the days off we’ve had in 2012 and including days off waiting for loads, and days off that we have taken on purpose, we’ve had about one hundred days off. You can see we are definitely not working as hard as we could, or so we think. We say that now but we’ll see how it plays out in the months ahead. Merry Christmas from these vacationing truckers! I think it was just my last post where I said we were going to work really hard before Christmas. Well, the calendar says it's the 8th day of December and it hasn't happened yet. We did pick up our one load in Pryor, Oklahoma. We had all weekend to deliver it to Valparaiso, Indiana - only about 700 miles away. We stopped along the way in Missouri when we learned our friends Don and Dale were headed west while we were going east. It was a nice unexpected breakfast with them near Springfield. We parted ways and down the road to Indiana we went with a trailer loaded with pipe for a natural gas line. Monday morning we made our delivery, headed south towards Indianapolis to get our next load that was supposed to go back to Oklahoma. And then the fun began.... About a hour north of Indy we began to hear the truck making a loud noise. We were a mile from the next rest area and we were grateful to make it that far. Then the phone calls started. We called the Volvo shop in Indianapolis but they couldn't even look at it until Friday (this was only Monday). They recommended we go to their shop that was 90 west. Yeah, right. We would be lucky if we made it out of the rest area. We decided to give it a shot and were surprised in spite of the noise the truck was making that seemed to be coming from the transmission, we were able to get thru all the gears and we continued south down the interstate. About five miles from Indianapolis, we realized now that the truck was in 18th gear, it was not going to downshift at all. Traffic was thickening and we needed to slow down but without the ability to downshift, we could go no further. Jorge pulled it to the side of the road and there we sat with few options. We called the Kenworth shop to see if they could look at our Volvo and much to our surprise they said to bring it right over. We were only a couple miles away but we had to call yet another tow truck to get us over there. So close, yet so far. I'll spare you ALL of our agonizing week details but suffice it to say, it was a rollercoaster ride. We learned that our transmission had burned up and was completely worthless... a $10,000 part. The clutch wasn't much better. After days of back and forth with the shop back in Fort Smith, Arkansas where we had had them replace a leaking seal on our transmission, it was determined that the mechanic was totally responsible for a faulty installation. That allowed our tranny fluid to slowly leak out from Arkansas to Oklahoma, up to Indiana, and finally it was completely out there on the side of the road. In the end after all the evidence pointed to the Arkansas shop, they agreed to buy us a new transmission and paid for it 100% - all parts and labor. As long as the transmission was being replaced, it was an easy fix to replace the clutch at the same time. What could have been a very costly repair, ended up being extremely inexpensive to us and we're checking those two parts off our list of things that need to be replaced. Back on the road.... finally! Another Christmas miracle under our belts... We are back in Louisville, Kentucky today where we parked our trailer at the company headquarters. Every year, Mercer drivers have the opportunity to run as much UPS freight as they can handle between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We tried it last year and didn't like the tight schedules they kept us on. This year we agreed to do it for only one week and that starts today. We will hook up to a set of double trailers here in Louisville at 2pm today. We'll deliver them in Columbia, South Carolina and be back in Louisville by 10am tomorrow. See what I mean about tight schedules? We have a couple others to do that will keep us busy thru next Sunday. Then on to Las Vegas.. for more time off! It's apparently what we do best. No time to take many pictures this week. We did get these little beauties in the mail recently though. Yesterday, Mercer gave us each a jacket to go with them. We safe, professional trucks drivers appreciate the recognition. We enjoyed our time off this past week in Minnesota but are glad to get back on the road while we continue to beat out a living running up and down the nations highways. First of all, as promised, here is the video of last weeks road kill. Disclaimer alert: There WAS an animal injured in the making of this film! The camera sits up high on the windshield and we had just gone thru the truck wash so hence the spotty window. It all happens kind of fast. We celebrated Thanksgiving with a whole house full of family in Winona. We still cannot believe our good luck to arrive just in time to smell the pies being made and enjoy unseasonably warm temps for Thanksgiving in Minnesota. It was mid-60's and the windows were open to get the last nice breezes of the season blowing thru the crowd of people. No Black Friday shopping for me again this year. I've become a huge fan of online shopping and I'm content to point and click my way around any store I desire. I did send Jorge out with a 'honey-do' list that day, including a trip to the post office to finally get his passport. We're hoping it will be waiting for us on our stack of mail when we get home for Christmas in Las Vegas. Having it will allow us get even more loads as it is sometimes required to get into certain military bases around the country. Also in that stack of mail should be my computer, hopefully. I just bought this laptop in August and took it back to Best Buy in November when the hinge broke away from the monitor and tore that all up. I know it gets heavy use but gee whiz.. you'd think it would last longer than that. I've been reduced to using Jorges computer and the I-pad, which is just not the same. Sunday was another highlight of our time off. We made the two hour trip north to visit Shari and Andy and get the tour of their 'new' home in St. Paul, Minnesota. New to them, that is. It's a beautiful old home that is 103 years old. I didn't realize it was only three blocks away from Macalester College where they met and graduated years ago. It's already a cool old house but they are excited about the work and projects that lie ahead to turn it into a real showcase home. Later that afternoon, we walked around the corner where Shari and Andy bought a Christmas tree and he and Jorge carted it back to the house. It was beginning to look and smell alot like Christmas. Shari always has a captive audience when she plays her music. So we're back on the road and we just completed a run from Oshkosh, Wisconsin down here to Fort Smith, Arkansas. Next stop is Pryor, Oklahoma up to Valparaiso, Indiana. From there we'll do another run from Indianapolis down to near Austin, Texas. We're working hard now so we can take off for our next vacation over Christmas. Have I mentioned that our New Years resolution is going to be to work just a little more and vacation just a little less? We'll see if we can stick to that one... Well, we made it across the country this week. For all the trouble we had getting started last week, the truck ran very well. We left Washington last Wednesday and had plenty of time to get to New Hampshire this morning for our delivery. We were lucky to get over the Rocky Mountains with no snow falling and lots of sunshine. In fact, the weather was perfect everyday. One new thing did happen along the way though. A couple nights ago, Jorge had gone to bed and I was still wide awake. I decided to keep driving across Pennsylvania. I had the radio cranked up, singing along to the old songs, and thinking that this drive along I-80 would be a perfect place to hit a deer. That reminded me of my years of newpaper delivery back in southern Illinois where I would hit a deer pretty regularly and so my mind was wandering thru all those memories. Suddenly, out of nowhere, this big deer jumped onto the road and ran across it when it had an unfortunate impact with the front bumper of our truck. Jorge jumped up to see what had happened and when I pulled over to the side of the road to check it out, the only damage was to our passenger side headlight. It's a miracle that there wasn't a scratch on the truck or that the hood didn't get tore up. We were wanting to replace the headlight assembly anyway but weren't planning on doing it this week. Once we delivered our load this morning at the National Guard Armory in Manchester, one of the guys that works there was kindly volunteered to take Jorge to the Volvo dealer to get the new lights. We figured as long as we were replacing one, we may as well do both of them. So Merry Christmas to us! We are so romantic to give each other new headlights for Christmas gifts this year, aren't we? At $350 each, we can't afford to hit any more deer with them - that's for sure! Oh, and stay tuned for a video of the whole thing. The dash cam we always have running captured all the excitement but I haven't had time or good enough signal to put it on YouTube yet. We didn't really make any Thanksgiving plans this year. With all the time off we've taken this year, we figured we'd just stay out on the road and end up wherever the work takes us. Before we were even unloaded this morning, we got a call for another load picking up only 18 miles away that was going to Minnesota. Perfect, we thought! Now we'll get to enjoy Thanksgiving in Winona and with lots of the family there. We're excited it's worked out so well. We couldn't have planned it any better if we tried. It sounds like we're going to have a chance to get up to St. Paul while we're taking a few more days off over the weekend. My daughter, Shari, and her husband relocated back there from Chicago this past summer and have just finished moving in to their new house. It will be fun to get up there and see that too. So that's our plan for the rest of the week. Happy Thanksgiving to all our family and friends! The past week has been pretty low-key. We thought we had a load coming out of Boeing going to Georgia the same day we delivered to Ft. Lewis. We were okay with it when they said it would be delayed a day so we could spend the evening watching the election coverage on tv - but no excitement there. The next day, it was delayed again. Same story the next day. Meanwhile, we missed a couple loads coming out of the submarine base since Jorge has not gotten his passport yet and that was a requirement to get inside to pick it up. His 'to do' list over Christmas is growing but that is going to be at the top of the list when we get to Vegas for our time off. We didn't do much while in Washington except try to get caught up on paperwork and run some errands. Finally, after sitting for nearly a week, we finally get a load on Monday. Off we went about 100 miles north to get it. We arrived at the shipper early and they were not ready for us yet so we were going to get out of the way and park on the side of the building when Jorge noticed the truck didn't want to shift into reverse. Being an automatic transmission, there's not alot we can do to force it into gear. Finally something clicked, and it went into gear. We backed up out of the way, but that's as far as we went. Now it was stuck in reverse and after Jorge shut the truck off, it wouldn't start. We had no option but to cancel this trip and call a tow truck. Back to Seattle it took us where we had just driven thru on our way to get the load. The forty-five minute drive back was costly. Including the $100 they charged us for tax, it came to nearly $1200 to take the truck and trailer to the shop. Of course the mechanic was gone for the day already and we spent the night in their parking lot waiting for him. By the time the truck had been towed, it was now starting on it's own. When the mechanic finally looked at it, he couldn't find anything wrong with it. We had thought maybe the transmission, or the clutch, or who knows what. Now that the mechanic was looking at it - none of that. He took it for a test drive, updated some software on the tranmission that hadn't been done since the truck was built (I didn't even know there WAS software for the transmission!), and declared the truck good to go. On a wing and a prayer, we took off to pick up another load. This time a couple hours east of Seattle, we're getting a load in Wapato, Washington that we'll take to Manchester, New Hampshire this week. We have alot of deserted country to pass thru on this trip and I'm praying the truck runs well between here and there. We'll be on our way soon... on the road again! We drove over 4000 miles this week on two different trips. The first one had us picking up in Kenturcky- our first load ever of pipe. We took that down to near Orlando, Florida. From there we got an oversized load that has kept us busy the rest of the week. This load- an army tank called a Stryker- came from the Anniston Army Depot in Anniston, Alabama. Because it's just barely oversized (hanging over our trailer an extra three inches on both sides), it still falls into a different catagory and comes with a bunch of those extra rules and regulations. We need to have our strobe lights on or some states don't allow night travel. And of course the usual signs and flags that all the oversized loads need. It is completely different in every state and that's why it's taken us so long to get up here. The first three days we couldn't drive it at night. That was fine with us though. It just means we get a good night of sleep. We will finally unload it first thing in the morning. RIght now there isn't any other freight available for a trailer like ours but hopefully something will pop up soon enough. Meanwhile, we'll enjoy the nice weather here in Washington. The fall days are a cool 60's while the nights are downright cold. We are making use of our warm blankets up here. Wow... I cannot believe how time gets away from me. I was just reading my last post which I wrote twelve days ago. We have driven soooo many miles since then! Once we left California, our eventual destination became Jacksonville, Florida, A crisis happened along the way on that trip when our a/c blower went out in humid Louisianna. We were lucky the a/c still worked in the sleeper and we were able to blow a tad bit of cool air up to the driver to make the trip bearable. Our only consolation was that at least it wasn't a hot summer day when it happened. We were able to deliver our load and then drove to the Volvo dealer to get the part. Jorge did a good job of figuring out how to replace it himself so we saved there on the labor charge we might have paid otherwise. Another good thing happened there... we finally got the noise in our truck fixed! After leaving it at the Volvo dealer in Las Vegas on our week off and getting no results for our money, the mechanic in Jacksonville found the noise and fixed it in two hours! Apparently there are four bolts that hold the turbo onto the truck. Two of the bolts on our truck were loose and the other two were missing! No wonder we were having issues! So it was back on the road for us... The next load went from a little town called Goose Creek, SC up to near Pittsburgh, PA. The rest of the week we were in Cleveland, to Louisville, to central Indiana, and finally down to McMinnville, Tennessee. One load was going to a nuclear power plant where no dogs were allowed. We knew that when we accepted the load but we were hoping to sneak Rocky in like we do so many other places. He is usually very quiet. Little did we know, this place would be the most thorough inspection we'd ever go thru. Long story short, poor Rocky ended up getting thrown into our little bathroom for cover and thankfully must not have made a peep while they checked the truck. We couldn't believe it when they said we passed inspection and were good to go. We scratched that place off the list of places we will deliver to again since I doubt we'll get lucky twice. Never a dull moment with this job! With the last load we did, we went to a nursery where the owner of it had just built a new house and we were delivering some limestone pavers for his new pool. We ended up driving across his pasture to deliver it close to his house. We are always amazed at the situations and places we get ourselves into. Our work being done, we decided to take a couple days off in Franklin, Tennessee to celebrate Jorge's birthday today. He and my mom share the same birthday. Don't you know the day we get here she gets diagnosed with a contagious form of bronchitis so at this point we're all hoping we don't get it. We leave here tomorrow to pick up a load of pipe that we'll take down to Winter Garden, Florida. I'm just happy that we're not up in the northeast and that we're safely out of the path of Hurricane Sandy. Here we are... back in California again. We were just here two weeks ago. Meanwhile, we've kept busy delivering those a/c units at several locations around Florida last weekend. Once we finished with that, we were happy to leave the heat and humidity behind as we drove to southern Georgia and got a load that we drove up to near Rochester, NY. We called that the 'ooh and ahh' tour as we were finally able to see some awesome fall scenery and colors along the way. West Virginia got my vote for the pictures, with Pennsylvania a close second. We were able to dig out some winter clothes and enjoy a hot bowl of soup with the cooler temps too. While we were unloading in New York, an opportunity for our next load came up back in Pennsylvania. We had planned another trip down the state highways to enjoy some different sights when we got a call saying the load would be ready early. So back on the same old interestate we rushed to get the next load. Of course, when we got there it wasn't ready yet. Hours and hours later, we were finally loaded, tarped, and on our way cross-country all the way to a little place called Crows Landing, California. We had left Pennsylvania about midnight on Thursday and delivered Sunday morning in California so it was a quick trip. We caught up on our sleep last night and today we are loading up near Fresno, California. We'll make deliveries this week in Phoenix and Lubbock, Texas... happy to leave these super-expensive fuel prices behind us. We are four days into the new month and we are finally getting a good night of sleep for the first time in days. Here's a brief summary of our past week. Our days in Las Vegas were extremely hectic at times. My new sister (in-law) Francis had done so much leg work with planning, shopping, and preparation for her wedding before anyone actually arrived, but as a few friends flew into town, we were all recruited into helping with the assembly of gift baskets for all the wedding guests who would be staying in the Laguna Beach hotels. After that, there were breakfast boxes to be put together for those same guests. It took three vehicles crammed full to transport everything down to the hotel we were all staying at in Laguna Beach. We took our Cadillac on its first road trip and it was loaded completely full. Before leaving we also had to drop the truck off at the shop and we intended to drop Rocky off at a pet motel there in Vegas too. We decided the pet motel would not keep Rocky in the lifestyle he's become accustomed to so he ended up making the trip to California with us. I said he would have a bad case of separation anxiety but in reality, I would have been even worse. We don't go anywhere without our boy. The four days we spent in Laguna Beach were wonderful. Friends and family came from across the country and the entire quaint, little Tides Inn we stayed at was full of people there for the wedding. It was a time of celebration nearly every night. We also made several trips across the street to the beach for sunrises and sunsets too. All in all, the pictures will have to tell the story but it was a fun weekend of good memories made. Sunday after the wedding we zoomed back to Las Vegas to pack up our truck. All good things must come to an end and we thought we were getting a load back in southern California on Tuesday. For once it ended up being ready early. So Monday, we got our truck out of the shop. They were only able to fix the air leak but were never heard the whining sound the truck makes about 80% of the time that we REALLY wanted them to fix. (Of course we were only about ten minutes down the road when it started up again so we'll have another trip to another Volvo dealership in our future.) We loaded it back up with all our stuff, drove back to Long Beach, California, and picked up a container full of Coach handbags and products that had to get to Jacksonville, Florida. We drove that coast-to-coast trip in two days and that's why we're just getting our first good night of sleep...finally. We should have all weekend to get caught up. We had another load lined up to Maryland that fell thru this afternoon. Now it looks like our next run will be a bunch of a/c units to deliver around Florida but we'll find out for sure tomorrow. I'm hoping we get up north to enjoy some fall colors before they are all gone. It's still hot and humid here in the south. |