Let's see... we've covered a few states since my last post. We made our deliveries in Colorado and proceeded up to Portland, Oregon. I-84 thru Oregon is a beautiful ride that gets even better the closer you get to Portland. We had a day off there to run errands while our dispatcher looked for our next load. There wasn't much available and we ended up getting a run to the Casper, Wyoming area which we delivered on a Friday afternoon. Wyoming has even fewer loads for our truck than Oregon so we had a nice relaxing weekend off in Casper. We found a church there Sunday morning that actually had a place to park the big truck. We never know if we're going to church until we pull up to it and see if there is parking available. As it turns out, the pastor was a couple years ahead of me at Sem and his father was my freshman Latin teacher. It was all I could do to focus on the sermon while harking back to the antics that went on in that class. He now looks exactly like his father did way back then.
We enjoyed the cool nights in the northwest but after not getting a load on Monday, we decided to just drive back to Las Vegas for a day and get in a better area to get a load. The smoke from several different wildfires was always in the distance but we were never too close for it to be a problem for us. We drove thru some very deserted countryside and with the Vegas skyline on the horizon, our truck started giving us messages about the alternator overcharging. Thankfully we weren't far from a shop when it happened and I was able to get the car first so I could pick Jorge up from the shop. It was all covered under warranty as we'd just replaced it not long ago but we were so grateful that we made it over all those mountains and to the Las Vegas valley before this issue popped up. Big Red can hardly pass a shop without stopping for something these days. We just turned over 680,000 miles on it yesterday so that is part of it. In the meantime while we waited for the truck, we were able to visit with my brother Steve, soon-to-be-sister-in-law Francis, and sweet little Emma. Emma is a laugh a minute with the things she comes up with these days.
Once the truck was ready, we ran down to southern California to get our next load. We picked up some parts for a car wash that we'll deliver in Culpeper, Virginia bright and early Monday morning. We have our next trip lined up afterwards that will have us picking up in Virginia and delivering in Alabama. We may be watching 4th of July fireworks from there depending on what work is available over the holiday.