Instead of going to Kansas, they had us drop our loaded trailer at the safe haven in Joplin, Missouri.  I drove us in there around midnight. I finalized the paperwork, we took a shower there at the terminal and then changed shifts; Tim bobtailed (no trailer) to McAlester, Oklahoma where he hooked up to a pre-loaded trailer.  We will have a live unload at Fort Hood, Texas bright and early in the morning.  In the meantime we will safe haven the load, and go get something to eat, we will stay on the base until morning.

We then have an assignment that is taking us from Laredo, Texas to New York.   It’s been several months since we’ve been down to Laredo.   

Last night we spent the night at a Pilot in Boron, California. It is about an hour from Long Beach.  It was fairly smoky the closer we got to the LA area.  We arrived in Long Beach this afternoon.  The skies are clear and the weather nice and warm; 98 degrees, what a change from Utah.

We will pick up our load in the morning and start our way back east.

More later… 

We delivered our load to the Tooele Army Depot Saturday afternoon.  We knew we were not going to get a load out until Monday or Tuesday so headed to the Pilot in Salt Lake City took a shower and just relaxed for the rest of the evening.  Later in the evening it started to rain and then snow, but it didn't stick, but oh my was it cold.  brrrrr  We noticed trucks coming in from Wyoming with about an inch of ice on their grills.  I guess we had just missed a storm coming in from the east.   But I am sure we will run into our share as winter is approaching.  Yippee skippee...

On Sunday we awoke to beautiful blue skies.   Tim worked on the truck and I caught up on our paperwork and goofed around with Cooper.  Later that evening Joe and Liane (Tim’s lil’ sis) came and picked us up and took us out to dinner.  We had a great time; love those guys!

One thing about working for this company, is that we don’t have to run as many miles to make as much or more money as we did before.  It is much more relaxing…..

Last night we experienced our first tornado siren.  It was about 10:00PM we had just arrived back at the hotel from having dinner. I was outside walking Cooper and watching this crazy lightening storm when the siren went off.  I actually didn’t know what it was; I thought maybe a fire. Coops and I went inside, Tim said the front desk had just called and that was a tornado siren and we needed to go out to the hallway. Most of the quests gathered with us on the bottom floor, we waited for about 10 minutes and then they said the tornado was north of us so we could go back to our rooms.  Okaaay…   Later while we were watching TV the emergency broadcast warning system came on texting us the areas that were on tornado alert. Our area was not on the list.    We ended up having some pretty heavy rains and high winds.  It was an exciting evening to say the least.

We are on our way to Tooele, Utah

Yesterday I drove through Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio and into Indiana where we changed shifts.   The trees are starting to change color; it was a lovely drive.  But it was a long day.

This morning we made our delivery in Minnesota and then we deadheaded to Iowa where we are now. The temperature has dropped considerably; it has been in the high 40’s –low 50’s.  Sheesh, what a difference from a few days ago….brrrrrrr.   We will drop this empty trailer, pick up a pre-loaded one and head to McAlester, Oklahoma.  After that we will head to Joplin, Missouri where we will take a few days of rest and relaxation out of the truck.  Yeah!! 

We arrived at Camp Lejeune early Monday morning; it is a Marine base located near the southern coast of North Carolina.  Since Monday was a holiday and there was no one to unload it for us we dropped the trailer in their safe haven and bobtailed to Wally World to restock the truck and have dinner at a near by “Ruby Tuesday”.  We spent the evening parked at the Wal-mart. We awoke early this morning to hook back to the trailer and get it unloaded.

We are now deadheading (empty trailer) to Virginia where will get a load there and then deliver it to Minnesota.

The weather has continued to be very warm and beautiful; today it is 97 degrees.  We have just passed Raleigh Durham, NC.  I was thinking of you Jan. 

Well we did have a fun visit with Jarod in Port Angeles. He had a SAR (search and rescue) case while we were there. They were called in to assist a 38 foot sailboat that was disabled in 10 foot waves.  The family on board was sick and the 3 children had become very dehydrated.  It was a fairly intense rescue as the mast of the boat was pitching back and forth as Jarod had to lower the basket to the deck. The mother and the 3 children were hoisted (3 separate hoists) and transported to a near by hospital for treatment.  The dad stayed with the boat as it was towed to port.  I talked with Jarod two hours after he returned to base and I could tell he still had that adrenaline rush. 

It is very hard to get a load out of Port Hadlock, WA so we ended up staying there a few days longer than we thought. On Wednesday morning we deadheaded down to Camp Pendleton, California where they loaded our trailer and now we are on our way to North Carolina. 

All is well; the weather has been very warm.  We did run into a lot of rain mixed with snow on the Siskiyou's, but other than that the weather has been beautiful on this trip.