Well we puled into the ranch about 2 pm Gracie was so glad to be home. I did not go w/Tommie to unload I am doing laundry and working on the taxes. David will come home Sat to take me to OK with him. Then I can bring my p/u back home since he bought a car last week.

With that we got our next load that took us up to IL. We unloaded that night and headed to Litchfield to reload Thur for a run to Blue Springs MO! I get to go home. It has been 31 days. It is April 2 and before going to work I make that all improtant phone call to Nikki. It is her 7 birthday today. Happy birthday Nikki grandma loves you.

While we were there Humpty made it out of the truck to check the fuel price at the Pilot we were camped at.......

Week of March 20 to April 3

I need to get home. We load in Houston early Monday morning and head to LA near Shreveport. We sit Wed. They get us a load that loads Thur in Tylertown MS going to Harkin IL. Its close to home we take it! While we are waiting we take a few shots of the down time in LA.

We finished out the week by going to Baytown on Friday. I got my TWIC card picked up and we had a load scheduled to p/u Monday morning. So we went over to our "home away from home" and camped for the weekend. Of course you can always find a handful of Mercer drivers there when you arrive.... We had a cookout Sat. night and we went out to eat on Sunday.

Week of March 22-March 28

We left Keensaw GA Monday morning and headed to Norcross to p/u a load headed up to Chatanooga. Then from there we went to Huntsville AL to p/u a load going near Kileen TX. While in Huntsville we had the time to tour the space center where kids go to space camp.

Somehow between Friday night and Sunday noon when we puled out of the yard we managed to get all 10 loads of laundry done...yea I hadn't done laundry for 3 weeks....we kept thinking we would get to the yard or home......there are 3 washers and dryers that Mercer provides for us to do our laundry for free. This saved my roughtly $40 in laundry fees at the truck stops. We got to our destination Sunday evening and it was a nice quiet facility at Keensaw GA. I fixed supper and we ate outside and Gracie enjoyed the freedom.

While we were waiting for a free van to be avaliable for us all to go out to eat one of the drivers took some time to do a little maintenace. We still are not sure how many Mercer drivers it takes to change a light but the job got done. Then next shot is of us waiting outside Logans steakhouse waiting for a table for 12.

Tommie and Jim and then Lynn and Me.....

This is a pic of Tommie and I in front of an old International pick up. His Dad had one about the same age when Tommie was a small boy........

OK I am going to try to finish up the week of March 16-21. Sat we went to the truck show. We stayed at the Mercer lot and Mercer provides shuttle transportation for us back and forth. Tommie and Jim came back and walked the dogs and Lynn and I stayed and looked at trucks......its a girl thing lol

more trucks : for Laci Shelby and Nikki

some show photos

Well if you all wonder what is going on while I am hard at work on the computer either watching the load board....working on the blogg or over on the political forums here is what the rest of the crew is hard at work doing

OK we have had another Humpty Dumpty sighting! Here ya go Laci!

Well the MATS was scheduled to start on Thur the 19 and we were running and were not going to make it. I had forgot all about the show till one of my friends Lynn called. She had just got to Louisville and wanted to know if we were there. I then remembered that we were in Portage IN (near Chicago) and headed to Keensaw GA and were headed right through Louisville....YEA! so Lynn and Jim picked up our registration for this next year since they were mailing them out that Friday and we were not going to be anywhere near home to get it and we have to have them in the truck by April 1......So we rolled into the yard about 8 pm our time.....several of our friends were already there...we ate supper in the drivers lounge and got nestled in and went to bed for the night. None of us women cooked this weekend because we all were too tired either from driving in or walking all over the booths at the truck show.

a happy customer

this is a shot of my "kitchen"

week of March 16-21

Well I have been behind. We had one very busy week and the next fairly busy now we are in a holding pattern so will try to catch up.
We unloaded in Buffalo then reloaded up by Niagara Falls. That took us back down to Gary Indiana for Tue March 17. I have taken a couple of shots of what out "home" looks like.

Well it is Monday and we are unloaded in Buffalo NY. We are setting waiting for a load. We spent the weekend at the TA near Jeffersonville OH. Sat night Pastor Randy Lee from the Center Christian Church came by with an invitation to worship with them on Sunday. We had a wonderful time. The congregation was definately spirit filled.... The songs were new to me but Tommie recognized one of them......one of the ladies sang a special about Moses man o man it was good. We pray for God's blessings for this church.

OK thispic was taken along I39 near Janesville WI mile marker 171. I wonder how many pies I can get out of this one?

ok this pic was taken along the roadside. gracie semed to know she was running out of snow country and just had to get out for one last "frolic"

yes that is snow in her mouth

Week of March 8 2008 Starting Rogers MN

We left the TA truckstop in Rogers MN after lunch on Sunday. We traveled up to Duluth MN to a place right on Lake Superior. Gracie loved it up there they still had snow and it was cold. I took some pics of the ships on the lake where we loaded. We loaded steel balls that are in 55 gal drums. The balls go to cement companies and used to grind the rocks into the powder to make the cement. The balls come in all sizes. 1" on up to 3" or more.

The pic of Gracie was back in KC last week somehow I didn't get in in with the other pics.

Thes ship is 2 views of a steel barge. Same ship 2 views. This was on Monday. We left Duluth early Monday morning. There was a winter storm that hit there the next day. That was close! This load headed to Louisville KY. We stopped off at Mercertown in the middle of the night and stopped by the drivers lounge and took showers then headed on to the receiver to unload.

Tue: We unloaded our steel balls and then reloaded used steel balls and took them on to Cornersville, TN. We unloaded Tue. afternoon and are setting nearby at a TS. (truckstop) Yea that was Tue and today is Thur......lol such is trucking....

Time in Minnisota

We arrived in Rogers MN March 3 late at night. We unloaded the next morning and headed to the TA. We got aquainted with 3-4 other company O/O's . All the drivers in our company are Owner/Operators. It was very cold up there. One of the guys fixed ham and beans and cornbread. He had the crock pot out on the draum deck and we gathered around like a bunch of hungary ridders that had just came in off the range. Thur night a former co worker from a comany in Pilot Grove that we both used to be leased to pulled into the TS. We visited with him for a spell. Sat morning we all gathered in the resturaunt for breakfast. A Texas Twisted omlet was my choice with coffee of course.

Sat. I sat in the TV room and visited with a driver from Ireland. Wow listining to him talk was cool. I have a Scott/Irish heritage and would have loved to listen to him longer.
Sunday we got up "early" we thought got ready for church and gathered around the bar for coffee with the gang and promptly realized that the time had changed and we had missed church. We spent a great deal of time visiting our new friends. Mercer drivers are pretty much a family. Its not uncommon to find them grouped togeather in the TS. Well we said our good bys and Tommie and I went back to the truck and I fixed lunch. I got the house put togeather and we hit the road to Duluth.

Here is a pic of Laci's Humpty Dumpty that I helped her with. I got to help her with her school work before I had to go back out on the road. Pa and I take Humpty with us and we will see more out of him.

Here is a shot...we had back down a hill to a creek where we unloaded. The backhole had to "help" us up the hill.

Gracie loves the snow. She ran and played while we waited for the crew to get the load off the truck.

here is a group of us in the kitchen in the drivers lounge us wives cook for the men

here is Tommie reading the bulliten board in the drivers lounge

here is a lineup of one side of our lot at Mercertown see Big Red??


A close up of Big Red



The weather turned lousy on Sunday. I think this is Tommie walking up to the drivers lounge.

On the Road Again.......

OK We are bouncing up I-35 headed to Rogers MN unloaded in KC Monday........it is 25 degrees brrrr it was nice to be home got to see my friends and go out to eat with my friends....have Ladies Card night...helped a friend work on a quilt......go see my grandaughters who I miss very much......am going to try to get some pics uploaded of where we unloaded yesterday and the weekend we spent at Mercertown.......

Sunday

Well I have been home a full week. Tommie has finally left Houston and has a load out of Magnolia, AR and is headed to PA. I wish I was with him but I have to get things done here and then I can go back to work. We are going to try to meet up sometime this month, somewhere. Gracie is asleep in the window behind me and is having a great time with her boyfriend ACE who lives over the way. Thanks for visiting us and leave us a note any time.........

well its late.....Tommie is near Houston...no load yet...he is going to pick up his TWIC card in the morning....mine is not ready yet but I am not in Houston anyway......He got the truck inspected today and I worked on the bookwork.......a long boreing day for us both.... at least the sun was shinning.....Gracie is glad to be home for a few days.........

Well I think I finally have this ready to share with our family and friends. This is a way we can share what our life is like out here On The Road....or OTR over the road.....this pic is a scene from the interstate in KY last week.