Burning Man & Ribfest 2013

What an interesting Labor Day weekend it was. We dropped at the Corning, CA store and got to catch up with Willie aka Badass Bear who we trained with at Watkins Shepard.  He now runs local for Schneider from his home in Sacramento to Oregon hauling a dedicated run for Nissan. It was great to catch up...Facebook is great, but nothing like sitting down and sharing a meal with an old friend. We then headed to Port Heuneme to load for the Ripon store. Once we dropped there it was time to get to Sparks, NV for a load on Tuesday following Labor Day. Since the rack wasn't open on Monday and it was just Sunday morning, we decided to pamper ourselves, I called and made a reservation at The Nugget. We thought we were being so smart leaving Cali on a Sunday for a 3 day weekend heading in the correct direction (opposite of everyone else coming back home), over Donner Pass and into Nevada, so far so good. I fell asleep way before Donner since driving til 3 am the previous morning to make sure we stayed on our schedule to get out before the madness returned to Cali. I woke up to Jeff yelling my name (for the 5th time at least...he swears) saying, "you need to get up and get me out of this mess. We are here at the hotel". I'm thinking...and rubbing my eyes...why would we be in a mess if we were already at our destination of pampering and relaxation? Then I opened the curtains to the sleeper. All I could see was literally a sea of people and white tents everywhere...not what I had envisioned before I laid down for my nap at all. It was the World Ribfest...and we were right in the middle of it because The Nugget was hosting this joyous occasion.  Now, remember the whole conversation about calling and making a reservation in the text above? (which I did, I have witnesses)...when one calls and asks about pets and truck parking wouldn't you think the ribfest might have been a good thing to mention? A police officer turns his lights on and pulls up next to us and says "what are you doing?" Jeff replies,  "we are just trying to get out of here". The policeman says "well, good luck with that"...rolled up his window and drove off...really? To make a long story short we finally got out of there and headed to the Petro, which we have stayed at many times while waiting for Donner to open up, and got the last pet room at the Super 8...not The Nugget, but a room none the less.

Now...on to Burning Man. The man has been burned and now it is time for the third largest city in Nevada to exodus and blend into mainstream...hahaha. We met some interesting people and awoke to the fire alarm being pulled at 3 am by some burner in a Tarzan suit...he was taken away to jail. But the best was at Walmart. Jeff and I were shopping and I noticed her first...supposedly, but I wasn't the only one who noticed. This woman had on the tightest leopard print pants I had ever seen. You could see every nook and cranny..she had a great body so she was definitely turning heads. We happened to be in line a few people behind her. But looking a bit closer...she was in a full body-painted outfit, she was completely naked with this leopard thing painted on her, and no, I didn't have my phone to get the pic, but believe me it was just one of the colorful things we ran into over the weekend.

The best part was when we went to drop our load at The Fernley store. I was taking a shower and Jeff was off loading.  We both noticed that they were asking people that wanted to take a shower to show them their CDL's. As far as we knew, if you have $10 anybody can take a shower...but not during Burning Man. We were informed that last year a Burner asked for a shower, and within 15 minutes they had a 12 person orgy in the shower which could be heard all over the entire store. Wow...my first thought was, who was the lucky employee who drew the short straw to clean that shower? Craziness.

That was our weekend. We couldn't wait to leave and go to the holy city of Salt Lake!

Buy Chrome on an Account?

What is this...seriously? Yep, this job just keeps getting better and better. We are allowed up to $200/month to bling out our truck at the chrome shop in Phoenix. Shopping is much more fun when spending someone else's money.

First shopping spree...all of the gauges have pretty chrome trim around them. The turn signal/windshield wiper is now chrome, both door handles and the air conditioning knobs and back plate are now chrome. This could very easily become an obsession...but it can be over done too. I like a bit of contrast with my chrome!

Pics of door handles to follow.  Need to pick up some silicon so they don't fly off the truck.

Yuma or Vegas?

Neither one a good choice on a Friday afternoon out of Oxnard. I decided to miss the Vegas traffic and opt for Yuma and a ride along the coast. Its only 350 miles...right? It was a beautiful drive however it was pretty much a traffic jam for 250 miles of it. Did I mention how much I have been loving this automatic transmission is Cali? We have pretty much spent the last two weeks in California, I don't think you can count Lake Havasu at exit 9 in AZ or Yuma at exit 3.

All of our loads have been picked up in Oxnard at Port Hueneme, London's new favorite place. It is usually a consistent 68 degrees...lovely ocean breeze and Jay who runs the Yara terminal where we load has two doggies, Romeo and Tally. London gets to socialize with non-truck driver dogs that actually run and play and are used to being out of the truck longer than 5 minutes to go potty then right back in the truck. It seems like that is all we run into anymore. What happened to taking ur dog for a real walk? They even gave us a mandatory 30 minute "meal break" now to get er done.

On my way to Vegas now...however it looks as though its gonna be another long afternoon. We are backed up on the 15 for at least 30 miles now according to the CB. ..sweet. Drivers are getting bored and the CB chatter is getting pretty entertaining. The desert is a good 106 today. The 4 wheelers are dropping like flies. I was hoping to stop by Speedco in Vegas to get a PM  (preventative maintenance) and our annual inspection on the tractor and trailer...they are only open until 8 pm and its already 4:30 and I still have 142 miles to go, don't think its gonna happen.

Good 34 Hour Reset

Since we had to load in Port Hueneme this week we headed for Oxnard, after our last delivery on Sunday in Lake Havasu, for our mandatory 34 hour reset. I love saying that! When working for Waggoners, we would get home on Sunday afternoon and go back out Monday night.  Not very much downtime. But with this job we only work 6 days a week (not 7) so we truly get a nice break every week.

We stayed at a nice hotel and got to visit one our most favorite restaurants we have found out here...Cabo Seafood and Mexican Cantina. It was just as good as I remember it being and the margaritas were even better. This time we tried the Parilla de Mariscos for 2...which is basically a plate full of seafood, enough for two hungry people, which contained: an entire red snapper grilled with Mexican rice, shrimp quesadilla, octopus, garlic shrimp, cheese & jalepeno stuffed shrimp wrapped in bacon, camarones de verde (my favorite) and ranchero shrimp. All served with fresh, hot homemade tortillad and bottomless margaritas. Oh wait, I guess they weren't bottomless,  but my glass wasn't empty the entire meal or during dessert either. It had been over a year since our last visit and it was worth the wait.

The next day we strolled the streets of Old downtown Oxnard finding treasures we couldn't live without...oh wait that was just me that couldn't live without them. Jeff and London did a lot of sitting and waiting, but we managed to get in two miles of walking, which with two guys is pretty sneaky, it was a beautiful 68 degrees which was a nice change from the week of AZ deliveries in 100+ temps. Needless to say, all three of us slept very well last night.

Last week we covered 7 states and 9 stores...Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, California,  Arizona and New Mexico. Not too shabby of a week. I am just dropping in Barstow (which means an In-n-Out for me) then back to Port Hueneme to load and take a nice walk with London on the beach tonight.  It is only 97 here in Barstow, which really isn't that hot for here, and tonight at the Port, there will be a nice breeze and about 65 degrees. Life is pretty rough right now....NOT!

Cheyenne Frontier Days

What a blast we had! Jason Aldean was fantastic and the fair broke a record that night for the most attended night in history. Found out a bunch of our friends were there as well too through Facebook...who knew? Toby Keith rocked it out the following night was a smaller, older crowd...which was good cause I'm getting too old for these back to back concerts anymore! We were smart this year and booked a room at the Hilton Homewood Suites, what a beautiful hotel. We had a full kitchen and breakfast..a real breakfast, was served every morning, on real plates and coffee cups and glasses for juice...no paper products for this locale. I would definitely stay at one of these locations again. They do take pets, but the pet fee is a bit pricey... $75, it was explained to me the reasoning behind it, most people stay there for weeks at a time...however an over nighter or two doesn't get a different rate.  Most of you that know me have a pretty good idea that I sent a suggestion to corporate on that one...whether it goes any further who knows?

We are back on the road again and since Monday have hit the Wamsutter, WY store Cedar City, UT and Vegas. Ran across the Hoover damn and took highway 93 down to Phoenix to load, beautiful drive. We are now heading to Port Huemene in Cali to load and then drop at the Barstow location....that means some In-N-Out for me tonight for dinner, yum.

For the first time in over a year we have a microwave back in the truck and our built in refrigerator is the bomb. We got our truck all set up over the weekend and it is nice and homey. London is settling in and last night after my shift, which we have settled on 10 am to 10 pm for me, I watched a movie on our built in 22" tv...Casino Royale while traveling down the road is comical, lots of action and shooting.

Its almost time for my shift to begin here in Cali so I need to make my coffee and get ready to roll. This job is working out great.  I love being paid by the day and not by the mile, it makes life so much less stressful.

Still a Woman in a Man's World

I am standing here in Gila Bend, AZ at the Loves waiting for our 5 th load of the day to finish. This day started out with nothing going right at each store, to our credit, it was none of our doing, however, this job has taught me patience. We get paid by the day, not by the mile or by the load...so why stress out about things that are out of your control? Jeff is now sleeping and he finished helping me load the truck, then I drove to Gila Bend and for the first time, I have completely handled this offload from start to finish. I have to say I am pretty proud of myself. Not only are we the first Team that Loves has hired...I am very proud to say that I am the only woman that works in the southwest region. I am really starting to like this job and London is getting used to the different rhythm from flatbedding.

We spent all last week in California loading from Port Huemene. Got to stop in Oxnard where we used to load strawberries when we ran reefer for USX and load up on avacados, peaches and mangos. This will definetely be a regular stop for us. We are now in AZ and will move on to NM towards the end of the week. We are planning on working our way home for the 3rd week in July for Cheyenne Frontier Days. Jason Aldean on Friday the 24th and Toby Keith on Saturday the 25th...can't wait!

Until next time...looking forward to getting out of 100+ degrees, on the bright side, I have a wicked tan!

Calamity of Errors but Spoiled Rotten

Forgive me...its been too long. My last post left off with getting ready to start our new adventure with Love's...now I digress. We ended up staying at home a total of six weeks after we left Waggoners...which was AWESOME.  Now the digression. Both Jeff and I had to get our hazmat endorsements before we left Denver which meant we had to renew our CDL's...a comedy of errors after which followed. First, Colorado now outsources all of their drivers licenses to the state of Washington... not sure where this makes any sense whatsoever, but it takes even longer to receive them now. You are issued a temporary paper license as well as your original license back, so you still obtain a picture ID, however they punch holes in your license, which spell out the word VOID. In some insane government way this must make sense, however, most people that need to see your license see the word void on your license and take it literally... as well as they should. We needed our hard copy to start our new job, however our new boss decided to get us started with our temporaries... great gesture, but not so productive. We were offered a flight to Phoenix to start, but with London, decided it was a better idea to rent a car and drive. We left on June 21 and arrived at our hotel in Phoenix on the 22nd to 115 degrees...London was melting. We trained for a few days watching loading at the various DEF racks, but we needed to obtain our TWIC card in order to prove we are not terrorists, and also so we can load at the ports in California. So off to Long Beach we went to the closest enrollment center. Unfortunately, they didn't like our temporary licenses stamped void, imagine that, so we were rejected. Long story short, we bobtailed back to Denver to pick up our new CDLs as well as all of our uniforms which were sent to our house...another thing that makes no sense to me.

 I really cannot complain about any of the disfunction since we have been paid for all of our time since we arrived in Phoenix...including three days of floating in the hotel pool. But the best part of this whole calamity is we left Denver yesterday and I got to experience the best thing ever since we started driving a truck. Bobtailing up I70 from Denver, where we learned how to drive a truck, to Cali. This drive loaded normally takes around 20 hours. At 70 mph and no load, we made it to Long Beach in 16 hours on a beautiful day and Vail pass was never easier! It was such an adrenaline rush. We now have our TWIC cards and I told my new boss that we may never be able to pull a tanker behind our new sexy truck since we have been bobtailing for a week and a half now. We are now in Barstow, CA waiting to load up the Loves. Tomorrow is the 4th and we get to decide where we want to watch fireworks since all 33 stores in southern California don't need any DEF. Since we are guaranteed to be paid for 6 days a week, all I have to say is this is the best company we have ever worked for. No stress, family owned by Mr. Love himself and very well taken care of. Welcome new family, we made the right decision. Happy 4th of July everyone.