Mid Atlantic Storm

This is the results of a storm we drove through last week in North Carolina just after we delivered our Wal-Mart load, and to think Allen let me drive 4 hours through the rain, slush and ice ;)

Salt Lake City Mountains

We had just delivered a load ahead of the snow storm that hit SLC, Ut on Nov. 23rd

Sunrise in Kansas

Nov 24th morning I was driving and trying to take pictures of the beautiful sunrise in Kansas on the I-70 Turnpike. Just magnificant

Happy to see family for Halloween

Trick-or-treaters

Nana, Makaila and Karston

Optimus Prime and Princess Dora visit Papa's semi for Halloween


Happy to see Papa and Nana or what?? Silly kids!!

It could have been worse

Here are a couple of pictures of a semi that hit a cow the night before we (I) hit two deer. The owner of this truck is out of work for 3 weeks at least until his truck is all better :(

Two Deer with one semi, Who says truckers cant Hunt & Drive?

So it was 2:15 am, Allen had finished his drive and went back to sleep, Rita took over the reigns and what a sleigh ride it was. A ways into my drive..there they were, just the two of them "grazing" in the middle of the road, yep i saw those two dear just in time to shout "YOU STUPID DEER!!" (which woke Allen up, but not out of bed) then I saw their eyes just before thumpity, thumpity, thummpp. I kept the semi on the road and straight up, and we are safe, but there is venicine meat splattered all over the underneath side of Allen's pretty new truck :( We had to be towed an hour back to Kansas City, MO where the truck is now waiting to be fixed.

Are you kidding me? Snow already

This is the first snow of the season for us. This is in Wyoming and yes there is already snow in the mountains in Utah too :)

Our son Turrel and his wife Laura, Kenzie and Derick

Karston getting a "kick" out of soccer!

Grandkids and more

Kaleb and Lexy enjoying a pretend ride in Papas big truck

Our New Truck

It has been a "Long Haul" getting our truck ready to actually make some money. We were most of a week in Fontana, CA getting all the paperwork and moving into the truck and getting it road worthy, not to mention $504.00 to the IRS and $370.00 for 10 days of temp insurance. So we finally get to take posession of our truck in Primm, NV 4 days later. To celebrate we met up with my sister and her new husband Jamie and my neice Meredith at the Rio Casino in Las Vegas. We had a wonderful time and dinner at the World Buffet with them. Then its a cross country trip to Chattanooga, TN. Then we spen 5 days there doing all the paperwork and getting cleared as "Company Drivers" and switching over to "Owner Operators". Thanks to all the good people at Chatt. we got our truck stickered and payroll cleared and we are now official "Owner Operators". To top it off we got to spend time with our company friends for a couple days! They are wonderful people.

Toss that salad (literally)

So Allen and I picked up this load of 99% salad containers in Colton California and were taking it to a Wal-Mart distribution center in MacClenny, FL. We got to our Saturday 6:15 am appointment at 5:15 am, always want to be an hour early to Wal Mart, we got backed into our dock and set our alarm for 2 and 1/2 hours later, this is when we should be unloaded by. I go into the office at 8:30 am and my bills are not ready for some reason. So I sit there and wait will 11:30 am and they finally have my bills ready, I sign them and they proceed to tell me that they rejected 420 cases of Organic Baby Spring mix salad. OHHHHH I say and the gal behind the counter laughs at me. I say "are you kidding? Why?" She was serious, some 420 cases, or 5040 containers of salad were still in the back of our trailer due to "Packaging Integrity" :( What in the world are we going to do with all this salad? 3 hours later word finally comes back from our company to donate or dispose of properly. We already had another load assignment that we were going to be late for, so with all this salad in our trailer we take it 300 miles to Atlanta, Georgia and drop the trailer in one of our company's drop yards. I took 1 container of salad for Allen and I and I hope the rest of it went to good use somewhere in Atlanta. Sad to think that it may have just all been "Tossed" out.

PHOTO TAG

I got tagged by my daughter Taya.....It's a "PICTURE TAG" and this is how it goes. Go to your pictures and go to the 5th folder. Then open up the 5th picture and post it. Then tag 5 people when you are done. Have fun!
This was my picture, Taya, her daughter Samantha and new son Gavin October 2007
I'm tagging.....Connie (if you've figured the picture thing out) and anyone who wants too play :)

Wyoming in April

Here we go again. Here we are in Wyoming, where just the night before Interstate 80 was shut down through part of Wyoming. We just happened to come behind the storm a few hours later. Beautiful isn't it?

Weather and more weather

This is supposed to be April, spring, flowers blooming, birds chirping, sunshine...but this, this is what we have seen across the country during April. This is Donner Pass in California , it wasnt sticking to the road just our windshield. Gotta love truck driving.

Rita got "Solo Status" Today

Wow, what a nerve-racking 4 days it has been for me, but today made it all worth it. On Thursday our Refresher Course here at Covenant Transport consisted of me and another guy and two teachers. Come Friday, I am the only student. The other guy got sent home for some reason or another. So for the last 3 days I have been consistently practicing my backing a 53' trailer into a 12' wide alley dock, another trailer on each side of me. I never backed into or bumped either of the other trailers :) In some instances this was a miracle. There were times I would be 3" to 4" away from the other trailer. Out of all those times backing only once (and it was the last back of the first day) did I get the trailer in the hole without any pullups!! Of coarse that is the way you want to do it everytime, but I still showed a lot of improvement and that I got the trailer in the dock everytime even though some may have had 10 pullups. So at the end of today I graduated with the highest status available:) I am so thankful!! Now tomorrow Allen and I will go find out when and where we will go pick up a truck. Could be here in Chattanooga, in Texas or California. We are anxious to get making some money!!

Never a dull moment around these guys!!

These are the alumni that were in Allen's refresher driving class he had to take to be ready to drive a semi again. I guess it was just like being on a comedy tour with your favorite comedian. All these guys were just a riot and they all had a lot of fun together. Never a dull moment around them that is for sure. One day Allen came back to the motel with a side-ache because they had been laughing most of the day.

Well I went to the Dr. today and my blood pressure was good so I decided to just go ahead and pay for my DOT physical while I was there :) Now I don't have to worry about it all the way through Monday when I will finally get into orientation.

Allen made "Solo Status" Today

Allen aka Dad :) made it through all of his classes. On Friday he passed and is now certified in the "SMITH System". What this means we have no idea, it's all about aiming high when driving, leaving yourself and out, get the big picture and a couple other ones I don't remember. It's about being aware of your surroundings and avoiding getting in a crash. I digress.... He passed his city and country drives, didn't run anyone or anything over, and did his backing with all good scores. He could either make "Solo" "Team" or "need to go with a trainer" status. luckily he made solo since I won't be able to join him for a week and a half or two. He had a lot of fun with the guys in his class Deangelo, Sammy, Ron, what a bunch of funny guys! Oh what I have to look forward too. I will try and get some pictures next week to post. Miss You All :.(

Just a minor setback

So Allen and I have been here in Chattanooga for almost two weeks. On Monday we began orientation and first thing of the day were D.O.T. physicals for those of us in the class who didn't have them. There were about 60 people in our class to start out with, by noon 5 of us were already out, yes...I was one of the five :( 4 of us were out due to high blood pressure. High Blood Pressure you say, none of us thought we had HBP. Third time they tested the four of us and it was still high, they sent us home. I couldn't beleive it, neither could the other three guys. I felt terrible because Allen had passed everything and they were going to send us both home. Covenants policy is you are out for 14 days before you can try again. So they found a way for Allen to stay in class and I can stay with him till he is on a truck then I can be a rider on the truck until I can get into class in 2 weeks. Whew, this was better than having to drive all the way back home and wondering where we would go from there. I went to the Dr and got on medicine and already my BP is within DOT guidelines :)

I just want to thank our kids and friends for all their love and support. I couldn't be here without all of you. You know you are my world and I can't tell you how much I miss you and my grandkiddios. Love to you all!!

Chattanooga, TN

Well we made it to Chattanooga without any mishaps, only to find out that we have to wait till March 9th to get into our orientation ...Don't know who messed up on that one ;). And so the journey begins. Cold here today but supposed to warm up into the 60's come Thursday and Friday. Love you all!!

Wed night Cheyanne, WY

Sorry, no pictures today, Dad and I left Salt Lake City this morning after wonderful adjustments from our chiropractor. We got to Cheyanne, Wyoming this evening and decided to stay here at Little America, very nice place. Miss all my kids and grandkids!! It's not like I sleep in anyway when I'm not near Makaila! Love you all!!

We are Family

Hanson Game Day only without the games.

Our tanning salon family :) I sure do love all of you!! This was a "surprise party" Tanisa and one of my best friends Dawn put together for me!! There was lots of food and great company!! Thanks to all who were there and to Karalee and Tanisa for all their hard work.

New Blog

Since All of her kids have blogs, it's time for Mom to have a blog. To keep us up to date on her journey as she heads out on another Truck Driving Adventure. So for all of us to keep in touch, I hope mom has the time to keep us posted on her journey across the states over the next couple years.

We love you!!

K