Its a WINTER WONDERLAND out here folks!

We are only a few days into winter and already we have experienced more snow driving days than we did in all of last winter. Fortunetly, Kurt is a patient and practiced wintertime driver- so, except for some white knuckles, we have faired well.

Kurt was in Boston during one of their mid-December snowstorms. Here is the truck partially snowed-in....

We loaded out of Denver on 12/27- in another snow storm. Our load is yogurt- bound for Portland, Oregon. Here is the look out our window as we sat at the Denver loading dock......

As we headed north out of Denver, we were greeted by numerous signs stating the obvious....["ICY SPOTS, SNOWFALL, DRIFTING SNOW"]

And here is what drifitng snow looks like in Wyoming.....

We stopped over in Rawlins WY and this was our morning view. Blue sky, drifting snow and minus 7 degrees BEFORE you figure in the wind chill factor! (In this picture we are driving out of the parking lot-that is not the freeway road surface)

THIS is the freeway road surface- two black ribbons for hundreds of miles!


And sometimes it was foggy and icy and snowy all at once...

We made it through just fine- but here is just one of a half dozen trucks we saw that didn't make it though so well...

On Saturday afternoon we rounded the last curve on the notorius "Cabbage Hill" on I-84 in NE Oregon and we got our first view of the Columbia river gorge......and bare ground. Yay! smooth sailing the rest of the way to Portland!

Christmas with a baby is so much fun!

Matters are off the road for Christmas- in Denver with Lisa, Amy, Tim and baby Mark. We woke up on Chirstmas morning to a snowstorm- so it is a lovely white Christmas here.

It sure is fun to have a baby to watch. Mark is sitting and reaching for and grabbing toys. He smiles and coos for everyone and everything goes right to his mouth.

Here he is sitting surrounded by toys....

He also loves this exercircle seat.....

Here is grandpa keeping him occupied....

Like all infants...the paper is more interesting than the gift....


Here is Mark getting ahold of a gift and ripping off a bit of the wrapping. All 5 adults laughed loudly as he accomplished this...........

And our loud voices startled him...with this result......

Good bye to our brother Jay- 6/7/1951 to 11/30/2007

Christmas 2005

Our travels have been interrupted and our lives saddened by the death of Joanie's twin brother Jay. He lived well with MS for nearly 20 years. During that time he ran road rallies, volunteered and worked for the Sports Car Club of America and built a career as a machinist for Boeing. But over the last three years we watched sadly as the disease slowly eroded his brain and robbed him of any quality of life. He had been living in a full care nursing home when he slipped into a coma in late November. Su, Emily, Joanie and Kurt sat with him as he passed away.


March 2007


August 2007

There was a family and friends remembrance on Dec 8th. We shared many funny and touching stories about Jay. He will be remembered as a truly kind, generous and honest human being. We all miss him. Here are a few pics from the gathering...









Postscript for Matters on the road: Kurt took the truck back to the east coast starting on 12/9 while Joanie headed for Indiana by plane to do some consulting work for Head Start. Joanie returned briefly to Kettle Falls and then flew to Denver on 12/19. Kurt and the truck arrived in Denver on 12/20. We are here with the kids and grandson Mark until at least 12/26. Merry Christmas to all.

Quick Turn Around

We left L.A. on Thursday Nov 8th with a load of fresh red peppers to go to Maryland and Massachusetts. Happily that meant driving through Denver- so we got to see the kids and Mark for a second Saturday in a row!!
Here is the happy mom and son

Mark loves his Auntie Lisa too

And dad gets in on the action


Along the way we got to travel through some of our favorite places in the opposite direction from the way we usually go. It is amazing how different things look. Here are a few of the stunning views we enjoyed along the way

Here we are parked in the Virgin River valley in extreme NW Arizona



This is the western entrance to the Virgin River canyon
This is where the highway cuts through the San Rafael Swell in Utah.



And here we are going through the Rockies just west of Denver early on Saturday morning. The ski areas had their snow making machines working since they haven't had any measurable snow yet. The mist at the bottom of this shot is one of the machines blowing man-made snow into the air.

On Monday we passed through a new state for Joanie. Now the only lower 48 states that we haven't passed through are Maine, Florida and Michigan
After delivering in Maryland we drove up I-95 and got this view of the NYC skyline in a beautiful day.

Unfortunately I-95 goes right across the top end of Manhattan- We were not so thrilled by this view of the city. The lanes are VERY tight for a big truck- it was very intense!

We took Wednesday (11/14) in New Hampshire and on Thursday we reloaded chocolate to go to Tacoma. With both of us driving we were able to really charge across the country and we were glad we did because we have been half a day a head of bad storms in the mountains. We will be in Tacoma on Monday morning. We will make a quick trip to Sequim on Tuesday and be home in Kettle Falls for Thanksgiving! Whew!

Calfornia Scenes

We had a day off in LA this week. We rented a car and drove to Simi Valley to visit Ricky Parker, we had a great afternoon. Here is Joanie and Ricky and Ricky's daughter, Lindsay

Thursday morning we loaded a full truck of California red peppers in Oxnard. Oxnard is certainly one of America's food baskets. Here in the first week of November there were acres and acres of planted fields. I think these are strawberries in this picture.

You don't often see.......

It is not every day that you see....

Jet trails making a perfect X....

Or a herd of Elk in the back of a pickup truck......

OR a tree growing out of a rock

Unfortunately it IS every day- and multiple times everyday -that we see people talking on cell phones when they should be driving. This one below really took the prize though, he is talking on the cell AND reading while driving down an L.A. freeway!

A Cheyenne Visit

We weke able to stop in Cheyenne on Saturday the 3rd for a long stop-over. Amy and Tim drove the 100 miles from Denver to meet us for lunch and some museum touring. Of course we produced many photos.

Here is happy grand parents holding Mark

Here are happy parents and happy baby

and here is Mark's first visit to the big red truck

ON the road again

Our vacation came to an end and we've been back in the truck since October 24th. We took a load of frozen halibut pieces back to Massachusetts and we are already half way back to California with a load of Stonyfield yogurt.

Here's some scenes we've encountered along the way

Actually, the last day of vacation was to visit our friends Bobbie and Mike at their new home on the Washington coast near Long Beach. We lucked into a fantastic beach weather day- high sixties and no wind- In October = WOW. In this picture Bobbie and Kurt are stamping on the sand looking for clam holes (we found some- but it wasn't a legal digging day). Luckily for us, Bobbie had frozen razor clams at home so we had a nice feast on them that evening.

Big news in our truck life- we bought ourselves a microwave to have in the truck, Here it is with our first plate of nachos. The next day we warmed up soup in 5 minutes- a nice change from the hour it takes to warm soup using a pot that is powered through the lighter.

Either it hasn’t been a spectacular year for Fall leaf color – or we missed the peak everywhere. However, we still did see some colorful hills. Included here are two pictures from Montana of the Tamarack Trees turning yellow. Tamaracks- or Western Larch- look like short-needled evergreens all summer but in the fall their needles turn yellow and drop. Here is a hillside shot

and here is a close up of a few trees...

This picture of fall color is from Pennsylvania- mostly autumn shades of gold and rust were what was left

We took I-90 through Chicago last Saturday morning on our way east. The best weather yet to see the city. We got this picture of the skyline as we approached. The Sears tower is the tall one to the right.


We are traveling on I-80 to go west from New Hampshire to the Bay area. This time of year it is very heavily traveled by trucks- I sometimes count 10 to 15 trucks per mile in the oncoming lanes. We took this picture when there was a traffic tie-up in the east bound lanes- and you can see that the outlines of trucks trails off into the distance.

This picture shows a MIRACLE! This is I-80 on the edge of Chicago at 4:40 pm on Thursday. Hardly any traffic- because 20YEARS of construction is FINALLY COMPLETE! There are 5 beautiful lanes with no detours or orange cones. We sailed through for the first time ever! Kurt has encountered ties-ups and construction in this area since he first started driving a truck cross country- so this is truly amazing.


Kurt took this picture (obviously). He thought it was significant that a truck was actually passing us while I was driving. In my defense—the other truck was EMPTY- that is why it could go faster than me :)