WE HAVE A GRANDSON!!!

We arrived in Denver at 6 am on Friday morning and backed up to our delivery dock. At a little after 7 am our grandson, Mark Patrick, was born! We finished our delivery, took quick showers and were ready and waiting when Lisa came to collect us at the truck stop. We were back at the hospital by Mark's second hour... We will let the pictures tell the rest of the story......

He is perfect, and the new Mom and Dad are doing great

See their blog for more pictures

http://www.cichan.blogspot.com/

Two new states!

Wenesday night we stayed in Kentucky. Our first time driving in this state since Joanie joined the team. And the next day we crossed Kansas- another first visit. We were headed to Denver - where we will deliver our load of paint spend the weekend-- and as luck would have it - WE WERE in town when Amy and Tim's baby boy arrived!!!

es!

She can go backwards!!

On Friday we found an abandoned warehouse near our route so we took that opportunity to get some backing up practice for Joanie. Kurt stood well back-- and took these pictures of me concentrating hard

I didn't hit anything--and got pretty adept at backing straight back after an hour of practice.

Later that day we were making a delivery at Stonyfield-- and Kurt got out of the driver's seat and let me do the final back in!! Whoo-whoo!!

Trucking Snapshots

Just a hodge podge of things we have seen recently

We took a new route through Montana on this last trip east and it took us right beside Custer's Last Stand. The tiny blip on the crest of the ridge below is the monument to the fight. Looking at the desolate land- it sure makes you wonder what they were fighting for!?


We also passed through South Dakota on this trip. This is one of the prettier vistas we encountered.....


We were way out in the country-- but this picture makes it seem like we were also way back in time..........


Aren't these interesting up close? These are the vanes of the new electricity generating wind machines that are popping up all over the country. Each vane is better than 50 feet long. I think they look like beached whales.......


Can you guess where this is??

You'd be right if you guessed Buffalo NY!! (that's a pretty funny shadow of our truck too)

Here are a pair of snapshots of horses grazing in open fields. It is always a picturesque sight to see but on this trip we witnessed horses in Montana (top photo) and in Virginia (bottom photo)-- What a different life for those horses!



We got stuck in a traffic tie-up in Virginia on Sunday so we got off I-95 finally and took the back roads to reach our delivery in Gordonsville. Turned out to be a beautiful drive that cris-crossed lesser known Civil War battlefields and went very near James Madison's estate. Here is one of the better photos of our route.

We take a day off on the Jersey Shore

We rented a car and spent 24 hours on the New Jersey Shore. The first day was still rainy but on Thursday we woke up to a beautiful day. We walked on the beach and climbed up the Barnegat Light house. HEre is the view from the top

Here we are back on the sand

NOW LOOK WHERE WE ARE!!!!

We departed Washington on Thursday 7/12 with 42,000 lbs. of onions headed for upstate NY. We had a great trip across, including taking a new route through Montana that took us by Custer's last stand and by the BadLands of South Dakota. We delivered our load on Tuesday morning and reloaded a truckload of canned vegetables.......

.............going to NEW YORK CITY........!!!!!



Look at this delivery location......

What an experieince!!

Although we began our day 60 miles from NYC at 5 am- we were still in rush hour traffic all the way to our delivery site on the East River. If that wasn't enough- we hit multiple THUNDERSTORMS! while in the city. [These storms were so close there was only 1 or 2 seconds between lightning and thunder clap and the accompanying rain was coming down in sheets!]

Most of my pictures of the rain did not turn out because it was also so dark that my flash went off (even thought is was after 8 am ). Here is a shot of one of the rivers formed by the rainfall-this is on the freeway through the Bronx. Also notice how tight the lanes are!

Much of the freeway through Brooklyn is elevated- and, of course, there is road construction. Here you can see that there is JUST enough room for our truck to pass. There are also many low overpasses. At one point signs said there was a 12' 6'' clearance ahead (we need 13'6") - so we took the next exit - unnecessarily at it turns out - and ended up needing to do a U-turn on city streets in Brooklyn to return to the freeway. Way to go Kurt!

This is the closest we came to Manhattan- driving under the Brooklyn Bridge

We left the city by driving across to Staten Island and then over the Hudson river via the Verazano Bridge to New Jersey. On a clear day you would be able to see the tip of Manhattan Island from this bridge- but not today!!

We parked the truck in New Jersey and now will take a well deserved day off!

Home Time

After San Francisco we returned to Tacoma and were able to take 6 days off at home. A bonus was that Lisa was also home for a little R-n-R after her school teaching year. The weather was perfect- hot and sunny. We ate out on the deck each night, went to the lake for afternoon swims and even got a little work done

Here is one of our al fresco dinners- this one with our friends Barry and Valerie and with Lisa

One morning we were visited by a young male deer. He came right alongside our deck and took a little shower in the sprinkler.

Lisa was a big help. Here she is down in the basement contemplating the next step of the re-plumbing of the water lines. She ran the hot and cold water lines for the new bathroom--without any leaks (that spray on the wall doesn't count)!

Okay- a slight amendment to the weather report. It actually was too hot on Wednesday- over 100 degrees in the shade. There was a long afternoon swim in the lake and we slept on the deck outside that evening.

Guess where we spent July 4th?

Shouldn't be too hard to guess.......


We were able to spend 24 hours visiting Joanie's brother Nat and his wife Madeline in the Bay Area over the 4th. WE took a circle drive from the hilltops above Berkeley over to Sausalito, across the Golden Gate and through San Francisco back to the East Bay. Later we walked to the Berkely tide flats to watch the spectacular fireworks.

Here are the 4 of us above the Golden Gate Bridge. Nat is just 8 weeks from suffering a paralyzing stroke and he is doing great! He is up and about and walking well with the aide of a cane or walker. (Though we did make him ride in the wheelchair for the long walk to view the fireworks!)

Too much salt!

This most recent westbound trip also allowed us to get up close and personal with the Great Salt Lake Basin west of Salt Lake City.

First of all- the place is FLAT! Here is one view of our route.

Along the way, some one had the idea to erect a sculpture to enliven the landscape….. But the prevailing opinion is that these spheres and the casings on the ground are proof of extraterrestrials breeding on earth!

Interstate 80 crosses the Bonneville Salt Flats. We made a stop at the visitor’s center. Here is the informational sign that describes the history of setting the world land speed record on this site.

We walked out onto the salt flats and, sure enough, the ground is nothing but salt! Here is a close up.

But then Kurt started ribbing me about MY land speed truck driving record set the day before as I topped out at 77mph passing other trucks in Wyoming. I decided I couldn’t take it any longer- so I kicked the legs out from underneath him and left him stranded on the salt flats.

Here is the last view Kurt had of me and the truck as I drove away

[ha ha]

Westbound trip

Just one week ago we were dining in New Jersey and tonight we are in the Bay Area of California! We started this westbound trip at the Stonyfield Yogurt Factory in New Hampshire. Here is a picture of their corporate sign


With Joanie driving we are able to extend the hours we can drive daily hence we made the crossing to California in four days. We followed Interstate 90 from Massachusetts to Ohio and then I-80 all the way to the Bay.

On one of Joanie's driving stints - in the middle of Nebraska - we had a flat tire. Luckily it was one of the dual tires on the trailer- so it did not effect how the truck handled- but it still made a pretty spectacular boom when it blew! There wasn't much left of it by the time we came to a town to get it replaced. [FYI-$250 for a used tire and the labor to install it]



Here is picture of the tire remains....

On the highest point on I-80 in Wyoming they have erected a monument to Abe Lincoln. It is pretty impressive to come upon it when you are westbound.

As we were crossing Wyoming on Saturday we started noticing a number of oversize rigs traveling east bound carrying some huge pieces of something. There were at least 4 trucks
carrying gridwork that hung over the lanes at least 2 feet on each side and here is one of 3 trucks carrying huge cylinders. We thought maybe the state permitted these rigs to cross on the weekend. But the point is- it never ceases to amaze us what gets moved by truck in this country!