Tub Is Installed

The tub is almost secure in the new bathroom. Grandma supervises and makes sure grandpa sticks to the blueprint!

Break Time

All hard workers deserve a break now and then.

Christmas Vacation

After almost 6 weeks on the road, we decided to build a 2 bedroom house out of our room above the garage. I started by building a wall around the stairs. I had some good help. Natalie helped me pull up studs and Joelle worked on pounding nails.

Resting up

We are in are at a truck stop near Lodi California. It is pretty here, although it has started raining. But it looks like the sun might come out and chase the rain away.

A Long Trip !

We have been on a long trip from KY to CA. Whe had a hard time getting here. We ran into freezing rain in Nebraska and then fought the snow and ice for the next 800 miles. When we finally arrived in California we had our freight unloaded and went straight to the Motel 6 in Fairfield, about three miles from our delivery. What a relief to finally be where the weather is warm - although they think it is cold here!

Blogging

Grandma is an avid blogger. She can't wait to get the computer fired up so she can see what is happening with her children and grand children. What a blessing to have this wonderful technology. We are in the Motel room enjoying some space and the fact that we are sitting still!

Blogging

Here I am trying to keep up with our kids and grand kids by watching the blogs

Thrashed

This picture showes how dirty the back door is, but it doesn't begin to show how grungy the rest of the truck looks. When we started this trip back in KY we had just washed the truck and it sparkled.

Dripping

When we parked, I saw a lot of water dripping down from the underneath the truck behind the back wheels. So I looked underneath to find the problem - guess what I saw! See next picture. . . .

Glacier

There was the culprit - a glacier which after 24 hours was still dripping water. It was about twice that size when I first saw it. When we arrived at our delivery the truck was inspected by a security guard who ran a mirror underneath and all around the truck. At the back of the truck he spent a long time looking up at something to determine what he was seeing. It was the glacier !!

Truck stop, Game machines and Cowboys

We stayed at the TA truck stop in Las Vegas, Nevada. This is one of the truck stops Larry the cable guy visited on his video tour of truck stop activities. We picked up 30 game machines in Las Vegas and took them to a casino in the high desert, Warm Springs, Oregon (oops. . . I might have given away the answers to the previous post - the one with the picture of Mt. Hood and Crown Point near Portland, Oregon).

Anyway, we took the game machines to KahNeeTah casino. One of the guys unloading the machines was enamored with our truck and called it the truck "sports model." I thought that was a good description. What do you think?

On the way to Portland, as we were going through the hills, we saw an old fashioned cattle drive coming right up the road. There were 6-8 cowboys riding horses wearing their chaps, big hats, scarves around their necks and maybe even pistols. They were herding 60-100 cows right up the road and we had to go real slow as the cows passed us by. I really wanted a picture but couldn't get one since I was driving and Sandra was looking and the camera was put away.

Guess where we are

We just passed this way yesterday. The bottom picture is Crown Point. Do you know what state we are in? Maybe the top picture will help. This is your geography lesson for today!

We are getting new thermostats for our truck. It was running cold and we need the heat to keep warm and to clean off the winshield.

Painting Inside The Big Truck

Sandra and I just took a whole month off work. Here is one of the reasons. I completely refinished the freight box of the big truck. The top picture is after repainting and after the equipment has been put back into place.
The bottom picture is the same except that the bulkhead has been painted and placed back into place in front of the equipment.

It's lots of work but I get a lot of comments on the organized, nice looking truck.

More Alumni

Here is another set of twins (Mary and Cherie) who sang in my choir when I taught in Indiana. Second Pic is me directing a rehearsal and the last is one of the choir performing.
I also sang with Randy, John and Bob in a quartet and a duet with Randy but I didn't get clear pics, sorry guys. Of course Jimmy organized the whole thing and did a wonderful job.

Back Home Again, In Indiana

October 12 and 13 Sandra and I went to Indiana Academy and participated in the Alumni Weekend. I directed the Alumni Choir and sang in the afternoon program. In this first pic you can see part of the alumni choir. In the second you can see Dr. Sharon and me at the organ I
installed in 1973 with several students and my dad.

In the third pic is Pastor Jack Nail (the pastor who performed our marriage ceremony 39 years ago) and Me and Sandra. Third pic is of Dr. Sharon and her twin, Sherman who were in my choir
from 1972 to 1974.

I'm Hot Stuff!

That's right, I am hot stuff. I found out a couple of weeks ago when we went into a nuclear plant to pick up some radio active freight to take across the country. When I went through the scanners to gain access to the plant, they picked up radiation in my body! Turns out that in June I had a nuclear stress test. To do the test they inject some (minute amount) radioactive material into the blood stream the night before the stress test, take you to this large machine which takes multiple pictures of the circulatory system. Then in the morning they inject some more of the fluid and let you walk on the treadmill until you can't go another step. Then, once again you go to the machine and have more pictures taken. Then they can compare the pictures to see if your arteries are functioning properly.

Evidently it takes quite a while for the very minute amount of radiation which gets into the circulatory system to dissapate because the scanner at the neuclear plant picked it up. If I had gone in to the plant the computer (scanner) would not have let me out! They could have done a complete body work up on me and then entered the results in the computer and then let me in (the computer would know that I had the radiation before I entered) and then I could get back out. But that would have taken several hours beyond the usual four hours it takes to get in. So guess what. . . Sandra was elected to drive into the plant and pick up the freight while I waited four hours in the waiting room until she came back out. That was quite an event since she had never gone inside before! She did a fine job - everyone said so.

Protective Gear

This past week we were very busy. Just before we came home we had a hazmat load (hazardous material). At the delivery, we had to put on protective gear, including helmets, goggles and long sleves over our arms. We thought we looked like space creatures!

Here we are in our truck. Sandra is in the top picture and I am in the bottom picture.

Truck Driver Appreciation Day

This week starts "Truck Driver Appreciation Week" in the USA. So today we went to our headquarters in Ohio where we were treated to a nice lunch (we had a vegie burger sadwich), received some interesting trinkets and participated in some games, raffels and contests. It was a lot of fun to mingle with other drivers, see their trucks and learn about our business from some who have more experience. There must have been about 20 trucks who showed up for the event. We were in Buffalo and decided to go down for some fun.In the next posts you will see some more details of the day.

Contests

At the cookout there were several activities and raffels. Here several contractors presented their trucks in the "Pride and Polish" contest. The first truck here won 1st place. Sandra and I did not enter the "Pride and Polish" but we did enter the "Water Baloon Throwing Contest." We did pretty good. We got up to about 30 feet apart and then when I threw the baloon to Sandra, it bounced out of her hands and went splat. But Sandra DID enter the "Bubble Gum Blowing" contest. There were two groups of bubble blowers and the winner of each group had to compete to win the Grand Prize. In the following posts, you can see how that turned out.