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.

First Round Winners

What's this? Sandra's bubble just poped but she won for the froup on the right. With obvious determination, the winner of the group on the left looks at Sandra with determination, because now they have to compete for the grand prize!

The Challenge

There were two groups of "Bubble Blowers." The woman in the middle won the first group and Sandra (on the right) won the second group. The woman on the left points in amusement at the two winners who are in a serious challenge!

Grandma Gets The Prize

Sandra received a $25 gift certificate to "Cracker Barrel" for
winning the "Bubble Gum Blowing" contest !!! What Talent!

Blasted

1. Our truck got blasted. . . sand blasted, that is. Last two weeks I have been refinishing the back end of the truck. My friends, Ronnie and Ron came and sand blasted the liftgate and the underneath frame from the wheels back.











2. Here the sand blasting is done and the bottom panel of the big door has been painted white. But you can see that the lettering has aged a lot. So, I removed the letters and sanded the back door then repainted it.












3. All done. Except we have to go and have new letters placed on the back door.

Minneapolis Bridge

What a surprising tragedy. Makes us wary of any bridge we have to cross.

We're waiting for another dispatch. We arrived in Minneapolis, MN last night a couple of hours after the I35W bridge collapsed. We were on I-35W but got off at I-494 and went around the west of the cities. This morning we went over to the Denny's near the truck stop. Our grand kids call it the Shiney place. That's a good description.
We were shocked to think that the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis just plain fell in with 50 some cars and trucks on it during rush hour. I guess a lot of interstate bridges are getting older and may need attention.