Post Vacay Update

So I've finally arrived back to some sort of normalcy since my 10 day vacation. Which, by the way, was amazing on so many levels.

My first run back was a late night pick up, all night run, and early morning delivery that took me from our Columbus terminal to Warren, OH to acquire the load then over to Rochester, NY to deliver. It was exhausting, especially since I'd had a full nights' sleep the night before and couldn't do more than cat nap before hitting the road after sunset.

After I delivered, I shut down for a ten hour break behind the K-Mart store I had delivered at and managed about a two hour nap in the scorching heat. I idled off and on but to little avail. It was near 100 degrees out and this is not a girl who likes to sweat.

10 hr DOT break complete I headed over to Macedon, NY to pick up my next assignment, only to get there and be told it didn't exist. argh. So I moved down the street a piece to a local Wal-Mart where I occupied 65' of space for a few hours while I waited for the powers that be to find me another load.

The work assignment that came through was for a 16:00 pick up on Wednesday, a full 24 hours away. I saw that they allowed overnight parking so I noodled my way over there and figured I'd just make myself at home.

Lucky me, when I got there they'd already started loading an empty trailer with my load so I dropped my empty, bob tailed to the front lot and settled in for some MUCH needed sleep.

This morning I got up at 6:30 am and checked on my load and was pleased to find that it was ready to roll! So I got hooked up and hit the road. The load delivered same day down in Denver, PA right off the PA Turnpike. After I'd dropped and hooked up to an empty I headed down the road to Ephrata, PA to the 222 Truck Stop for some nummy lunch. I love their diner! Always delicious!

And today was no exception... I had the Big Club and Soup combo and the sammich was as always satisfying and the soup, creamy potato, hit the spot! Filled and ready to see what the world of trucking would see me doing next, I headed out to my big orange oven on wheels to see what, if any, work assignment I had lined up next.

I was pleased to see that I was to deadhead over to our PA terminal to drop my empty and hook up to a load that delivers tomorrow morning about 20 miles from here. After that I'll be heading back to the terminal for training on my new Qualcomm system.

While I was on vacation my boss man took the liberty of having the new electronic logging system installed in Marge. Of course, this thing requires quite a bit of training and hands on guidance before it can be used. So since Monday, all I've been able to do on it is read and reply to work assignment messages.

I've had to keep a paper log just like I've done since day one. Which is fine really, but why have this fancy new device and not even be able to use it?!?!

So either tomorrow afternoon or Friday morning I'll be getting trained on how to log electronically. Should be fun!

In other news, vacation was, as I mentioned before, amazing. After making a mad dash from the Columbus terminal to home I slept about 6 hours and then packed and rolled south into North Carolina where I camped for four days, three nights in a cozy one room cabin by a peaceful lake with about 60 of our biker buddies. We do this every year now and it's always a blast!

The weekend this year was a celebration of our groups' 10th anniversary. It was awesome to see all of our friends and meet some new people as well. Good times!

During the feature event of the whole weekend, the "Midnight Auction", of which my sweetie was emcee and auctioneer, I got the golly whopper of a surprise.....

He asked the group for a minute to take care of some personal business. I assumed he needed to take a bathroom break. I assumed wrong. I didn't really know what was going on until I realized he was kneeling before me, shaking ever so slightly as he fumbled in his pocket for something. He pulled out a ring, looked up at me and we were both rendered speechless.

After all the hubbub died down and congratulations were doled out en masse, he finally came over to me, taking me in his arms in a big bear hug and whispered in my ear the words he couldn't find just moments before...

He asked... I said yes.