Gi-Gi Roxx - The Ravings of a Lunatic

No, I'm not Jewish, but thanks to popular culture and over use of that coined Jewish phrase, I can use it... so there. I'm in rare form today. I've been on a wierd emotional roller coaster these past few days, partially due to whatever sickeness I endured for three freakin' days and partially due to the fact that...well... I'm a woman. I last left off sitting in Atlanta overnight, again. The following morning I obtained the load I was assigned to pick up and headed north and west with it, towards northern Illinois. I made it as far as the Indy terminal where I pooped out for the night. I was exhausted and feeling rather crappy. I knew I had a slight fever and on top of that I had a killer headache, sniffles and a sore throat. I believe I had a mild flu. I called in to let the folks at my company know of my ailments and their advice was to sleep it off and call back in the morning if I wasn't any better. And that's exactly what I had to do. When I woke up in ...

I've not blogged for a little bit and apparently a few of you have been concerned. I am alive... mostly and just truckin' right along. I had a great few days at home and the break was certainly welcome. When I left out on the 19th I headed over to Catlettsburg, KY to pick up a load that was bound for Providence, Rhode Island. On that trip I added two new states... Conneticut and Rhode Island. I don't particularly like either of them. Crappy road surfaces was the main deciding factor in that decision. But I digress. I picked up the load and headed for RI. The trip took me two days and then I was picking up another load in West Warwick, RI to head back south with. I ended up at the Carlisle terminal in PA on my way soundward, in a hotel getting my truck fixed. I was having charging issues so they had to work it all out and I got a night in a hotel! And to boot, the ol' man was working in the eastern panhandle of WV, only 70 miles away and he came up and stayed the night w...

To start my long, arduous journey out of California, I was dispatched to pick up a load in Santa Fe Springs, CA. I aquired the load and headed northeastward into the great state of Nevada. It wasn't much, but it started the trip east/homeward bound out on a good, 500 mile step. The load was bound for Wal-Mart shelves as I delivered general merchandise to the greater Reno area's Distribution Center. Bah... I hate contributing.... but it's my job. After delivering that load I was dispatched to find an empty trailer at a drop lot in Sparks, NV. After a little ado with my Qualcomm going screwy and not realizing that the place I was at had an actual drop lot, I found the trailer and headed further east to pick up a load in Lovelock, NV. It should have been a simple drop and hook, but I should know full well by now that NOTHING is ever going to be as simple as it seems. I arrived at the shippers location, which was fluidly easy to find and checked in with the shipping office. The...

Not quite the dreamscape I'd imagined actually, but it will do. When the dust isn't blowing in the wind, it's actually KINDA pretty here. I am in an area surrounded by snow capped mountains, which is nice. But it's nothing like I'd imagined. I guess I shouldn't have had such high expectations. It's not all bad though. The temperatures are moderately warm which allowed me to wear a t-shirt without a jacket for the first time since sometime back in October or early November. So that was nice. I got here yesterday evening, much later than I'd expected. It took me a lot longer than I'd anticipated to get here too. I got stuck in post Super Bowl traffic down in Phoenix, which sucked. But then it was just a long freakin' drive across I-10 into Cali. I thought I only had about 250-300 miles to go from Prescott Valley... but it was more lik 450. EEK! But I suvived and suffered. Survived because I made it without incident... suffered because I had to driv...

I've been on my journey to California now for a week. I've not made it yet, but I will today. I have had a great time since I left Missouri on Thursday. I really didn't like most of Oklahoma as it was pretty much just trudging through a horrendous snow storm, but once I broke free of that and made it into New Mexico it was fantastic. I have mentioned before that I lived in southern New Mexico, but that I'd never traveled to the northern part of the state. I wish now that I'd have done so in a privately owned auto so I could have seen the sites and enjoyed more of the beauty outside of a vehicle. Big trucks have so few places they can go in the world, really. And all of the places I would loved to have checked out didn't allow big trucks. But I was able to snap a few pictures and enjoy what I could see thoroughly. I enjoyed NM and AZ on Friday and Saturday. I was skeptical that AZ was going to produce anything beautiful for the first half of my drive on Saturday,...

I had a wonderful 4.5 days off work. But I was so ready to get back out on the road and see the country some more. Little did I know I was actually going to get to go westward! When I got to my truck on the 29th I had one message waiting for me on the Qualcomm apologizing for not having a load ready for me and another message instructing me to head up to Ohio to pick up an empty trailer and await further instruction. After I settled into the truck and sent N8 off to work, I hit the open road to Ohio. It was a nice trip and I made really good time and found the place pretty easily. But even after I got there and sent in the message confirming that I had the empty trailer, I sat empty handed waiting for a load assignment. After about 30 minutes my patience wore thin enough for me to use minutes to call and talk to my Dispatch Planner (DP) about getting a load. At first he was going to send me to our Seville terminal to pick up a relay load bound for Rhode Island. Not really what I was ho...

Let's see... I left off hauling a load to the Target DC in Tifton, GA. The delivery went well. The facility was easy enough to find and maneuver through, which always makes things much more pleasant. From there I dragged an empty trailer to swap out for a load at the Proctor & Gamble facility in Albany, GA. Taking a very beautiful scenic route on a very beautiful day along the way! The load was going to a grocery distribution center in Columbia, SC which I got "detoured" (my new term for LOST) in finding. After making two passes down the road I was supposed to turn off of to get to the facility, I figured my best move was to call the place and ask for a land mark or something since I couldn't locate a street sign with the name I was looking for. Turns out, the street sign was there, just not fully erected on the street so much as MOWED down by some horrible driver I'm sure. I finally arrived and made my delivery. Then I was off again! This time headed to Green...