Coast to Coast to Coast in 7 Days
Oct 16, 2010
Coast to Coast to Coast in 7 Days
We had a Paducah Symphony concert on Saturday, Oct 2 – Overture to “Nebucco”; Haydn Trumpet Concerto with Allen Vizzutti; “Sorcerer's Apprentice”; and “Death & Transfiguration” - a challenging program, for which I practiced hard but with a late start (forgot to bring the music on the truck the week before.) One of my favorite activities is working out the parts for a concert and playing it well with the orchestra! Picture me at truck stops and rest areas practicing this stuff! In that setting I throw in plenty of fiddle tunes if people draw near. As soon as our concert ended, I drove 40 miles home. About 11 p.m. we set out on the truck to deliver a trailer in Tampa, FL. As it turned out we were too late to deliver on Sunday by 3:00 p.m., so we went directly to our timeshare west of Orlando, arriving about 9:00 p.m. We had to drop the trailer at Walmart and bobtail a mile to “Orlando Breeze.” I got up at 4:00 a.m. next morning to take a brand new 'Pepsi' trailer to Pepsi Co. in Tampa – 62 miles away, while Peggy continued sleeping, and she was still sleeping when I got back at 7:30. Our dog Patty came along with me. Poor Patty hates to be left alone. She's always with us – except when we go into a store, church or movie, or when it costs $75 to keep her with us at the timeshare... We HAD to bring her in that first night – couldn't leave her alone all night, and I took her out with me at 4:00 a.m. But when I returned, I left her in the truck across the street and rejoined Peggy. Then we found out we didn't need to pick up the next trailer till the next day, so that gave us more resort time. We paid the $75 to bring Patty on property. We got some special food at Walmart – ribs, sweet potatoes, mangoes... While the ribs were cooking, we swam in the pool. We got into conversation with Mark & Mindy Monroe of Louisville, KY. Mark's dad is a cousin to the famous Bill Monroe, who started “Bluegrass.” Very cool to hear personal accounts of the great Bill Monroe! Mark is a self-employed landscaper. He has a 4th degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do and is an instructor and competition judge. Mindy is 2nd degree. I am 1st degree from when we lived in Korea, so I was very interested in Mark's martial arts experiences. He also restores antique cars and owns several. The conversation went on & on at the pool. Peggy invited them up. We moved to our condo and shared dinner with the Monroes – very cool couple, about 10 years younger than us.
Early next morning we left our kingsize bed, washer/dryer, 2 bathrooms, 2 bedrooms, dishwasher, 2nd floor patio and spacious living room to cram back into our truck. Tuesday we needed to pick up in Atlanta early enough to deliver in Memphis by 5:00 p.m., so we figured we had to be on the road by 3:00 CST/4:00 EST. We got done in Memphis and drove to St. Louis to pick up a trailer bound for Chicago, then picked up in Kewanee, IL north of Peoria and took it to South Bend, IN – three short loads in a row, including a lot of empty miles. But these were designed to get us to Indianapolis on Wednesday morning to take a trailer to Fresno, CA. Peggy had already seen this trailer the previous Friday but couldn't take it at that time because over-height permits hadn't arrived. We left Indy Wednesday morning, drove non-stop, except for fuel & necessary rest breaks, via St. Louis, Oklahoma City, Amarillo, Albuquerque, Flagstaff, Barstow and Bakersfield to arrive in Fresno about 7:00 p.m. Friday. A friendly young mechanic, Arturo, waited 2 hours after closing time for us to deliver, which helped us tremendously – not to have to wait overnight. We tipped him $30, which surprised him; he didn't expect it at all. I drove through the night the 350 miles to San Diego for our Saturday pick-up. We hit LA before 5:00 a.m., avoiding the worst traffic. We had breakfast at a favorite Mexican hole-in-the-wall cafe, inside a small truckstop situated only a few yards from the San Diego/Tijuana border crossing. We had last eaten here on my birthday two months ago. Just up the street we picked up a stack of 5 chassis, which took us 3 hours to secure with chains. Around noon we set out for Savannah, GA and kept moving pretty continuously via Tucson, El Passo, Dallas, Shreveport, LA; Jackson, MS; Meridian, Birmingham, Atlanta, arriving in Savannah Monday morning, which officially brought to a close our best week ever as OTR truckers. We went to the nearby truckstop to organize our trip-pack and put it in the Fed-Ex box. Then we moved to Statesboro, GA to celebrate with Chinese food and a 3-D animated movie about good vs. evil in an anthropomorphized society of owls. It was a nice break, but of course life goes on. Since then we have had another good week: Birmingham to Cleveland, TX (north of Houston;) Ft. Worth to Walton, KY (south of Cincinnati;) Elizabethtown, KY (south of Louisville) to Akron, CO (east of Denver;) Denver to Charleston, MO, which is 59 miles from our house, and then to home late on Saturday, October 16.
Coast to Coast to Coast in 7 Days
We had a Paducah Symphony concert on Saturday, Oct 2 – Overture to “Nebucco”; Haydn Trumpet Concerto with Allen Vizzutti; “Sorcerer's Apprentice”; and “Death & Transfiguration” - a challenging program, for which I practiced hard but with a late start (forgot to bring the music on the truck the week before.) One of my favorite activities is working out the parts for a concert and playing it well with the orchestra! Picture me at truck stops and rest areas practicing this stuff! In that setting I throw in plenty of fiddle tunes if people draw near. As soon as our concert ended, I drove 40 miles home. About 11 p.m. we set out on the truck to deliver a trailer in Tampa, FL. As it turned out we were too late to deliver on Sunday by 3:00 p.m., so we went directly to our timeshare west of Orlando, arriving about 9:00 p.m. We had to drop the trailer at Walmart and bobtail a mile to “Orlando Breeze.” I got up at 4:00 a.m. next morning to take a brand new 'Pepsi' trailer to Pepsi Co. in Tampa – 62 miles away, while Peggy continued sleeping, and she was still sleeping when I got back at 7:30. Our dog Patty came along with me. Poor Patty hates to be left alone. She's always with us – except when we go into a store, church or movie, or when it costs $75 to keep her with us at the timeshare... We HAD to bring her in that first night – couldn't leave her alone all night, and I took her out with me at 4:00 a.m. But when I returned, I left her in the truck across the street and rejoined Peggy. Then we found out we didn't need to pick up the next trailer till the next day, so that gave us more resort time. We paid the $75 to bring Patty on property. We got some special food at Walmart – ribs, sweet potatoes, mangoes... While the ribs were cooking, we swam in the pool. We got into conversation with Mark & Mindy Monroe of Louisville, KY. Mark's dad is a cousin to the famous Bill Monroe, who started “Bluegrass.” Very cool to hear personal accounts of the great Bill Monroe! Mark is a self-employed landscaper. He has a 4th degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do and is an instructor and competition judge. Mindy is 2nd degree. I am 1st degree from when we lived in Korea, so I was very interested in Mark's martial arts experiences. He also restores antique cars and owns several. The conversation went on & on at the pool. Peggy invited them up. We moved to our condo and shared dinner with the Monroes – very cool couple, about 10 years younger than us.
Early next morning we left our kingsize bed, washer/dryer, 2 bathrooms, 2 bedrooms, dishwasher, 2nd floor patio and spacious living room to cram back into our truck. Tuesday we needed to pick up in Atlanta early enough to deliver in Memphis by 5:00 p.m., so we figured we had to be on the road by 3:00 CST/4:00 EST. We got done in Memphis and drove to St. Louis to pick up a trailer bound for Chicago, then picked up in Kewanee, IL north of Peoria and took it to South Bend, IN – three short loads in a row, including a lot of empty miles. But these were designed to get us to Indianapolis on Wednesday morning to take a trailer to Fresno, CA. Peggy had already seen this trailer the previous Friday but couldn't take it at that time because over-height permits hadn't arrived. We left Indy Wednesday morning, drove non-stop, except for fuel & necessary rest breaks, via St. Louis, Oklahoma City, Amarillo, Albuquerque, Flagstaff, Barstow and Bakersfield to arrive in Fresno about 7:00 p.m. Friday. A friendly young mechanic, Arturo, waited 2 hours after closing time for us to deliver, which helped us tremendously – not to have to wait overnight. We tipped him $30, which surprised him; he didn't expect it at all. I drove through the night the 350 miles to San Diego for our Saturday pick-up. We hit LA before 5:00 a.m., avoiding the worst traffic. We had breakfast at a favorite Mexican hole-in-the-wall cafe, inside a small truckstop situated only a few yards from the San Diego/Tijuana border crossing. We had last eaten here on my birthday two months ago. Just up the street we picked up a stack of 5 chassis, which took us 3 hours to secure with chains. Around noon we set out for Savannah, GA and kept moving pretty continuously via Tucson, El Passo, Dallas, Shreveport, LA; Jackson, MS; Meridian, Birmingham, Atlanta, arriving in Savannah Monday morning, which officially brought to a close our best week ever as OTR truckers. We went to the nearby truckstop to organize our trip-pack and put it in the Fed-Ex box. Then we moved to Statesboro, GA to celebrate with Chinese food and a 3-D animated movie about good vs. evil in an anthropomorphized society of owls. It was a nice break, but of course life goes on. Since then we have had another good week: Birmingham to Cleveland, TX (north of Houston;) Ft. Worth to Walton, KY (south of Cincinnati;) Elizabethtown, KY (south of Louisville) to Akron, CO (east of Denver;) Denver to Charleston, MO, which is 59 miles from our house, and then to home late on Saturday, October 16.
posted by Trucking Fiddler at 6:02 AM
2 Comments:
Bill Monroe! COOL! If Mark's dad was Bill's cousin, does that mean that Mark is Bill's second cousin?
wow!!
this is very beautiful story of your journey, you described very well each and every thing.trucking Charleston
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