White....the new black

Traveling across this country gives you a lot of time to think. Added to that is the fact that we get to see inside some places the public never sees as well as deliver items the general population doesn't want to know exists.

Time on your hands, deserts, places where there's no cellular service even though you can see the towers on top of distant mountains, places called Roswell, and the dodododo factor makes for some great conspiracy theories for those of us with an active imagination!

Regardless, there is one thing I know for a fact......

The next time you're next to a black SUV with tinted windows don't worry about who's inside that one....worry about who's in the white one right behind it!

Back to work!

Had a great week in Lake Tahoe over the 4th. We did stay in service but it was so slow if we would have been stuck at a truck stop all week we would have been miserable!

So it looks like our run through the Dakotas, Montana, Utah and Nevada will circle us around through California and back through Colorado and only the wind knows where we will go from there!

This is a good one.....

At a delivery today and trying to find the correct building on a  military base (that's your first red flag). Nothing matches the "address" on our paperwork (remember military base). So after driving up and down the same road for 20 minutes (in a truck with a logo as big as your house).

We pull into a building where there are loading docks and ring the bell. The sign on the door says " do not ring bell more than once, we hear you". So we wait some more....  then we call the number, again. Quote...." yes Sir, I don't know where you are but I'll come find you".

An interesting morning!

North Dakota prarie changed forever?

I've spent the last year traveling the lower 48 states and Canada but I haven't seen anything like the oil boom in western North Dakota. They say the output of oil will surpass the Alaska pipeline.

I visited North Dakota over 15 years ago, traveling in a giant square so I could see it all, but I never saw anything like this. There are travel trailers as far as the eye can see, housing that resembles military barracks and so much new construction along highway 2 in the west that it takes my breath away.

Need a job....there was 39 pages of jobs on one website! Everything from geologists, biologists, safety managers, technicians, national guard, electricians and everything in between.

If you aren't afraid of the cold and you love to duck hunt this is the place for you!!!!!

For the Birds!

<p>Here is a little known fact.....birds love truck drivers! It's true! You see we drive across the roads of America gathering bugs on our grills. Then we stop at a rest area or truck stop and the next thing you known ....it's dinner time! </p>
<p>That's right....the little birdies sit on your hood and get the free pickins' off your truck. It's a smorgasbord of beetles, butterflies, bees and other crunchie edibles!

See truckers are environmentally friendly!

The turn-around

Last week we picked up a load from Kentucky to take to California. California doesn't bother us much because we have the chance to see family of we don't get a load back east quickly. So I was driving through Texas and just as I got to Amarillo we got the call....turn around and bring the shipment back to the shipper, they made a mistake! Yeesh! So what do you do? Turn around!

So we drove all the way back to Kentucky. No family visits this trip! We did get some cool post cards in Oklahoma though so the trip wasn't a total loss and they do have some funny looking cows! Ha!

Common courtesy

I realize that we all grow up differently. Some with parents, some without.  Some go to church, some don't.  Some grow up in rural areas, some in the heart of the big city.  Some have money, some barely get by.

We are a diverse nation of race, religion, color, ethnic background and values.  Each of us are just a small drop of water in an endless sea of struggling to pay bills, make a living and trying to etch out some vacation time.

But do you have the faintest idea of right and wrong? Don't you for a moment consider the other guy? Is it really all about you?

I admit most of my life is about me and my desires. I don't sit around and listen to music I don't enjoy or use shampoo that I hate the smell of just in the name of "personal growth".

I do however occasionally allow a car in front of me during a traffic jam, hold the door open for the person behind me and quite often say the words thank you.

It seems to me that there is less of that going on every day....