REALLY real

There’s no doubt about it now. Mike is typing this in the passenger seat of the truck as he and Lori drive down US-54 hauling 43,637 pounds of chuck rounds, chuck steak, shoulder clods and chuck roast.

Mike’s also decided that he’s going to switch from “third person” to “first person” in writing this log. (Now that I’m just a truck driver, it takes too much brain power to write like I’m talking about somebody else.)

It’s been a whirlwind since I walked out of Yorba Linda City Hall for the last time as an employee on Friday afternoon. Lori and I did some last minute packing, our son Jason drove us up to the TA truck stop in Barstow to meet Curtis and Candy as they came across from Bakersfield with a trailer full of ground almonds headed for the Mars candy factory in Pennsylvania.

Lori and I throw all of our stuff up into the cab and settled into our places for the ride to Denver. With four people in the truck, switching places was a bit like a Chinese fire drill: one person in the driver’s seat, one in the passenger’s seat, one in the lower bunk, the other in the upper bunk, and Percy the pub laying on the floor or up on the lower bunk.

In the course of 20 hours on the road, we went from 100-degree heat in Las Vegas, to rain/snow in the Rockies, to a downpour and overflowing creek beds in Denver (which made for a damp transfer of clothes and supplies from one truck to the other).

No more riding for Lori; it was time for her to drive – 10 hours to Dodge City to pick up the beef load. About 4:30 a.m., we parked at the Flying J truck stop across from the National Beef processing plant and FINALLY got in our own bed/bunk.

This morning, we had a nice sit-down breakfast (using our Flying J gift card, a present from Shannon, Chris, & Allie) before hitting the road for Prime’s “world headquarters” in Springfield, MO. Our ETA is 9:00 p.m. tonight.