Ok, so Belinda has been off the truck for a couple of weeks and I've let the blog fall behind again. What can I say. I'm a procrastinator, always have been, and will probably be late for my own funeral. We had a bit of a scare with one of our Daughter-in-Love's. She ate something and got a touch of food poison we think. She was very sick for 4 days and our son finally convinced her to go to the emergency room. They admitted her as soon as they got there and took 3 days to nurse her back to go home. We just happened to be home when this happened and I left Belinda there to take care of the Grandbaby's while she was in the Hospital. I needed to get back to work and earn us a living.

I had a bit of a scare myself that week. We had left Wichita and had a run up to Kansas City to pick up a loaded trailer and relay it to Joplin for Team to run it on to California. Anyway on our way into Joplin the company sent me a message that I needed to update my health card as it expires next month. I figured while we were in Joplin, I'd take care of that before we headed home for a few days. I "Flunked" my physical.... Seems I am having a bit of kidney problems and had excessive blood in my pee test. I just figured I was passing another one of my kidney stones as I have passed many at home (and on the road) without seeing a doctor.

This was on Thursday 9/06. They said come back in Monday and retest. Meanwhile, they notified CFI and the company RED listed me not able to drive unless I pass the physical. This really had me worried now. We go home for the weekend and then I worry about it the whole time. Monday, I leave Belinda at home taking care of the babies since mama's still in the Hospital. I go to clinic and fail the test again. I then go to the doctor and he pokes, prods, and asks a lot of questions and decides that I have a bladder infection. He writes a letter for me stating that I am being treated with antibiotic to take back to the clinic. They then give me a new health card and I'm back on the road.
I end up getting a run to Minnesota to add another state to my list of states visited. Then it's off to Georgia, up to Boston back down through all the big east coast cities to Philly and finally a run back into Missouri. Belinda still needs to stay home to wait on another test on our Daughter-In-Love, so I'm off to Mission TX and 100 degree days!!!
Finally I get a load out of Laredo TX to Indy and will be able to pick up my true Love on the way there. This Saturday the 29th we'll be back together :)

OH, by the way, if your ever in Boston and go into the Harbor tunnel (the Big Dig) be prepared that thing is huge and has interchanges in it. Just blew me away. I seen tunnel ahead and expected to go into tunnel, come out of tunnel. I've done it that way all over the country. NOT in Boston. You see, I really don't make notes of where I need to turn since I use GPS navigation. GPS does NOT work under ground, hehehe, took me totally by surprise. There are several interchanges in that tunnel and I just happened to get the correct lane that took me from I-93 to I-90 west. Whooo, that was a close one, I almost ended up in China Town in Central Boston!

Living the Dream and Loving IT

THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME
Could you guess we're in Kansas? We went to a town in Iowa named Pella. We delivered our wood molding to Pella window company. We got there on Monday afternoon and got a spot at a small Casey's truck stop just a couple of blocks from our delivery. Walked into town, about 2 miles to the actual downtown, and got a pasta supper at a small cafe. They had a big Dutch windmill in town, and the tourist info booth on the square was shaped like a windmill and one of the banks was too. A guy we talked to while we were checking out the town square said in the spring they have a tulip festival that we need to see. They had wooden shoes on display in a little shop. All the stores were closed so I couldn't do any shopping for my Emily and Cody. I thought the shoes would be such a cute idea. : ) Made our delivery Tuesday morning and got a dispatch to run up above Des Moines at Ames to pick up a load of empty water bottles to bring down here to Wichita for this morning. Ricky's trainer, Jerry, was passing through Ames on his way to El Paso just as we were leaving, so we ran the run together as far as the toll road down here in Kansas. It was nice having company on a night run. We came on up to a service plaza close to our delivery and got lucky to find a spot to shut down, at such a late time of the night, and got to come on in this morning for an earlier delivery and are now sitting waiting for another job. It's been a good month. We've really seen some pretty places and made some good money this time out. Ricky has now driven 91,000 miles since he went to work for CFI. He said he is glad he made the decision to make this change in our lives. I'm so glad to see him happy again. We have put in to go home, so hopefully we will get a load back towards Joplin from here. Just gonna take a couple of days off, we need to check up on the house and get some hugs... : ) to refresh for another trip out. Catch ya'll up later.

Living our Dream... Belinda and Ricky

HELLO AGAIN

Sorry it's been so long. We've not been in a computer friendly environment apparently. The signals for our phones and computers and even my TV haven't been worth a toot. We delivered our furniture in OK City last Monday morning. Then we got a great run. Picked up some shocks and struts out from OK City and guess to go where.... yessssss... Oregon!! We had so much fun seeing firsts together again. We went through Idaho to get into Oregon. We have now been to 40 states together. We went through the upper east corner of Utah this time, saw a different tip of the Great Salt Lake.. just a little piece out from Ogden. There is a beautiful pass through the mountains there. Oregon was kinda bland in places on hwy 20, till we drove along the Snake river and till we came down into this valley from a mountain to where we delivered.. Prineville was the towns name, a small cute little town. We delivered on Thursday, and picked up a load Friday morning in the same town to take to Pella, Iowa. So we are on our way there now, we have to be there Tuesday morning. There have been sooo many trucks on the road this Labor Day weekend.. but have seen very few Highway Patrols, to my surprise.
Gonna go for now, hopefully I can get this to post without losing it.

Dreamin our Dream... Belinda and Ricky