Road Trip

So we were off. We headed south. The first night we arrived really late and stayed in the truck at a truck stop. Next night we stayed at a typical sort of hotel - this one was the Best Western in LaGrange, Ga, where we had to load some people's stuff to move to The Woodlands. It had a king bed, though.

And this chair - where Bill likes to roost when we hit a hotel room - had a nice ottoman. And an extra little glass table for him to use. Nice.

And the fridge and microwave. Essential.

Hell. This is the house we loaded up to head to The Woodlands. Very nervous woman - she couldn't bring herself to show for the move after the first morning. These were some oddballs. I won't go into all they had us do, but I will say we were extremely happy to finish loading this. It took 3 days.

On our way to Houston, we met up with Kathryn and Vic for a yummy lunch in Gulfport. Hi Kathryn! Hi Vic! After lunch, we did a little shopping for some necessities, then got back in the truck. An alarm was going off. A very loud, very annoying alarm. It drove us crazy! After much calling of mechnics and dealers, Bill decided the prudent thing to do would be to backtrack to the Kenworth dealer in Mobile. We arrived as they were closing, but the service manager took time to hook up the truck to some computer.

After they ran the diagnostics, they determined that the problem was the alarm itself. New gauge/instrument cluster was needed. They didn't have one. Damn. So we took off and drove till 1 a.m. with that blasted alarm blasting! Crap!

After we arrived in Iota, LA we had to have some sleep. We slept for about 3 or 4 hours, then headed on to Houston, alarm blasting the whole way. We unloaded Hell, then Beth came for me and Bill took the truck to get it repaired. Beth and I had some nice conversation. Ford came home for about 3 and a half minutes and then Beth took him to his overnight revival thing and Lara and I cut up a hundred bagels for Beth.

Here's Ford and Lara cheesing it up before he left. That's Beth back there. Hey Beth!

Beth and Tom fed us steaks that we delicious that night and also let me run through our laundry at their house. I was sooooo tired and took no more pictures. Sorry, Sam. That night we borrowed Beth's car (truck was in the Kenworth shop in Houston) and stayed at the Ramada. Sleep was called for desperately. Unfortunately, the Ramada had booked some group to have a "meeting" there. The meeting degenerated into a riot and loud talking, punding on the door, and yes f-ing GUNFIRE interruped our sleep that night. Crap. Next morning, we left around 6 am. Had a load to pick up out of a warehouse in Houston. Bill called after our day's work to ask how the work had gone on the truck. They had overnighted a part (a $700 part!). But somehow didn't even get it in to have a look. Crap again. So we picked up the truck. The alarm had quit buzzing for no good reason thank God. Returned Beth's car. Headed to Florida to deliver our 3 loads.

This is how people are. Outside a warehouse we had to deliver to. How the hell do you turn out of here with this TACO TRUCK in the way????

Finally we were empty. Around 3 or 4 the day before Thanksgiving. We decided to head up the road out of Ft. Lauderdale and get up by Vero Beach and have a nice relaxing few days ocean front. Sigh. Could. Not. Wait.