[New BMT Blog Entry] other dog's Blog - My Great Northwestern Adventure

[WattsMack]

I delivered that load in Roxana Monday, and boy did I get a surprise! Neal told me when I called in empty to go to Blytheville, Arkansas to pick up a load going to- he said "I can't pronouce it, but it's p-u-y-a-l-l-u-p". I said "well what state is that in?" He hesitated a few seconds and said "Washington". So I said "yeah, right-where am I going?" He said "you wanna talk to your boss-man?" I said "yeah...it's probably in Kentucky somewhere". Then Jeff got on the phone and I asked him if I was going to Washington and he said "that's what Todd said". I still thought it was a joke and everybody at the office was in on it until I got loaded and it was on the shipping order, right there where it says "ship to", it said Puyallup Washington.

I went to Blytheville, got loaded, went back north to St. Louis, turned left and headed west. Had to stop and buy tire chains, because there's a substantional fine for not having them, but I had no intention of using them, if I had to wait 'til spring to cross the passes. I know Rob would have sent me a sammich by Fed-Ex. Only bad weather I hit was in Wyoming, from south of Casper all the way to Billings, Mt. Some of the slickest roads i'd ever encountered. Except for that, and fog in Washington (I saw Mt. Rainier from the top of the 10 mile 4% grade you climb after you cross the Columbia River in Washington,and never got to see it again because of the fog) , and high winds in Montana and Wyoming on the way back, the weather was great. It was warmer out there than it was here last week. It was 70 degrees in Denver when I came through on the way back. I unloaded in Puyallup Friday morning, then reloaded in Seattle for Houston, Tx. Had to stop in Spokane Friday night and take a 34 hours off because I was out of hours. Did all my laundry and left there Sunday morning. Unloaded in Houston Wednesday morning, went up to Midlothian and loaded steel going to Milton, Pa. Got to the shop at 6:30 this morning.

I took I-70 to Kansas City, then 29 north into Iowa, rt. 2 into Nebraska, then I-80 west to rt. 26 into Wyoming, then I-25 north to I-90 west all the way to Washington. Came back the same way except I stayed on I-25 all the way into New Mexico, then took rt. 87 and 287 to Dallas and I-45 to Houston. Then it was 45 and 287 to Midlothian, then 20 to 30 to 40 to Knoxville, and 81 back to Va.

I took 350 pictures on the trip, which i'm trying to put on discs now. I'll probably put some on webshots too.

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