Friday

Trying to figure out where this day went......
Nice to be busy again.
This morning's run was in the semi and was WAY out east. Highway 79 into Florence, well the outskirts of Florence, and then get on this unmaintained road called Price road.
The road was horrible. I had to drive at least 10 miles on this dirt, crappy road full of rocks, shaking the truck the entire way, even though I was only going like 10MPH. It was nice out there, though, all farmland in a small, hidden valley. It's funny to see stuff like that you never knew existed. The contractor was installing irrigation pipe. I got to go pet some horses and take in the fresh air and pleasant views - it took them quite a long time to get the truck unloaded - a LONG time.

There was only one way that I could have gotten the semi into that place - back down a steep embankment into a farm field. The entrance to the place I was delivering to has concrete barriers on either side of the entrance, and the entrance itself is only slightly wider than the semi, meaning that the ONLY way to get a truck in there is straight in. Not possible on a narrow roadway.

I thought about doing it - figured if I got stuck, they have a backhoe that would easily pull the truck out, but they said no big deal. I didn't care, either, nothing else to do when I got back, so I thought anyway, take your time. Hour and a half later and it was done.

Anyway, after work was over, picked up my son, deposited the check my dad sent me, got home, I was bound and determined to do the hike up in the mountains. I had no desire to, so I took a half hour nap, got up, corralled the dogs, leashed them and away we went. Cranked for 45 minutes - a very good walk. The only thing strange was running into a group of guys up there smoking dope. I bypassed that quickly and held my breath. They actually asked me if I wanted to smoke some weed with them - I politely declined. A few simple reasons: it's illegal; I don't do that anymore and left that life behind a LONG time ago; and I am a CDL truck driver that is exposed to random drug testing. That stuff stays in your system for up to 30 days. I haven't been drug tested for almost a year now - it's coming, trust me, I will show up to work and the boss will hand me a pile of papers and say "You've been chosen". It's a random computer pick as required by federal law.

I really do NOT like marijuana. If you've never smoked it - then trust the ads that show the people sitting like vegetables on the couch. You smoke it, get extremely high, and then mostly you just sit there and - be high. Maybe not everyone does that, but many do. It's VERY bad for your lungs. I was coughing 24 hours a day at the end of my marijuana use in my teens and then finally quit when I was 20. I would literally be coughing in my sleep. I would wake up coughing and would STILL smoke that stuff. 3 months after quitting, the coughing stopped and I never looked back.

Anyway, it was just an odd experience to find a group of men and boys up there smoking way, getting higher than a kite. One of them couldn't get over the Danes - he was yelling about the size of "those dogs" LONG after I was by them.

Got back and the new tenant who is leaving on the 16th - decided to buy steak for everyone with the caveat that I grill them. OH YEAHHHHHHH. Ribeye steak from Costco. Costco has some pretty good meat. These steaks were THICK and delicious. I hated to ruin good steaks by cooking them til' medium well, but that's what everyone wanted. My steak was still alive, kicking and bleeding.

The only problem? My grill was out of propane! My old place for getting the bottle refilled was not only out of business, they had torn the place down and built an "El Pollo Loco" restaurant there! BTW, that's Spanish for The Crazy Chicken. Lol.

I found another place, but dang that took a lot of time. Here it is 8:00 pm and I am JUST winding down after starting at 5:00am. I'll tell you what, though, it was all worth it: that steak was SO fine. I ate far too much food today and tomorrow morning? I'm going to extend my walk by half again at least what I normally do.

On, and it's cooled down considerably - yayyyyyy! It's MUCH too early for summer to start, when it started getting into the 90's - at the beginning of March - I was appalled, perplexed and stupified. I just couldn't believe that we were already going to start SUMMER. Thank goodness and God that it's in the mid 60's right now, the house is cool and I DON'T have to run the AC.

Anyway, I'm done with this one, I hope you all are doing well and surviving the storms. There's a LOT of bad news out there - I'm at the point where I don't really want to focus or even hear much about it. It is what it is and there isn't a thing I can do about it - cept' pray and seek the Lord.

G'nite.
ben