Absolutely amazing.
I was only told this morning that I was going out this weekend. 
As always, never know where.

So when she finally sent me the pic of the sheet with the next place to go?
Wow!
Washington!\
Wait, which Washington? 
I never heard of the town so I'm looking it up and it's taking me to DC.  No.
They don't have these kinds of plants in Washington DC, do they?  I mean, I guess.

So I'm looking at the directions - they always put final directions in there. 
After being on road whatever in Oregon....that was all I needed to see.

Washington state! That means I get to go through the Rockies, real mountains!
Scenery! God's natural beauty!

But then I thought, isn't that a long way from here?  2,000 miles one way.
This is going to be an incredible trip.  I'm not necessarily looking at this as work
besides all the paperwork I have to do along the way and getting Texas out of the way and
all that desert junk.  Through Mexico - not the mountains but the scenery there is majestic.
I'ts 3 plus days to get there.  I can drive around 600 miles a day, maybe more, maybe less
depending on traffic, weather, road conditions, construction work.  But even so, it's still going
into a 4th day to get there.

My trips to West Virginia are 2,000 miles round trip and that's 3 full days and a portion of a third.

So yes, I've got a lot to do.  Laundry is done tho.  The rest I will get to tomorrow morning.  It's a
later load, I can go to Walmart, Kroger's and the bank, get my stuff done and be ready to go.

Several routes to get there, but none of them take me through Arizona. Right on the crisp of it, yes
but not into it.  Just another thing I need to do but on a trip dedicated to it and not through work. 

I''m excited.  It would be more fun traveling with someone or even my dogs but I'll still make it a memorable trip.  I just have to look on the map and figure out where I'll be on any given night - where I could be I should say and see if it's where I want to be.  I would love a night up in the mountains - drag the mattress out of the sleeper and sleep under the stars. 

Maybe wishful thinking but it would be cool.

I will probably have to take a 34 hour reset out there.  Well yes, almost certain I will. Rather take that in the mountains not in the desert. I don't have control over that, you run out of hours wherever that happens, but I'm going to try and calculate that tonight. 

Anyway, around 8 days on the road.....

Home.
The trailer I saw yesterday? It wasn't ours lol.  Ours showed up about 2 hours later, I figured I would make it about 400 miles and then quit, get up in the morning and drive the rest of the way in.  Management changed that idea.  So, I drove until around 1:15 am, got the trailer back in the yard and crashed out in the truck, in the yard.  It was too late to go home and I was too tired to even fool with it. 

When I got up this morning, I found out that the plant had cancalled the load, they didn't need the trailer today and oh, btw? Thanks for letting me have that information.  I left that last part out, but geeze. 

Well I'm sitting here watching the McCain procession leaving the state Capital heading towards North Phoenix Baptist Church.  I don't get to see Phoenix streets anymore, lol, but I'm familiar with all of it.  I have mixed feelings about McCain.  He turned conservative/Republic vote to a RINO and voting on the side of Democrats on so many occasions, I kinda lost respect for him.  He should have switched parties or at least come out and said what the obvious truth was.  And then the spat between Trump and him.  Trump was no angel in that nonsense, questioning his "heroism" - McCain spent 5 plus years in a hellish prisoner camp and for that I had the utmost respect.

Still, disinviting Trump, the sitting President?  Yes, I heard all that went on, but McCain kept up this rhetoric until his dying breath. Wouldn't you be thinking about Kingdom come if you knew you were about to die?  Politics would be the last thing on my mind, having a feud with the President wouldn't even be on my list.  That's some deep seated bitterness, I hope he let go of that before he passed. 

Seeing Phoenix just makes me want to go back. Wish I had the time where I could drive back and not have to rely on Ubers for rides but it is what it is.  I've done rental cars, they want wayyyyy toooooo much money to rent a car.  It's rather ridiculous. Phoenix is literally full of Uber and Lyft, 24 hours a day, that's going to be my plan to get around. the only thing I won't be able to do is take a drive up to the mountains, a place I really, really miss. 

Well, on about the day.  I proclaim right now that I won't get a lot done here today.  I've been on the road for 3 plus days and I need to get laundry done plus I'm making some dinner, spending time with the doggies and that's about it.  I was "promised" that I would be sent out tomorrow, a thing I didn't ask for but if it's a short trip - no more than 2 days, I would take it and have Sunday off at least.  But it's whatever.  In 3 months or so I will have a 112 hours of paid time off deposited into my leave account and I will be planning on 3 or 4 different trips.  I dunno if they allow a week off, but that would be the first one. 

Okay.  Well I did get something done: Called Wells Fargo, spent a long time on the phone with them and got my online account for my retirement account established.  I originally talked with an American but was connected to a Philippino in an "offshore location" to get it done.  She didn't understand English very well and contributed to a much longer conversation than what otherwise needed to be.  She asked me a name I wanted to give my account an I spelled it out to her several times, she still got it wrong. She kept getting the spelling of my email account wrong.  This is why I very much dislike dealing with overseas "departments" of US based companies.  I understand they are saving money in using lower paid help, I also understand that they piss off customers with just such scenario as I have described.  I also don't much appreciate them using other nation's labor, I would rather see those jobs here. 

After endless back and forth, I finally have access to my account. I completely forgot about having them resend the rollover package because - this took sooooo incredibly long, it slipped my mind.  I'm not doing that today, one of these types of phone calls is all I'm willing to deal with today.  I need to get it done, yes, I will try again next week.

Chicken is in a brine right now, be ready in a couple of hours to cook.  Just chicken breast, won't take that long to cook in the oven.  This is the dinner I was going to make last weekend before I got called out - again.  I mean, this waiting until the end of the day stuff to deal with who is going where and what time you are loading is a bit nerve wracking.  No wonder other drivers have complained about it.  I have sat there and listened to the conversations - she always puts it on speakerphone.  I mean, we all have lives to live?  Plans?  Things to do? Things we want to do?  Hard to accomplish when you are put on hold until 6 o'clock or even much later. 

Trucking life, I get it, but still.  I only know that I am going out tomorrow.  It's only 2:00 pm - for which I am quite grateful. There are still plenty of hours left in this day to enjoy being home. 


Oh, and Donny. Well, he came out, offered an apology.  I just said I really have nothing to say about the situation - referencing him going on a Crack spree the entire last weekend - excepting taking my money off the kitchen table. That pissed me off.  He understood. He knows he screwed up.  That's great, what is going to change? I didn't ask him that, I wanted to go home, I'm sorry he's in misery, even more so since he doesn't have a computer, TV or a phone to play on.  I'm not offering any "outs" on this one. Pay back the money, thanks.  I don't care what he owes on all of those electronics.  If he loses them, he loses them.  That may sound harsh, but he stole my money, used it for his crack spree, then when that ran out, pawned off the rest of his stuff. 

Now, I'm still trying to find the time and the right frame of mind to start investing in the stock market.  Haven't gotten myself into that phase yet.  Trying to, but things are always getting in the way and I really need to be able to concentrate.  On a scenario such as today when it's today off and back out on the road? I might take a look, but getting into it fully is likely not going to happen.