Running With Watkins & Shepard

Nice to know you brother. Sent you a PM with my contact info.

I agree with you, given your position, X-Mas will be a MUCH better time to be home. I'll never forget all the years of Christmas and small children. Very heart warming times for this old dog...

 

OK, maybe not "that" old....LOL

I know what you mean about the kids starting to question Santa. Here's what I always did to keep the belief alive. I got some old old slay bells (the kind around the reindeer's necks) and sewed them on some nylon strips. About 5 or 6 of them every three feet on a ten foot long strip. (The bells idea I got from my folks who would ring them inside the house Christmas Eve). But I made up a rig that sat on the roof our chalet and added some old work boots to the whole setup to sound like hooves on the roof. I ran heavy duty fishing line from them down the wall and into our bedroom window. Now the kids rooms were on the second floor right under the roof. So we'd listen for them rustling around and whispering to each other up there (because no kids actually sleep Christmas Eve...LOL) and I'd yank on that old fishing line and presto!! Instant Reindeer hooves and slay bells on the roof.

Of course we'd always eat the milk and cookies the kids left for Santa and put the baby Jesus in his crib too. Cherish these times folks. I really miss them.

 

Well my time at home was really nice albeit too short. And it even got cut a bit shorter than I planned. I figured to go back to work Wednesday morning. Tuesday morning I got up at 5am and thought I'd have a nice dinner with my folks, shower and shave Tuesday night and get a good nights sleep. Nope....LOL

Tuesday afternoon I get a call from dispatch needing a load run from MD to NC. But I couldn't pick it up until 23:30 and it had to be delivered at 7:00 Wednesday in NC. So I ran around getting everything packed back in the truck, beat feet for the Sayreville terminal to get an empty and head to Perryville MD to drop and hook. Since I got up at 5:00 on Tuesday, I'd been up for over 26 hours by the time I hit the Consignee. Then it was 4 hour nightmare getting unloaded and after that, I made tracks for a Pilot only 24 miles away where I figured I'd get some much needed sleep. Well....not yet. As I left the Con I felt a rather odd shimmy from the trailer. Pulled it over and yep, a flat right rear tire. So I limped it to the Pilot which had a shop and got it fixed. So by the time I hit the bed it was around 13:00....LOL

Then I get a dispatch for a load to be picked up no later than 16:00 and about 120 miles away. NO WAY MAN....I wasn't driving Ole Betsy another mile before getting some sleep. So I took the load assignment anyway and just figured to get there when they opened at 8:00 this morning. Which I did. So I'm on my way to Loveland Colorado now. It's due at 11:30 on 12/04 so no problem getting there on time.

I'm in Oak Grove KY now and I'll be rolling out tonight again. I took it upon myself to reroute from the qualcomm routing so I'd stay southwest of the weather moving into the east. Seems to be working out well and it's only a 15 mile difference from the "computers" routing and I'll still hit the fuel stops along the way...LOL

I hope everyone had a great TG holiday.