"MOODONNA"

Over the past two years, we have seen a lot of oddities along side the roadways of America. If you have been reading this blog for awhile, you have seen my posts on the World's biggest this or that. While this roadside oddity is not that large, and if you aren't paying attention, you might even think it was a real cow, this rusty sculpture has greeted me on our many trips northbound on Interstate 5 near Yreka. On a trip a few days earlier, it was raining so hard I couldn't get a good photo, but yesterday I was able to capture it. Now admittedly, my photo is not as clear as the one I found on the Internet, but I got it, and I also captured a photo of the dinosaur a few more miles up the road.

Legend has it, she gets her name because of her teats, as they remind the truck drivers, who named her after the singer Madonna, hence "Moodonna". The story behind the cow is that she is bawling for her long lost calf. Now I don't quite get the correlation between the two, I understand they are both female, and yes Moodonna sounds so much better than Moopam, as in Anderson, so hey, whatever, I'll go with the flow.

As I mentioned, up the road further is a rather large dinosaur. This was also created by the same artist, Ralph Starritt who resides in Yreka. If you are so inclined to look up some of his work on the web, you will see some absolutely beautiful detailed pieces that he has created.

So let me catch you up on what we have been up two the last couple of days. Just when you think you know what is going on, you get thrown a curve ball. After sitting in the Pilot parking lot for 10 hours waiting to hear about a possible load out of Fresh Express in Salinas, we get a message to bobtail to the Company yard in French Camp.

We had just enough hours left for the day to make it there, and fortunately, my Mother and Niece were able to meet us there with the loan documents that we needed to sign. SWEET.....get a short visit and take care of business at the same time.

We were told to hook up to a dry box van which was already loaded with old PG&E transformers, and take the load to Salem, OR. We left very early Friday morning, and used up our hours for the day, which got us to Canyonville, OR and the Seven Feathers Truck Stop, right across the freeway from the Casino. Too bad we didn't have the time to take the shuttle to the casino to check it out. Our main priority was taking showers and having a great salad at the restaurant, and get this, one of the few at a truck stop WITHOUT a buffet!

A short 10 hours later we were on the road again and made it to the consignee's yard at 3am this morning. With combination in hand to unlock the gate, we were backing into a spot when two more TWT drivers pulled in with trailers. We all dropped our trailers and are presently sitting in the lot awaiting to hear where we will be sent next. With only a few hours left of drive time we know wherever we go today, it won't be that far away.