OUR CHRISTMAS SPIRIT

When it comes to decorating, I used to hold my own about 10 years ago. I went all out, especially for Halloween, as my niece's can attest to. As for Christmas? I did put up a tree and a wreath, but that was about all. The couple of years before we started our trucking adventure, we didn't even bother with a tree. With this now being our fourth Christmas out on the road, I remember convincing Craig to tie a wreath to the front grill of the truck the first year, and then we did wear our Christmas hats for a picture for the blog, but besides that we haven't put in much effort. I'm sorry to disappoint you this year too. Yes, this is as good as it's going to get this year, but hey, at least it's something, and the two weeks I spent helping my friend decorate her house and cottage should count for something. We got into Salinas, CA on Sunday afternoon and enjoyed a lazy evening and sleeping late in the morning, if 6am is considered late to you. We were hopeful our load would be done early, so we checked in to find the trailer in the dock and the red light flashing. We took that as our opportunity to hit Wal Mart early enough in the morning to buy Craig a new pair of boots. He had literally worn himself right out of the soles of his last pair about a week ago. The shopping experience was a pleasant one, with nary a sole inside the store, so we treated ourselves to a Starbucks, which so conveniently was located right across the parking lot. Then it was back to check on the progress of our load. The dispatch information stated it would be ready by 3pm, and as each hour ticked away, the time constraints on the load got tighter and tighter. We have two deliveries to make, one in Seattle at 3am Wednesday morning, and the second in Auburn, WA at 7am. Craig of course was busy crunching numbers....would we be able to do two breaks or only one break before delivering? What was our drop dead time for getting our loaded trailer before it would be impossible for us to make the deliveries? I swear I could see smoke coming from his ears as he went to work on the computer and doing the math in his head. We finally went loaded at 1:30pm and off we went knowing that we would be doing a full 11 hours of driving.We were keeping a watchful eye on the weather, as we knew we had a couple of passes to get over and there was talk of snow. But as we crossed into Oregon, it was only lightly snowing and we got down off the summit with no problems. The only problem for us would be where we would be able to find a parking spot for the night. The first two truck stops and rest areas were full, but finally, with only minutes to spare before the 14 hour clock expired, we found a spot at the next rest area and we settled in for some well deserved sleep.