Trips before heading home

Jim mentioned our trips before we went home, I just wanted to write about some of our adventures and people we saw along the way.

Just before we went into Denver, Jiim and I had discussed that we didn't understand when the sitting in expediting happened. All of our sitting seemed to be planned by us by putting ourselves out of service just to take some time off. Once we got to Denver, I told Jim he had jinxed us. We wound up sitting Monday and Tuesday after taking the weekend off to go to Estes Park. We had enjoyed our time off and were ready to get back to work. So in Denver, we learned to be patient and wait.

The parking lot at the truck stop was crazy, it is probably the busiest truckstop we have ever been in. As we walked from our truck to the truckstop, the fuel lines and entrance were on our way. I'm not quite sure what made it different except that there were parking spaces everywhere and it was one of those places that the trucks were all moving from various directions. We finally figured out that we needed to take the long way around and stay close to the parked trucks instead of taking the diagonal short cut. It was so busy that quite a few of the fuel islands were out of fuel which then meant more chaos. The truckstop itself was very nice it was just making it inside. Being intelligent human beings by the end of our time there we figured out how to avoid the chaos. Walking a few extra steps actually provided us with a little more exercise which is much better for us anyway, not to mention saving our lives from the truck traffic.

While laying over in Denver, we made the best of our time  by cleaning out the truck, checking on the inside and outside making sure everything was in good running condition. After the cleaning, laundry and other things were done, we were able to venture over to a Custom Critical truck that was parked on the other side of the truckstop. We met a wonderful team that we spent a few hours just talking to about lots of things including the expediting business.

We really appreciated the time they spent talking to us. They shared with us that some teams really don't talk to other teams  because in essence we are in competition with each other. The problem with that is that teams learn from other teams. If it weren't for others in the business, we wouldn't know what to do. We have other teams that we call when we have a question and are stuck on something or stuck somewhere. Other teams are a wealth of information and most of the time questions are just logistical or organizational. Another benefit to talking to other teams is that when you are away from home, they become your network, people who know what you are going through, the ups the downs and the business part. So, I guess what I'm saying is that if you've been in the business for a long time or are new, it is great to talk to others in the business and learn from each other which is what we have done since we've started.

Sherry and Sam were great to talk to. First we did the little wave from afar and then walked up to the window where we saw Sherry sitting and told her that we were CC drivers. From there we just started talking, of course the first part was just sharing where we were from and how long we had been working for FedEx, then to fleet owners, then to our travels, how long we had been sitting and talking to them about their past experiences in Denver. We learned so much from them about just the business part in general.

Sherry has a degree in accounting so she was informing us of some of the things to think about for tax purposes. For example, some teams do not realize that while they are away from home, each member gets a 50 some dollars a day for food. With expediting, you are out more than you are home, so this works out well for tax purposes. She was also sweet enough to share how she keeps her runs, mileage and totals. They work with a fleet owner, but they pay for their own fuel and have a different percentage than we do. We really appreciated the time that both Sherry and Sam spent talking with us about the business and advising us newbies about the business.

Our conversations were split between business and family. It has been so long since we talked to them, there maybe a little fog in the memory area of what we talked about and some of the details. They have grandkids that are very precious to them. Sherry and I talked about education and her grandson. I was excited to share with her that I had been in education and specialized in gifted education. I enjoyed sharing with her the characteristics of gifted kids, the good, bad and ugly. Her grandson was going to be entering kindergarten and she was worried about him. Her son had been identified and lost interest in school in about junior high, she didn't want that to happen to her grandson. The social and emotional part of gifted is what I love to talk about to other people. Her and I talked for quite some time about school, learning and social, emotional issues for gifted kids. This type of conversation with Sherry is one of the reasons I believe so much in gifted education. I was glad to be able to discuss it with her.

It is also times like this, that I enjoy being on the road and being able to talk to parents and family about giftedness. There isn't any politics, except to warn them about the politics behind educating a gifted child. I don't have to worry about whose toes I might be stepping on or if the educator believes in gifted education or if the administration considers this group of children as at risk. Also being on the road, I have been able to talk to other parents about their children and how to work with their little quirks, especially facing challenges and how they might be dealing with things emotionally.

When we first went into expediting, we had a couple share with us that we should find something that interests us while having our down times. So far this is what I enjoy doing on my down time...talking and working together with other teams, talking to them about family, talking to others about education and of course sharing my beliefs with others. Our experience in expediting was lead by God and I am very happy that I can share that in this setting, that wasn't always so easy to do in the educational system. I see by being out on the road, the acceptance of others for who they are which is amazing to me when we hear so much about how others are constantly fighting for their right for this and that. We rarely hear about people who don't fight because they see the world differently, that they see others respecting them and understanding their differences. In general I am a positive person and have been told that I can only see good in people. There is good in people, if we would all just concentrate on that and bring out the good instead of expecting the worst. All right, jumping off my soap box now...

While we were talking to Sherry and Sam, we received a load opportunity and turned it down. Then the load came acrossed again, which we turned down again. Since we were the first ones in line, FedEx called us and talked us into taking the load after negotiating for a little while. The difficulty with the load was not that it paid too bad, it was that it put us up in no man's land in Montana and we knew we would probably be sent to Seattle, Wa for our layover which was another place that from talking to others, we would wind up sitting and waiting on a load. After talking to FedEx, we decided to go ahead and take it, we hadn't been to Montana yet.

Another beautiful drive, we have been so lucky with the weather. This load was a toolbox that needed to be delivered to a small town in Montana. Most of the trip in Montana was actually on two lane roads, which are not bad during the day when you are driving but it is a little more stressful at night because it is more difficult to see where all the twists and turns are. Not to mention watching out for those nightly critters that like to cross the road at night. The most stand out thing about thing about this trip was the two weigh stations we ran into.

For one thing, we weren't expecting a weigh station on a little two lane highway. The first weigh station we ran into was at the intersection of two highways and had a temporary sign  that they obviously put up and down depending on if it was open or not. This weigh station was not like the typical ones we've run into. That was obvious when we approached it. An officer was standing and directed us when to stop. The first thing he asked was how we were doing and he went on to talk about the beautiful day. He also mentioned that we must not have much on. He was just extremely polite and was making small talk, which in our experience is not usually the case at weigh stations. For one, when you go across the scales you usually don't talk to anyone, you just roll across. He asked us about our log books and we shared that we had electronic logs. He then shared that he likes it when teams come through because for the most part he doesn't have to worry about their hours and he was excited to know we had electronic logs. He asked to see them and I showed them to him. He genuinely appreciated everything and acted like what we were doing was helping him do his job better. This man obvioulsy enjoyed what he was doing and we were really grateful to have someone who made us smile. He told us to have a good day and we went on to our delivery.

After we delivered, we were given the option of going to Seattle as our layover. We decided to call our consultant at Expediter's and get her advise on what we should do. If we choose to go to Seattle, FedEx pays our deadhead, if we decide to go somewhere else, they do not pay. Since this not only effects us as drivers, but also Expediters, we contacted them. Together we decided that we would head to Minneapolis instead of Seattle. So, off to Minneapolis we headed. A funny thing happened on our way, we were stopped at a weigh station on another two lane highway. We pulled in, noticing the trailer that is usually occupied by the people tending to the weigh station, was empty. As we looked ahead, we noticed that there was a combine in the middle of the highway that was stopped. There we saw the officers helping out with the combine, so we pulled out of the weigh station and went to ask them if it was all right to pull on through. When we got to the officer, he waved us on and around the combine and wouldn't you know, if was the same officer who was at the other weigh station. We almost wished that we didn't have to pull through so that we could talk to him again, not really, but it did give us a smile and laughter as we passed him.

The trip to Minneapolis should have been pretty uneventful, but there are a couple of things that happened along the way. We had to take the journey across North Dakota. At this time the weather began to be a little more uncooperative. When I was driving, the weather started to turn and then Jim took over for his shift. We had looked at the weather and knew that there was a wind advisory in effect and thought we would drive until we needed to stop. Wow...North Dakota winds are nothing to sneeze at...those winds rock the truck like you could not imagine. Jim had put the air tabs on which we have shared, were blessings when passing trucks and with higher winds. I can't imagine not having them, as we drove through North Dakota. Jim also decided to put our tag axle down too for more stability. After driving for a few hours, we decided to park and wait out the wind for a while. We sent a message through c-link to dispatch. FedEx is big on safety, so they were fine with our layover option of a rest area in the middle of nowhere North Dakota. After the winds died down (I think it was 40 mph instead of 60 mph) we decided to venture out and take our time. Gusts were a little less often and traffic was light, so we were able to continue slowly.

By this time, we knew the chances of getting a load opp from where we were was probably not going to happen and resigned ourselves to the fact that we would be spending the weekend wherever we wound up. We enjoyed Fargo and the convenience of everything so we stopped there. Fargo is considered in the Minneapolis Express Center which would give us load opps from that area. This stop was much different than the last. It was bright, sunny and warm the last time, so we got out our bikes. This time, it was cold, cloudy and windy (the windy part is when we decide not to get out the bikes, too much of a work out for us:). So, we spent part of the weekend in Fargo and decided that we would head down to Clearwater to be a little closer to Minneapolis.

Once we got to Clearwater, the weather was better and warmer. Of course this is one of our favorite places because of their wonderful restaurant and bakery and gift shop. Since we hadn't received a load opp we knew that we wouldn't until Sunday afternoon, so we decided to go to church on Sunday at the church that was right down the road from the truck stop. There were two service times and I jokingly said to Jim that we could go to both services and by that time we should be hearing about load opportunites. We later found out that they had a festival the night before, which would have been great to pass the time with. Since we didn't know about it, we went to dinner instead.

We had headed over to go to a dairy queen, just for something a little different and on our way, we encountered a place called Taco Gringo, so we stopped there instead. This is worth mentioning because it is the only one of its kind. We enjoy eating locally when we can and usually wind up finding out that where we eat is actually a local or regional chain. Like always, we take our electronics with us while we sit, so I looked it up. Interestingly enough this is a Mexican restaurant that was started by a woman who is not of hispanic descent, although I believe that maybe her husband was. The food was good and we found out by reading that her husband recreated a southwestern sauce that he had encountered in Mexico, making the sauce his own recipe. They happened to sell bottles of it in the store, so of course we bought a bottle. It was a really good sauce that you could probably put on just about anything from tacos to hamburgers, from veggies to fries. The sauce is another part of their story. The only restaurant is in Clearwater, MN. We would highly recommend it. Our waitress was just a little preoccupied, she had some friends that had come. Her service was great, we just noticed that this group of young ladies had something up their sleeve. We were seated by the window and since we like to people watch, we noticed that our waitress' friends went out to the parking lot and we assumed that they were going to go home. That was not the case...

We spent the next twenty minutes or so, watching these teenagers sticky note the windows of a car. Our waitress served us well, so when she came over the next time, we asked her about it, stating that we had witnessed the normal, soaping, egging kinds of things you do to cars, but this was the first time we witnessed sticky noting. She shared with us that a friend of theirs was out on a date and had left her car in the parking lot, so they decided to leave her a friendly note (pun intended). As you can imagine this was a very meticulous activity since they put the sticky notes in rows and columns very close together on the windshield and on the side windows. They weren't done there, they then wrote on each of the sticky notes a sweet note to their friend. Jim took a picture of it and posted it on facebook. The question we both had, was what would happen if a police officer caught them, what would they say...sir, we're just leaving her a note. They were pretty proud of the fact that the sticky notes didn't cause any damage to the car and was something fun to do and surprise their friend. We don't know the rest of the story since we left before their friend returned. Just another one of those things we would never have seen if we hadn't been on the road.

The next morning we went to church by walking across the field instead of using the busy road that it was on and let's face it the field was closer:)  We went to the first service. They had special guests that were from International Children organization. It turns out that this congregation works with an orphanage in Mexico and the two women that were there were from the orphanage which also now houses a K-12 school. Their congregation has gone down and assisted with construction for beds, new rooms and buidling for the school. It was amazing to hear their testimony and their success with the kids they have. Some of the children are orphans and some are children whose parents or family members have brought them to the orphanage because they can no longer care for them. Some o ftheir parents are on drugs and some have wound up with elderly grandparents who can no longer take care of them. A couple of the congregation members had actually been at the orphanage as house parents. The kids are housed with house parents  who bring the children up in the Christian faith and the school is based on Christian values and students attend services as part of their education. Faith is stressed and hope is given to children who came to them with little or no hope at all. The presenters gave God all the credit for the success that they have had and thanked everyone for their support.

We spoke to many members after the service where they had coffee and cookies after service. At our church, we have a small group that meets on Sunday before church for Sunday school. Jim and I both miss getting together with others to discuss the Bible, books for disucssion and life in general, so we decided to stick around for their adult Sunday school class. We told them we didn't mean to intrude and stir up their seating arrangements. They all laughed (we joke that in a Lutheran church, people have their certain seats...I'm sure that other churches have the same thing, we get comfortable and like routine so we all sit in the same spot). We learned that the associate pastor went to seminary in Ohio and his wife went to OSU. Small world...our pastor knew him, not well but knew who he was. We had a great discussion about the parable that was the gospel lesson. What's great about being in a group is the differences in the interpretation of the parable and what it was that Jesus was actually trying to say. When it comes down to it, we were doing exactly what Jesus wanted us to do, sit around and talk about it together and let the Holy Spirit guide us. It was great discussion and we really enjoyed hashing out the scripture with others and feeling the excitement in the room. Afterward, we decided to go to the other service which was considered their contemporary service. They had a wonderfully gifted group of volunteers that shared their talents through worship. They had a wonderful potluck afterward that they invited us to, don't worry about not bringing anything, we have plenty.

We also found out that they had about three dozen people who attended Via De Cristo which is a movement that Jim and I have been involved in for the past few years. We talked at length to one of members and their church had actually hosted a few of the retreats. He also was one that shared his phone number with us and said that the next time we're in town to give him a call and he would pick us up and bring us over to church. As we sat down and talked at the potluck, we had his number sitting out. Someone asked us about it and wondered if we knew that he was the mayor. We felt pretty special that the mayor was offering to pick us up the next time we were in town. Of course being the man that he was, I don't even think that probably crossed his mind, he was just a nice person offering help to someone else.

The people we meet on the road are strangers, but once we open conversations with them, we are no longer strangers...we all are people living on this earth trying to make sense of a broken world and living one day at a time, having so much more in common than any of us can even imagine.

Shared faith and love for others connect us and I just imagine God smiling down on us and saying, see, I told you so!

I'll continue with the rest of our loads on another post, I really didn't imagine this one to be so long.

Love, peace, faith, joy continue to be there through all of our adventures. Daily we are guided by our wonderful God, his Son and the Holy Spirit.

Love to all of our friends (old and new), family and strangers we have yet to meet. We thank you for your continued love and support of our adventures!
Judy