Life Away from Home Virtual Tour of the Inside of our Truck

Some truckers go home pretty often and others like us stay out for 6-8 weeks, so we cram as much as we can into our trucks because it is very expensive to buy items in a truck stop. It's also bad to be setting out in the middle of no where and not have food, or even worse no coffee.

We have many comforts of home, or should I saw necessities. A microwave/convection over, a tv/dvd player (a zillion dvd's), a mixer, a couple of fans, a fairly large fridge, lots of books (reference and reading) a printer and four laptops and a lapdock. We also have several items stored in our read compartments, which is called a headache rack. I call it my outhouse. We have cabinets (we took out the top bunk) that are stuffed and closets full of things.

Let me just give you a virtual tour.

If you enjoyed this leave me a comment, share, and like thanks. I hope you follow this blog. If you were going to be away from home for 6-8 weeks what would be the main thing you'd want to take with you?

Westward Bound

Interesting trip this week. We were shut down twice for road conditions. The first time in Cheyenne, Wyoming and the second time on Donner Pass in California. Since we haul sensitive freight, that means one of us has to sit in the driver's seat at all times. Fun! We have another friend who practiced putting his chains on his truck this week. He practiced In Georgia. We have them, but we avoid putting them on, if possible.

I'll post some photos later. The snow drifts in CA were huge. Beautiful on the pass, but the roads were still slippery. The photos are on my Droid.

Only had two trucks pull out in front of me yesterday (I was in the fast lane). It seems that big rigs are getting worse than 4-wheelers when it comes to respecting other drivers. YOU HAVE BRAKES DRIVERS--use them--so I don't have to. Why should we both lose our momentum? Of course, I did almost run over one 4-wheeler when they pulled in front of me to try to get out of another cars way. Come on, who do you want to run over you?

Fun part of this week was while we were shut down, I got to do a little gaming. Not much, but I found a machine that was paying really well. Of course, by the time I found it, the roads were opened up again.

Here's a recipe from my friend and fellow driver Diana Robinson. She and her husband drive for Tri-State. This is good if you have a confection microwave (which I am getting as soon as possible), a toaster oven or the NuWave Oven.

If you're wondering what to do with that can of chicken try this:

 Here is Chichen in a basket

1 can chicken ( drained)
chopped onion
3/4 can cream of mushroom soup
mix in small bowl , set aside
Unroll 1 pkg of crescent rolls. Leave 2 together to form a square
Spread cream cheese on rolls, then place large spoonful of chicken, sprinkle cheddar cheese on top. Fold all four sides over to meet in middle. Use toothpick to hold in place. Bake until rolls are brown.
Makes 4 large baskets.

Thanks Diana. I'll catch you all in the Fast Lane. 

Life in the Fast Lane--Bad Drivers and Taxes (Unrelated)

So muddy, clean the truck floor, drag in more mud, clean the truck floor, drag in more mud. 

My least favorite chore on the truck is making the bed. Yesterday, I washed the linens and rugs, swept the truck out real well and removed a ton (no exaggeration) of merchandise from the truck. Del cleaned his toolboxes and the Outhouse (headache rack). After all that, I broke two nails and skinned my knuckles tucking the sheets behind and under the mattress. Oh, but it's so nice to have clean, fresh sheets against your body. (Smiles) 

On the way home, I determined Pennsylvania gets the bad drivers award (If I were giving an award—Altogether now—RASBERRY, ok, try that again RASBERRY). I almost ran over at least 5 or 6 4-wheelers (cars). They just seemed to pass me and then come to a near stop. 

They were all over the road, and almost all of them were on their cell phones. You can tell when someone gets a phone call—4-wheeler or Semi. They swerve a little, slow down, wobble and then straighten, still going under the speed limit. You could give them the bird, stick your tongue out, flirt, whatever you wanted to do, and they would not notice you. Hey person on the cell phone, you're a driving and about to cause a 20 vehicle pile-up. Hands-free is better. All drivers need a headset. I know you're just running to the store or taking Junior to soccer, but you know someone will call you before you get back home. 

Del discovered chains are not that easy to put on the tires and that we have the wrong size. Grr. Best solution, just don't go anywhere chains have to be put on. Right! 

Tax time is ridiculous for a truck driver. I've worked like crazy most of the time we've been home to record the receipts. I know, should have been doing it all year. Next year, I promise. Today I must finish and get it ready to mail to my accountant. The magic worker, Nils Lenz. Thanks Nils.

Next time we meet, I'll let you know how my NUWave Oven is doing. I'm also going to have a guest blogger. Next week think of F words, in a nice way. Flattery-fun-fabulous-food-fast. Leave me a comment here and send me an email with your ideas on Life in the Fast Lane and F-words and your email may be what the next blog is about. Welcome to guest bloggers. 

Our ID photos

Gotta go, need to work some more on my taxes and finish the laundry. Catch you later from The Fast Lane.

Comforts, Challenges and Other Chaotic Happenings

Comforts

The best part of being on the road is sharing time with your spouse. It's not always easy, but it's always interesting. My favorite time together is when we have an evening off; we get a new DVD, some popcorn, and a sweet treat. Our favorite shows are comedies, so we snuggle,  chomp and laugh.

Challenges

Preparing food is a challenge. I recently bought an electric skillet (what would we do without inverters?). Soupbeans, covered in raw onions and Mexican cornbread sounded good.

The beans were easy enough to microwave and I chopped up the onions. Then I preceded to mix up the cornbread batter. I added my own touch to the mix and I'm a pinch of this and a dash of that cook. Put it in until it looks right.

Ingredients:

Cornbread mix

egg

milk

peppers (banana or jalapeno)--few 10 slices

grated cheese --about a handful

corn--1/4 of a can

applesauce --about 6 spoonfuls

I throw it all together in a dish, mix briskly with a fork and it's ready to pour. In the preheated skillet, I poured four large pancake blobs.

Takes a bit of fiddling with the skillet to figure out how to fix the cornbread pancakes in it. After burning the first batch (we raked the burnt part off and ate it any way), I learned to turn the heat down and even off occasionally. Slow cooking insures the inside will get done at the same time as the outside.

Chaotic

I'm also a writer and I try to work writing in around everything else. I write for different websites and magazines. Among the magazines, is a men's magazine. I'm the one who writes those articles, the ones that men say, "I only buy it for the articles." Just kidding, it's not 'that' men's magazine.

I also write novels, mystery and suspense.

http://stampoutmurder.blogspot.com/

http://cgrogg.blogspot.com/

Next time I'll post some other sites I write for. 

Now that I've shared a little bit about life in our truck. How about you? Share something about yourself. 

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2009/03/31/its-that-time-again-april-fools-in-the-test-kitchen/