Still in Indiana

Yesterday morning we woke early and headed out in this glorious sunrise

Auburn, IN

to deliver a truckload of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Kit Kat bars which we had brought from Ohio. 37,000 pounds of candy, can you imagine? And we couldn't eat any of it! We delivered to a WalMart distribution center in Auburn, IN. The driver's restroom there was clean, for a change. I know I was in for a positive restroom experience when I saw these two indications:

A Restroom Cleaning Chart that was actually updated

Wow!

The only drawback of this lovely facility is that it was up two flights of outdoor stairs, the kind made out of open metal fencing where you can see all the way down as you're ascending and descending. Not good for a person such as myself who is terrified of open heights like bridges and balconies. But I braved it, not once, but twice. That's how nice this restroom was.

After being dispatched on our wild goose chase to Indianapolis (see earlier post), we were driving south on I-69 and I was crocheting when I heard Mr. Trucker ask: "who's Vera Bradley"? My head snapped up so fast I almost gave myself whiplash and I grabbed my camera and JUST managed to get this shot off

Vera Bradley Headquarters, I'm guessing...

I texted my dear friend, Polly, who loves all things Vera, and told her that we had just passed Vera Bradley HQ, and she shot back with "You must be in Indiana!". Does she know her Vera, or what?

After arriving at the terminal in Indianapolis last night and being laughed out of the mechanic's garage, we decided to go in search of dinner. We uncoupled from the trailer and drove the tractor a little over a mile to where all the restaurants were. We thought Chinese sounded good and stopped at a place called Ya Ching. Our plan was to walk up to the door and look at the menu to see if if sounded good and not too pricey. We met a woman coming out who saw our hesitation and stopped to tell us how good the food was. We got talking to her and found out that she was originally from LaCrosse, WI, so she was excited to talk to fellow Wisconsinites. She was extremely interesting. She had lived a lot of different places, had been married to a Chinese man and her daughter (who was with her) is half Chinese, so we trusted her food reference. She ended up following her daughter to Indianapolis and lives here now, and  she enthused about the city and said we really needed to see the downtown, but "not this weekend, The FFA convention is going on", the implication being, I gather that the downtown area will be mobbed with surly teenagers wholesome farm kids from all over the country.

Inside Ya Ching, our hunger got the better of us (we hadn't eaten anything since a bowl of oatmeal in the morning) and we ordered way too much food. The WonTon soup and the Potstickers were absolutely fabulous. The House Lo Mein was also excellent, and we should have stopped there, but we had also ordered a Duck entree, which of course came with rice. Mr. Trucker discovered a section of the menu which was entirely in Chinese, and he asked our waitress about it. She said to him "That is for Chinese people". When he asked her if he could get something off it, she told him no, and said he wouldn't like it. Well, that just egged him on and he wouldn't rest till she agreed to bring him something off that section of the menu that he couldn't get off the regular section. He's like a little kid, really. She rattled off a couple of selections, one of which was pork stomach, which I was willing to try, but he wasn't. She also teasingly told him there were some things which still had heads and eyes attached. She ended up bringing us a Garlic Pepper shrimp dish, which Mr. Trucker loved! We took tons of leftovers back to the truck. Thank goodness for that little 110v cooler. We'll be eating Chinese for days!

Lovely Lo Mein

Huge Garlic Pepper Shrimp
off the "Chinese only" menu

And now for a late-breaking update to the Chad/Indy/maintenance situation: Mr. Trucker had emailed Chad a little bit ago telling him to get us a load out of here or rent us a hotel and a car so that we can live like humans. We just now got a response from Chad saying "I'll see what we can come up with for ya. I may send you on a load and then get to another terminal as it doesn't look like they will work us in early." No kidding, Chad! Did you finally wake up and get with the program? What have we been trying to get you to do for weeks?!!! Sometimes I just wanna shake this kid till his teeth rattle!

I'll wind up today's post with a picture I snuck of Mr. Trucker taking a lil snooze outside the WalMart distribution center yesterday. Isn't he sweet? Shhhhh, don't wake him!

My Beloved

Today's silly sounding place name: Mogadore, OH.