The No-Drive Zone

Well, we finally did it! We broke through the no-drive zone and crossed the Mississippi River this morning from Illinois into Missouri. We've been in four states today: Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, and now Minnesota.

I think Mr. Trucker has a sadistic streak in him! He has a little digital thermometer on his side-view mirror and for the past couple of hours he has been gleefully reporting to me every time the temperature drops another degree. We're currently at negative six! We have been fortunate up to this point to escape the major snow storms and cold temps that other people in the midwest and east have been experiencing, but I guess it's time to pay our dues. We'll be spending a couple of days in frigid Minnesota. But then...it's back to the tropics!

Tonight we'll be in Northfield, MN, about 40 minutes south of the Twin Cities. Sassy's going to drive down from St. Paul tomorrow to spend part of the day with us before our 8:00 p.m. delivery appointment. Monday we drive to southwestern Minnesota to pick up a load that we'll be driving 1400 miles (finally, some decent miles), all the way to the Mexico border. It sounds like quite an interesting process. Mr. Trucker's company has a terminal in Laredo, TX, right ON the border basically. We'll be handing the trailer off to someone else to drive into Mexico.

From there, we hope to stay in the western U.S. and finally get to see some uncharted (for us) territory, right up until our home time in Portland, Oregon in about 10 days. In February, we'll be going home to Wabeno for the annual Trump Lake Ice Fisheree (see: www.trumplake.org. That's my Father-in-law's webcam). Then in March, we've decided to take our home time in Bakersfield, California and visit some friends of ours who live there. They just built a new house with a swimming pool, but this fact has NOTHING to do with our decision to visit them, neither does the fact that the temperatures should be in the 70's there in March.

On a side note, I'm really getting sick of the menu at Denny's. All the Flying J truckstops now have Denny's restaurants, so we eat there A LOT. At first we were really excited about the change in restaurants (because they all used to have these really awful buffets), but now...not so much.

On another side note, I've decided that no woman should have to witness her husband urinating into a plastic water bottle. I'm just saying, is all.

Ooh, late breaking bulletin. It's now 8 below, according to my own personal meteorologist!

Today's Silly Sounding Place Name:  Keokuk, Iowa.