All Good Things Must End

Well, dear readers: We have been at home since Thursday of last week and have been enjoying some family time. I have made the (not so) difficult decision not to go back out on the road with Mr. Trucker. There are a variety of reasons behind this decision and I will not bore you with them.

I am just sorry to disappoint those of you who look forward to my strange little musings.

Mr. Trucker heads back out tomorrow without me and he is very sad. I have mixed feelings, as I will miss him, but will really not miss living in the truck and having migraines on an almost daily basis.

I have already secured a job three days a week and will start in early March. My first order of business is to get our taxes and other paperwork in order and go to St. Paul and visit Sassy and all the cats for a few days.

It has been a pleasure sharing our interesting adventure with you!

Love,
Mrs. Trucker

Signs You're Not In Green Bay

Sign Number 1)

These guys:

I thought we had wandered onto the set of "Fiddler On The Roof"
This was in Brooklyn or the Bronx, I forget which

Sign Number 2)

Tall buildings:

Manhattan. I believe the tallest above ground building in Green Bay
is St. Vincent Hospital at ten stories. I've been told the Metropolitan
Sewerage District building has more stories, but they are underground!

Sign Number 3)

$3.29 hotdogs:

Mr. Trucker's been wanting to try a Nathan's hotdog,
but the tightwad in him couldn't bring himself to spend
$3.29 on one, till some guy who said he was born & raised in
"New Yawk" told him they are the "world's best hotdogs".

He was completely taken in, I'm afraid. He said
it was okay, but not as good as "Salmon's" in Wisconsin.

Sign Number 4)

Cult symbols:

Vast numbers of the houses in Ohio and Pennsylvania have these
tin stars on them, particularly out in the country. I think they mean
something, like maybe Hobos are welcome there...

Another sign or symbol that we can't make heads or tails out of is the practice of leaving your stranded car on the shoulder of the highway with either a T-shirt or a plastic grocery bag hanging out the driver's side window. They only do this in the Northeastern United States, as far as we can see, and it is very strange. I haven't been able to discover what the meaning is, maybe it means Hobos are welcome to the car...

Sign Number 5) 

Majorly huge and crowded cemeteries:

Brooklyn, or the Bronx, I forget which.

It's bad enough that New Yorkers all LIVE on top of each other;
but apparently there's no personal space after you die either.


I think if I lived there, I'd request being buried in S. Dakota or Wyoming or someplace where I could stretch out a little bit.

Sign Number 6) 

Freaky, oversized household items:

Holy Crap! Looks like the Jolly Green Giant lost his picnic basket.

This is actually a building! It's the Longaberger Basket Company's
Headquarters in Dresden, Ohio.

Sign Number 7)

Whiny Pittsburgh Steeler Fans:

Other than Mr. Trucker there in the middle, and a few other
fellow Packer fans, we watched last night's Super Bowl
with this group of Steeler fans.

You shoulda heard the whining from the Pittsburgh fans. One guy even said that Green Bay cheated to get to the Super Bowl. Please! Like six wins wasn't enough.? They can't bear to let someone else have a chance? We were very gracious about winning! We didn't even rub it in!

Super Bowl Sunday!!!

I'm too nervous and excited to post much today. We're on our way to our destination in Delaware, OH, where we will park at the Flying J truckstop, do a couple loads of laundry, then get our seats in the Trucker's Lounge good and early before the game.

Yesterday we stopped for lunner (lunch/dinner) at the Emlenton, PA Truck Plaza, home of the World's Worst Best Pies. There were little cashiers there wearing these stupid Pittsburgh Steelers T shirts saying something about them winning 7 Super Bowls (they've won 6 so far) and I told them "too bad you wasted money on those shirts that you won't be able to wear after we trounce you tomorrow!!" They were pretty good sports about it.

I'll give you a couple good links about our Packers:


http://abcnews.go.com/meta/search/imageDetail?format=plain&source=http%3A%2F%2Fabcnews.go.com%2Fimages%2FSports%2Fe88db6c7844348b2a15d79818d354bfd

Brown County Courthouse, Green Bay, WI

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=6079827

By the way, nephew Eric pointed out that the futuristic looking building from the New York World's Fair, 

This one

was featured in the Men In Black (MIB) movie, as the place where the aliens landed.

Today's Silly Sounding Place Name (if only we knew how to pronounce it):

Hauppauge, NY

Random Ramblings From The Road

So, I think I'm gonna write a song to which the only words will be "Tonight's gonna be a good night. Tonight's gonna be a good, good night", and it'll become a major hit and they'll ask me to perform at the Super Bowl. I'll call my group "The Brown Eyed Susans" and I'll just go by my first name, "Margi", and my backup singer, Mr. Trucker, will go by the name "Den.i.is".

Did ya catch that reference to "The Black Eyed Peas"? Sometimes I am so funny I just crack myself up!

This has been my view the last few weeks:

My side of the windshield.

The windshield has been covered with salt and grime and the wiper blade on my side doesn't reach far enough to clean the whole windshield. This makes it kind of hard to get good pictures, but as long as Mr. Trucker can see, that's the most important thing.
We spent most of the last day and a half in Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh Skyline

It's an okay place. Too bad they don't have a football team!!!

We're hoping we don't have to watch the Super Bowl in Pittsburgh, they might not be so kind to us after we clean their clocks!!!

I'll tell you what, God has really been keeping an eye out for us this winter. With all this major winter weather blanketing the midwest and northeast week after week after week, we have managed to just skirt around all of it. It's been nothing short of miraculous! 

So, coming out of Pittsburgh yesterday, we spotted this:

"You can't defy the laws of physics, Cap'n!"

Idiots! 

This whole mattress on top of the car thing is a never-ending source of amusement to Mr. Trucker and myself. We frequently see mattresses by the side of the road, and Mr. Trucker has explained to  me the laws of aerodynamics and mattresses (look it up if you don't believe me) and how the two just don't mix. Yet people always think they're going to beat the odds. And it was really really windy yesterday when we saw these folks. Ah well, will people never learn?

So, I bet you'll never guess where we're headed? That's right: Long Island. I told Mr. Trucker that they keep sending him there because he's the only driver who doesn't protest. 

Speaking of Long Island, remember those photos I posted the other day and asked for assistance in identifying them? Well, I was so surprised that no one responded. Particularly Cuz T, who always seems to know everything. I DID look them up online last night and my guess was right. They were from the 1964-65 New York World's Fair. They are a couple of the exhibits that were left in their original location in Flushing Meadows. Here they are again:

The "Unisphere"

Remaining structure of 1964 New York World's Fair

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_New_York_World's_Fair

Ooh, we just passed this:

Ouch! THAT'S gonna leave a mark!

I'll leave you with a couple pictures of prettiness:

Ice storm went through here.

Ooh! Aah!

Today's Silly Sounding Place Name:  Nanty Glo, Pennsylvania.

Holy Crap! Does Connecticut Have Snow!

As usual, we had a fun time in the Bronx and Brooklyn. The night before, I snapped some shots of the NYC skyline from New Jersey.

Oops! That's clearly not NYC, but I thought you would enjoy it.
Some folks sleigh riding.

I didn't notice the ducks in the foreground till after I'd taken
the picture.

NYC skyline from NJ

We spent the night here, before heading into the city, which I
thought was rather fitting, one week before the Super Bowl!

To say that they have snow issues in New York City would be an understatement. Because of the lack of parking, everyone parks on the street, so it's nearly impossible to plow.

Buried cars

More of the same.

This made it even more difficult than usual to maneuver a big semi through the streets and around corners. We made it out of the Bronx via the Whitestone bridge

Skyline behind barge on Hudson River

On the way into Brooklyn, I saw some cool sights:

Where the New York Mets play.

If anyone would like to help me out with this and the following
pic, I'd appreciate it. I'm clueless. The only thing I could possibly
think of, is New York World's Fair stuff...???

Kinda futuristic World's Fair looking stuff, eh?

New York Times HQ, I presume.

In both the Bronx and in Brooklyn, I became fascinated with the style of the homes:

I just love the ornate grating and grillwork.

Mr. Trucker thought this was George Costanza's parents' house,
although they MIGHT live in Queens...

See, in actual fact, I think this whole grillwork thing started as
a security "bars on the window" kind of thing, then they added
curlicues to make it look decorative, then it sort of migrated
to the outside of the houses...

A little different style

A couple last examples:

A few last Brooklyn sights before we head into Connecticut:

Note the cute little dog tied outside.

This guy was selling newspapers. And I don't think they were in English!

"They say no one's ever beaten the Van Wyck..."

"...and if it hadn't been for that five-car pileup at Rockaway Blvd..."

Sorry, I couldn't resist a little Seinfeld humor. If you'd like to hear the audio clip that was based on, here it is:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW8BnwBHhs4

One thing I've discovered as we travel the highways & byways
of this country: There's a museum for just about anything you could
think of.

On a totally unrelated note, I was shocked and horrified to learn yesterday of Sandra Bullock's death!

She IS dead, right? I mean, there's no way anyone
could survive being stabbed in the heart!

Today's Silly Sounding Place Name:  Hackensack, New Jersey.