Shower Humor in Ohio

We spent the night near Youngstown, OH last night at a Pilot truckstop, where we showered this morning. Remember me telling you how sometimes they put a wrapped candy or mint on your towel?

I never take these candies.
I'm suspicious of them.

There were three hooks in the shower for hanging things. You know it's a good shower when all three hooks are there and intact, plus there was one on the back of the door. Here are two of the hooks:

Hook #1

Hook #2

Curly's name sticker was missing. Maybe I should have informed the attendant.

After showers and homemade oatmeal, we proceeded to Cranberry Twp, PA to drop our  load.

Made me think of the song "Raspberry Beret" by Prince

When we arrived at the shipper, we both had to use the restroom. THIS, dear readers, is (unfortunately) a typical trucker's restroom at a shipping/receiving facility:

Corner of the bathroom

Door handle

Trust me. There ain't no paper towels in there
or anywhere else in the room, for that matter!

I am not exaggerating when I say this bathroom hasn't been cleaned since the Nixon administration. They might as well just have a pit in the ground outdoors with a big sign that says: "Truckers, IF you feel that you  must  relieve yourself during the three or so hours that we detain you here without giving you a reason, then use this hole. We would PREFER that you just hold it or pee in a bottle in your truck, because we're all so afraid that we'll catch truck driveritis...we'd rather not see you or hear from you. Just stay in your truck, why don't you?"

I had to go for an hour long walk just to clear the sight of the bathroom from my head. I discovered a beautiful subdivision, marred only by the fact that most of the homes contained Pittsburgh Steelers fans. 

Cranberry, PA

Doesn't Martha Stewart live around here?

One of the things I do to lift my spirits out here on the road is to wear bright colored socks. I have several pairs of these in different colors and it tickles me to wear them.

I'm wearing a green shirt with these, so I'm
giving off Packer Green n Gold vibes...

Today's silly sounding place name: Cranberry, PA

Prettiness in Pennsylvania

I am in love with Pennsylvania! We got here in the dark last night, so I wasn’t aware of what our surrounding scenery looked like until we emerged from the truck this morning to see this:

Lamar, PA

Mist over the mountain in PA

We headed out in a light rain which made the mist rising out of the mountains that much more beautiful. After about an hour and a half of taking pictures out the passenger window, I asked Mr. Trucker how many pictures of fall color and misty mountains was enough. It’s hard to know when to stop because I always think the next shot is going to be the best one, the one that’s going to make the cover of National Geographic. Today’s digital cameras also make it so nice because you can just shoot away indiscriminately and take names later  delete later.

So beautiful!

I think we can safely say that the fall colors
are at their peak!

Before I went out with Mr. Trucker, I never gave the trucking industry much thought. I mean, you want something, you go to the store and you buy it, and if they’re out of it, you get ticked off. I never stopped to think about how it got there in the first place. But really, trucks bring it, like the bumper sticker says. And as the years of my life have gone by, I’ve noticed the availability of more and more stuff and a much wider variety of choices. I mean back in the day when I was growing up, if my Mom wanted to make a salad for dinner, she bought iceberg lettuce (cuz that’s all you could get) and a couple waxy tomatoes. Nowadays, you can choose from about 17 different varieties of lettuces and field greens and you can have regular tomatoes, organic tomatoes, roma tomatoes, grape tomatoes or cherry tomatoes...So with all this increasing plethora of choices on the store shelves, it stands to reason that there are an increased number of trucks on the roads. You notice it particularly late at night, when most occupants of cars are home in bed or in front of their TV’s. It’s as though trucks own the roads. And if you stop to think about it, those truck drivers all have to stop and sleep somewhere. A lot of times you see them just pulled off on ramps leading into and out of rest areas, and of course there are the truck stops. I don’t think I ever noticed that truck stops existed before I started frequenting them with Mr. Trucker. But truck stops have a whole counterculture all their own...you’ll be hearing more about that as time goes on.

Mr. Trucker is mad at me right now because I took so many pictures of misty mountains earlier this morning that the camera batteries died right in the middle of the bridge over Emlenton, PA, which is where he wanted me to take several shots. Mr. Trucker has been waxing rhapsodic about Emlenton every since he started trucking. It's this little village tucked away on the banks of the Alleghany river, and can be seen from way up high on the I-80 Emlenton bridge if you're heading west on I-80. It really looks very quaint and has almost assumed legendary status in his eyes. This is the one shot I DID get, and it shows the village, but not the river. Drat! Oh well, I’m sure we’ll pass that way again, but the way Mr. Trucker’s going on, you would think it’s like Brigadoon, only there once every hundred years...

Brigadoon, PA
Emlenton, PA

Gotta go now, dear readers. We're stopping for a shower and I need to start planning what I’m gonna wear to our impromptu get-together with Warren Buffet when we get to Omaha!  How do you prepare for lunch with a billionaire? I'll leave you with one last breathtaking, picturesque (or as Mr. Trucker likes to pronounce it: Pictureskwee) photo of Pennsylvania.

Ooh, aah

Today’s silly sounding place name: Punxsatawney, PA.

Well...you don't see THAT every day...

It's fun and kind of surreal to wake up in one state and pass through two, three, or sometimes four more in the course of a day. We spent last night in Virginia. I use night in the loosest sense of the word, since we got up at 1:00 a.m. to drive to our drop-off spot in Aberdeen, Maryland. We drove through, kind of on the edge, of Washington, D.C. at about 3:00 a.m. and Mr. Trucker told me to look off to the right for possible sightings of "Pentagony things", but I couldn't see anything. I had better luck looking around as we passed through Baltimore at 4:00.  I saw Camden Yards, which I think is a weird name for a ballfield. I texted my daughter later in the day to see if she knew what Camden Yards is, being a HUGE sports fan and all. She replied..."isn't it a horse race place?". That's kind of what it sounds like, Sassy, but apparently it's where the Baltimore Orioles play.  Ever hear of them?

Maryland is also pretty, but we weren't there long. We were right out of there and on to Pennsylvania today. This life has been good for my geography as well, I had no idea that Pennsylvania borders Maryland. Apparently Pennsylvania borders several states.

And here's something fun and interesting that Mr. Trucker taught me: Did you know that all the even numbered interstates run east and west, and the odd numbered ones run north and south? See, you're a lot smarter already...

My cousin, Terry, from Michigan emailed me about my silly sounding place names. He is of the opinion that Ohio and Indiana have the lock on the most silly sounding names, but I would beg to differ. My home state of Wisconsin has all the weird "Wau" names: Wauwatosa, Waupaca, Waukesha, Wabeno, Waupaca, Wautoma, and then there's MilWAUkee and PeWAUkee...

Mr. Trucker was talking to my brother, Steve, on the phone the other day and happened to ask Steve how the real estate market is in his area in Michigan. Steve said "it's like trying to wipe your ass with a bowling ball". I thought it was a great comment, so I'm including it here, because it's MY blog, and I CAN!

Now, to the title of this post. Here are some oddities from our travels so far:

Goin surfin. That's Cookie Monster driving,
Sponge Bob in the middle, and you can't
tell, but Homer Simpson's on the outside.

This guy needs to change his last name, or
rename his business, for sure!

As I was saying...

Guitars...or snacks? What a choice...
This was in a truck stop/convenience store
in Illinois.

Umm.....I'll have a...PINK one.

This was such a strange sight, at least to me anyway. I might have expected something like this in a truck stop in Nashville, but in Illinois.....??

Mr. Trucker's sandwich. It cracks me up how he nibbles
so evenly. He was upset that that piece of turkey
was hanging out in the picture.

Here's a shot or two of the town where we're spending the night: Mt. Holly Springs, PA.

   

Today's silly sounding place name: Timonium, MD.