Riding in the truck

[I forgot I wrote this last week. Not quite current but nonetheless it’s an update]



This is what part of Washington state looks like. Nothing but wheat fields.



This is a forest fire somewhere around the Canadian/US border in Washington.


This is exactly what things looked like near Big Timber, Montana. A real eerie feel to it.


I’m typing this from the cab of the Timex truck (aka Black Falcon). I must express must distain for sitting in here any longer. I left Tuesday around 11:00 am and it is currently 9:00pm on Thursday. With the time changes I don’t know how many hours that is. All I know is that I’ve been sitting in the truck for three long days now. The only time my feet hit the ground is when stopping for gas, food, and using the restroom, which is usually all in the same stop. Well, we do stop at night to sleep for about 8 hours.

Not much has happened to me the past few days. Getting across the border was fine. This year they had a new machine that passes over the truck, which I guess is like a big x-ray machine. When I asked the border patrol guy if that was some sort of x-ray machine he replied “yeah something like that.” I figured by his tone that he wasn’t about to tell me all about it and take me on a tour. National security you know. Very hush, hush,

In case you haven’t heard on the news, there are some big forest fires going on out west. On Wednesday we drove by one of the biggest right now in Big Timber, Montana. The s sky was obscured by the smoke. Apparently it got bigger and I-90 was shut down after we had gone through. Lucky us. Actually if we got stopped I wouldn’t have minded. It would have been a good reason to stay another day in the west. I always feel a little let down driving east because you know you are leaving the mountains behind you. I like the mountains.

I bought an excellent latte in Missoula, MT at a drive through coffee shack. Much better than Starbucks. Why was it good you ask? For one, the medium size had two shots of espresso in it. At most places I have to ask for an extra shot. In addition I think it was cheaper than Starbucks too. Lastly, the lady was nice. Not that people at Starbucks aren’t nice. I’ve always encountered nice people at Starbucks.

I’ve got to go now. There is about three more hours to go before Milwaukee and Ben has just informed me he is “spent.” I guess the kid needs me to bring it on home. I think this call for some trucker songs. A little Junior Brown and some Pupy Costello and His Big City Honky Tonk Band ought to do the trick