STRAYCAT’S DOGGONE BLOG

Plodding Around Promontory Point

I had today off, so I took the 25 mile, or so, jaunt from Corinne to Promontory Point. It was a good way to kill a couple of hours. I took these pictures to document my presence.

It was a bit breezy, but other than that, the weather was quite nice.
There was a $5.00 per car (or truck) entrance fee. Inside the Visitor Center there was a “mini-museum” with displays and phothgraphs depicting the construction and the actual driving of the Golden Spike(s). (There was more than one). The original is on display at Stanford University because Leland Stanford was the President of the Central Pacific Railroad which constructed the Western half of the project.


Outside, is the actual site where the spike was driven.


Below right, the rock used to construct the Visitor Center was quarried about 60 miles away in Park Valley, UT. The ‘red” rock is Ferrous (iron) Quartzite and the “green” rock is Cupreous (copper) Quartzite. 

Above left is a picture of the rear of the Visitor Center and grounds. Below left and right is the commerative plaque/statue (I don’t know what to call it) in the front of the Visitor Center.

Promontory Point is out in the “hinterlands” northwest of Ogden. There is nothing else around.


The MMM enjoyed a good untethered romp in the “hinterlands”.
My visit was a bit early in the season. On the 10th of May (the anniversary) , I may return. They bring out the trains and have a re-enactment of the event.

Life Day 22161: Back From Bakersfield

Let me bring you up to date before I cover the Bakersfield trip.

After I returned from Chubbuck, ID, I picked up the Farmington, NM load and departed Corinne. The trip was uneventful weather-wise, but there were a lot of cloven hooved mammals grazing near the roadway, all of which I successfully avoided. I arrived about 0100, and was immediately unloaded. I then retired for the night. There is one advantage and one major disadvantage to delivering to this store. The disadvantage is that it is mostly 2 lane road all the way there, through a lot of small towns. The advantage is that there is a nice mall across the street, which has in it a Fudruckers. I made sure to enjoy a fat, juicy burger and fries before I left Farmington. I returned to Corinne on the 10^th. They didn’t have another load for me, so I was finished for the day. On the 11^th, I received 3 PrePlans. The first was a local with 3 stops (2 in west Valley City, and a back-haul in Salt Lake City). The second PrePlan was a load to Ammon, ID. The third PrePlan was my load to Las Vegas for the 12^th. The old adage, “the best laid plans of mice and men……..”, certainly applied today. The first 2 deliveries went off without a problem. The Salt Lake City back-haul threw a wrench into everything. When I checked in with Shipping, I was told that the load would not be ready until at least 1800. So much for the second PrePlan to Ammon, ID. I let the Planner know that there was no way to do both loads, so she pulled the second Plan off me. As it turned out, the load wasn’t ready until 2045, 7 ½ hours after I arrived. By the time I returned to Corinne, it was nearly 2200. I was done for the day, and really, really frustrated. The 12^th went well. I picked up the Vegas load at 0800, and was on the road shortly thereafter. I made the delivery right on time at 1700. Then it was off to the WWW. That pretty much catches you up on the mundane stuff.
Now, on with the “meat” of this post.
The 13^th was “get the LOJAK installed, and get the MMM groomed” day. First stop was the groomers at PetSmart at 0900. I dropped the MMM of, then drove clear across town to CarMax to have the LOJAK installed. While I was waiting for that, I walked across the street to the Hash House A-Go-Go. The food was excellent and the portions were huge, but they are “a bit too proud of their food” for my pocketbook. Just a standard Bacon and Eggs breakfast with Hot Tea ran me about $15.00, including tip. Someday, I’ll go back and try the Corned Beef Hash. Anyway, the car and the MMM were both ready about the time I returned to CarMax. After I drove all the way back across town and picked up the MMM, I returned to the WWW. It was still early, so I decided to head to Bakersfield today instead of leaving early in the AM. I made reservations at the Motel 6 near Aunt Helen’s house and departed Vegas about 1530 after running a few more errands. I arrived in Bakersfield a little before 2000. I met up with Don, Lou, Dawn and Aunt Helen at Marie Calendar’s for dinner. I was famished. I ordered Meat Loaf with Mashed Potatoes and Vegetables Du Jour. I also had a huge bowl of their Potato Cheese Soup. For desert, I had Lemon Cream Pie. Everyone else had Pie of one sort or another, as they had dined previously.
On Friday, we all met up again for breakfast at Carrows. Don and I both had the Double Bacon Benedict, Aunt Helen had Strawberry Crepes, and Lou and dawn split an order of Potato Pancakes. Shortly after we arrived back at Aunt Helen’s house, Aunt Mary, Maryjane, Mike, and Kerry arrived from their desert home(s).
Then it was off to Aunt Helen’s church for Uncle Doug’s Memorial/ Wake. I estimate that about 60 people showed up, about ¼ of which were family. The rest were friends from Uncle Doug’s work or his RV clubs or from the Church.



It was nice. Uncle Doug didn’t want a Memorial Service, so we only had one prayer at the beginning, then we got to socialize for the rest of the time. Maryjane made a 10-minute (or so) DVD of still photographs of Uncle Doug’s Life, (baby pictures through the present) which we watched at the Memorial. That was very thoughtful and was greatly appreciated by the family (and all who attended). It was well done. The Church Auxiliary provided a modest, but tasty, buffet.
A few of the Family went over to Aunt Helen’s house after the Memorial.


The MMM were glad to see us return. They had a good time in the back yard. Aster didn’t seem too glad to have them there though.



I had a nice, albeit, short visit with those family members who didn’t have prior commitments and could make it back to Aunt Helen’s.
Aunt Helen was heading to Pizmo Beach around 1700 with her son Jay and his family, so D, L, & D headed to the Walmart on CA-58 with their RV, and I gathered up the MMM and went back to my room. About 1900, D, L, & D came over to my room at Motel 6 and we returned to Marie Calendar’s for dinner (can’t get enough of that Potato Cheese Soup). I had Soup and a Dinner Salad with Thousand Island Dressing, Dawn and Lou each had Soup, and Donald had Shepard’s Pie. No one had room for desert.

Today, we met for breakfast at Carrow’s about 0745. After breakfast, we went our separate ways. I hit the road to Vegas, stopping briefly in Barstow for a quick MMM walk. I made it to the WWW about 1315. I’m pleased to note that my Cruiser averaged 27.8 MPG.

LIFE DAY 22155: CHILLIN’ IN CHUBBUCK

I hope everyone remembered to “spring forward” last night. If you are a regular reader of this BLOG, you already know my feelings on this, so I won’t  annoy you with yet another ‘rant’.

There is not much to update this time. I planned to leave Vegas on Friday (the 7^th), but I didn’t make it. I had a couple of new car related errands to run in the morning. The first was to turn in the License Plates from my old Jeep to the DMV. The experience wasn’t nearly as pleasant as renewing the registration in January. I had to wait in line for most of an hour behind a ‘single mom’ with 2 obnoxious little brats running all over the place. After all that, I spent about 1 minute with the DMV clerk. The second was to set up the appointment to have the LOJAK installed in my Cruiser. I set it up for next Thursday at 1030 in the AM. Anyway, after lunch I was checking my e-mail and getting ready to go when I glanced over at the lot where I park my car. Security was putting flyers on all of the car windows and barricading that portion of the lot. I went to investigate. The bottom line was that the WWW is having some sort of ‘special event’ from the 9^th to the 16^th, and I had to move my car to another part of the lot. Security doesn’t know my Cruiser yet, so I let them know who it belonged to and parked it where they told me to. By the time I was finished with all this, it was 1530. I decided to stay for the night.

Right now I’m just chillin’ in Chubbuck, ID. After I returned to Corinne yesterday, I took this load. I didn’t have enough hours remaining to return, so I spent the night here at the store. I’m still on my 10-hour break. When I leave here, I return to Corinne and pick up a load to Farmington, NM. Now, you are up to date.

Life Day 22153: The Times They Are A-Changin’

I hate to resort to a Bob Dylan song lyric as a title, but nothing else seems appropriate: The Times They Are A-Changin.

Before I get to the changes, let me bring you up to date on my life for the last week or so.  I, in fact, did return to Corinne from Casper on “Leap Day” as I said in my last post. I also took the next day off. It was a total “veg” day. I got involved in a N.C.I.S. Marathon on the USA network playing on the TV in the Driver’s Room. I normally don’t watch much television, but it was cloudy and cold (it snowed for about four hours beginning about noon). Just a BLAH day.
On the 2nd, I took a load to North Las Vegas. I made the delivery in NLV and made it back to Cedar City, UT before I quit for the day. My intention was to take ‘home time’ in Vegas to go car shopping, but they scheduled a mandatory Safety meeting for Monday, so I had to head right back to Corinne. I arrived back in Corinne just in time to make the last meeting of the day at 1400. I made it clear to the Planner, that I wanted a load right back to Vegas.
I did get my load to Vegas on the 4th, but it had a San Bernardino back-haul. Why do they torture me so? All I want to do is buy a new car. Anyway, I did the Vegas drops, but didn’t have time to do any shopping. So, on the 5th, I did the San Burdue back-haul. Normally, these are drop/hook loads, but they were running way behind. As a concequence, it turned into a ‘live load’ with a 4 hour wait. Again, I got back to Vegas too late to do any shopping.

That pretty much brings you up to date on my doings, so now we can get to the changes in my life. One change is positive, and the other two I haven’t decided on yet.
The positive change is that I did in fact finally get to go car shopping yesterday, and bought a 2006 Chrysler PT Cruiser with 31,000 miles on it. I spent a little more than I had planned ($10,500.00), but I got what I wanted. I put the $4500.00 down and financed the rest. I got a 6.5% interest rate so it’s not too bad. The payments will be $250.00 a month, but i’ll probably pay it off early (in about a year or so). Here are the obligatory pictures.

 
  
I’m happy with it, and so are the MMM. I’m having a LOJAK system installed to ease my mind while i’m away. It cost an extra $850. 00, but if my car is ever stolen, the chances of recovery are 90% greater. There wasn’t as much an impact on my Insurance as I thought. I was paying about $500.00 a year for State Minimum on my Jeep. The Insurance on the Cruiser is double that, but it is 11 years newer and I have Full Coverage.

Now for the other changes affecting my life.
The first change is that my stomping grounds, the Wild, Wild West, started charging $10.00 per night to park unless one gets a room in the hotel. This won’t effect me too much, as I normally get a room when i’m here. If I don’t, I can pay the $10.00 with my “comp points”. It’s just the added hassle of having to register my truck that bothers me. They also have discontinued offering a 20% discount to CDL drivers on food and C-store items. I think they are trying to tell me something.
The second change that will effect me is regarding my affiliation with WalMart. They plan to “assign” each driver a specific day off (1 day per week). I know it will help them with their Planning, but I don’t know if I like being mandated to a particular day off, especially if I don’t have a say in what day it is. Having the freedom to pick and choose my “home time” is one of the main reasons I do what I do. I’ll have to see how it “shakes out” before I make a decision. I may be back out running all 48 states before too long if I don’t like it.