Back to "Normal"?

After spending 5 days with friends and family in Cheyenne, it was time to get back to work.
We spent Wednesday night at the TA in Cheyenne, fearful of getting snowed in. Well, we were stuck there for several hours due to the road closings, and a power failure at the TA. making for an interesting evening.

We left Thursday Morning, driving through a snow drift exiting the parking lot and headed towards Denver on I 25, the only car we passed for miles was a State Trooper.

Continuing from Denver to Pueblo CO, we drove out of the snow by the time we got to Colorado Springs. In Pueblo we picked up 2 AC units weighing 12-15 thousand pounds each and taking up the entire trailer.

On our way to Naples Fl. we happened to be in Alexandria LA for Halloween, so we found a Wal-mart parked the truck and proceeded to make Kaitlynn into an orphan.

I put her hair in pony-tails and put freckles on her nose, dusting her cheeks with eyeshadow to make her look dirtier than she already was, we put daddy's flannel shirt on her and rolled up the sleeves and tied it around her waist. We got her a purple bandanna and used it to tie a bundle to the end of a stick. She was adorable. She and Herb set off to do some Trick or Treating.

Apparently not too many houses were handing out candy but those that were, were quite generous. After about 45 min they had, had enough and came back to the truck with a bag full of goodies. She had fun and was able to enjoy the holiday even though she was far from home.

We continued on through the night to Naples FL to deliver the first unit to a church. Upon arrival we found all they had to unload us with was a fork lift, and though this was the smaller of the two units a crane would have been more appropriate.

They insisted on using one forklift to raise the unit off the bed of the truck and then drive the truck out from under it. It worked well until the unit started wobbling and fell. It crashed against the rear of the trailer then landed on it's side on the ground. We got it upright and assessed the damage which was mostly cosmetic, but, it was defiantly a lesson in how NOT to unload an AC unit.

From Naples we continued on to Miami to deliver the second unit. They were also unprepared for the massive size of the unit.

However they were smarter about how to unload it. Using 4 fork lifts they each picked a corner and raised the unit from the bed of the truck and then we drove the truck out from under it. Then they moved the unit onto the drive, 2 forklifts driving backwards and 2 driving forwards. By working together they were able to safely unload an oversize AC unit. It was quite impressive.

Freight out of southern Florida being scarce we headed back up I 75 crossing a section known as Alligator Alley.

We stopped in a Rest Area/Recreation Area/Boat Ramp Area to take a break. Kaitlynn wanted to see an Alligator so we went to one of the Boat ramps on the advice of the security guard at the Rest Area. At first we didn't see anything then a "rock" in the canal moved and became an Alligator. Kaitlynn began calling "here gator, gator, come here little gator." Thankfully the gator did not respond.

In all we saw 5 or 6 gators ranging in size from 3 feet to 6 feet long. We also saw Buzzards and Cranes in the area. It was quite an experience to see wildlife in it's natural habitat.

We were dispatched to Hosford FL. where we picked up a load of ply-wood going to Ennis, TX. and we are heading west across the Florida panhandle to Alabama.