April 3, 2008   A memorable day and not a good one!

Sailors have good days and bad days but rarely do they happen on the same day.  This day five years ago was one of the best days of sailing we have had and one of the worst.  For the inside scoop click here.

New Orleans Jazzfesters

April 5, 2008   It's the Routine!

We are still trying to get used to our new routine.  Getting into a routine is so important out here, getting your body on a time schedule, eating at the same time, sleeping at the same hours, it's what makes or breaks a team.  At times, our patience is low, our attitude is irritable, and our spouse gets the brunt of it all. Man, are we out of shape for driving.  Our necks and backs ache, and it seems as though we don't have enough ibuprofen for the both of us.   Our first week we ran 6700 miles, you'd be tired too!  Our routine for the day is this:  I wake up at 530am, start driving at 6am, drive til 5pm, with a break inbetween usually to fuel, then we stop to eat dinner.  At 6pm, Aaron starts his shift and drives to 4am then we sleep together for that precious couple of hours.  And then the day begins again.  I usually deliver the loads since I have the dayshift and of course, I get rush hour traffic at times.

April 16, 2008  Good Karma or Good Luck?

As I was driving out of the small town of Guymon, OK, on Highway 54, I thought I had entered the 55 mph zone, and started to speed up.  But, I guess I hadn't because I was being pulled over by a local police officer.  Darn it.  I pulled over and he walked up to the truck and told me to get out and meet him in front of the truck.  He asked me if I knew why he had pulled me over.  I sheepishly replied that I was probably speeding since I thought I had entered the 55 mph zone.  He agreed that I was speeding, going 55 mph.  Ugh.  He said to collect my drivers license, logbook, bill of lading, insurance card and truck registration and to meet him in his car.  I was rather calm as I sat in his car and gave him all the info he needed.  I didn't say much, but did make the point that I had only been driving for three weeks and I really did think that I was thru the 45 mph zone and was speeding up.  After awhile, as he was still typing in the info into his computer, he said I was making it difficult.  I said, "making it difficult? for you or me?  He smiled and said for him.  I asked why.  Well, since my driving record was clean, and that I had acted professionally, and didn't lie and didn't whine, that he was  just going to give me a warning.  He said that most truckdrivers whine, whine, whine and since I didn't, he was letting me go with a warning.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.  See, I am not a whiner!

April 24 - 27, 2008  It's time to go Jazz it up!

This Jazzfest is dedicated to Tim, who loved music and life.

It's been a month of work and now it's time to have some fun, so we parked our truck at the Atlanta terminal, rented a car, and headed out of town to the City of New Orleans just 500 miles away.  It only took us 7 hours since we are professionals, you know.  The Jazzfest is a festival that is held out at the fairgrounds for two weekends in a row, featuring all kinds of bands playing all kinds of music.  From 10am til 7pm, Friday, Saturday and Sunday,  there are 10 bandstands, where you can hear blues, gospel, zydeco, rock, jazz and country music.  Take your pick, with performers such as Billy Joel,  Sheryl Crow, Theresa Anderson, Al Green, Dr. John and Cowboy Mouth.  We have a good friend, Ron, who lives there, and Wayne and Harriet flew in from San Francisco, to join in the fun and frivolity.  Also, we met up with a couple whom we had met in Cartagena, Colombia, cruising on their s/v Gris Gris.  Tom and Julie are from New Orleans and they were back visiting at this time.  The weather did not cooperate this weekend; Friday we lucked out, it was just cloudy all day. Perfect, actually, but Saturday afternoon, it rained heavily and the wind blew hard.  We were watching Billy Joel at the time, as he merrily sang, "just singing in the rain".  Good sense of humor.  Sunday, we spent most of the time in the Blues tent since it was raining most of the day.  Not a bad way to spend a rainy afternoon listening to Delbert McClinton.

One of the best things about New Orleans is the food.   At the Jazzfest, there are booths set up in rows offering all kinds of cuisine.  Aaron's favorite is the meat pies.  His record of eating 19 meat pies in one weekend still holds.  No one else has been up to the task, but I like the crawfish pies myself.  The all time favorite is the Cochon du Lait sandwich which is a pulled pork sandwich filled with coleslaw on a fresh baked french roll.  There is Crawfish Monica, Crawfish Bread, Crawfish sacs, you get the idea.   After Jazzfest each nite,  we went out to dinner to one of the finest restaurants in town, NOLA's, Peristyle, Acme Oyster House, where we devoured over 12 dozen oysters, and finishing up with Emerils. Bam! We ate good!  Over wine and dinner, we got caught up on the latest happenings. 

 The last Jazzfest we attended was in 2005 and the hurricane happened that August.  Ron filled us in about his experience thru it all.  His condo which is located by Lake Ponchartrain had flooded, but luckily his place is up on the second floor so he didn't have any water damage, but the building was condemned and he was not able to move back in for 2 years while repairs were being made.  His mother lives in Slidell and she and Russell, Ron's brother, weathered the hurricane in the bathtub in her brick house.  They survived unscathed and so did the house. 

There are many families still living in FEMA trailers which are parked in the front yards of their homes awaiting repairs.  It has been a slow process for so many.  One lady I met, told me that she has mice that live in the walls of her FEMA trailer and she can hear them scampering about.  It's enough to drive you crazy, she says.  She sets out traps and all, but can't keep up with the numbers of mice.  Alot of homes have been boarded up and abandoned.  Many families didn't have the money needed to fix their home back up, and the government loans were not enough to cover the expenses, so they just had to leave and go elsewhere.  A hospital crisis is also happening.  So many doctors and nurses have left that there are only 5 hospitals left in operation.   The wait to see a doctor in the emergency room can be over 2 hours.  And many people are going without treatment.  It is a shame what has happened here.