The Tumbleweeds at Home..For a While

Lost in Space

Our life on the road has come to a temporary stop. We are home in snowy Wyoming until January. Himself is recuperating from a planned surgery and it will take that long to get back to his Tumbleweed self. He is doing well, just had a few bones cut out and his legs realigned. (Easy for me to say!!) 


Who knew driving a truck would make you bow-legged?

So now I face a dilemma. I don't know what to write about. I have no fresh stories of crazy people in laundry rooms or walking around New Orleans in the summer getting yelled at by the Green Lantern movie people.

I am assuming that yall stop by here to see a glimpse of what life on the road is like. Or maybe it's just my mom that reads this and she has to tell me it's interesting, she's a mother, it's a rule. So, I am trying to figure out the best way not to bore anyone to death with the day to day minutia of having cabin fever in a small town.

I have an idea of tying in stories from "The Book of Animal Ignorance, Everything You Think You Know is Wrong" to the trucking life, sorta like the prostituting penguin post.

So, if any of you have a request or ideas, let me know. I can only torture Himself for so long before he hits me with his crutches.

Prostituting Penguins and Tumbleweeds

The Tumbleweeds are home, woohoo!

Home time means a private bathroom, cup after cup of coffee in a mug, and lots of cooking in the kitchen.

Wyoming is home to the Tumbleweeds and we see quite a few actual tumbleweeds. In fact, one time while driving in our small town, we got passed by a tumbleweed. The speed limit is 30 mph and it was clearly breaking the law. Thirty mile an hour winds are just a light breeze here in the Cowboy state. I guess the reason our high winds don't do any damage is because there is nothing to damage! We have very few trees, buildings, people....What we do have is lots of antelope, wind and tumbleweeds.

Here is a bit of trivia that I will relate in a very circuitous manner to trucking.

Did you know that the Antarctic Adelie penguins build their nests with stones? Well, they do and stones are a rare commodity in Antarctica, as you can imagine. Or not, I personally have no idea what Antarctica looks like?? They are so hard to come by, that the female Adelie penguins are willing to pay for them. (I am waggling my eyebrows like Groucho Marx now). So when their boyfriends' backs are turned, they trade intimate favors with other single males in return for bigger and better stones. Apparently, some of the rock givers are so satisfied with the service provided, that females can come back for more stones without offering sex, just a little light courtship. This is the only known example of bird prostitution. I am not making this up, I stole this from The Book of Animal Ignorance and surely they know of what they speak.

Woo Hoo, more stones for me!

As Trucking Tumbleweeds, we get our share of offers of prostitution. Well, Himself does, I get mainly dirty looks. Mostly it's knocks on the door in the middle of the night. One time, as Himself and I were walking across the parking lot of a truck stop to take a shower, a woman stopped us. She told a sad story instead of offering a service and we gave her some money. Later that night we got a knock on the door from a different woman. Himself, ever kind, rolled down the window and she said "Hey Baby, you want to have some fun?"
 I yelled from the back "No, thanks"
 "Ok, give me a dollar fifty!" she's all business now. I said that we had already given once tonight and she asked if it was a white girl. It was. "Ok, good, she's with me," and went about her way.

The Adelie Penguins are at least getting some nest building material out of the deal. I don't know what you could get with $1.50.