CuRVWander

The feedlot is a random shot I took.  But the refinery/petro-chemical complex is a shot I took from atop a 90 ft distillation column at one of my jobs. From August of '18 to October of '22 our rig has been in one spot on a beautiful lake working with fantastic people in north Georgia.  Between a birth of a grandson, an unreliable truck and COVID we chose to stay put for those four years.  The grandson will be four in a few months, COVID shut-downs and closings are in the rear view mirror now and that mirror is attached to a new truck.  We're back on plan and on the move. Our first destination is home, Texas.  Livingston, to be more precise.  We're way overdue for jury duty and our timing will let us vote in person for the first time in ten years. There was a lot of apprehension about hitching up because of sixteen years of owning a truck that spent way too much time in the shop, all of it for engine issues.  It had the last motor built by the Ford/Navi...

  Departure ready.  It "only" took three and a half hours to get travel ready this morning. And that is after a solid week of getting ready before today.  But the reconfiguration is done now. From here on out we should be able to break camp, leisurely, in an hour. A lot of anxiety about getting the new truck to hitch up and go down the road has been tamped down.  All the effort put into designing and selecting auxiliary equipment seems to have worked out, everything did what it was supposed to do.  I'm still going to have to get the guys at the trailer's factory to help me adjust the king pin box while we are there for other work.  The trailer is still riding nose-high from the previous truck's setup.  The king pin box is a big hunk of iron and will take at least two stout fellows or one small fork lift to hold it while stabbing the bolts into the next position.  While the mechanical stuff is working great, my insecurity of my abilities is still p...

  After four years of being in one spot, which was never the plan, thank you covid, we are getting back on the road.  Our time in Georgia is done for awhile, we have things lined up to do west of the Mississippi for the next year.  Our time at Allatoona Lake in North Georgia has been fantastic and we are already anticipating our return but we are way behind on doing and seeing things that were planned years ago.  We're going to fix that right now. Our intermediate goal is to get home to Livingston, Tx and take care of things that are best done in person such as vote, jury duty, vehicle inspections and so on.  But we'll take our time getting there.  We are only going to drive about 4 hours each day.  We are still trying to get our heads around our new "caravan" situation.  Cyndee in her vehicle pulling a small cargo trailer and me in the truck with our home on wheels.  We're learning as we go.  Just tonight we made sure that each of our n...