Pikeville, KY

Our last load was our worst so far. The load came through a broker instead of through Paschall, and they were not nearly as nice to haul for. They gave us horrible directions to get to the place in Sebewaing, Michigan to get our load, and we had to use mapquest to find it ourselves. Then after waiting 4 hours to get loaded we were finally off. We didn’t get loaded until 6 o’clock pm, and then they expected us to get to Pikeville, KY by 11 o’clock am the very next day. That was pretty much impossible. We got down to Pikeville by about 6 o’clock pm, after going about 50 miles out of our way because of poor directions. We had to go up in a canyon on some state roads that were very narrow and curvy. They hadn’t found another load for us by the time we unloaded, so we spent the night in the Wal-Mart parking lot in Pikeville.

The drive to Pikeville was through the mountains, and not on very big roads, so we were very surprised to find a lot of businesses there. There were several restaurants, both fast food and sit down, and many stores including Wal-Mart, K-Mart, and a couple of strip malls. There is even a college there.

We went to church in Pikeville. They had a fairly small branch there, and everyone was really nice to us. They were just disappointed that we were only passing through instead of moving in. There was one particularly nice couple that we talked to for about an hour after church named Jason and Brooke Cavanaugh. They even had kids the same age as ours. We exchanged phone numbers and addresses so if we ever go through there again we can give them a call and get together.

From Pikeville we went to Carrollton, KY. We picked up a load this morning from a company that makes plastic stuff that gets mixed with bottles and things to strengthen them. They were really strict on their safety policies and Josh had to wear a long sleeve shirt and pants along with a hard hat and safety glasses. The worst part was that they wouldn’t even let the kids and I inside the fence at all, so we had to wake Mitchell up at 5:30 am MST and go sit outside on a bench to wait for Josh to switch trailers. Josh had to watch a little video about safety and what to do in case of an emergency. If the sirens sounded, for instance, he was supposed to look at the windsock on the top of the building, walk crosswind, and then upwind to a safety point.

We are now hauling some sort of liquid up to Fargo, ND. It is weird to feel the truck rock every time we stop or start. Our route takes us right through Minneapolis, MN which we are not particularly excited about after the collapse of that bridge, but we will be going through a different part of the city, so hopefully it will be okay.