Wyoming, Cheyenne & Koogs

Captains Log Star-date 2162:

Today was the first day back after a week of family reunions, eating huge steaks, tons of ribs, drinking beer, playing host to Graham (Gremmie), drinking more beer, eating my own weight in buffalo wings, cutting grass, playing with moose horns (antler thingies) more beer, more steak, visiting local sights, cutting grass and taking photos.

2148 was still poorly so I was assigned to 2162 (another Cascadia) and told to go down to that there Mexico and give 'em some cow meat. Now that sounded great for me ( my apologies to the regular driver of 2162, I've put 9,000 kms on yer truck) and Jan and I were eagerely throwing my gear in the back.

I very nice shiny SUV pulled up and out jumped D'arcy Foder (Hi D'arcy), he came over and had a chat for a while, mostly about our new house and he got introduced to Claire & Andy who were preoccupied climbing all over the truck and taking the usual photos, one behind the wheel and one stood by the fender.

Eventually it was time to get my trailer and take it up to Calgary where I was doing a trailer swap and take an empty down to the meat plant so I could get my "in-bond" load. This is where the plan went askew, the load was ready but not the paperwork.

04:00 next morning and I was on my way back to Lethbridge to get the ACE manifest cleared, this would take 2 hours so it was sleepy bo-bos time and I got 2 hours.

Heres an inteligence test for all of you, to prove that your brain is capable of thought and movement at the same time, not everyone can do this.

Here is what you do:

Stand up straight and put your arms on your hips like a chicken.
Slowly flap your arms like a chicken.
At the same time spelling out BOBO.
This as to be done while amongst a group of people (preferably strangers)

Remember not everyone can do this.

Okay back to the plot:

Headed down to Sweetgrass, crossed the border, no meat inspection to worry about, and headed south.

As I thought about my route down I thought hang on, I got to go passed Cheyenne and I know someone who lives in Cheyenne, Warren from KOOG & BOOTS fame. For those of you who don’t know him, Warren is a lad from Manchester who came over to Canada about 20 months ago to work for Kindersley out of Saskatoon, he started a blog site which was the inspiration for this one and he also used to contribute on the Expat forums.

This is really where I got a lot of my information in those early days and I nearly joined Kindersley as that was the only company I knew anything about. As a matter of fact got called for an interview but H&R got in there first, anyway that’s all history now.

Anyway I planned to meet up with him at the end of his shift, after I had scooted to the other side of town to fuel up at the TA and we met up for a coffee and a chat, we've been corresponding on the forums and blogs for nearly 2 years and never met up. Anyway Warren, great to meet up with you at last, see I kept my promise and offered you lunch.

Anyway, due to operational necessity ( loads of miles and not much time to do it in) I had to make a hasty departure and soon I was heading south again. This trip wasn’t going to be one of the comfortable truckstop ones, I was pushing it to the last minute and parking where I could, that first night I got into a turn out (just about) and shut down for 10 hours.

Next morning it was more of the same except when it dropped dark I somehow got on the wrong road. I knew I was near the southern Colorado border and I was expecting to see "Welcome to Oklahoma" but the one I found was "Welcome to New Mexico" My first thought was "Which idiot put the wrong sign there"

My second thought was "Oops I missed Oklahoma", only by a few miles though. I crossed the border and headed East as soon as I could, ending up in a one horse town parked up on some waste ground and I could feel a tooth ache coming on. The town looked as rough as a badger's ass but I was left alone and got a good nights sleep………………………..