Since I last wrote, there has been much to catch up on, including home times, beach days, a new driver’s license, and elections! Don’t worry; I’ll post pictures to fill in the gaps.

Today, we are resetting our hours in Salt Lake City, Utah, which means I have time to sit with my thoughts. It feels like I am reuniting with an old friend. Ryan was so kind as to buy me an iPad that I could use as a computer here. For the full experience, I also have jazz music playing with a cup of coffee.

We are back on the road after two wonderful weeks off with so many good memories. Working for two months straight, we truly enjoyed our much-needed “vacation”, splitting the two weeks between Texas and Louisiana. We always hit the ground running, leaving no time to sit idly by, and this time was no exception. I voted as soon as we hit Louisiana, and we headed to my dad’s house to unpack the truck. That’s one item off the bucket list. Modern technology is crazy because I was “done” after being gone for two months and Ryan suggested ordering groceries from DoorDash. While I enjoy grocery shopping, it was so nice to stay home and unpack the truck while a gentleman saved the day and delivered the items to me. (I don’t want to get used to it.. ha).

With two days in Louisiana, we wasted no time. I roasted/deboned three whole chickens for a batch of chicken stock, and Ryan continued his garage organization project before leaving for Texas. Of course, no trip to Texas is complete without stopping at Buccee’s.

We made it to Texas in time to celebrate Papa’s 89th birthday and I cannot emphasize enough just how blessed I am to have Ryan’s grandparents to love who are still so funny and so sharp. They keep each other going with a system: she orders all kinds of things on Amazon, and he returns them.

Every time we visit, we play “chicken foot”, and what cracks me up is how quick-witted his 91-year-old grandma is, even though she thinks she is not. On one round, Ryan kept saying, “Nobody had a double 6?!” She quietly laid the domino down and said, “You mean you needed this??”, went out, and won! In another round, while Ryan kept snatching my dominoes, I followed suit and stole her dominoes while she was picking for her pile. She was stunned, and she is the absolute sweetest, but we all laughed so hard at the audacity. God kept me humble though… I lost badly.

That said, we had a wonderful visit with them. I am so thankful we are able to stay with his mom and spend so much time with her. She even let me cook in her kitchen! I could not wait to do all the cooking projects I had stored up in my mind! Ryan was also able to clean out some of a storage unit to bring some of his tools to Louisiana. He also brought me to see his grandpa’s farm which was really neat. I took a bunch of pictures there and the ladder shelf I built a while back holds a lantern from the farm.

While in Texas, I became a Texan and changed my residency. What a circus! Did you know a fishing license can be used as an ID (at least in Texas)? Write that down. We found that out when we were there, and Ryan had to leave to get one. haha

Moving on to the heart of this post, one of the things I appreciate most about going to my dad’s is the familiarity. It’s the house I grew up in for almost thirty years. We have the same neighbors in the same houses and the same smiles. What is funny is how many years I spent wanting to run away from the same place I cherish most now for its “familiarity.” I’ve learned I simply wanted my life to move forward. I am the girl on the bike, so when I visit, I hear, “Where ya been? I have not seen you in a while,” and I explain our trucking lives. When I pass on my bike, I seek out the houses with jasmine trees that scent up the street. Or knowing the dog will bark at me as I pass in 1…2…3…

I always teased my dad about keeping everything the same and never moving anything out of place in our house, but now I “go home.”. For years I wanted him to change the outdated ’90s decor, but now I appreciate the gold accent and color versus all the farmhouse stuff everywhere. (I’m not dissing you if you have that, as it’s hilariously what I wanted my dad to do.)

We were in town for the election and agreed we would not watch. Of course, I was refreshing my phone very often to see the state count updates. At midnight I checked it and turned on the light. “He got Pennsylvania.”. Ryan: “No way.”. “He got Pennsylvania,” and with that, we were up for a while longer, extremely excited and in disbelief over Kamala losing the election. I thought for sure she would win. It was not necessarily out of what the American people wanted but because the machine was too big to conquer. However, somehow, America voted and chose to have America longer. I cannot be more grateful for most people wanting common sense. I think everyone is just tired of the left shoving ideologies down our throats and calling us bigots and hateful for simply having a difference of opinion or wanting babies to live and keeping transgender movement away from children.

We had a tearful goodbye and left for the road again.

I started a food page on Instagram as a hobby for the truck. I am in the process of working on creating a food blog to go along with it.

Ok, here are pictures because they’re worth 1,000 words…

And an update for where we’ve been this week since leaving:
(A few years ago my dad and I cleaned out some stuff. I secretly swiped his sweatshirt from the giveaway pile to keep as it “was my dad’s”. I took it on the road this time with our winter clothes.

You know you’re from the south when…