Two People and a Truck

A couple weeks ago, at the Cyclone Truck Stop in Ames, IA, some guy ordered a side of cottage cheese with gravy on it. When the waitress brought it to the table, she and the diner talked about weird stuff people put on cottage cheese. The waitress claimed that she didn't find the gravy strange. She then said, with obvious disdain in her voice, I've even seen people put french dressing on their cottage cheese. BTW, I put french dressing on my cottage cheese.

After I thought about gravy on the cottage cheese, I decided it wasn't as weird as I initially thought. If one used mushroom gravy it would create a sort of truck stop version of beef stroganoff. This would be especially good for truck stops because instead of curdling the sour cream, the cottage cheese would be pre-curdled. (In case you don't cook, the art of good stroganof is mixing in the sour cream without curdling it.)

Last night I was eating at the J in Des Moines and some guy was putting fruit cocktail on his cottage cheese. At first I thought it was a bit weird, but after thinking about it, decided that it wouldn't be a bad combination.

So, after careful consideration, I have concluded that cottage cheese is nearly perfect truck stop food. First, it mixes with just about anything. (I'm not sure I'd recommend mixing cottage cheese with your butterscotch jello, but I won't condemn you if you choose to do that.) Second, it's pre-curdled, so it's hard to screw up a recipe when you use cottage cheese. Third, it may not be Muenster or queso fresco, but it's pretty darn exotic for a truck stop buffet (it ranks right up their with green jello and shredded carrots) and can turn an ordinary dining experience into something extraordinary!

Category: General

Today I've got two disconnected and inconsequential observations.

On Wednesday I made two deliveries: one to a Lowes store and the other to Builder's Supply in Omaha, one of Omaha's largest lumber retailers. It took a couple of hours to get unloaded at the Lowe's store, primarily because the forklift driver was inexperienced. He had to line everything up perfectly and move slow. He finally got the job done. The forklift driver at Builder's Supply, on the other hand, was screaming (as were the other dozen or so that were also busy loading and unloading this and that). He had unloaded so many trucks that he didn't have to think twice. He was unloading 16' siding--a tricky proposition--and had me finished in less than a half hour. When I was in high school I drove a forklift at my job. I unloaded a truck maybe once a week. I fell into the really slow category. I really appreciate a good forklift driver now.

The truck stop I stop at most frequently is Wings in Avoca, Iowa--It's the first truck accessible food from Ft Dodge driving south. Yesterday the service was terrrible. The two waitresses were high school kids from Avoca. Right after I ordered, Mike came in. Over the course of the meal I learned that Mike was a wrestling star. The two waitresses really fawned over him, ignoring the customers in the process. Sort of makes me miss the surly truck stop waitresses I've come to love.

Category: General

Today I dropped a load in Rochester, MN. It's a divided road and the only way to get into the parking lot is from the north. Of course I came into town from the south, so I found myself on the wrong side of a busy road. Since it was a divided four lane road there was enough room to make a u-turn to get into the southbound lane, so I went up to the next turn spot and prepared to do just that. Of course the traffic was just heavy enough that I couldn't find a long enough break to get in.

Just then a man walking his dog stops by the truck and asks if I would like him to stop traffic on the one lane. I said yes, and with his help I got turned around in a jiffy with only a few cars having to stop while I made the turn.

So, there are still a few nice people in the world.

Thanks, man-walking-your-dog. I appreciatea the help.

Category: General

I make a lot of runs into Minnesota. I'm typically up there a couple of times a week. Over the course of a couple of months I'm discovering where the good and bad routes are. One would think that U.S. highways would typically be good choices. Oddly enough, they're often not.

The most direct route into the Minnesota lake country, for me, is U.S. 71. But that highway was built many years ago. It's not elevated above the farmland around it. As a result, even when the weather's good, snow tends to blow across the highway, creating a lot of slick and hazardous spots. U.S. 14, running east and west is not much better.

On the other hand, SR (that is, state road) 15, which runs south out of St. Cloud is an excellent highway that is almost always better maintained than U.S. 71. When I can reroute a bit to the east, that is a far better route.

Of course, using mapping software designed for cars in a truck is not too smart an idea, but DeLorme's Street Atlas and MapQuest can provide some nice trip planning short cuts when figuring out where to go. Both Street Atlas and MapQuest (and I'm told MS Streets and Trips does the same thing) act like SR 60 doesn't even exist. There is a major highway that runs kitty corner through Iowa and Minnesota that connects I-29 at Sioux City to the Twin Cities. From LeMars, IA to Mankato, MN, this is called SR 60. South of LeMars it's listed as US71 and north of Mankato its listed as US169, but it's the major through route. Almost all of it is 65 mph divided highway. It bypasses several of the towns along the route, so it's also efficient.

MapQuest does us SR 60 through Iowa, but then routes you either on the interstate, all the way over to Albert Lea and up, or up US 71 and across. Street Atlas prefers the interstate all the way, travelling west (and north) to Sioux Falls, then all the way across I90 and up I35 at Albert Lea. If you're not going directly into the cities, but into some town a bit to the west, the routes add dozens of miles to the trip, take longer, and put you on some really treacherous roads.

Too bad they can't renumber the roads so that the good roads can have good numbers and the direct routes can be consistently marked as direct routes. Oh well. I'm sure that's not going to happen, so I'll continue driving by trial and error.

Category: General

[Posted Wed evening at a rest area outside Omaha.]

I'm sitting in Kansas City waiting for my trailer to get loaded. I figured it would be a fairly quick turn around because I got backed into the loading bay well before 9:00 a.m., but these are big city union guys, so it's now almost 1:00 p.m. and I'm still waiting. The load only goes just north of DesMoines and it looked like I could do two drops in a single day--that's like an extra day's pay at the end of the week, but that's out of the question now.

On the bright side, I finished one essay and started another essay for my web site and I got this note done for the blog. Now all I need is an internet connection to upload this.

I was listening to NOAA's weather radio this morning and they said that Kansas City temps have been above normal every day since Dec. 22. It's a record. The month of January has been 15 degrees warmer than normal. That's a lot!

I've been in an ice storm and a snow storm this January in Kansas City, so it's not like it's the tropics or anything, but it looks like it's going to hit 60 today and I can live with that.

Category: General