Well, we put in a request for Texas, but those guys at Panther are no geography experts. They sent us from Detroit to Atlanta, Atlanta to Decatur Alabama, Decatur to Chicago, Chicago to Indianapolis, and now we're headed from Seymour, Indiana to Windsor, Ontario. You'd think a state the size of Texas would be hard to miss, but I'm not even sure they know where it is :0)

Jim was talking to a dispatcher on the phone to check our board position in Decatur, and the guy said, Decatur isn't in Alabama, it's in Illinois. Jim assured him there WAS one in Alabama, and that we were sitting there, but he said, "No, I'm from Illinois, and I know where Decatur is." We finally gave up and told him we were in Valhermosa, Alabama (15 miles from Decatur) and he looked at his screen and said, "Oh, there you are!" I'll bet he'd flip if we told him there was a Decatur, Texas, too.

We were talking to another dispatcher when we were in Louisville, Kentucky, who offered us a load going to Ohio. She said, "Oh well, it's a short load, but at least it will get you closer to home." We just looked at each other. She didn't seem to have a notion that home for us bears no resemblance to home for her, which IS in Ohio where Panther's offices are located. Where do they get these people???

Actually, there are a lot of city names that get repeated from state to state. Bowling Green seems to be a popular one. We knew about Bowling Green, Kentucky, because we've been through there so many times. I looked it up online to find the origin of the name, and found out that there are towns named Bowling Green in New York, Ohio, Virginia, Florida and Kentucky. The ones in Ohio and Florida were named after Bowling Green, Kentucky; the one in Kentucky was named after the one in New York, where patriots had pulled down a statue of King George III and used the lead to make bullets during the American Revolution. It's also where the New York City ticker-tape parades originated and is the oldest park in New York City. In 1773, it was converted to an actual bowling green (lawn bowling), hense the name. (I'm sure you couldn't have lived another minute without knowing all that, but it was interesting to me.

We woke up in Inianapolis this morning to find out it was snowing and apparently had been for awhile. So I checked out the forcast for Detroit/Windsor and found out they are forecasting over a foot of snow tonight and tomorrow. Troy, you'd better head this way with those burritos - we might need them (with extra hot sauce!!)

Anyway, they're giving us 27 hours to drive a short 341 miles, so we're not too worried. We'll go about half way tonight, get some sleep, then head on up and deliver it tomorrow. All this snow just makes me more homesick and ready for Christmas. Maybe we'll find some non-contaminated snow, and I'll make some snow ice cream. Jim says he's never heard of such a thing, but I've assured him it's pretty good stuff.

Hope to see you all soon.

Love ya,
Jim and Sandy