Here we are at the end of January, beginning of February, in the middle of the coldest part in the nation. Wednesday morning we delivered a load to Deer Creek, Minnesota after traveling all night from St. Mary’s, Ohio. We traveled west through Chicago and watched the temperature drop by the minute. As it fell below 20 degrees the wind picked up out of the west with very powerful gusts. If you have spent any time in west Texas you know what I mean. We turned north as the snow blew more sideways than down in what would prove to be a white knuckle drive for the next eight hours. When we got to Deer Creek the signs in the city read -22 degrees, that’s right…negative double digits. I’ve not been in weather that cold before. The door was frozen on the truck and we had to use a flame to thaw out the lock. The truck didn’t want to run right in the cold weather. Odd considering that it has a German Mercedes motor.

We left Deer Creek headed for Minneapolis as the truck began to have serious problems. We limped on into the city about 120 miles away to keep an appointment with the Detroit shop. We put the truck in the shop that afternoon and are still here in Minneapolis Friday morning. Turns out it needs quite a bit of work. According to the fleet manager this motor has been troublesome on all of the 2008 trucks. I hope we get out of here today and back to work. It’s nice to sleep in a good bed and get some rest but sitting around is very difficult.

We got a message from Jonathan yesterday. I am sorry to say that we missed Ashley’s birthday. He related that he was working through his new semester of classes but is not at all excited about the statistics class he has. Just another thing to wade through Jonathan, good luck with it. Douglas is supposed to leave for training in Washington later in the month, then Iraq at the end of the month. I hope we can get to Texas in the next couple of weeks to see him before he leaves. It’s also the month for Jason’s birthday so maybe we can get by to wish him a happy one. I’ve heard bits and pieces about Jason and Tamara’s efforts to find a house. It’s tough to find the right situation but I am sure the best thing will come along just when you least expect it. Sounds like Josh is doing a lot of traveling these days and is being spread pretty thin. The size of such a large company will surely make the most of his talents. We pray for all of you daily and trust you are protected and blessed.

Sandy has some pictures I hope are added to this note. We have seen large rivers frozen across as far as the eye can see. Once the ice has been snowed on it’s hard to tell the difference between the frozen water and the soil around it. It’s pretty to see and awesome to fathom such a change in nature. In fact last night on the local news they showed a waterfall here in Minneapolis that was completely frozen. Imagine a waterfall freezing in place. Something else we see that people from west Texas are strangers to are ice shacks on the frozen lakes and rivers. There are people out there are fishing through the ice. I would like to try that sometime. As Sandy mentioned in the last post, we have also seen snowmobiles. That looks like fun too. They are more than a pastime to people around here though, they use them to get to town and generally travel short distances. Got to do that sometime.

Well, more later after we shake loose and get back to work. Maybe the truck will be back together and I hope it is running a lot better.