New Mexico.

According to my better half, New Mexico has it all. 

It never rains. A guy at the tire shop told us it hadn't really rained in 10 years.

It's hot, but there is absolutely no humidity so it doesn't really feel hot.

It was 11am, and as I walked from my shower to the truck I thought to myself, "Wow, this is a really refreshing morning! It must only be 65 degrees!"

WRONG.

It was 90 degrees. And I can honestly say, it felt amazing. 90 degrees never felt so good.

There are mountains. Spectacular mountains.

The only thing New Mexico lacked, other than an over abundance of greenery, was lines on the road.

It was like a massive game of connect the dots. 

We liked New Mexico a lot. Except maybe that onion farm where we picked up the load we have now. You couldn't go outside without tearing up. I don't know how the workers managed. Oh, and that 5 mile stretch of dairy farm right by the interstate. No pastures, cus there isn't enough green stuff for the poor cows to eat. Just fenced in dirt lots, covered with you know what that smelled like you know what too. 

For 5 miles. And there were houses nestled in there in that 5 miles. It was bad enough just driving by, can you imagine living right beside it? 

Shew.

And yes, we have an entire flatbed load FULL of onions. Lots of onions. Literally, tons of onions. I feel like Oprah. 

"YOU get an onion. YOU get an onion. YOU get an onion. EVERYONE GETS AN ONION!"

stone faces.

It was raining. The wind was blowing. The lady where we were loading the trailer told us her firefighter husband had been on tornado watch, and they were "keeping an eye on some funnels." 

Cus really all funnels are is some rowdy kids that need someone to keep an eye on them.

But I had been praying all day that we would have time and the weather would allow us to visit Mt. Rushmore. We were picking up our load in Hill City, South Dakota, a mere 10  miles from the park, and there was no way I was going to miss it.

I think I would have braved a funnel to get there, quite honestly.

From the lumberyard, we were supposed to be able to see the back of the mountain, but it was too foggy. 

Still, I insisted. I was confident that God would clear the sky.

Jesse unhooked the trailer in the rain, sweet man that he is.

He may have questioned my sanity for venturing out in a funnel swirling foggy rain storm to take a hike in the mountains, but he sweetly and with minimal complaining fulfilled my requests.

We were halfway to the monument when the fog disappeared, and the sun came out. It was still raining, but the monument was visible, and I'm not afraid of melting.

I wrapped my camera up in a crock pot baggie, and we were off.

Honest Abe may have been crying, but then again so was I. The rain'll do that to ya.

The lighting was good enough for me. The rain didn't affect my pictures. The fog lifted so the faces were visible. 

My prayers were answered!

All you need is a little faith.

We didn't risk it with Crazy Horse though. We got out of there before the funnel could do that for us.

We did agree that there would be a "next time" and we would visit Crazy Horse then, because apparently he is pretty amazing too.

FYI: if any of you happen to be driving through South Dakota in a semi and decide to stop at Mt. Rushmore, please know that there's a hefty fine for even trying to get a trailer into the park. And there's no way around it. If you don't know beforehand that trailers are not allowed, you don't find out until you pull up to the gate to pay to enter, and at that point, the only way out is to go through to gate and out the exit. For a whopping fine of $250, we were very thankful that we called ahead!

someone goofed.

Oopsville, Louisiana.

beautiful weeds

We were at a random rest area, I don't remember which state. Somewhere between Pineville, Louisiana and Miller, South Dakota. Jesse was working on his logs and I took a walk, limited though it was. I took my camera with me and these purple thistles (painful thistles I might add) caught my eye.

All things in life are precious and beautiful! 

Take a moment to stop and find the beauty in the "thistles" of life.

Atchafalaya Basin Bridge

The Atchafalaya Basin Bridge is one of my favorite things we've seen in our travels so far. We've been over it twice, but I haven't posted about it until today.

The bridge is a mere 18.2 miles long, and as the name suggests, crosses over the Atchafalaya Basin. You can read more about the basin at the link, but it is the largest swamp/wetlands in the US and it's pretty awesome to drive across. Read more about the bridge here.

These 2 pictures are from the first time we crossed:

The next two are from the second crossing:

And this one has a weird color, and some bug splatters because I took it through the windshield.

It really is an amazing bridge! Not one I would recommend trying to hold your breath while crossing though...

absence: explained.

Lately, as I am sure you have noticed, there has been little (ok, NO) activity on this blog. That is easily explained. 

I started this blog to share our adventures on the long haul, and since the last post, nothing of interest has happened. We've been staying in the Eastern time zone for the most part, and the scenery there is nothing special to share. Either it's flat with no points of interest, or it's mountains with trees and no points of interest.

And, nothing interesting has happened to us personally either. No crazy truckers doing noteworthy things, no funky incidents or run-ins at the truck stops...in fact, let me spell out the past 2 months or so for you:

Jesse: drives, eats, sleeps.

Natalie: rides, sleeps, reads, sleeps, watches Netflix, sleeps, eats, sleeps.

Occasional bathroom break. Occasional tire changing.

That's it.

Super exciting. 

We haven't even had the crock pot with us, because it got replaced by a printer/scanner, and I haven't figured out where to put it now.

So, no fun meals either.

So we ride. And we thank God for keeping us safe through each week.Without His grace we would not have made it this far. Thanks to our dear friend Ashley, we have a constant prayer traveling along with us!

Jesse can't really read while driving, so thank goodness for technology because I do not like to read out loud, which is what I would have to do without our audio Bible-radio hookup.

Thank you everyone for your prayers as we travel along!

cooking with no kitchen

I say "cooking" lightly. There really is no cooking without a kitchen.

Oh, sure we can throw some stuff in the crock pot and have a delicious meal, but real cooking involves so much more. Like the dicing and sauteing of veggies, the peeling of potatoes and simmering of sauces, the broiling of garlic and the mixing of ingredients. 

Not to mention the not having to wait 6 hours before you can dig in. 

That's torture is what that is. Usually when you cook in a crock pot, you throw it in, and leave your big open house while it cooks, and then when you come home from your shopping and lunches with friends and mani/pedis and all the fun stuff you can do when you're not sitting in a truck traveling 70 mph all day every day...

When you come home from all that, the food is ready to be eaten.

However, if you so happen to be sitting in a truck traveling 70 mph all day every day, and there happens to be something sloooowly cooking away in the crock pot, you smell it. 

If you're not hungry already, you will be. 

There's no airing the truck out. If you dare open the windows more than a crack, all your belongings will soon be scattered all over the USA. And while it certainly does sound like a good reason to go shopping for all new belongings, you simply will not have time to do so, because there is a load to be delivered and as soon as it's delivered, there's another to pick up. 

All you will be left with is the clothes on your back, providing they survived. 

That being said, we love the crock pot!!! 

Because when you have to choose between a slice of truck stop pizza that is dripping in grease and has been sitting under the warmers for who knows how long and a nice hunk of pot roast and carrots, 9 times out of 10 you are going to choose the pot roast.

And trust me, if you have to choose between a truck stop soup bar, and freshly slow cooked chicken and rice, 10 times out of 10 you are going to choose chicken and rice. 

Shucks, even if you have to eat the grease-on-a-crust, you aren't going to eat from the soup bar.

If you are presented with a choice between prepackaged sandwiches and some good old slow cooked pulled pork with BBQ sauce on a premium wheat bun...well the answer is obvious.

And that is why we love the crock pot. It's not as good as real cooking, but it's a luxury we are glad to have.

But, we don't always cook in the crock pot. We have a microwave and we have a huge box full of microwave meals.

I usually eat pastas, like these:

As far as microwave meals go, those are the best.They each come in several different flavors, so there's bound to be something you'll like. 

Jesse usually eats these:

They come in lots of different meals. He's had chicken and rice, meat loaf, some Mexican concoction, raviolis, and lots more.

I don't really care for them. They all seem to have the same underlying flavors, and they are certainly nothing special, but that's just my personal opinion.

Breakfast is the hardest. We have done a sausage egg casserole in the crock pot that was awesome.

I keep a box of cheerios and some milk in the fridge.

I slice up a banana with my spoon-knife and have me a regular old breakfast.

Before we leave, I fry up a pound of sausage patties for Jesse, he eats them on English muffins with mustard. That usually lasts about a week.

When we don't eat cereal and sausage sandwiches, we usually eat a honey bun or a Dole fruit cup.

On occasion I insist we eat out, because when else are we going to eat at the Lone Star Grill or Crazy 'Bout Crawfish? I like to eat at little one of a kind places, and as long as we can get in and out of the parking lot, Jesse doesn't mind eating with me.

By far the best little hole in the wall place was Crazy 'Bout Crawfish, a Cajun cafe in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana.

I got the seafood platter, because I couldn't decide on one particular thing.

The food:

some sort of shrimp on rice

super spicy fried shrimp, tail on

crawfish pie

fried crawfish

fried fish fillet

crawfish cheddar jalapeno cornbread

and 3 other things that had foreign names and were really tasty!

We also have some snacks! A typical day consists of a small breakfast, an afternoon snack, and either a crock pot meal, microwave dinner, or eating out somewhere. 

And there you have it, the glamorous life of a foodie stuck in a truck.

It really is quite tortuous at times. I constantly am thinking of things that I can't wait to cook when I get home. For example, deviled eggs, angel food cake, pumpkin pie, a salad with avocado, sausage gravy and biscuits, apples-anything with apples, all foods that I can't fix, and you just can't buy them to taste like you want.

What foods would you miss the most if you didn't have all the comforts of a kitchen?

On a related note-I will be so glad to come and cook for you when I am home! Just let me know in the comments, and I'll text you when I'm home and we'll set up a date!