Grandpa has had an exciting week!

Saturday, April 25, 2009
Dear Max,
Your Grandpa has had an exciting week. You know that Grandpa has been doing one of the things on his "bucket" list. A bucket list is a list of things you would like to do before you die. I know that's not a very exciting thing to discuss... however, it is the only reasoning behind your Grandpa's current choice of what he has been doing in his free time. Your Grandpa has always wanted to be a truck driver. He always talked about it when I was growing up, but he never liked the idea of not being home with your Uncle Geary and I. Well, I guess that now we are all grown up he has decided to fulfill this dream of his. Sometimes it's not all he thought it would be, but all in all I do think he enjoys being behind the wheel of the big rig! And I'm sure you'll get your chance sometime soon - but one fun thing is when Daniel comes to visit he always wants to visit Grandpa's truck. So Grandpa climbs up into the truck with Daniel and they pretend they are driving on the open road. So far we just have been reading books about big trucks and talking about what Grandpa's been up to. Grandpa's already been talking about the "road trip" the two of you will take soon enough.

Well, Thursday morning Grandma got a scary phone call at about 12:30 am. Grandpa had been in an accident down in California. He team drives with another driver. The other driver was driving at the time and Grandpa was in the sleeper. A car cut off the truck and so Darren (Grandpa's team driver) had to swerve. They went down the embankment and through a fence. The truck stayed upright - but as you can imagine your Grandpa got tossed around quite a bit in the back of the truck. Because they take all the hazardous materials for UPS - the red tape getting the accident cleaned up was a big, long process. But the important part was that your Grandpa is OK. We called and talked to him later in the day and he said that they were both pretty shook up, but that they were doing good.

And their is no rest for the weary! The two of them were back on the road that very day! Friday was a REALLY windy day. When your Grandpa was coming through Las Vegas they stopped to fill the truck up with Gas and a local tv station was there interviewing Truck Drivers so see how they were handling driving in these hazardous conditions. And your handsome Grandpa was interviewed! So last night we stayed up late (well, you didn't make it!) but Cooper, your dad and I stayed up to watch the 10:00 news and there he was... our Grandpa. It was so funny cause Cooper saw Grandpa on the TV and just started barking and running around like a crazy dog. He loves your Grandpa almost as much as you do... he was so excited to see him and couldn't understand why he was in the "big box" Talk about from one extreme to the other!