Thursday, March 22, 2012

I love LA




My apologies for not posting in a while. With Irene’s grandmother passing away, time ran out quickly each day while we were home. Along with all that we spent some quality time with the kids, re-landscaped the front of the house, laundry, visits with friends and family, getting our taxes done, fixing my daughters car, shopping, sorting through 8 weeks of mail, Dr’s apts, dropping our truck off for service…holy cow it’s great to be back on the road. Going home is soooo exhausting!! Irene says no more going home…it’s to stressfull.

Well as the title says…I love LA…we went back on the road on the 15th and picked a load up in Charlotte NC and ran it to Calexico California. From there we dead headed to LA and were instructed to pick up at the Nokia theatre. Upon arriving downtown Irene was driving and she started to get a little nervous about the tightness of streets. She wanted me to drive, but I told her that she had to do it. With traffic and the amount of people walking around it was tough. Let’s see…it was St. Patty’s day, there was a LA Kings hockey game, and a concert at the Nokia…wait concert? I looked at Irene and like I always say, you got this babe. She pulled us in front of the Nokia and I asked the ticket office where they wanted us still not knowing why we were there. They instructed us to pull to the loading dock on the rear street and they would let us in from there. That is when we learned that we will be hauling (to Texas) stage and band equipment for a singer named Arjona who is some pop star from Guatemala…sorry no cowboy hat or boots…never heard of him…even though he has won 2 grammys. After being cleared by security and given all the details the huge roll up door opened and I said to Irene…OMG, you better let me do this one…heck no she snarled at me…yes maam…I know my place. This was a 45 degree angle from the street backing down hill under the theatre while holding 4 lanes of traffic up…and there was a huge crowd gathering to watch this blonde bombshell back this giant truck underneath. They were cheering Irene on and some were helping watch to make sure she was clear on her blindsides while she backed. Honestly these people were having more fun with her than they did at the concert I think. Well my sweetheart got it in the dock on the 1st try. I taught her so well…lol This is when it became even better…there were 4 more of our company trucks due in, but seeing Irene and I were early they let us under the huge rolling doors and were given backstage passes and allowed to wander and enjoy…as long as I promised not to show up on the stage…Dang!

So we decided to wander downtown for a bit and grabbed an awesome dinner at Lawry’s Carvery and took in some sights. What a busy night it was, but it was awesome being down there. We headed back to the Nokia and decided to get some rest in the truck for our drive that awaited us…nope not going to happen. We may as well been sitting in the front row…Latin Pop music for the next couple hours blared through the Nokia…lol…the sound was great though so we enjoyed the concert from the comfort of our truck. When it ended we watched the band file into the limos that were waiting in front of us. The door opened to a mob of people that were waiting with banners and all screaming for this Arjona…who by the way was not even in the limos…he slipped out another door and disappeared…to funny! Well the roadies broke everything down and packed it up in our truck and a couple hours later we were on our way. Next Conway truck please…and the work continued. There were 5 of us hauling his equipment and we dropped it in Laredo Texas at our Terminal where Mexican drivers picked up and hauled our trailers across the border for another concert later that week…Adios Arjona!

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