Friday, November 04, 2011

From Pot Roast At The Buckhorn To Gambling With An Inky Malbec


Last night we dined at the T/A and had unsweetened iced tea with our meal. Tonight we dined with friends and enjoyed a glass of The Gambler, an Argentinian wine made with the delicious Malbec grape.

OK, so I didn't have my own glass - I'm not a wine drinker - but I did have several sips out of Ed's glass. It was just soooo tasty. I didn't get the olive or the leather, but I did detect a little strawberry in its finish.

Getting together with our friends Marlaina and Greg is always a great time. They are two of the most interesting, intelligent people we know. The conversation typically consists of all things trucking, the latest audiobooks we've listened to, what's happening on the political front, who read what in the New York Times, and where the next travel destination will be. They're considering North Korea in 2012 and we're considering being their travel partners. No snorkeling happening there, that's for sure.

It's never necessary to tell them where we are since they track us on Google Latitude, but since we keep in touch via email, they knew we'd be delivering our load close to the very area they were getting some work done on their truck. They had a rental car, so making dinner plans was only one Urban Spoon shake away.

We parked at one of our typical hideouts and they came to meet us. We spent quite some time hanging out in the truck talking before we even thought about dinner. Greg and Ed talked computers, Vespas and custom platform trailers. Marlaina and I talked investing, nailcolor, and family matters. She's a genius with the dollar and I'm seriously considering hiring her as my personal financial consultant. I am going to be set by the time I'm ready to retire!

When the growling stomachs could no longer be contained, we all piled into the state-of-the-art minivan they rented; it had side doors that closed automatically with a gentle whoosh, vanity lighting on the headliner (a nice soft green glow), extremely comfortable second row seating and the best of all, a video backup camera that displayed what was going on behind us, on an 8" video screen on the dash. Über-cool! (That's for you, Greg.)

The ride to the restaurant though, wasn't as cool. Greg plugged the adress into the GPS, but since we were in New Jersey, the left hand exit took him by surprise, he missed it, and we wound up several miles out of route. Using one of the freaky New Jersey u-turn jug-handles, we finally got turned around in the right direction, but by that time we had already been in the car for thirty minutes, trying to get to a place that was four miles away.

Greg was behind the wheel, Marlaina was helping him read the GPS, I had my iPhone Maps program open and Ed was just shaking his head. We all had to laugh at the fact that there were four truck drivers in a car who couldn't find a restaurant less than five miles from where we started. Funny thing - although as teams we drive trucks over 300 days of the year covering more than 150,000 miles each - we don't really love being behind the wheel of what we now call "four-wheelers". It feels weird, it's a little unsettling and you realize, as Marlaina pointed out, when you're in a truck, you can drive fifty-five miles an hour and no one bothers you, they just zip around you, annoyed that you're keeping them from getting to the mall to buy the latest Justin Beiber CD. In a car, you feel a little more vulnerable to the idiots unsuccessfully trying to contain their road rage.

Dinner was wonderful, as anticipated. Our conversation is generally pretty lively, but when Marlaina talks, she injects a high level of passion, displayed in her hands, facial expressions and tone of voice. I always feel like I'm on the edge of my seat waiting to hear what she's going to say next. She's spent a lot of time doing jobs in creative fields, one of them being a journalist. I believe it's part her personality and part her training that fuels her knack for digging out information by asking the most perfect questions. She's also great at helping see the same-old-same-old in a fresh new light; always providing the angle I never thought of.

We joked on the way home that when people now call us for loads, we're no longer going to say we're a team (Ed and I); we're going to pimp ourselves out as a QUAD - Me, Ed, Marlaina and Greg. Although, I'm not sure that's such a great idea.

Even though we'd be doubling our work force, it's highly unlikely we'd get anything done.


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
1 YEAR AGO:
Nestled In The Fertile Plain
2 YEARS AGO:
I Think I’m Kinda Lichen This Moss
3 YEARS AGO:
Holding My Breath
4 YEARS AGO:
Ahhhh….Ahhhhh…..Aw Shit!
5 YEARS AGO:
Contemplating Flight
6 YEARS AGO:
Eddie Blurred By NyQuil Friday

2 comments:

ELH said...

Salena, you should try gettin into wine..it's really good for the heart,blood pressure,stress,and your circuliatory system and digestive tract..I'm on a low dose bp med and my doc told me to keep on having up to two glases of wine a day for continued health benefits..there's all kinds of wine clubs out there that can suggest what wines for what occasions..and once you get sippin...and a little glow goin, the whole world gets a little more mellow.
I enjoy the old table wines, paisano or chianti..years ago we called that "dago" red..before everybody got all offended and such...I guess you can't say that nowadays..anyhow i'm half Italian so maybe i's o.k.??
anyway, I hope you give some wines a try, and enjoy some..
p.s. really enjoyed hearing ed's comments, tell him to more in the future...

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