Apologies for the hiatus. Yooper Stewart and I have both been busy, and it didn’t take long for the days, weeks, months to get away from us! After several months of silence, I put some pressure on YS – give me a story or get out of the house! (Not really, but I may have bribed him with tacos.) Unfortunately, he’s not the best communicator, so that conversation went something like:

Me: Tell me something interesting that’s happened recently.
Yooper Stewart: Um…

Eventually I got a few stories out of him but I won’t lie – they weren’t exactly interesting, but they were typical. Drivers in compact cars with death wishes cutting him off. Loading dock workers waking him up two hours early to unload his truck. Snow storms delaying his travel. Nothing noteworthy.

And then he opened with this line: I saved a trucker today.

Ding, ding! That sounded like a great story!

I’ll let you decide.

YS: I saved a trucker today.
Me: (impressed) Really, what happened?
YS: I backed into a dock–
Me: And saw a guy pinned behind a truck?
YS: No, I noticed his tire was off the rim–
Me: And the trailer was falling so you pushed him out of the way and to safety?
YS: No, I went over and pointed it out to him. I told him he might want to check the rest of his tires.
(Crickets)
Me: That’s it?
YS: Yeah.
Me: I thought you were going to say you held up a trailer so some guy could escape. Let’s tell people that. It’s a better story.

Yeah.

On the plus side, I asked him to send some pictures to share. This is what he sent.

Life with Yooper Stewart is certainly not boring! I’ll try to get more stories out of him over the next few months but I can’t make any promises about the pictures.

After a CRAZY summer of family and fun, I’m finally back at the computer with Yooper Stewart stories (technically just one for now, but more will come)! I apologize for the delay, but the photos are worth it, I promise. I actually have photos this time because YS took a passenger with him – this is the story of Yooper Stewart’s road trip with Sister Stewart.

One of the perks to Yooper Stewart’s job is that he can bring visitor’s with him, so earlier this year Sister Stewart took a few days off to see the world! Instead, they saw the freeway and some parts of the East Coast. It was an experience for both of them, sharing a 6′ x 6′ space. Thankfully they get along, so they enjoyed most of it.

YS took SS took through Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, across the George Washington bridge, across Manhattan, under three skyscrapers, through the giant orange Hot Wheels loop and onto Long Island. From there, they went to Western Indiana (carrying pallets to be recycled). Then they picked up cardboard to drive back into Michigan.

The trip took five days, and YS had a blast. Lots of fun talking, he introduced his sister to the Waffle House, and – most importantly – someone else got to experience the sheer lunacy of how people drive around semi-trucks. Then there were the truly odd experiences – a deer walking past their truck on Long Island and a car parked along the freeway with people sitting outside it playing guitars.

Sister Stewart also had the chance to play with her “Ways” app – it’s a real-time traffic app. She got points for being the first person to spot and report different traffic issues, then got even more points when others commented on her reports. Apparently she collected lots of points, but – like “Whose Line is it Anyway?” – the points don’t seem to matter.

After that successful guest-trip, Yooper Stewart has decided that it’s not bad having someone he likes in the cab with him. That’s why I’m going with him next month! I’m sure the experience will be a little different than it was with his sister, but hopefully he’ll still enjoy it. As long as I don’t have to drive, I’m sure I’ll do just fine.

Keep scrolling to see even more photos from their trip!

There are pros and cons to being a trucker’s wife.

Pro: The house stays clean.
Con: Limited cuddling.

Pro: We have deeper, more meaningful conversations.
Con: We talk about what we’d like to do, but we don’t usually have the time to do it.

Pro: He gets paid better.
Con: I spend the extra money on comfort food to cope while he’s gone.

Overall it’s been a good experience – Yooper Stewart and I are both learning a lot about ourselves and our marriage. This past trip, however, has been hard on both of us, and we’re both counting down the days until he’s home again (though we actually don’t know when he’ll be home, so it’s a hypothetical counting). As I recently lamented my loneliness of Facebook, a friend said she wished she was closer so we could participate in Matt-less shenanigans (disclosure – Yooper Stewart’s real name is Matt).

Matt-less shenanigans.

I like it! Not the Matt-less part, the shenanigans part. I’ve been staying busy while he’s gone, but I’ve also discovered that I spend a lot of time on the couch killing time. Bleh. I realize this is Yooper Stewart’s blog, so I’ll be talking about these shenanigans on my blog (possibly my Facebook page), but since YS inspired them, I wanted to mention them.

I also used this opportunity to remind YS that I haven’t posted anything since February, partly because I’ve been busy and partly because he hasn’t sent me any more pictures (okay, mostly it’s my fault, but I can’t completely admit to that can I?).  That inspired him to send me a few pictures from his journeys. I hope that I’ll have more photos to share than of just his truck, but for now you can see what Yooper Stewart sees every day.

Except for this sign – he doesn’t see this sign every day, but it was worth the time to take a picture of it!