They wanted to make some bread up in Spokane so I got the call to haul 5000 gallons of soybean oil to the plant in my tank wagon for a 10am Saturday delivery. I’ve made the trip a couple hundred times from Portland and love it. 120 miles up the Columbia River gorge, north at Umatilla, daybreak would find me in the wheatfield towns of Kahlotus and Eltopia (great names!) and east on 1-90 past Fairchild AFB into the pretty city of Spokane. The Artic Express of last weekend had disappated so it should be temperate sailing. Until I got to the fog that cut off my headlights about 200 yards out. Great, it’s dark and foggy. IFR with my clock and speedometer and gauges for the Detroit up front, the upsidedown 9 Eaton-Fuller under hand and the Rockwells out back. No sight seeing this morning so I started thinking about stuff…like chips! Decided to get started on a totally unsolicited project about truckstops and chips, after all, I was going to pass by King City Truckstop where the King City Casino chips came from!

Actually this photo is from Jake’s, north of King City’s Pasco WA. location. At Jake’s the trucks park in back and the ranchers park in front. You’ll more likely hear talk of cows and reaping than trucking, but the food and parking is good so I like it. I have no pictures of King City. The casino is in back of the restaurant in a grey cinderblock building surrounded by a bunch of rigs. Fuel, store and motel across the street and more truck parking. Only reason I stopped at King City was the casino as I found long ago that the restaurant had bad food and slow, sullen waitresses. King City parking is chaotic. The one casino visit I made 3 years ago was fun but the place closed up ’03 so I don’t stop there anymore. Better at Jake’s in Ritzville (not associated with Ritz-Carlton…nor Ritz crackers) or The Crossroads Truckstop (the one in Umatilla, not Missoula).

Sat down that night at the King City Casino with four other truckers and made a few dollars and kept a couple of chips. Refreshingly, found the other truckers play pretty good basic strategy too. I’ve been comfortable smoozing with rich young ladies at Bellagio, yukking it up with drunk Euro-trash at Caesars, listening to cowboys downtown in Elko’s Stockmen’s or being the only gringo at the table at the Red Garter in Wendover and I was at home in King City too, but only because I had a CDL! Asked about his day one feller said the plows were hitting Fourth of July and Lookout pretty hard but no restrictions on Lookout yet. Another guy wasn’t looking forward to “playing” on Wolf Mtn as he continued east. We always call it playing on Wolf Mtn for some reason. We all agreed that Horse Flats and likely Hwy 30 were good bets this time of year although Cabbage was still good, surprise, surprise! What were they getting at The Gearjammer, anyway? That, for me, was a complete weather and road report and a comment on fuel prices for Montana, Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Wyoming. We did cover regulated overall vehicle lengths for secondary state routes in California a little later though.

As a group, truckers are no prize. But the folks that cater to us along the way are somewhat like us too, so that helps. The dealer showed that kind of patient truckstop attitude when one of the players told her that she had something that truckers really found attractive in a woman…a job! Upcoming episodes include waking up in McDermitt, polymers to City of Las Vegas, losing eight straight hands at Railroad Pass and a scarey incident at the Pilot truckstop down the road last week.