So, I'm not going to Laredo. I called up CFI, got Herb Schmidt on the phone, and said, "You listen here Herbie! I'm not in the mood to sit in Laredo this weekend! You find a place for me to drop this load off and you get me something to keep me busy for a couple of days! Otherwise I'm driving this truck straight into the Mississippi! I mean business!" Then they got me another load to pick up.
Yeah, that story is pure bullshit. But it would have been cool, wouldn't it? In reality I was tooling across I-12 above New Orleans when I got a message asking if I would be in Houston with my load. I didn't understand the question, so I responded by asking for clarification. The planner replied, saying that they had a load in the Houston area picking up tomorrow. If I had the hours, they needed me to take that one and drop the Laredo run on our yard in Houston. So let me get this straight... Instead of driving the last 300 miles to Laredo tomorrow morning, fighting the local traffic, delivering to some Godforsaken drop lot at some Godforsaken broker, going on the board behind a hundred other trucks, and hoping like hell to get out of there before Monday, I'll pick one up 15 miles east of Houston and drive it 1,100 miles to the Cincinnati area by Monday? Um, yeah, sure. Sign me up. I pick up ten hours tomorrow and eleven Sunday, so that run will make perfect use of my time for the weekend. There's no game for Notre Dame to lose tomorrow, so I am perfectly content to drive all day. Beauty.
Today was a long day of driving, but I got started at 2am so it was nice to wrap up in early afternoon. Really the only tie-ups were just inside the Texas line, where traffic was reduced to one lane in a couple of spots. Otherwise it was just good old long-haul truckin'. I received my information right before I got to the Houston yard, indicating that I am to relay the Laredo load to another driver by 11:59 tonight. He must be on his way from somewhere pretty far off because I stopped a couple of times and still got here before my 14 hours were up at 4pm. I was feeling a little tired, but I think I'll stay up at least until he gets here. The pickup tomorrow is scheduled for noon, which means 1pm for me, so I need to get off the drive overnight/sleep by day schedule today if possible. That way I can sleep late tomorrow morning and do okay driving into the late night.
Sooo... sitting on the drop yard. Big fun. I have nice fast internet access, but no sports to watch tonight. Last night there was a good baseball game and a good football game but my connection wouldn't even stay active for more than a few minutes, during which it was painfully slow. Story of my life man, story of my life.
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