1/28/08

My relay was scheduled to go off at 9am, so I got up at 8am. The gorgeous clerk at the truck stop turned down my breakfast invitation, but she did tell me that the place used to be a BP. Yeah, so last night I got pissed at nobody in particular for nothing in particular. I sent a message this morning, apprising CTL of the situation, so I guess it's up to them to fix the location info.

9am arrived and I got a message from someone at CTL informing me that the inbound driver had arrived. Yeah, okay. There were ten empty spaces on either side of me at that point, so I don't think I was hard to find. A few seconds later a guy came (walking) around the corner. He was parked on the row behind me, facing the other way. My first reaction was to wonder why in the hell he didn't just park next to me, but he told me that he and his wife had shown up around 2am and had taken the one spot that they found. Fair enough. It was polite of them to hang out and wait until 9am, rather than wake me up at 2am I suppose. I was awake at 2am anyway, but there's not really a reason for someone to expect that.

So the relay went off without a hitch and I headed south. I took whatever Illinois highway I was on, down to US-24, and then over to I-65. That kept me well clear of the Chicago area. Then it was a ho-hum drive down and across to Cincinnati. The drop/hook at that ConWay was about the easiest one I've had. They didn't need it in a dock so I dropped it out on the yard. My empty was right next to it. I hooked up, checked it over, and took off.

Shortly before I got out of Illinois this morning, I received a pre-plan for my next load. The first stop was in Obetz, outside Columbus. It's always handy to know ahead of time where to go when you get an empty. It was onward to I-71 and up to the Columbus area. I got here a little while ago and found what looked like a locked yard. Upon closer inspection, there was an open gate at the far end of the warehouse. It made for a pretty tight U-turn to get in, but I'm probably experienced far beyond my years with that shit.

Once I'm loaded here, I'll head to Batavia for another pickup on the way to Laredo. Miles are always good, right? Today got me up to 480 miles for the week, the run to Batavia will be 111, and the run to Laredo is another 1,384. That probably puts me in Laredo sometime Friday. Getting out of there unscathed before the weekend settles in could give me a solid week. Sitting in Laredo... not so good. But I'm getting ahead of myself. For now, the miles I have, the unloading pay, and the pay for tomorrow's extra stop are a pretty good start.

The day had a little bit of a shadow over it after I got a call from a colleague. He informed me that a couple of mutual friends had been in a pretty bad accident. It sounds like they're a little banged up but otherwise they'll be okay. I was able to talk with one of them and she definitely sounded drained, if nothing more. As many things as we try to control out here, it only takes one variable that's beyond our control to make all the difference. I'm not one to discuss matters of faith publicly, so I won't get into all that. For those of you who are the spiritual types though, maybe keep the millions of drivers out here in mind tonight. There but by the grace of God...