7/16/08

I left the Georgia welcome center around 8am. I stopped in Cartersville to top off the fuel tanks. I stayed in the right lane and didn't bother passing people unless they were ridiculously slow. This all should have meant that I got to Atlanta after the morning traffic had died down. The effective word in the preceding sentence is 'should.' Yeah, it didn't work out that way. What a mess. The rest of the drive wasn't bad, so I guess it was about as good as can be expected.

I was getting tired and annoyed with people in Florida by the time I got to I-10 this afternoon. They kept speeding past me when the rain lightened up and then slamming on the brakes when the rain started falling again. We went in and out of a few light showers, so this process went on somewhat regularly. I decided to duck into a rest area and take a quick nap, hoping that things would shake out by the time I woke.

I had enough time to sleep for about an hour. I would guess that I started to doze off after twenty minutes or so. Then, right on cue, the satellite unit woke me. I got a pre-plan for a load leaving Jacksonville tomorrow morning and going to Charleston. That's fine, but of course I was back awake at that point. Onward to the consignee...

The drop lot was pretty tight, but it looks like I'm pretty good at backing my truck today. That's always nice. I made my drop/hook and sent in my empty call. I knew that I was going to be in a pickle with respect to parking, so I wanted to see if it was a beer load that I would be getting in the morning. It was. Sometimes beer loads are ready early. If tomorrow's load was ready, I could head over to the brewery and then head north to look for parking. I called the 800 number to check on the load, but got no good news. My trailer was not yet loaded.

My directory showed two truck stops along I-295 on the west side of Jacksonville, one at exit 22 and another at exit 25. I tried exit 22 first and didn't see any truck stop. I tried exit 25 and every parking space was full. My next option appeared to be to head back down to I-10 and try the rest area west of town. There are a couple of truck stops and a rest area on the south side of Jacksonville, but that's pretty far from where I was. I went back south on I-295 toward I-10 and decided to take another look at exit 22. Down the street about a half mile to the east, I found a little shithole ghetto truck stop in a little shithole ghetto neighborhood. There was one spot, requiring me to maneuver around a few jagoffs who are parked where they shouldn't be. Yep. I do know how to back my truck today. I snaked this bitch in there on the first try. That hasn't been happening much lately, but you know, blind squirrels and nuts and so forth.

From here I'll take the loop around to I-95 and hit the brewery tomorrow morning. The run to Charleston is nothing special, but it will get me over 2,000 miles with a few days left in the pay period. I've been getting pretty grumpy on the road lately and it doesn't seem like freight is exactly booming, which usually means that it's time to take a few days off. I also have some business to tend back home before too much longer. I spent half of June at home though, so I would prefer to stay out for another week or two. I guess we'll play it by ear and see if I can catch a few good days to break out of this funk.