9/26/08

I think I woke up around noon today. That's a good start. Before I went to bed last night, I received a message indicating that my run to Newark had been truncated. I was heading to Greencastle, Pennsylvania instead. This was essentially a repeat of yesterday on the ConWay end of things. The load that I relayed in Troutville yesterday was also switched from Newark to Greencastle. On the immediate short-term end of things, this meant that I was losing a couple hundred miles. I was hopeful that it would set me up for a better weekend though, since I would be empty earlier in the evening. I was also glad that I wouldn't be going to Newark.

After a brief stop for lunch in Virginia, I got rolling again toward Pennsylvania. I received a call from my fleet manager a few minutes later. He was trying to line up some work for the weekend but he needed to know how soon I would be in Greencastle. As long as I could get from there to the Baltimore suburbs before the shipper closed tonight, I could catch a load headed to Wisconsin. I was well ahead of schedule so he assigned the load to me and all was right with the world.

Aside from a bogus addendum to my stop location information, sending me five miles out of the way for no particular reason, the drop/hook in Greencastle was quick and easy. Then I headed east for the next pickup in Jessup, Maryland. The guys at the shipper were on their lunch break when I got there, so I had time for a little break of my own, but they had me rolling in time to listen to the debate as I drove. I guess I just hear things differently from most people. The pundits are saying that each guy did fine and the spinmeisters are all saying that their guy was great. What I heard were a couple of guys answering questions that weren't asked and ignoring questions that were asked. I tend to think that I could take either one of them apart in a debate, but then I remember that I'm just a big dumb truck driver.

Back to the west... I got onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike and decided to stop at the first service plaza to call it a night. Nope. No parking. So I drove along until I got to the next service plaza. Nope. No parking. A little further down, I ducked into one of the parking areas along the highway and set up shop until morning. I think I'll head to the Toledo area tomorrow. It sounds like my brother might drive down there and watch the football game with me. Then I'll have around 550 miles to drive on Sunday, ahead of a Monday morning delivery.

This week, looking pretty bleak as recently as yesterday, will finish with a respectable 2,405 miles. Tacking on the northeast pay, I'll be in the $950 neighborhood. I can live with that. I make it a point not to venture 'entertainment purposes' when Our Lady's lads are involved, since I have no sense of rational perspective. The line in favor of Notre Dame did move from -1.5 to -1 this week though. Money on Purdue, eh? The contrarian in me takes this as a good sign for the Irish. The contrarian in me is also amused by the fact that I actually felt like working out tonight... and it's raining again.