5/31/10

I would have suspected that everything would go according to plan today, given that I only drove for three hours. That's not exactly how it turned out though. Nothing major went wrong, so the day was easy enough. Just the little tedious stuff here and there.

On the way out of Virginia and into North Carolina, there was a steady flow of traffic. That gets tedious enough in its own right, given that I tend to drop down to 45mph or so on the way up the hills, so I don't have much luck passing slower cars. Add in a few heavy downpours here and there and you get some obnoxious driving conditions.

I had my ace in the hole though. I timed my trip so that the ballgame would be on during most of the drive. Apparently they got rain in Detroit today though. No ballgame for me.

It's all good though. I got out of the rainy weather by the time I turned toward the southeast on US-421. The rest of the ride was just a matter of holding the steering wheel and setting the cruise control.

I made it to Sanford later in the afternoon and saw that there were a handful of open parking spaces at the little truck stop in town. "NO OVERNIGHT PARKING. VIOLATORS WILL BE TOWED AT OWNER'S EXPENSE." Well that's just rude. Unlike the parking lot where I stopped in Pennsylvania recently, this one was right out by the main highway and it only had a few parking spaces to begin with. If people were inclined to enforce their rules, it would be very easy to spot whichever trucks were parked overnight. Not wanting to wake tonight and find myself attached to a tow truck, I decided to grab some food and hit the road. I think there's another truck stop in town, but I figured that I might as well just head to my customer's location. The place would be closed on a holiday and I would save myself the trouble of driving over in the morning.

After driving the two miles or so from the truck stop to the customer, I found that they are in fact not closed on a holiday. Well hell, I hadn't anticipated that part. I wonder why they gave me a Tuesday morning delivery then. Anyhow, I pulled off to the far edge of the parking lot and set the brakes. Screw it. If they come and kick me out, then I'll have to see about finding a parking space at that other truck stop. Otherwise I'm just sticking around until morning.

Have a good Memorial Day everyone.