5/22/10

Let's say, for the sake of discussion, that you own the store in this picture and the parking lot that accompanies it.  You probably thought that it would be a good investment to put in a parking area that could hold around thirty trucks, given that there are a few big industrial parks in your town.  Have the truck drivers stop in, spend some money, and all that jazz.  Good business move.  But what would be the thought process behind a 30 minute parking limit?  Even if we assume that anyone would observe such a limit (which they don't), exactly how many freaking truck drivers would you expect to accomodate in a given convenience store during a given day?  I don't know.  Just seems a little excessive to me.  The potential income from having some people stay overnight, with the possibility of multiple store purchases, is probably a better bet.  As for my own parking situation at the moment, we'll just leave that part open to interpretation.  Wherever I am, I've been here for several hours and nobody has left.  I can tell you that much.

I was up fairly early this morning on account of having consumed a big bottle of water before bedtime last night.  After watering some nearby shrubbery for a moment, I sent in my updated hours to reflect a full 11 and 14, then went back to bed.  After another couple of hours I was awake for real, so I decided to drive back down the street to the truck stop and try my luck.  Once I got about a mile down the road I received a new assignment.  Okay then.

After hearing the satellite voice chick tell me that my next pickup would be in Breinigsville, I skipped the truck stop in Gouldsboro and continued southward.  The dispatch was only for 88 miles so I figured I might as well just get it over with.  The drive actually turned out to be a bit shorter, as my trip odometer shows 74 miles for today and I'm right down the street from my next shipper.  The only truck stop that I knew in this area was the one in New Smithville.  I don't like that place though, so I decided to check out the industrial area near the water factory in Breinigsville.  I had seen trucks coming from the direction of the aforementioned convenience store once or twice in the past, so I was hoping to find a truck parking area.  I was surprised to see that the truck parking area was fairly large and easy to access.  I also was surprised to see that they impose a 30 minute limit on truck parking.  No overnight parking, all that nonsense.  I have to pick up right down the street from that store tomorrow morning, so as I said before, we'll leave my present whereabouts open to interpretation.

I'll get the pleasure of dragging my ~46,000 pounds of water down past Baltimore and D.C. tomorrow, for a Monday morning delivery in Fredericksburg, Virginia.  Since today ends the pay period, this morning's short 88-mile dispatch wraps up the week.  Tomorrow's short 240-mile trip will be my first dispatch in the next pay period.  So this week ends with a mediocre 2,233 miles plus somewhere around $50 in northeast pay and $70 in stop pay.  That leaves us a little below $1,000 for the week.  On the flip side though, next week will be off to something of a decent start.  I almost never get any dispatched miles on Sundays.  Usually Sunday and part of Monday are spent finishing off the work from the previous week.  This time around I'll be empty on Monday morning and I'll already have one trip in the books.  Good enough.

Now back to our regularly scheduled boredom...

5/21/10

Such a promising start to the day... such a disappointing finish.  I guess you can't win 'em all.

A friend of mine drove down from the Cleveland area and joined me for a fancy Burger King breakast this morning.  That was pretty cool.  Then she took off for work and I got on the road before the rain moved in.  Beauty.

I'm not generally the 'up for breakfast' type, so it was time for a nap after a few hours on the road.  I had all the time in the world, so I ducked off at a rest area in Pennsylvania and was out within a few minutes.  Beauty.

After a good refreshing nap, I headed back out and finished off the trip to Gouldsboro.  The procedural steps at the consignee caused my drop/hook to take a little while, but overall it was easy enough.  When I went into the office to drop off the paperwork, I had a suspicion that my day was about to come to a screeching halt, so I emptied my pockets into the consignee's vending machine and grabbed a few snacks.  Then I had to cruise around to the back of the lot and grab my empty trailer.  The trailer was where it was supposed to be, mechanically sound, and clean inside.  Good deal.

I was #1 on the board and I had four hours available, so there was a possibility that more work would come along.  Nope.  No work came along.  I drove down the street and tried to find somewhere to park at the local truck stop.  Nope.  Nowhere to park.  Back over to the industrial area then.  Good thing I grabbed those snacks, eh?  I found a spot at a vacant warehouse with nobody around, so I was able to drag out the weights without being in anyone's way.  Good times.  And then I waited for work.  And waited.  And waited.  My 14 hour clock runs out in about 45 minutes so I guess that's that for tonight.

Tomorrow is still part of the current pay week, so all is not necessarily lost.  I may make a few bucks yet.  This is just a shitty place for a Friday night to come to an end.  Boo hoo.

5/20/10

I don't know if there is a commonly accepted reaction when one wakes at 3am and learns that his 4am pickup is now a 6am pickup.  In my case, the reaction was one of relief.  Back to bed for an extra bit of sleep... I thought.  As it turns out, I was wide awake and no amount of denial was going to change this fact.  So it was time to come up with a new reaction.  This time I was reacting to the realization that I no longer would be going past Chicago before the sun came up and the roads got busy.  Much booing and hissing was involved.

There was a lot of traffic on 75th Street as I made my way over to I-355.  Then the ride was pretty decent down onto I-80 and over to Indiana.  That construction in Indiana is always a special treat and today was no exception, but I was just relieved to have Chicago in the rearview mirror.  Nothing but smooth sailing across the turnpikes from there... or something.

You know, it's funny.  At some point during every winter, I'll find myself slipping and sliding down an icy road and I'll think, "Can't wait until winter is over.  This slippery shit is for the birds."  Then at some point during the summer, I'll find myself parked in the middle of some perfectly dry road and I'll think, "Can't wait until winter is here.  This construction shit is for the birds."  Just never quite satisfied, it would seem.  Today brought plenty of construction, but one spot in particular had me wishing for some snow to send those filthy bastards home for a while.

This was the view from my parking space somewhere around Mile Marker 123.  Until I reached that point, I had been running nearly an hour and a half ahead of schedule.  Then, in their infinite wisdom, the powers that be decided to take the road from three lanes to one.  By the time I got out of the traffic jam, I was running five minutes behind.  For realsies.  That ain't so good.

I had already sent a couple of 'detained' messages via satellite once I realized how long the traffic jam was going to continue.  After I got rolling again, I sent a note saying that I would be a few minutes behind schedule in terms of making my relay.  Then, of course, the irrelevant questioning had to begin.  What time would I be there?  Where had I been delayed?  For Christ's sake,  do they not have GPS tracking on these trucks?  I was just trying to give everyone a heads-up that I was running 5-10 minutes behind.  I had no desire to play satellite message tag.

The guy to whom I passed the loaded trailer wasn't worried about the six extra minutes that he had to wait for me.  He said that he made the same trip yesterday, got the same change in plans in the morning, and got caught in the same traffic jam in the afternoon.  After a few brief words he was on his way to Rhode Island and I was on the board at #4.  Three trucks ahead of me... only three hours left on my 14... the guy who brought the load out of Aurora yesterday had to sit for 24 hours and take the back end of the same run today...  not looking too good, eh?

I went inside the truck stop to use the restroom and grab a bite to eat.  By the time I got back out to my truck, I had a new assignment.  Nice change of pace from yesterday.  My next pickup would be a drop/hook in Clyde, Ohio and it was scheduled for 10pm.  10pm would be well outside my 14 hour window, but I had been given this run before so I was fairly confident that I could pick up my load earlier than scheduled.  I made the two-hour drive back to the west and found my loaded trailer waiting for me.

At this point in the day, I had driven a total of ten hours.  One more to go.  An hour normally would be enough to get me to the service plaza before Elyria.  On my way to Clyde though, I had seen that the traffic jam was every bit as long as that which I had encountered earlier in the day.  No way I would cover the ~45 miles in an hour if I had to get through that mess.  So then what?  Just park at the McDonald's in Clyde and call it a day?  Drive to the truck stop in Monroeville along US-20 and then work my way back up to I-80 tomorrow?  Neither of those approaches really struck a chord with me, so I went with a third option.  (I had made a mental note of a Baumgardner Road as I passed through on my way to Clyde.)  I took US-20 back to the east for a few miles and then hopped on OH-113.  It was all two-lane road with a few towns here and there, but it got me all the way past the construction zone without making me sit in that traffic jam.

On the other side of those trees, thousands of drivers were cursing the very days that they were born into this evil world.  I, on the other hand, was able to roll along a parallel path without a worry.  And I got to see the town where Thomas Edison was born.  When I came to the area where my mental note told me that I would be turning back onto the freeway, I saw the telltale green sign saying that the turnpike was to the left.  Beauty.  (The aforementioned mental note turned out to be helpful, even if inaccurate.  Baumhart Road was my ticket back to the turnpike, not Baumgardner.)  I got onto the pike and into the service plaza just in time for my clock to run out.

I have to deliver in Gouldsboro, Pennsylvania by midnight tomorrow night.  It's probably a little over 400 miles from here so I should have a pretty easy day.  I'm sure I won't be up terribly late tonight, since I was awake so early this morning, but in any event I won't have to set an alarm clock for tomorrow.  That's always nice.  This week's miles are starting to creep into the decent range as well.  I'll be at 2,145 once this load is delivered, with Saturday still to come.  A short easy dispatch for the weekend and a little more northeast pay would make the week just fine with me.

5/19/10

It's generally not a good thing to feel tired early in the afternoon.  Sometimes though, a little unusual sleepiness can come in handy.  This evening is one of those times, although I'll probably be wide awake after an hour or two.  Pretty standard routine for me, especially with the bastard in the next truck running his engine in a 'no idling' zone.

The morning's drive across I-80 to my final stop was easy and uneventful.  A little bit of traffic in the construction zones leaving Illinois and a shit-ton of traffic leading into the construction zone in Joliet, but I was taking Exit 132 so I wasn't delayed more than a few minutes.  After making my drop/hook, I found myself at #1 on the board.  This is generally a good thing, in and of itself.  Next in line means that an assignment should be forthcoming.  Should be... should be... is not.  After sitting parked on the consignee's driveway for an hour, partially blocking the road, I decided that I had better go and find somewhere more suitable to wait for my next assignment.  And the pain in the ass begins...

The nearest truck stops were both Pilots.  There's one along I-80 that is an absolute shithole.  Then there's one along I-55 that is even worse.  For many of my fellow drivers, it probably seems redundant to refer to a Pilot truck stop as a shithole, but those two are worse than most.  I try to avoid each of them at all costs.  So then what's left?  The service plazas along the toll roads back in the Chicago area or the T/A further out to the west on I-80.  That T/A would be the best option but it was twenty miles away, in addition to being on the other side of that construction clusterfuck.  Hmm...

Next we start playing the fun little game known as Guess Which Way To The Next Shipper. 

North?  Maybe.  There's a Con-way yard in Aurora that I've visited once before.  And another Con-way yard in Des Plaines where I've picked up plenty of loads.  Plus I've grabbed tires in Belvidere or De Kalb (both, maybe?) on a few occasions.  Logistics place in Rockford.  I guess north is a pretty good possibility.

South?  Maybe.  There's another Con-way yard down in Salem.  Been there a few times.  Some of those grain outfits in the middle of the state send stuff to Laredo as well.

East?  Maybe.  Lots of shippers around Chicago.  Haven't picked up in that area lately though.  That Michael's DC in New Lenox is to the east.  We're into the slower retail season, so the dedicated guys probably have all that freight covered.  That place is really close though.  The bosses always say they're trying to control empty miles and whatnot.

West?  Maybe.  Can't think of any shippers out that way off the top of my head though.  And the traffic jam... guess we won't be heading westward.

I seemed to recall that, on a recent trip to the warehouse in New Lenox, I had pulled into a neighboring parking lot and awaited an assignment.  A vacant warehouse would be a big improvement over the driveway where I was parked today and New Lenox wasn't too far away, so I decided to head in that direction.  As I took the exit for US-30, wouldn't you know it?  New assignment.  It just couldn't have been sent ten minutes sooner, could it?

My next pickup was in fact going to be at the Con-way yard in Aurora.  So I was going the wrong way.  Of course.  I pressed the button to have the computer voice chick read the directions to me.  The Con-way yard was off US-30 and I had just turned onto US-30, so I would just keep going back to the west and all would be fine.  Some of you trucking gurus out there already know what happens next in this little story, don't you?  There's a low bridge on US-30 in Joliet so I had to re-route on the fly.  The sign in front of me said that I could hang a right for US-6 eastbound.  I didn't want to go eastward but I didn't exactly have a lot of options at the time.  So I hung a right.

After a block or two, US-6 broke off to the east and I continued straight on IL-171.  Okay then.  At least I was on a numbered route and I knew that I was heading northward.  I got caught at a red light, grabbed my atlas, and tried to get my bearings.  The next obvious move would be to hang a left on IL-7 and cross the river.  Then I could stay with IL-7 when it turned southward and catch back up with US-30.  Or... I could keep going westward on some other road and take my chances.  I saw a day cab truck with a dump trailer continuing straight through the intersection where US-7 broke left.  His trailer may not have been as high as mine, but I was pretty sure that his axles were heavier since I had an empty trailer.  Screw it then.  I'll follow the local guy and take my chances.  That route worked out fine.  I caught back up with US-30, got through the construction in Plainfield, and continued on my way to Aurora.

As I rolled along US-30 with about ten miles to go, I received an odd satellite message.  Nothing new there, I suppose, but this one did have me shaking my head a little.  "Joseph go on into the shipper and drop your trailer so they can work on getting it preloaded for you."  Umm... no shit.  Obviously I was on my way to the shipper at the time.  What did they think I was doing?  Cruising along US-30 because I enjoy the scenery?  Weird.  I'm pretty sure that we're always required to go to the Con-way facilities and drop our empty trailers but maybe I'm wrong.  Either way, I got checked in a short time later and today's whopping $11.40 was in the books.  Surprisingly enough, my dispatch from Joliet to Aurora was for 30 miles and I only drove 37.  After going the wrong way before getting the dispatch, doubling back, and having to detour around Joliet, 7 miles out of route didn't seem too bad.

The good side of this assignment is that I don't have to take the load into Massachusetts tomorrow evening.  I'll be passing it off to another driver on the eastern edge of Ohio.  The bad side is that I have to start driving at 4am.  So, as noted earlier, it's a good thing that I didn't sleep much last night.  Hopefully I can nod off for a while here tonight as a result.  We'll see.

5/18/10

They have Big Boy restaurant franchises in various parts of the country, right?  Back home, it's called Elias Brothers Big Boy.  (Actually owned by the Ansara family - my former employers - but apparently someone named Elias was around at some point.  But anyhow...)  I think they have Bob's Big Boy out west in the People's Republic.  Well, the Big Boy franchise in the Toledo area is called Frisch's... and it sucks ass.  Just a little heads-up for those of you who might make the mistake of stumbling in one evening.

This morning's first pickup was quick and easy.  Twelve pallets of relatively light stuff were added to my trailer and I was sent on my way just as it started to rain outside.  Bummer.  Since the Tigers got rained out last night in Detroit and I was heading in that general direction, I wasn't surprised to encounter a fairly dreary day.  (At least it wasn't quite this dreary though.  Oy.)  I was just hopeful that the wet roads wouldn't affect traffic too much.  I sent in my 'loaded' message and headed back out to the highway.

After an hour, I still had not received a dispatch to the next stop.  I was still a couple of hours away, so I didn't sweat it.  I would have to get dispatched sooner or later.  Eventually the dispatch did come through, and I also learned that I've been doing part of my job wrongly for almost four years.  Some stuff I just didn't know, I suppose.  Apparently I'm only supposed to send the 'loaded' form from my satellite unit after the first pickup.  After each subsequent pickup, I'm supposed to send the 'additional bill of lading' form but not another 'loaded' form.  I've always sent a 'loaded' form at every pickup and I've never been told that I needed to do otherwise.  No skin off my nose though.  The 'additional bill of lading' form is a little shorter, so it's all good as far as I'm concerned.  It's kinda like when I first started and I was taught that I needed to send a 'dropped trailer' form and then a 'loaded' form whenever I made a pickup at a drop/hook location.  After a year and a half of doing so, I got a message one day.  The message told me to stop sending the 'dropped trailer' form at shippers, since it caused problems with the dispatching system.  I was only to send the 'loaded' form.  Same deal as today - less typing for me so I have no complaints.  It just seems odd to me that these issues would pop up out of the blue like that. 

The total weight in my trailer from the first two pickups was only 10,000 pounds, so I was generally the king of the hills on the way out of New York and into Pennsylvania.  I got passed by a few empty flatbeds and 80mph super truckers and such, but overall I was making good time through the rough terrain.  If only the whole damned state of Pennsylvania weren't under construction...  In any event, I got to my last pickup in McElhattan just before my scheduled time of 2pm.  It took all of five minutes for me to get my last eight pallets, only adding another 5,000 pounds, and I was on the way to Illinois.  More rain and construction traffic ensued, but overall the pace wasn't bad.  A solid 9.75 hours of driving got me to the Petro on the edge of Toledo, where I'm parked for the night.

Mom drove down after work and joined me for dinner.  And this is where we come to Frisch's.  We were cruising across US-20 and looking for somewhere to eat.  Neither of us had been to Big Boy in a while, so we stopped in and placed our orders.  Patty melt with fries and onion rings for me.  Big Boy hamburger with a salad and mashed potatoes for Mom.  I'm not sure that I've ever, in 33 years on this planet, had such awful onion rings.  I've had plenty of onion rings that were just so-so, but never awful.  Tonight's version was awful.  My mother's luck was worse though.  They brought her fries instead of mashed potatoes, but she wasn't terribly concerned so she didn't complain.  Her burger was a joke.  From the menu - "The Big Boy® The Original Double-Decker Hamburger - Delicious 100% pure ground beef in two patties with American cheese, lettuce and our famous Big Boy special sauce on a sesame seed bun."  It's essentially a Big Mac without the pickles and onions.  The "special sauce" is Thousand Island dressing, just like at McDonald's.  A picture of it pops up as soon as you click on their website.  Not in Ohio though.  My poor mother got a double decker burger just absolutely soaked in mayonnaise (and a bun with no sesame seeds).  Suffice to say that we won't be trying that place again.

I have around 260 miles to go from here, so I'll have to get cracking fairly early in the morning to make my delivery ETA just after noon in Joliet.  It's a straight shot across I-80 and I'll pass Chicago late in the morning, so I'm expecting a pretty easy ride.  We'll see.

I get a chuckle out of the ubiquitous stupidity in American politics, perhaps more so than the average dude.  So it's probably worth noting when I see something political and just say to myself, "Awesome."  I saw this ad a few days ago and said just that, but it was late at night and I thought maybe I was just tired at the time.  When I got it in a second e-mail today, I took another look and confirmed that I really do get a kick out of Mr. Peterson.  That's the first ad for a prospective Agriculture Secretary that I've ever seen in my life.  I don't even know what that job involves, but if he always gets to brandish a .30-30 and threaten people... I may have to re-think my views on politics.

So there was that.  But there's no way a second local politician could show some nuts on the same day, right?  Wrong.  I'm not entirely sure where Commissioner Pierce stands on the issue of that raaacist law down there in Arizona.  He seems to hint that it might not be his cup of tea, but that really doesn't even matter.  All I know is that he just bitch slapped (metaphorically speaking, of course) the mayor of Los Angeles right in front of the whole world.  Is it time for a good old-fashioned interstate pissing match or is it time for 'cooler heads to prevail?'  Heh.  You know which one I'd like to see.

5/17/10

After a peaceful night of sleep in a nearly deserted rest area (closed for the season), I fired up my truck this morning and found a pre-planned assignment waiting.  Beauty.  Until that point I had no idea what I would do for parking once I was done at the consignee.  Of course, I also needed to get a new tire for my trailer today.  I'm not sure exactly what was the cause, but the tread on one of them was pretty messed up.  The bracket for one of the mud flaps was bent, but it wasn't bent badly enough to rub against the tire.  Maybe it was rubbing whenever I went over bumps or something.  I don't know.  In any case, I needed a new tire.  Always when I have more work lined up, it seems.

I placed a call to the road service guys and they told me that their preferred tire shop was around ten miles away, in Bridgewater.  (It turned out to be fifteen miles, but close enough.)  Then I called my fleet manager and told him that I would have to head to the tire shop once I was empty.  As long as I wasn't delayed too long, everything would work out fine with respect to the next assignment.  Then I wanted to make sure that there wouldn't be a recurring issue with the mud flap bracket (in case that was indeed the cause of the damage).  I tried like hell to bend it out further away from the tire but I couldn't budge it.  I guess I'm not any stronger than whoever bent it in the first place.  One of the guys who was delivering equipment to the warehouse said that he had a chain we could use.  I attached one end to the bracket and he attached the other to a forklift.  Then he backed 'er up a little and voilà.  Good lookin' out, my brother.

I got over to the tire shop and, much to my relief, the mechanic told me to go ahead and back into the driveway.  He was ready to go right away.  The wheels of commerce grind a little more slowly here at Con-way Truckload, however.  The dude at the desk had to sit on hold for around twenty minutes before he could get the authorization number from our road service department.  Bureaucracy.  Gotta love it.  After a fairly quick tire replacement, it was time for another less than quick phone call to retrieve our Michelin national account number and print the final invoice.  The secretary chick was on hold for another fifteen minutes or so before I was finally sent on my way.  Good enough.

The next pickup was set for 1pm in Leominster, around 70 miles away.  I was on the road at 10:45am.  No worries at all.  I even had time to stop at the little truck stop in Leominster and grab an Italian BMT with double meat on the way to the shipper.  A quick in-and-out routine there had me loaded with four pallets and only 2,000 pounds, making me suddenly much less weary of this afternoon's trip down I-84.  That route is a bitch when you're heavy.    When the trailer is virtually empty it's not so bad.  Through Hartford before rush hour - beauty.

This load is a multi-stop deal so my next pickup is set for tomorrow morning in Newburgh, New York.  The only truck stop in Newburgh is a Pilot where I don't even like to stop for fuel.  The damned place always seems to be crowded.  I didn't have any better options though.  The only other place that would be close was a rest area on I-84.  After spending last night at a place with no facilities, a fella needs to spruce himself up a bit.  So the Pilot it is.  I got what shouldn't have been a terribly difficult parking space next to a dropped storage trailer and then somehow managed to make it difficult.  Some other drivers were inconvenienced while I took my time backing in, but all's well that ends well.

After getting my next batch of freight a few miles from here tomorrow morning, I'll be headed to Pennsylvania for another pickup and then to Illinois for a drop/hook delivery.  It's not a huge start to the week in terms of miles, but with the extra stop pay and quite a bit of northeast pay I'll be in pretty good shape.

Now it's time for my Tigers to deal with those thugs from Chicago.  Only a game and a half out of first going into tonight.  I, for one, am shocked.  Can we take the AL Central?  Probably not, but hey, at least the Miss USA crown goes to Michigan this year.  I'm not sure what the mullahs will have to say about her not wearing a burqa and all, but I'm a big fan.

5/16/10

I don't care if you want to tell me that there's oil filling the Gulf of Mexico, the national debt is accelerating beyond belief, the situation in Iraq may be deteriorating, Iran is about to become a nuclear threat, or the unemployment rate is expected to stay at "unacceptably high levels" for the foreseeable future.  You naysayers out there can have your naysaying.  I made it through the Bronx with no delays today and the Tigers just finished taking five out of seven from the Yankees and Red Sox.  It's a great day in America.

There was really only one point during tody's drive up I-95 when everything came to a stop.  Things flowed freely through the toll plazas.  Things flowed freely through the construction zones.  Things flowed freely through the cities.  At one spot though, somewhere below Milford, Connecticut, a group of jackass motorcycle riders decided to take a break.  Pull into a rest area?  Nah, that's too old-fashioned.  Pull off on the side of an exit ramp?  No way man.  Too boring.  They decided to take their little hiatus right in the brakdown lane on the left side of the freeway.  That's an executable offense if I ever become dictator, but whatever...  The real issue came when the genius motorists of Connecticut, collectively and simultaneously in all three lanes, came to a dead stop in the middle of I-95.  Are motorcycles that fucking interesting?  I'm not exaggerating when I say that they're lucky nobody got killed.  With the way people pass each other and weave from lane to lane in that area, I'm surprised that nobody went careening into the stopped traffic or into the cyclists themselves.  Asshats.

Once I got up north a little further everything went smoothly though, so my blood pressure came back down to an acceptable level.  There was no wait for fuel or for a shower in Milford.  Then the traffic through the rest of Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts was light. 

There were big signs saying that trucks can't go through Providence due to bridge work, so I had to go around on I-295.  This would have come in handy anyway if I were following today's original plan and going to the truck stop on US-1.  Unfortunately though, I realized this afternoon that I'm a few days overdue for a workout.  My stopping points for the last few days haven't been conducive to dragging out the weight bench and such, so I've been putting it off.  I seem to recall that truck stop having a shitty little dirt parking lot, so I decided to go to the rest area on I-95 instead.  It's a few miles closer to my consignee and the flat asphalt will work a lot better for me.  So I had to eat a few miles by taking the loop around town and back over to I-95, but the higher speed limit and lighter traffic were enough to make it all good.

It's a beautiful sunny 70° day up here right now.  There's a nice breeze blowing.  No trucks are parked near me, so I'm enjoying the peace and quiet.  I had a fast enough internet connection to watch the last few innings of the ballgame.  Ahh...  Wait a second.  Now I have to lift weights, then get up early to make a delivery tomorrow?  That sucks.  Nevermind whatever I said before.  It's a horrible day in America.