10/18/09

During the obligatory 'how have you been' phone call from my parents today, I learned a very important lesson. While being fat and lazy is probably not the most advisable lifestyle, being a marathon runner will kill you. I guess we'd better aim for some kind of happy medium or something. Three people in one day? I've never even heard of that sort of thing. Damn.

Speaking of being fat and lazy, you should have seen the breakfast that I got in Sturgis this morning. That was a doozy. I had to check out of my hotel by 11am but I didn't want to start driving my truck that early, on account of the 14 hour rule. With a late night delivery it was entirely possible that I might need to drive to a truck stop after 1am. So my buddy and I drove up the road a few miles and landed at a place called Savory Restaurant. On the heels of last night's undisclosed activities, a nice big breakfast seemed to be just what the doctor ordered. I decided on something called the Mega Feast. Whoa Nellie, that description was far more accurate than I expected.

Feeling nice and lethargic after managing to finish almost the entire meal, I went back to my truck and took a nap in the hotel's parking lot. Screw it. Only 325 miles to drive today. I finally got rolling this afternoon and found that Chicago was once again a parking lot on a Sunday, and for no apparent reason. After slowly plodding through there, the only remaining obstacles were a few more construction zones and a Swift driver at the Pilot in Racine. I stopped to top off the tanks and grab a gallon of oil, but wound up getting stuck behind this guy in the line at the fuel desk. Hmm, how shall we put this? Let's just say that, if I had any cash on me at the time, I would gladly have bought this character a stick of deodorant. Absolutely revolting.

Despite all of the slowdowns and the frustration, I still was way ahead of schedule for tonight's 10pm Central delivery appointment. A three-hour break in Oshkosh did the trick though, after which I finished the last leg of the drive to Neenah. I was half expecting the run into the 'no appointment' issue when I arrived, but instead I found another problem. Nobody home. There was a J.B. Hunt driver parked at the dock when I showed up. After trying to check in and finding a locked door, I wound up chatting with him for a minute. His dispatcher had told him that the consignee opened at 10pm, so we stood and waited for 10pm to arrive. The top of the hour came and went. Nobody home. Ain't that a bitch. I sent a satellite message to make the people in charge aware of the situation, then sat and waited some more. Around 10:30pm somebody showed up. I checked in, backed into a door, and had an empty trailer within twenty minutes. Not so bad then. No mention of any appointment issues either.

I was fortunate enough to find a parking spot at the truck stop on the north end of Oshkosh, only five miles from where I made my delivery. #1 on the board at the moment, but I'm about to send in my 'off duty' form and try to get some sleep. Jumping forward ten hours then, I'll probably miss out on the first round of early load assignments tomorrow, but hopefully the week can get off to a decent start. Yesterday turned out to be an expensive one and that dirty band of Jesuits from Boston are coming to town next weekend. You never know where my services (or those of the mischievous Swede) might be needed.