10/9/09

No, I have no jokes to tell about our president's latest grand honor. I'm purposely steering clear of matters involving all politicians for the foreseeable future, and I stopped paying attention to that award somewhere around the time that they gave it to Arafat. I say good for you, Mr. President. Why not? As far as I could tell, this was the one thing for which the dude actually wasn't campaigning. For those of you who are in the mood though, George Stephanapoulos has you covered. Some of the commenters below the article have a touch more wit than the bloggers who are featured, it seems to me. Anyhow...

It turns out that the conspiracy to make my job suck wasn't vast enough to extend beyond yesterday. I woke at the fairly reasonable hour of 8am, checked the truck over, and hit the road. Five hours would be way more than enough time to cover 143 miles but I wasn't sure what kind of roads I would find along the way. Turns out that US-401 to NC-87 to I-95 is rather quick and easy. I was at the consignee's door in Lumberton before 11am. Beauty.

The drop/hook on that end took a few extra minutes. They made me drop my loaded trailer, hook the empty trailer, pull the empty trailer from the dock, drop the empty trailer, hook the loaded trailer, drop the loaded trailer in the dock, and then hook the empty trailer. It seems pretty dumb to me since they have two docks, but you know how it goes - the customer is always right or whatever. Then I was off to Monroe.

Once again, the route was much quicker than I expected. US-74 (or I-74 or whatever it's called presently) was more freeway than not. The few towns along the way (other than Monroe itself) weren't very congested at all. It did take a little while to get through to the west side of Monroe by the airport. The pickup was another drop/hook but it went very quickly and easily, especially when compared to the drop in Lumberton. With a reasonable 26,000 pounds in the wagon I headed back to the northeast. Up US-601 to I-85 and away we go.

I had no specific timeline in mind as I was driving along. The traffic was moving smoothly so I was just going with the flow. With only 750 miles to cover for the whole weekend, I was obviously free to shut down whenever I felt like it today. It was pretty warm in North Carolina though, so I decided to keep cruising along until the sun went down. This way I wouldn't need to run the truck and the A/C in order to stay comfortable after I parked. Even on warm days it tends to get pretty cool at night during this time of year. This approach found me pulling into the truck stop in Rawlings, Virginia for the night.

With only ~500 miles left to go, it's almost tempting to finish the whole trip tomorrow and take Sunday off. I can't seem to find any good parking options near Wallingford, Connecticut though. Barring any bright ideas in the next day or so, I think I'm going to end up at the rest area on I-91 Sunday night. Since I'm sure as hell not spending two days at a rest area, I think I'll just drive for a while tomorrow and then find a comfortable place with a fast internet connection to cool my heels for the night. Between the football and the baseball that will be on, I'm sure that I can find an entertaining game or two.