I guess that undefeated season thing didn't quite work out as planned. Bummer. Maybe next year.
It stands to reason that, after getting my A/C fixed and hearing about 90° temperatures in the northeast today, I would encounter downright cold weather as I drove across Oklahoma and into Texas. The wind was whipping me around so much and the air coming through the vents was so cold, even with the fan turned off, that I had to turn up the heat just a little bit. That global warming is some tricky stuff man.
The trip across I-44 and I-40 was straightforward and uncongested, which is always nice to see. I knocked out a little over 450 miles and then stopped for the night in Conway. Since the cashier wouldn't give me a Con-way discount for staying in Conway the last time I was here, even with my company logo hat on, I stepped up the game tonight and flashed my shiny gold Con-way Truckload service ring. No dice though. She still charged me full price. My Italian BMT with double meat was worth every penny though, so I can't complain.
Tomorrow should involve another seven or eight hours of driving across I-40 and then something similar on Friday will have me pretty close to my final destination. Since I'm not making a lot of money this week, I can at least take some comfort in not having to work very hard and being able to sleep late every morning. That has to count for something. Mixing in the repairs that were done in Joplin last night, we'll consider the week a fairly productive one so far.
A little palate cleanser to take the sting out of that game that the Tigers' bullpen just blew...
Let's talk about mullets. And no, I don't mean the fish. You know what I mean. Halifax hockey hair. The Carolina crash helmet. The mullet. Unlike some people, I don't harbor any animosity toward the mullet. I dig the fact that people refuse to choose between business and party time. Why not both? It's the American way. Business up front, party in the back.
So I was rolling across Illinois this morning when I approached a slow-moving pickup truck in the right lane. I signaled my intentions and moved into the left lane in order to pass. Anyone who drives a truck for a living can tell you what happened next. The pickup truck sped up. So I signaled my intentions and moved back into the right lane, behind the pickup truck. Anyone who drives a truck for a living can tell you what happened next. The pickup truck slowed down. I got around the sucker eventually but, in the meantime, I was able to observe a masterpiece of a mullet on the driver's head. Tight curls at the end, nice and wavy down the slope of the neck, just short enough on top to say, "I'm no skinhead but I'm still aerodynamic." And it got me thinking.
While NASCAR lovers and Canadian hockey players may get credit for introducing the mullet into mainstream society, I think that I-70 is probably the main mullet transportation corridor in the United States. Think about it. The eastern terminus is in the Baltimore area, right? Lots of mullets. Then the road angles up into southern Pennsylvania. Mullets and beards galore, sometimes on the men too. Central Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Come on. It goes without saying. St. Louis to Kansas City. Ever heard of the Missouri Compromise? I can't say that I've made a lot of observations further to the west along I-70, but I can definitely picture some Camaro cuts out in Topeka. Even if the phenomenon ends there, I can't think of another road that would cover half the country with those lovable hairstyles. Best of both worlds, baby. If only I weren't a bald mofo... The skullet does not meet with my approval.
{The preceding stream of consciousness was brough to you by some jagoff who couldn't decide how fast he wanted to drive.}
The timing of my trip through St. Louis was good in the sense that there wasn't much traffic when I crossed the bridge (at noon). The timing was awful in the sense that some dude had just gone and gotten killed. I won't join in the speculation about the mystery semi truck's alleged involvement. The more likely scenario to me would be one in which the pickup truck's driver was distracted by a text message or something, but that's for the cops to figure out. No internet lynch mob is going to bring the young man back to life either way.
This scene looks pretty familiar, n'est ce pas?
I heard on the radio that a helicopter was on the way and that the cops at the scene were saying that the road would be closed for "two or three hours." The first option was that I could just set the brakes and take a two-hour break with everyone else on the road at the time. Since I hadn't yet passed Lewis Road though, I had another option. Some people were moving off the exit and I was able to shimmy my way over.
I was a little more fortunate than these suckers. Since they were past the exit (#266), they were shit out of luck. Nowhere to go, so they just had to set the brakes and kick back.
I wasn't entirely sure what would be the best approach for me to take, but I knew that I wasn't going to sit there and bake in the sun with no air conditioning for two hours. I made the flip back onto the eastbound side of the road and took a look at the surface streets that I could see. They didn't look too promising. So I stayed on the eastbound freeway and went with my fallback option; Exit 272, MO-141 down to MO-30 and over to St. Clair. This route worked well enough. It was a hilly son of a gun, but my 20,000 pound payload wasn't too hard on me.
From the point where I caught up with the freeway again, everything was good. Not much traffic, some clouds to help keep the temperature down a little, and a fantastic Italian BMT with double meat at the truck stop in St. Robert. (They love their saints in this state, don't they?) By the time I rolled into the terminal, the sadists in the inspection bay had gone home for the night. That's one of the positives of an economic recession, I suppose. In a cost-cutting effort, the inspection bay has ceased to be the 24/7 bane of our Joplin experience. Now, when we arrive after hours, we proceed to the trailer repair bay for a more Laredo-like inspection. None of those imaginary parts on the truck getting flagged for imaginary repairs. (By 'imaginary,' of course, I mean that I have never heard of the parts in question. This likely applies to roughly 80% of the truck.) Homeboy in the trailer shop tonight fixed something on one of the axles and sent me on my way. Nice and easy.
I drove over to the tractor shop and gave the service writer the rundown. I need cold air from my vents and I could use some new parts for my driver's seat. It had a sketchy armrest when I got the truck. Then, somewhere along the way, I leaned on the other armrest and broke it. Then, a while back, the little adjuster knob for the seat back got stripped or something and my seat went into permanent gangsta mode. I don't mind keepin' it real and such, but after a long day on the road it's nice to have a seat back against which to lean. So those were my requests. Cold air and a functional driver's seat. As noted by our friend from Arkansas, I should have asked for new batteries and I forgot. All in due time though. All in due time.
I guess I only come to this place once or twice a year on average, so my frame of reference is limited, but this is about as deserted as I've ever seen the Joplin terminal. Hardly any trailers, hardly any trucks, and hardly any drivers. Maybe this means that people are out on the road making money. Or they fired everybody. I don't know. There had better be someone in that building to give me my damned gold ring in the morning.
1 down, 161 to go, mofos! The first undefeated season in MLB history is upon us... or something. Now if the Redskins hadn't gone and harshed my mellow with that McNabb acquisition, I could have been a happy sports fan for at least a couple of days.
I had a pretty easy day today, all things considered, and I managed to find a new metaphor for the people in Joplin. They're like the parents of an old girlfriend of mine. We'll get to that in a minute. The quick hop down to my consignee in Cincinnati was nice and easy. Just as the traffic started to get heavy, I reached my exit. Gotta love delivering on the north end of town when you come in from the north. Unfortunately though, there were four trucks (three of them from my company) ahead of me. Win some, lose some.
After a couple of hours I was empty and found myself at #4 on the board. Using my wicked awesome detective skills, I took this to mean that the first dude still hadn't received an assignment, so I might as well drive back to the north and find somewhere to park. Chances were that I would have to turn around and head back southward for my next pickup but there aren't really any good options in Cincinnati. I ducked into the rest area just south of Monroe and found that I was still #4, then headed inside to take care of business. Why in the hell do they wire those auto-flush toilets on such a hair trigger, anyway? Splashing my ass every time I exhale. Ridiculous. (For your own sake, don't try to picture that.) By the time I got back out to my truck, I was up to #1. A short time later I had a new assignment... picking up back on the northern end of Cincinnati. Story of life.
After getting back on the highway northbound and making a (mostly legal) flip at the next exit, I headed down to my shipper in Fairfield. Another driver had arrived just before me and found that his trailer wasn't yet ready, so his drop/hook was turned into a live load. Mine, on the other hand, was ready to rumble. And only 20,000 pounds to boot. Compared to the majority of loads that I've pulled lately, this trailer feels positively dainty. I sent in my loaded call, got my dispatch, and headed westward. Going to Arizona. For a Sunday morning delivery. It's not very often that an entire week's miles come in one day, but that's that. By the time I make my delivery we'll be into the next pay week.
I got a satellite message as I left Ohio, lecturing me about my "below standard" fuel mileage so far this year. I assume that this stuff is automatically generated so I didn't bother trying to figure out whether or not I should tell anyone to kiss my ass. Coming out of the winter every year, the MPG doesn't look so great. Then, every spring, the weather moderates and there's less need to idle the truck. Then the hot months require the A/C for sleep every now and then, so the idling ticks back up. Then, every autumn, it starts to improve again. Truck Driving 101 - Intro to Basic Shit That Everybody Knows. Since we're coming off the least globally warmed winter in recent memory and my batteries last less than an hour with the bunk heater running, my MPG is what it is. In point of fact, I just looked at the web portal and I see that I'm about even with where I was at this point last year. I ended last year at 6.33 MPG. As far as I know, this was acceptable. So yeah. Whatever.
Across I-74, around Indy, and onto I-70. This brings us to the day's metaphor. The aforementioned old girlfriend would call me at work every now and then and tell me that her parents wanted to take us to dinner. Truth be told, I found her parents to be rather annoying and I really didn't have anything to say to them. But their favorite restaurant happened to be a place where I could get a nice plate of gnocchi with just the right amount of garlic. And, by not pissing off the lass, I could generally count on that other stuff that chicks know how to do. So, even though I didn't want to go, I didn't mind all that much.
The whole Joplin experience, to me, is annoying. I really don't like stopping there and I have nothing to say to those people. But Joplin happens to be a place with a repair shop, where I can get my air conditioning fixed before I head down to the desert. I'm pretty sure there's nobody there with whom I would like to sleep, but maybe I can at least get my gold ring as a viable substitute for the other part of the metaphor. Since I have a ton of time on this run, I probably won't mind spending a night in Joplin all that much.
By the time I got to Brazil, Indiana, I was getting hungry. I decided to duck into the truck stop for some dinner and a shower and then realized that the ballgame was coming on and I didn't feel like driving anymore. So that was the end of my day. I may have already mentioned this, but I have a ton of time on this run. Six days to cover somewhere between 1,800 and 1,900 miles. Screw it. No need to go any further when I'm bored and uninterested. Tomorrow's route ends in Joplin, where parking will be a non-issue, so it doesn't matter how late I get there. This means no alarm clock, which is something that we always know will put a smile on my face. And the hailstorm that just blew through has lowered the temperature substantially, also putting a smile on my face.
When I was stuck in an El Paso motel not too long ago, there was a special on one of the history channels about the last attempt on Hitler's life, setting off what was known as Operation Valkyrie. I have no idea what was the budget for that television show but I'm guessing that it was far cheaper to make than the piece of crap movie starring Tom Cruise. And the television show was far better. Two hours of my life that I'll never get back. C'est la vie.
Anyhow, not much to discuss in the trucking realm today. We can usually take this as a good thing. After sleeping nice and late this morning, I rolled across to Seville and then down I-71. Smooth sailing all the way. Instead of going to Cincinnati and trying to camp at the consignee, I decided to cut across through Lebanon and spend the night at the truck stop in Monroe. Nice and easy 15 mile drive from here in the morning and I didn't see any Hezbollah missiles. All in all, a solid result.
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