Not having a load to go pick up I was able to sleep in this morning. I was a bit amazed when I finally woke and saw that it was 7:30 am. I haven't slept that late in ages. It was kinda nice.
I had myself some coffee and breakfast at the truckstop and finally wandered back out to the truck around 9:00 to call dispatch and see if they had found me a load. They had. He said that I needed to go by the lumber yard and pick up some 4x4 lumber. I cringed when I heard this as the last time I had to do this it was to load some steel pipe which is a very hateful load.
I was in luck though. He said that I needed to pick up a military vehicle from the port in Beaumont, TX. I was a tad puzzled as we don't normally need any lumber for this. He said that the truck was just coming in from Iraq and that it had been destroyed by an IED, including all of the tires, and that they had to load it with a crane and needed to set it on the lumber. It was going back to the factory to be rebuilt. Made sense. Thing is, I can't pick it up until tomorrow.
I fired up my handy dandy GPS, plugged in the truckstop in Beaumont as my destination, let it calculate the route (all of 90 minutes away) and then told it to find me a Lowe's somewhere along that route. In a few seconds it presented me with a list of Lowe's stores right on my way. I selected one and told it to make that a stop on the way. It took me right to it. Gotta love that technology.
After getting the required lumber I started for the truckstop. I got to thinking about sitting in the truck in this blast furnace heat and told the GPS to find me a hotel close to the truckstop. Turned out it found one right next door, which is where I am now typing this.
Sadly there don't appear to be any geocaches within hiking distance from here (I'm not up for a 17 mile hike) so I'll have to settle for knitting, watching the idiot box, and surfing the net as my activities for the remainder of the day. But that still beats sitting in the truck slowly roasting like a Thanksgiving turkey.
There's a Cracker Barrel across the road from the truckstop and I think I'll wander in there for breakfast tomorrow morning before going to pick up my load. In the meantime I hear the shower calling my name.