I'm sitting in a mud lot in a tiny little truckstop in northern WA. It's a joke to even call this a truckstop as it's basically just a gas station/C-store that happens to sell truck fuel and has a big enough piece of mud to park a few trucks (for four bucks a night).
I got up this morning and as I am on the left coast the sun hasn't even begun to rise yet. I trudged through the mud to use the restroom (get the key-on-a-stick from inside and walk around back), fill up my coffee mug, and trudge back to my truck again. When I fired up my laptop and checked my email the inbox was flooded with Happy Birthday emails from people I know as well as the automated ones from various forums and websites where I am registered.
While the automated ones don't mean much, it's nice to get the ones from actual people that I know. Out here on the road a birthday is pretty much just another day and one can easily forget about it completely if someone doesn't remind you. It's pretty much business as usual out here. I'm sure the boss will call me at some point today. He usually makes a point of calling drivers on their birthdays.
There was a time not so long ago that truckstops would give truckers a free steak dinner on their birthday. In this age of huge corporate chains that has pretty much disappeared and you can't even get a free cup of coffee from them. Profits must come before people, even the very people who generate those profits.
Oh well, I was never really all that big on celebrating my natal anniversary anyway so it's no big deal. With any luck dispatch will find me a load out of here today and I'll pick it up as well as the partial over in Spokane and be on my way back east once again. Business as usual.
I need another cup of coffee so it's back through the mud once again.