Monday I delivered the oversized load, a piece of construction equipment, in Paris, AR. When I had called to check in Monday morning the dispatcher told me he had a reload lined up for me, a milirary 5 ton truck coming out of Ft Chaffee going to MN. That was cool as I was delivering only a short distance from Ft Chaffee.
When I unloaded the construction equipment and called in he said that the load had fallen through and to just find a truck stop and hole up until he found something. Damn the luck, but that's the way it goes. I drove about 20 miles to a small Love's fuel stop.
As it was around noon I walked next door to KFC and had some lunch. Just as I climbed back into my rig the phone rang; the military load out of Ft Chaffee was back on again. He told me it was loading out of Ft Chaffee and going to MN for Tuesday. Wow, that's 800+ miles. Not impossible but I was going to be tired as hell.
I went over to Ft Chaffee and loaded up the 5 ton, chained it all down, and called in to let him know I was loaded. His response? "But it doesn't load until tomorrow!" Huh? I told him that we obviously had a communications problem because I could have sworn he told me to pick it up and have it in MN the next day.
Seems he just didn't make it quite clear, but I was actually supposed to load it on Tuesday and deliver it "whenever". Oh. Anyway I lucked out and got the thing picked up a whole day early and could go ahead and get started with it. It was late in the afternoon by that point so I just ran a hundred miles or so up the road and parked it for the night.
Tuesday I made my way up to Sioux Falls, SD and called it a day. As it was St Patty's Day I wandered into the Red Eye Saloon for a couple of cold ones. naturally I took along my knitting as I am trying to finish the sweater that it seems I've been working on forever now.
A couple of young ladies came in around 6:00 PM and sat next to me at the bar. The one closest to me immediately started asking about my knitting and complimented my work, for which I thanked her. When one of the local cowboys tried to make a good-natured joke at my expense over the knitting (something I really didn't mind as I can take a joke) the young lady immediately jumped in and said :"It takes a REAL man to sit at the bar and knit, he's more man than you'll ever be!". I just laughed and shrugged it off.
I chatted with the two ladies for a while. They were just stopping in for a couple of quick ones on their way to a concert. They were both pretty stoked up looking forward to the show. It was a pleasant conversation with pleasant company but they eventually headed out for their concert and it was back to shooting the shit with my fellow truckers.
One of the barmaids was carrying around a camera and passing out green beads and such to the patrons as well as taking pictures of any ladies willing to lift their shirts for the camera. Can't say I minded the view.
As I had to get up and get rolling in the morning I called it a night fairly early to get some rest. Besides, I hate trying to drive with a hangover.
I made it up to the delivery point in Appleton, MN around 10:15 this morning and delviered the 5 ton. As I expected, there wasn't any immediate reload this time so I drove the 70 miles to the nearest truck stop to wait and have a meal.
I'm now fed, have free wifi access, and can just relax a while until something comes through. I can't really complain as the last few loads all had immediate reloads so it's not like I've been left high and dry all that much lately. I can tolerate it once in a while. Besides, sometimes it's nice to just kick back and relax for a bit.
Besides, if I do have to spend the night here they have decent food as well as a bar for those so inclined.