After all of the delays, including snowstorms, high winds, and having to stop and have a muffler replaced on my truck, I finallly delivered the 7 ton military truck in N Charleston yesterday.

It was raining like crazy the whole time I was unchaining the truck, detaching the front deck, and then reattaching after the guy drove the truck off the trailer. I was soaked to the skin but just kept reminding myself "At least it isn't snowing". It was a bit chilly for SC but still a lot warmer than where I had been recently.

While I had hoped they would have a reload for me right away, the dispatcher's question to me confirmed my suspicion that they didn't. She asked if I was looking for a load back out or a load home. She said no one had told her one way or the other. I told her that I couldn't yet afford to go home and was looking for something back to the yard, and then drove to the nearest full service truck stop to wait.

I'm still here this morning.

While I normally try and find free wifi service to use I knew I was likely going to be here over night and went ahead and paid the five bucks for 24 hours of access here. The signal only works inside the building and not out in the parking lot, which I find damn annoying, but it's better than nothing.

While at the cashier desk trying to buy the service I had a minor misunderstanding with the cashier. I requested only an hour of service, at two bucks, and she told me they only had 24 hours and no 1 hour. As I had used their service many times before I knew better. What she really meant to say was that one could only purchase a 1 hour session directly online and not from the cashier.

She was quite polite about it and we most probably could have easily resolved the misunderstanding without any fuss at all had the younger cashier, who wasn't involved with the transaction at all, not stuck her big mouth into things. The girl was extremely rude and disrespectful, with a "street" attitude that has no business in a public service ;business.

I found her to be extremely rude and finally snapped at her, telling her to STFU and mind her own business, and that I would be emailing her company as first order of business once I got online (which I did) because she has no business working with the public. In typical "ghetto" fashion she waggled her head back and forth on her shoulders while telling me how that didn't scare her and she didn't care, yadda yadda yadda. I could tell that the older lady, with whom I was actually conducting business, was embarassed by her behavior.

If there is one thing I simply can not abide it's rude, disrespectful customer service. I didn't bother even looking for the manager as this sort of thing tells me he/she is either too lazy to train and manage the employees, or simply doesn't care. None of the cashiers were even wearing their name tags, which I know is required by this chain of truck stops. Lazy manager.

After getting online and checking my emails and other messages I went to the Mexican joint across the road for dinner as at that point I just didn't feel that this truck stop had in any way earned my business.

The very tiny young lady there greeted me at the door with a smile. Now that is more like it. I asked her if the place has a bar, which she indicated that it did, and she sort of indicated a direction, or so I thought. I started to walk in the direction I thought she had indicated, while at the same time she started to go the opposite way, and we ran into each other.

Being so much larger than she, I very nearly knocked the tiny little lady to the floor, but managed to catch hold of her before she fell. I apollogized to her and made sure she wasn't hurt. Her fellow employees were laughing about it, as was she. I was just glad she wasn't hurt.

I sat at the bar and had a couple of beers with some very good Mexican food, and chatted with the other folks at the bar, almost all of which were fellow truckers who also didn't want to eat in the truck stop.

I turned in fairly early and this morning woke to sunshine. The rain has passed, the sun is shining, and this morning is already much warmer than yesterday ever reached. This is more like it!

It looks to be shaping up to be a very nice day. Perfect trucking weather. Now if I just had a load to haul.