The past week or so has found me hauling a lot of over sized loads.  I hauled a 12 feet wide crane platform from Windsor, WI down to Franklin, WI. On the interstate system a 12' load isn't that bad but due to road construction Indiana routed me on secondary highways.

When I left I-70 just west of Indianapolis I headed down route 287 which is a narrow 2 lane lane road that doesn't have any shoulder at all but does have a bunch of mailboxes and utility poles right at the edge of the road. It also has a lot of traffic as well as a few narrow bridges.

Several times I had to stop and wait for opposing traffic to squeeze past me before continuing on and I had to stop before every single bridge until traffic cleared. Between those things and the turns I had to make in several small towns I had a whole lot of people very upset about the traffic situation. Oh well, they can blame the great state of Indiana for their sheer stupidity in routing a load that wide on such a narrow road.

I finally made it over into Ohio and near my delivery destination but at that point it was too late in the day to deliver. I parked at the nearby truck stop for the night. As it so happens I accidentally chose a truck stop with a bar and so, as they say, "when in Rome..." so I wandered in for a few beers.

After delivering that load I went up to Cleveland and picked up a load of steel, also a wide load. That load was only 10 feet wide but there were a lot  of pieces of all sorts of odd shapes and sizes and I was there for several hours loading and securing it. I hauled that one to Milwaukee.

Once I delivered in Milwaukee I took the remainder of the day off to rest up a bit. The next day, Sunday, I left the yard with an air crash rescue truck to haul down to the port in Jacksonville, FL.  It was only 10'4" wide and not a very challenging run at all. The truck is heading for the U.S. Virgin Islands and the port cutoff for delivery was Wednesday. No problem, I delivered it today.

On the way down here I of course stopped several places to eat and at one truck stop in Tennessee I was sitting at a table and waiting for my breakfast order. While waiting I packed a pipe with some Captain Black and was enjoying that when the waitress came over to refill my coffee cup. She said that my pipe "smells really good, and I don't even smoke!"

A different waitress came over and topped off my coffee a few minutes later and seemed to hover a moment. I gave her an inquiring look and she said "I just wanted a better whiff of your pipe." I had to chuckle a bit at that.

As I expected they didn't have a reload ready for me. When I spoke with dispatch after delivering she told me that so far the only thing she had found doesn't load until Friday. Ummm, today is Tuesday! Also, my air conditioner in my truck crapped out on me on the way down here. I am now checked into a hotel in St Augustine and hoping they will find me something out of here tomorrow.

I really don't want to sit down here until Friday.

After I checked into the hotel I walked over to the c-store nearby to buy some beer. As I walked over I saw they had a small tobacco shop there. I saw on the sign in the window that they had pipes and pipe tobacco so I walked in to see what they may have.

All of the pipes they had were very cheap and poorly made. There wasn't a single one I would have spent any money on. I looked to see what tobacco they had. I saw some Peter Stokkebye tobaccos. I purchased a 2 ounce bag of Optimum just to give it a try and to not walk out of the place empty-handed.

I haven't tried the tobacco yet but will do so after I have dinner. It's an aromatic so I don't really expect I'll like it all that much as I am not a fan of aromatics, but I do like to keep an open mind about such things and will give it a fair try.

I am now settled into my room with some beer, my computer, and in a few minutes I'll be ordering some Chinese food for delivery. I think then I'll pretty well be set for the evening.

edit: I almost forgot to mention the big excitement I saw yesterday on my way into Jacksonville on I-10. I noticed that traffic on the westbound side was seriously backed up and there were a lot of emergency vehicles over there. As I got close to the emergency vehicles I saw a blue twin engine airplane on the shoulder of the westbound side of the road. It had obviously made an emergency landing, belly down, over there.

That obviously caused quite a lot of excitement as well as a major traffic snarl over there. It looked like the plane was pretty much intact with only some minor damages so I am assuming the pilot made it out ok.