Today finds me in Jackson, GA. I delivered a military trailer to a base in Kentucky on Thursday, and then a military vehicle to Ft Benning, GA yesterday.

The entire trip I was juggling my on duty hours to make sure I could get the Ft Benning vehicle delivered by the Friday deadline. It is going to be used for some urban warfare training next week.

Regulations require that we not exceed 11 hours of driving in a day, 14 consecutive hours of work time, or 70 hours of work time in an 8 day period. I have been bumping up against the 70 hour rule for the past several days and have had to cut my work days short, get up early, and run with whatever hours I had remaining in order to make my schedule. It's a real pain, but rules are rules and the penalties for exceeding the service hours are heavy these days.

I thought about just taking the weekend off so I could get in a 34 hour break, which would reset my hours back to a full 70, but decided that I would rather do so back up in Wisconsin where I could have the APU on my truck repaired while I take the down time. The air conditioner isn't working very well at the moment and really needs to be repaired.

After running the APU for a couple of hours last night I started smelling diesel fuel and got out to check on it. The APU was leaking fuel pretty badly so I shut it down, grabbed my tools and flashlight, and tracked down the leak. It only took a few minutes to repair the leak and I had it back up and running again in no time.

There is a little bar and grill next to the truck stop here, and it is the only indoor smoking establishment here, so I spent some time there last night. They also serve breakfast so I wandered in there this morning for some coffee and a smoke. I always enjoy a smoke with my coffee so it was a no brainer.

I am now waiting around to load some electrical switches about 30 miles from here. I spoke with the guy this morning, hoping I could get in there and get loaded early. He said they wouldn't be ready to load until this afternoon and I should call him around lunch time to set up a firm loading time.

I really wanted to get rolling early, mostly due to the pesky hours of service situation, but it is what it is. I'll use some of the waiting time this morning to do some laundry in the truck stop.