Today was one of those strange, mixed up kind of days. As far as myself and my trip goes everything went quite well and under other circumstances I would have called it a good day. But I was also following the insane tragedy in VA today and that put a real damper on things. I really do hate hearing about these kinds of things happening. They simply defy any sort of logic or rationale a sane mind can conjure. As the story unfolded and I followed the information update I couldn't help but fe...

I finally managed to get my laundry done. I hauled my old sea bag full of dirty clothes into the truck stop, got five bucks worth of change from the machine, and threw it all in to wash. It took three machines. I've had that old sea bag since I was in the service. No matter what else comes and goes, that old green duffel has always been with me through thick and thin. It's showing sign of age and wear, but it's still very serviceable. There were a few other drivers sitting around waiting f...

Last night I took a pain pill and muscle relaxer to ease my back a bit. I slept like the proverbial baby. I could have slept in all day but I woke at 6:00 am. I looked at the clock, said "screw that" and went back to sleep. By 7:30 my body said "screw this" and made me get up. I went inside the truck stop and had a few cups of coffee to get my heart started, and then I had a nice long relaxing shower. Then I had breakfast, "steak" (I swear it was really kangaroo) and eggs.. Really exciting...

After I had some lunch I wandered into the truck stop tv lounge. I was sitting there all nice and quiet knitting on my sock and watching the idiot box when another driver came in and sat down. He asked me what I was doing and I told him that I was knitting a sock. "You can actually knit your own socks?" he asked. "Umm, yeah dude, socks don't grow on trees ya know." was my probably a tad too smart-assed reply. The guy seemed genuinely fascinated by the idea that a person could actuall...

I'm hauling an oversized load, a fire truck, down to the port in Houston (yuk). Illinois has a stupid curfew on oversized loads. We can't move between noon on Saturday and sunrise Monday. Most states allow you to run all day on Saturday, but have a Sunday curfew. Stupid Illinois has to cost us an extra half a frigging day. So I ran about as far as I could before pulling into the truck stop. The next one down the road would have put me past noon. A lot of times I play dumb and just keep run...

I made my delivery (a fire truck) today. While the folks at the place I delivered did piss me off a little I worked around it and got the job done. One guy told me to unload at a certain spot and while I was in the midst of the work required to detach the trailer some other guy came out and told me I needed to pull around behind the building and do the detach and unload there. *sigh* Fine, what the fuck ever. I needed to get the job done and get to Oshkosh to pick up an over size fire t...

I made it into Detroit tonight around midnight local time. There was almost no traffic in the city at all. Perfect. It turned out the directions I was given were not good at all. I drove around for about 30 minutes trying to figure out how to get to the loading/unloading area of this civic center. I was going down one street that became very obvious was not the one I wanted, and I decided that I need to back track. I saw a good place to make a u-turn, hit my signal, double checked what wa...

When I went in to the doctor's office for my appointment this morning I had determined that I would not go off on him but rather I would simply say that I am feeling fine and he should release me back to full duty so I won't have to see him again. I guess he sensed something wasn't right because I gave very curt answers to his questions and no more. "How's the pain today?" "Nothing I can't handle." "Has it improved." "I'm fine." He asked me what was up, and I told him I fel...

I looked outside as I went to the hotel lobby to get some coffee. The wind is really blowing out there and it's snowing. This is mid-April, it should not be snowing. It's going to be a crappy day.

After I finish up at the witch doctor tomorrow I'll be heading for Detroit. I have an Oshkosh truck going to some sort of show at a civic center there, if I recall correctly it's called Cobo or something like that. I have to deliver the truck there for the show at 8:00am Thursday. No idea what I'll be doing after that. I even have to stop and wash the stupid thing before delivering it so it's nice and clean for the show. What a pain in the ass. When I picked it up in Oshkosh this aftern...

I got a call from dispatch this morning right around 8:00 while I was in the hotel lobby getting a cup of coffee. He wanted me to grab a trailer and run 3 hours up the road to Northern WI to pick up a fire truck and haul it back down to Oshkosh. As it sounded a little too easy I should have been suspicious, but I said ok and that I would be there after I finished my coffee and had a shower. On the way up I called the customer for directions and had to talk to three different people before ...

I went next door to Applyby's for dinner and a couple of cold ones. I sat and quietly enjoyed my dinner. Afterwards I was talking to the bartender when someone was suddenly hugging me, which needless to say was a bit of a surprise, and I heard "I thought that was you! I didn't recognize you without your beard but I couldn't miss that voice! You still sound exactly like Sam Elliot! I love your voice. I wondered if you'd stop back in." Of course it was the same server who had told me a littl...