Stopped At a Landmark

DATELINE: WALCOTT, IA, 10:39 p.m. CDT

Miles Today: 374
Corrected Miles Yesterday: 521 (I had mis-read the odometer)

Greetings from the World's Largest Truck Stop! This place, the Iowa 80 Truck Stop, bills itself as such, and if it's wrong, I'd like to see the one that's bigger. It has scads of parking, a food court and an in-house restaurant, shopping, service center...it's a regular Cabela's of truck stops. It's along I-80 in eastern Iowa, just west of Davenport. I stoped here for dinner on my way to my delivery in Davenport, just 15 miles away, then headed back here after completing the delivery (which went fine, although it was another long wait--2 hours from arrival to departure). My next assignment is to head back west a ways, just past Des Moines, to pick up a load at 2:00 p.m., then head east with it. So I'll hit the road around 9:00 in the morning to get there on time. I think I may be back here at Iowa 80 for tomorrow night's respite as well.

So what's this next load's destination? The Buffalo, NY area. The load isn't due for delivery 'til Wednesday, so I'll have plenty of time to get there. Which is good, because I'm going to have limited work hours in the coming days because of the 70-hour-in-8-days regulation. If I can get to western NY early enough, perhaps I can pursuade my bro' and some of his family to zip over from the Rochester area to give me a visit at whatever truck stop I wind up at. (Note to those family members: Hey, are any of you reading this? Or do I need to send an e-mail?)

If you're interested in my poker tournament streak that I mentioned yesterday, well, it did come to an end. I played 4 more sit-n-go tourneys and only finished in the money in 3 of them, third place each time. The one exception was my second attempt, and I crashed and burned early in that one 'cuz of one dumb play--a semi-bluff attempt--I knew I shouldn't have been making when I did it. Oh well, sometimes ya' gotta gamble just to see if you can pull it off. But I do now have a new streak of 2 straight cashes, or 10 of the last 11. I don't think I'll play any tonight 'cuz it is getting late and I am tired. I need to get rested up for tomorrow's predicted lousy driving conditions: Lotsa' rain.

Speaking of rain, this tour of duty, now 17 days old has seen lots of inclement weather. My previous one was almost exclusively perfect weather for the full 2 weeks, with the exception of snow one day in D.C. and Baltimore, of all places. (Being from MI, we think of those towns as southern, beyond the snow belt.) Go figure.

Anyway, I said--er, typed--that I'm tired. So it's time to sign off. Thanks for visiting, please sign the guest register (that is, SEND IN A COMMENT!!!!), and keep on truckin'.