Elsewhere

DATELINE: RAYVILLE, LA, 1:00 p.m. CDT

Miles Today: 441

Let's start today's report with the unusual, the unexpected for this job--a celebrity sighting! The usual disclaimers apply here: I'm pretty sure it was him, but it was a quick 10-second walk-by, yada, yada, yada. Anyway, the circumstances first. I stopped at a rest area in Mississippi and was walking up the sidewalk to the building. Coming alone down the walk was a tall, light-blonde man with glasses. You guessed it (whaddaya mean you didn't?) Ed Begley Jr. (Didja' catch the clue in today's title?) The physique was right, the walk was right, the hair, it hadda be him. If not, he was a dead-on facsimile. Now back to the usual boring stuff about how my workday went.

Not a bad mileage total for 8 hours of travel time. Factor in a couple lengthy construction zones and rest stops, and it's very respectible indeed. I woke up at 3:45 (EDT) this morning, 30 minutes before my alarm would sound. Since I knew I wouldn't fall back asleep, I just got up, took a shower, walked down the street to grab a bite to eat at the nearby Pilot truck stop (the breakfast choices at Flying J's aren't as enticing as those at Pilots), fueled up, and was rolling at 5:00.

The weather was perfect; warm and (after dawn) sunny. My 8 available hours meant I was done at noon, CDT. By scouting my truck stop directory, I figured I'd hit this town--and the Pilot at which I'm now parked--about then. That calculation was dead-on. (Well, it was maybe 4 minutes off by the time I'd exited the highway, negotiated the road and parking lot, and hit the parking brakes.) So now I have all afternoon to wander the web and perfect losing at poker. ;-) I figure I have 5-6 hours to drive to reach Dallas in the morning (11:30 a.m.), so I'll have to be on the road by 5:00 tomorrow. Therefore I'll need to get to bed early tonight, too.

Well, that's about all I can think of to report about today. Let me know how you're doing and what questions you may have about this job and/or my life on the road. Thanks for reading this gibberish, and keep on truckin'.