Two-Fer

DATELINE: WEST MEMPHIS, AR, 9:15 p.m. CDT

Miles Yesterday: 388
Miles Today: 471

Once again I owe you a two-fer, since I failed to compose and post an update yesterday. So here goes.

Yesterday's update, had I made one, would have been entitled, "Workday Interrupted." I get up in the morning at 6:30 and was rolling at 7:15. It took me 4-1/2 hours to reach my delivery in Marietta, OK. The delivery was a simple drop-and-hook, and took me just a few minutes to complete. (And I did a perfect job of backing the loaded trailer into the spot I was assigned--I didn't even need a single pull-up to straighten the trailer in the space! Wahoo!) Before I left my next assignment came in: pick up a loaded trailer (another drop-and-hook) in Ardmore, OK, 17 miles up the highway from Marietta, at 9:00 p.m.

Since it was now 12:30, that gap concerned me. Mainly, that pickup time was when my 14-hour driving window for the day would expire. I zipped over to the truck stop near the customer to whom I had just delivered, parked, and sent a message to dispatch asking if that load would be ready early. Fortunately, they had word that it would be ready at 4:00. So I relaxed for 3-1/2 hours mid-day, having lunch and playing a couple of online sit-n-go tournaments (I won one of 'em).

At 4:00 I headed up the road to Ardmore to make the pickup. That went mostly OK, as I had to back my empty trailer to a dock door before snagging the new loaded one. Because of the location of the specific dock door near the gate, the empty trailers they had parked across from the docks, and another truck parked in front of those trailers and almost in front of the assigned dock, it was a very tight squeeze getting positioned just right to successfully back into the dock. It took me 3 or 4 attempts to get into the perfect setup, but I did get it in there.

After that docking and hooking up the new trailer, I headed north, aiming to spend the night at a Flying J in Oklahoma City that I've been to a couple times before. By the way, this load is destined for the Nashville, TN area, due for a Tuesday morning delivery. My plan was to make the OKC stop, drive to West Memphis today, then Nashville tomorrow. So far, so good. I slept in this morning and didn't hit the road 'til 9:30. OK, I was up late last night pokering, so I didn't get a real good night's sleep. But with all the extra time I have on this load, I could afford to do so.

Anyway, today's drive was uneventful. I arrived here at the West Memphis terminal at 6:00. The weather was warm and sunny, though not as ungodly hot as the south has been lately. So I got into my running clothes and took a run around the parking lot (this is USA's biggest terminal lot). I'm badly out of shape, so the lot was plenty big enough for my efforts--10 minutes of slogging before I had to reduce to a walk. I did keep walking a while longer and threw in 4 "sprints" of 150 yards or so just to work a little bit on a faster pace. It felt good (afterwards) to get in the workout; I'm going to have to make time for more in the future. It's just sometimes difficult to find safe places to run or walk at truck stops.

And that's all the news for now. Tomorrow will be a short work day (4 hours or so to drive to Nashville), despite it being Labor Day. Thanks for checking in again, have a great holiday, and keep on commentin' and truckin'.