One More Lone Star State Night

DATELINE: TERRELL, TX, 8:34 p.m. CDT

Miles Today: 70

What an April Fool's Day, and I guess I'm the Fool. First I woke up at 4:00 a.m. to elicit an early pickup assignment. Well, the assignment came early, but the pickup appointment wasn't 'til 4:00 IN THE AFTERNOON! Naturally I couldn't get back to sleep and rest up so I could make the pickup and run all night. So I pre-planned to zip over to our Shreveport, LA terminal (about a 3-hour drive) after picking up the load.

In the mean time I had lots of time to kill. I covered the first part of that in this morning's report. After composing that report I decided I'd get a Santa Fe Chicken Sandwich from Carl's Jr. April Fool #2: Jr.'s was out of chicken at the time. Grrr. So I settled for a Teriyaki Burger instead. Still tasty (and messy), but not what I really wanted. After that I did some reading in my truck, then at 12:30 I fired up the truck and rambled on over to a nearby Flying J to shower up and shave.

There was a line for the showers (all handled by a computer and monitor system), so I had to wait a few minutes before the automated voice called my number and the monitor displayed the shower number I was to use. Next April Fool's anomaly: when I entered my assigned shower room, it hadn't been cleaned from the previous user. So the staff had to find me another one--a clean one this time--to use.

All clean and facially smooth, I hit the road up to my pickup site. I'd be early (by 1-3/4 hours), but perhaps this would be one of those FCFS (first come...) sites. As I approached I noticed a line of trucks parked on the street before the driveway into the facility, so I parked at the back of the line and walked up to the speaker box at the gate. No such FCFS luck; I'd have to wait in the street 'til they called me in. (Their lot was too small for trucks to be waiting around in it.) Of course, that call didn't didn't come until an hour AFTER my scheduled appointment.

More waiting once I got in and docked. The short version of the story is I didn't get away from there 'til 7:00. I'd had visions of pulling into Shreveport by 7:00 as I was pre-planning my day. Not to be, of course. ("The best laid plans of mice and truckers...")

Since this is a heavy load (but, fortunately, one of those that pay 3 cents extra per mile), I needed to stop by a truck stop to run over their scales. That opportunity came at a TA here in Terrell, round about 30 miles east of Dallas. No Popeye's here, but it'll do. I'd never been to this place before, and I found it has a nice, BIG lot, and plenty of parking spaces were wide open when I arrived. I had to park anyway to go inside to pick up and pay for my scale ticket, and it didn't take long before I decided that I was getting tired, it was getting dark, and driving through the darkness for another 2-1/2 to 3 hours would not be a good idea. So I'm staying put for the night. The Shreveport terminal will just have to wait for another occasion to host me for a night.

Oh, back to my load. I asked my Fleet Manager if we had a delivery date/time yet, and he asked me when I could get there. I replied that my guess would be Thursday afternoon, around 2:00 or so. So he called to set the appointment, then found out that the company only takes Receiving between 3:00 and 5:00 A.M. Monday through Friday. Could I make it by 5:00 Thursday?

Ummm, no. That would require driving overnight, and I'd been up since 4:00 this morning, so I'd be too tired to do that. So now it's official: I'm looking at a delivery at 3:00 Friday morning. That schedule will allow me to get to Mobile, AL tomorrow (I'll get up around 5:00 and rolling at 6:00), where there's another TA (no Popeye's there, either). Then on Thursday I'll pull into the Orlando area to get ready for the early Friday morning assault on my delivery. I just l-o-o-o-v-e finding new places for the first time in the dark. (Is the intended sarcasm coming through?)

So that's this evening's report. It turned out to be quite a long day for only 70 miles of driving. Thanks for dropping by to check it out. Do me a favor and send me a quick "Howdy-do" so I can see if anybody's reading this besides Mrs. R.T. And, as ever, keep on truckin'.