Oak Grove, MO

DATELINE: OAK GROVE, MO, 10:00 p.m. CDT

Miles Today: 611
Miles Yesterday: 621
Miles Tuesday: 554

Oy, do I have some catchin' up to do. My apologies for my long absence from these reports, but:
a) I was home for a few days with too much to do to do any blogging, and
b) I've had some long, tiring days since returning to the road.
Here's my story.

I got home on Friday, fairly early in the evening (or even late afternoon) for a change, instead of deep into the evening. So I even had time to mow my lawn while the sun still shone. Then on Saturday, with gorgeous weather, I spent most of the day working in my yard, pulling weeds, spreading oodles of bags of mulch, turning the soil (and yanking the weeds from) a 12'x4' planting bed, and planting potatoes and onions in that bed. MUCH more physical labor than I'm used to these days, that's for sure. No wonder my hamstrings are still sore today.

But you're not here to read about my time off the road; you want narratives about my truckin', right? (Besides, it's late after yet another long day behind the wheel, and I need to keep this short if possible so I can get to bed.) Suffice to say that I also had Sunday and Monday at home, and Mrs. R.T. drove me back to my truck (well, I actually drove) early Tuesday morning.

After a couple hours back, I finally got my pickup assignment. My pickup was in Muskegon, MI that afternoon, with delivery set for this morning in Garden City, KS. I hit the road right away to cross the state to get my load. That pickup went fine, and I then headed down the west coast to make my way around Lake Michigan. By looking at my atlas, I saw that I had a few options for my route to Garden City, which is in the southwest part of the state. I had been thinking lately that it'd been a while since I'd been to the "World's Largest Truck Stop" in Walcott, IA, and I also had a chance to add a new state to my "trucked in" list. So I set my course for Walcott, which I could reach within my allotted hours for the day.

I did reach Walcott as the sun was setting on Tuesday, and went right to bed. I had been up late Monday night getting everything ready for my return to my truck, and I was up early Tuesday morning, so by the time I stopped in Walcott, I was definitely dead tired. So no blogging that night.

Yesterday (Wednesday) I got up and rolling just as my break reached the required 10 hours. My route was straight west along I-80 all the way across IA and into NE (the new state on my list). Then south just past Kearney on US-183 into KS, down to I-70. Once on I-70 and heading west some more, I came across a new truck stop in the town of Ellis, KS just as I was reaching 11 hours of driving for the day. It was a smaller place with no good place for me to plug in and blog; besides, it had been another long day and I still had some residual fatigue. So I couldn't write up a report for you.

This morning I hit the road at 5:45--again just as soon as I had been on break for 10 hours--so I could get to my delivery in Garden City by my 9:00 appointment. Mission accomplished. The delivery went quickly, and I retreated to a nearby truck stop to wait for my next assignment. Which came in quite quickly. Dispatch assigned me a pickup in Spring Hill, KS, all the way back east across the state, just southwest of Kansas City. Over 300 miles away. So I got rolling right away.

The pickup time was quoted as 20:00, or 8:00 p.m., which would be beyond my 14-hour window for the day, but I was assured I could make the pickup early. I've picked up a load from that site once before--my only other previous pickup in KS--so I knew it would be a drop-and-hook. I also remembered the place as having really tight lots for dropping the empty trailers, so I dreaded that aspect.

The drive back eastward across the state was lengthy, along US-400 and I-35, and took nearly 8 hours, including stops for lunch and fuel. But I got to the pickup at 6:00, and with check-in procedures, squeezing my empty trailer into a spot in the lot and unhooking it, getting my paperwork, finding the new trailer and hooking it up, and other various and sundry procedures, I finished up there just after 7:00. That left just enough time to run over here to Oak Grove.

So I'm parked for the night at a nice big Petro Stopping Place. I figured it was time to bring y'all back up to speed, so despite yet another long day, I'm "taking one for the team" and staying up to compose this report for ya'. I'm looking at another couple of long days coming up, 'cuz my new load is bound for north-central PA (I forget the name of the town I'm headed for), with delivery at 11:00 p.m. Saturday night. (Oy! I hate those late night deliveries. Gonna be tough to find a place to park afterwards.) I'm going to shoot for our Vandalia, OH terminal tomorrow; my atlas says it's about 600 miles.

Time to wrap this up; I think I've covered everything essential over the week since last I posted an update here. Thanks for checking in, please send me some comments and questions, and keep on truckin'.