Traipsin' Through Texas

DATELINE: KINGSVILLE, TX, 9:00 p.m. CDT

Miles Today: 446
Miles Yesterday: 506

OK, I'm overdue by a day again...sorry 'bout dat. When I finished up yesterday at the TA in Lafayette, LA, I went inside to the drivers' lounge and watched some college football (most of the Alabama-Kentucky game), then returned to my truck and played some poker for a while. By the time I got ahead at that (by a whole 10 cents), it was time for beddy-bye. Hence no blogging. But, hey, nobody reads this thing on the weekends anyway, right? Well, here's how my weekend went, anyway.

I allowed myself the luxury of sleeping 'til 4:00 a.m. instead of getting rolling at 1:00 when my break hit the 10-hour mark. Since the load I was picking up was:
a. Waiting in a drop yard, and
b. Not due 'til noon on Monday
an ASAP pickup was not mission-critical. So I gave myself some extra shut-eye. But I was up at 4:00 and on the road shortly thereafter.

I had to return 40-50 miles to Birmingham after having been given premature direction Friday afternoon to head north for another load. I easily found the pickup site, but it wasn't an easy approach. The drop yard is along a narrow, 2-lane street in town, and bordered immediately on the far side by a railroad bed that's several inches below the street's level. So the right turn onto the street was tricky.

Next, the drop yard itself is accessed by a gate on a fence perpendicular to the street, and it has a short driveway/lot to enter before squeezing through the gate. Much fun when it's dark out. Once in the yard, dropping my empty trailer and hooking up the loaded one was easy enough. But exiting the yard and getting back onto that narrow street without dropping off into the railroad bed was still more fun than anyone deserves. I don't know who thought it'd be a good place to regularly be taking 53-foot trailers. Hopefully I won't have to go there again.

Anyway, that fun behind me, the rest of the day was just drive on across the deep south. (Well, except for a scale/fuel/shower/meal stop in Tuscaloosa, AL en route.) I haven't been down that-a-way for a few months now, and I'd missed it. (Way too much east coast/northeast lately.) And I haven't been down in this part of Texas for even longer.

When I was driving with my trainer, we headed down this way to Brownsville (and/or McAllen) once or twice each week. Since then, I'd only been through here a couple of times. So it's fun to be heading back to "deepest, darkest Texas". This morning I got up at 4:00 again and got rolling by 4:30. 'Twas another uneventful drive, and I've holed up at a Love's in this town. I have about 100 to 125 miles to go to Brownsville tomorrow, and with delivery due at noon, I'll have plenty of time to sleep in a bit and grab a shower. But I'm gonna' have to pay for the shower since this place isn't on out fuel network list and I can't fuel up and earn a shower credit. I'd better do so because I'll be stuck in Brownsville for the rest of the day after delivering tomorrow. I'll be just about out of my 70 hours 'til I get some more back on Tuesday, and there are precious few truck stops down there--and none with showers available. So I'd better be good and clean going in.

Well, I've reached the late hours of another long day, and I'm getting well fatigued now. Since I stopped here early this afternoon, I've played a good deal of online poker, with my usual lots-of-time-to-play results. That is, I've been the poster boy for "card dead". I played 7 10-cent-entry-fee multi-table tournaments, one 50-center, and one with a $1.10 entry fee, and got no help from the deck at all in those, crashing and burning long before making the money. But I capped off my day by winning a 9-player sit-n-go ($1.20 entry), so I wound up $1 ahead for the day. I FINALLY got some good cards--and action from my opponents when I had 'em. (On one hand, I eliminated 3--count 'em 3--opponents and took all their chips.) So that left me in a good enough frame of mind to wrap that up and tell y'all about my weekend.

So that's my current state of affairs. I'm hoping for an easy week as I head back for home--I'm due back there on Saturday. Thanks for your readership today. Please drop me a line so I'll know you're still out there, and keep on truckin'.