Arrived early at my destination this morning and was unloaded by my original appointment time. Now it's a matter of waiting-for-today-to-end-time so I can resume driving tomorrow.
I'm writing these words from a T/A Truck Stop's restaurant. I'll charge up the batteries on both the laptop and cell phone before going back to the truck and running the laptop by battery. I've had breakfast and then, since the laptop battery wasn't yet charged, I ordered dessert. I think the waitress started looking at me funny along the way as if to say "You've been here forever--are you going to move so I can get some good tips from other drivers?" Well she probably wasn't thinking that but there wasn't really the lunch crowd at that I expected. I'm sure the supper crowd will keep the waitresses hopping. By the way, the waitress deserved a good tip--she did a good job at keeping my coffee cup refilled with coffee (I betcha I had 7-8 cups--I didn't need coffee for the rest of the day! I did though need to pee shortly after getting up from the table (OK that was more than you needed to know; just keep reading.)
I decided to pack everything up and try to find another spot (after I pee'd...oops sorry) and I found one. In every truck stop there is bank of pay phones for drivers (and anyone else) to use. Near the last phone I spied an electrical cord on the floor. Score! I quickly snapped up the last seat and spent the next 2-hours there camped out on a tiny seat wedged between the the booth wall, the pay phone, and the mini-desk in front of me. Because of my height, I had to stick my legs into the aisle in order not to cramp up. But since I was at the end of the room, it didn't matter that much. Or course when I got up, I could barely walk!
During this time, I called the tech support person at TrippLite that my wife talked to yesterday to give him the information that he requested in order to expedite my claim. I got his voice mail. So, I sent an e-mail to the generic e-mail support address they have listed on their web site. I sincerely hope that Gary gets it. I also made a hair appointment with my barber as well an appointment on getting our car fixed (it's not a good thing when you come to a stop with a manual transmission and the car wants to keep going forward even though you have the clutch slammed almost through the floor boards). I'm starting to get a handle on making your personal appointments 1-2 weeks in advance since you only have a small window of opportunity to get everything done once you're home.
I also had a good chat with my wife and kids while parking here for the day. My kids are both home from school because they don't feel well. I suspect that since my daughter doesn't feel well (legitimately), my son wants to do likewise as he looks up to her. Oh well, at least they should be well rested for tomorrow (I think they just had too much fun swimming 2x yesterday on Martin Luther King Day).
After being wedged in the phone booth for too long (my laptop battery was finally charged to full strength), I went out to the truck to see what tomorrow's assignment would be. I'm heading back towards Milwaukee (home). Interestingly enough, I'll be there tomorrow (Wednesday) and the load doesn't deliver until Thursday late afternoon. That means I'll see the family tomorrow evening and hang around the home until the afternoon when the load delivers a stone's throw from where I live. However, I betcha I'll get as far as my terminal in Gary, IN and then I'll drop that trailer and pick up another one and head elsewhere. If I do stay with that trailer to Milwaukee, I'll be totally frustrated with how I'm being routed. In other words, my pay check will not see much green in it since I didn't drive that many miles for the week. And that will need to be addressed next week with Mr. K (my adult baby sitter...er...fleet manager. Honestly, I feel like a kid at times when my Mr. K addresses me. I'm sure there are a lot of adults who [sadly] need to be treated like kids but I'm not one of them. Treat adults like adults and you'll get adult behavior. Treat adults like kids and you'll get...you guess it...childish behavior.)
Then I put some more oil into the truck (she can go through 2 gallons of oil per 2-week trip) and fired up the laptop for some additional work.
Later, after I ran the battery down again, I once again crammed myself into the phone booth for another battery recharging session (I'm going to be sore tomorrow!) before retiring for the evening. I just hope TrippLite sends me another power inverter pronto so I don't have to do the phone booth shuffle from now on!)
miles driven = 84
PostScript: Now I know why I don't linger around truck stops all that much. 2nd hand smoke. On the one hand, I used to smoke so 2nd hand smoke doesn't bother me all that much. On the other hand, I got my fill of it today! The pay phone area (adjacent to the game room) had smoke-a-plenty. Cough-cough.
10:13:25 AM
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