I got my Portion of the Bail Out

My dedicated GM run started up again last week. So once again I am going to be traveling between Perrysburg, Ohio, and Spring Hill, Tennessee, with frequent overnights in Glendale, Kentucky. This run is just long enough to keep it interesting, and short enough to get me home on a regular basis, so it is just about perfect for me right now. Now how long it will last is another question entirely. It takes a little over eight hours of driving to get to the delivery point, and I have figured out pretty much how to get there with no problems and be a little early without wasting a lot of time.

Unfortunately this morning the schedule got shot all to heck. I was planning on leaving the yard at three-thirty this morning, but because I had to wait for a tow truck, I didn't leave until shortly after five. The reason I had to wait was because my trailer loaded with twenty thousand pounds of engines and twenty thousand pounds of racks to hold the engines, had been dropped in a soft spot. This is not a new spot in the yard and most people avoid putting anything there, more due to the fact that it is part of where we usually drive than any other reason.

So this loaded trailer sat over the weekend, and when the sun was up and warmed the ground it settled, then the water and muck refroze around the landing gear. Which is how I found it this morning, not only was it frozen in place, it had suck to low for me to get my truck underneath it to pick it up. So I got to see Hammer Towing's big truck in action and it was impressive. The ease with which the truck picked up the trailer was something to see. When he set the trailer back down on timbers, one cracked in half with a sound like a gun shot.

Rockwall, Texas: Super 8, not so super

At first glance this is a typical motel with a fairly generous truck parking area, one that is fairly easy to get in and out of, with plenty of room to turn around. You just have to watch out for the exposed rebar in the front drive as you enter and leave the lot.

The leak in the bathroom ceiling looks like an old one from the size of the rust stains. That is until you take a closer look and get to watch the water droplets come down. This is especially fun after the person upstairs takes a shower. I was just glad that it wasn't bulging like this over the toilet. When I noticed this Saturday I thought about insisting on a room change due to it, but was feeling lazy and decided to endure it for one more night. It wasn't dripping on me, or touching anything of mine, so had little effect on my being here.

The poorly fitting door was one problem I noticed fairly quickly, but did not recognize as a real problem until this morning. That was when my camping senses kicked in, I didn't realize at first why I was awake, just knew that something had woken me up. A noise from somewhere, there near my milk crate of food. As I sat up something fairly large and furry scurried out of the room and through the crack under the door. I doubt it was a mouse, even if this is Texas, no way a mouse silhouettes against the wall, above the carpet kick plate. From the looks of the bent down portion of the door, this sort of in and out has been going on for a long time. What makes it more scary is the question, was this done by the rats?

I plan on complaining about this when I check out today, see if they give me a discount for sharing a room. Either way I think the health department will find it all very interesting, but that is for later as I need to get dressed and loaded up, and it is raining. It started just as I looked out the door to see if the creature was still hanging around.

Rockwall, Texas: Super 8

This is basically on the other side of I-30 from the TA I stayed at last night. While I can understand their limit on hotel rooms during the week, there are times it seems like they are just wasting money. When one adds up the IdleAire for almost twenty-four hours plus a ten dollar shower, it would have been cheaper for me to spend the night in the hotel instead. It would have saved only about $20, but that can add up over time and with a lot of drivers.

It is interesting how different the food can be when one goes from a national chain to a local restaurant. Last night after looking at the prices at the Burger King in the TA I decided to eat at a TGI Fridays. When a meal is going to cost almost nine dollars anyway, might as well add a little and make it a good one. While the food was really good the drinks just weren't. Apparently the water is just bad around here. I started with my usual, iced tea, which had a funny taste to it. So I switched to water, which was even worse. Even the coke I had didn't taste exactly right to me, of course by then drinking anything just tasted wrong.

Tonight I ate at a small Thai place, Koung Thai Restaurant. This was where I experienced a real difference in food. Not only was the food delicious, but the presentation was something that had me wishing I had my camera with me. While some restaurants try to present a plate, they made a show piece out of my dinner. If I go back tomorrow I will definitely take my camera to take a few pictures of my meal. The food was as good as it looked, I literally stuffed myself between my entree and my sushi. Even with all that, I spent less than twenty dollars.

This was where I spent Thursday night, everything behind my truck has been razed and cleared to dirt. Removed are the pool and two buildings, as well as a great deal of parking. The employees have no idea what is going to happen to the space. Personally I am thinking it will be an updated hotel, since the part that is left of the Super 8 has more rooms than parking spots.

Rockwall, Texas: TA

It was check out time at the hotel so I moved to the closest truck stop along my possible line of travel home. Driving through Dallas at several different times of the day has made me even more certain, I will never live in a major metro area. There are just too many people and cars trying to get places to make it worth wasting so much of my life fighting traffic. At least as a truck driver I am paid to wade through these areas. I also can usually avoid the worst of it with a little planning. It seems Dallas doesn't have a good time to drive through, just bad and worse.

Driving through Kentucky: February 4, 2009

These Pictures were taken while driving through Kentucky on February fourth. Most of the pictures of the damage were taken along I-65. What I saw along I-71 was not as bad, but there were still a lot of damaged trees along the way. I can't image what it looked like right after the storm went through, but a lot of roads were definitely impassible.

Driving through Cincinnati February 4th 2009

This series of pictures is from driving through Cincinnati on February fourth. These pictures were taken along the last thirty miles of I-71 in Ohio. You can see how rapidly the road degraded, and how slow it was going through most of Cincinnati. That last bit of Ohio took an hour and a half to drive through, an hour longer than usual. This hour delay kept me from making it as far as I wanted to get in Tennessee that day.

Grand Prairie, Texas: Super 8

It took almost all my driving hours to get to the delivery today, but I got there. I didn't take into account two factors when I looked at the google map distance and time calculation. The first thing I neglected was the fact that they use the legal speed limit for cars to calculate time, which most of the way is either faster than my truck can go or faster than I am allowed to go. The other thing I forgot was the traffic through the Dallas area, it is simply horrible. So what I figured as a ten hour drive turned into a ten and three quarter hour drive. Since I can only drive eleven hours in one shot it was a good thing that the hotel I am now at was just a few minutes away.

The hotel is also just across the street from Ripley's Believe It or Not Odditorium and Louis Tussuad's House of Wax. I am tempted to go, but will likely leave tomorrow before it opens, hopefully that is.

This hotel was advertised as having truck parking, but they are doing some renovations or new construction and that parking is gone. So I am now taking up a good portion of the parking spaces, fortunately not many people were here when I had to maneuver myself into the spot, which also got me turned around to be able leave in the morning.

The weather down here is fantastic compared what is in the Toledo area right now, well most of Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee for that matter. It was in the sixties this afternoon, not only did I have the windows down a bit in the truck, I had the air on as well to keep the heat down from the sun beating into the cab. The truck really stands out down here, there just aren't that many vehicles floating around that are salt encrusted. Considering the layers of salt on the truck, that might be an understatement.

I got some pictures while driving through Kentucky yesterday. It simply boggled the mind at how much damage that ice storm did down there. Entire stands of trees have been topped and toppled from the ice splitting them in half or just dragging them over. Almost the entire stretch of both both I-71 and I-65 had trees down along the road side that have been trimmed just enough for traffic to get past them. Seeing this it is easy to see how so many power lines got taken down. I will get them put up soon.