Reynoldsburg, Ohio: Red Roof Inn

I am checked into the hotel, even though it says truck parking in the guide, it really doesn't have any. I dropped my trailer in the local yard about fifteen minutes away from here as a precaution, and it turned out to be a good one. Even bobtail my truck takes up four spots in a parking lot. I also wanted to be able to get around if I wanted to, and that is a lot easier without a trailer. There is an Andersons just down the road, so I will be able to pick up some lunch stuff for tomorrow, and fresh food for in the truck, as well as some batteries for my mouse. They might even have a spare cord for my razor.

I prefer to bring what I can to save money on food while on the road, but there is not a whole lot of room in the truck I am driving when compared to some of the other ones out there. So I can't fit in everything that I did in the past, while driving for Werner. Otherwise I would have frozen meals that I could heat up in my lunch box oven. I would also be carrying a gallon jug of milk with me. Both of these things would save me a huge amount of money. If I keep going over the road I think I will find a way to squeeze it all in there, just to save the money.

Tonight I am staying in, but tomorrow I will be reconnecting with an old friend, at what looks to be a really good restaurant at an affordable price. I can't wait to see what the food is like since the menu already has me drooling.

Jeffersonville, Ohio: Flying J

I stopped here because I was hoping for a relay in Columbus to get me home this weekend, instead it looks like I will be spending it at another hotel. Rather than drive over towards the Pittsburgh area and spending the weekend there, I will grab a Red Roof some where near Columbus. Probably the one in Reynoldsburg, since it seems to have truck parking. I will make a reservation after I eat lunch.

Coming up through Kentucky was extremely pleasant this morning. The rain that I went through yesterday turned to snow along I-65. Fortunately it didn't leave any on the roads so it was just a nice white layer hiding all the ice storm damaged trees that still line the road. That early in the morning the traffic was extremely light and the early dawn twilight gave it a bit of a glow.

Two weekends away from home does not make me happy, and my next load will be to home. I have things that need to be done and am getting a bit too furry. I am really regretting not bringing the charging cord for my razor this time. Since I was only planning on a week out, I figured it would have a good enough charge.

At least I will be getting caught up on sleep, I have been running a bit sleep deprived since doing laundry in New Caney, Texas. Even though I stopped early that night and slept in a bit, I just have been dragging a bit on my get up and go.

Leighton, Tennessee: TA

I am about 718 miles away from my delivery in Indianola, Pennsylvania. Which means I will not be making it there before Saturday morning. Between a truck that only goes 65 MPH and Ohio's truck speed limit of 55 MPH, it would take some creative driving and logging to get it there tomorrow before they close.

Most of my drive today was in rain, and it is still sprinkling outside right now. The only interesting thing I saw was a convertible that tried to merge onto I-40 while not paying attention to a wide load that was in the lane they wanted. The wide load won, and the convertible had the left side of its top taken off. The funny thing is that they had to have come on in front of the load and then put on the brakes for this accident to happen. All of the damage was back to front. It was probably another case where if they had been paying attention and either accelerated faster or slowed to come on after the truck they would have been fine.

I wasn't really impressed with this TA's selection for dinner, but its breakfast menu looks half way decent. They seem to love the fried food here, so I had a Reuben. It is really difficult to mess up a Reuben, so it is usually a fairly safe choice when you can't decide. It will be an early start tomorrow so off for some sleep.

New Caney, Texas: Flying J

I am back where my day started. It took forever this afternoon for dispatch to get me a load, then it was hurry up and get there. I am half convinced that the load was available all day, and they finally found it after lunch. Then once they booked it they just handed it over to my over worked dispatcher, who then forgot about it for a while. I can understand how that could happen, mainly because I have been a dispatcher, and when the phone keeps ringing, it is easy for things to get forgotten or buried. It is a big problem though, since today was basically a waste as far as driving goes, it seems unlikely that I will be able to get rid of my current load before Monday. Which makes getting home more difficult, though not impossible. I will start applying pressure tomorrow morning with an email. I will be done with my ten hour break at 5:15 tomorrow morning, but since I am currently doing my laundry, it seems likely that I will be sleeping a bit past that.

Planning ahead for tomorrow, it looks like I will make it to somewhere between Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee, before I will have to stop. I will have to fuel somewhere along the way as well, since my tanks are definitely low, though I am unsure how low since my fuel gauge doesn't go below a half, ever. I figure I probably have between an eighth and three eighths of a tank left. It doesn't sound like much, but when you are starting out with around 226 gallons as full, it isn't that bad.

The place I picked up at today was a bit funny, the dock workers barely spoke English because they were all Hispanic, and the office people barely spoke English because they were all Asian. It make one wonder how anything gets done there. Other than that I did get loaded fairly quickly, and it was a lot easier dock to get into than this morning's fiasco. I also got to enjoy the evening rush hour getting out of Houston tonight. Dealing with traffic and the long wait, just made me not care about the possible extra two and a half hours I could have driven tonight. Of course then I would be down to my last set of clean clothes, (well I do have some spares, but no jeans). So stopping here is really the best option.

Houston, Texas: Loading

I finally got a load, and it wasn't far away from where I unloaded at. I do wonder what took so long to get it out to me though. It is a load of plastic garbage bags going to Indianola, Pennsylvania. Not very exciting, but it gets me back in the right direction. Running over to there is about twenty-three hours of driving, so the soonest I can get there at this point is Saturday. Which means one of several things, I will be able to unload this on Saturday, it won't deliver until Monday, or I will be able to split this somewhere. If it delivers on Monday, I am going to try to get home for the weekend. If it delivers on Saturday it seems likely that I will be stuck in another hotel until they figure a way to get me home. I am not going to go out for another week without going home for a while.

I am not even going to try and make it far tonight, at this point my goal is the Flying J I spent last night at. I know I can do laundry there and get a decent meal and shower. Then I will be able to drive Thursday and Friday. I found out yesterday that I forgot to pack my razor's recharging cord, and that died this morning. So I will definitely have a bit of fuzz on my face when ever I finally do get home.

Houston, Texas: Consignee

I managed to battle through the Houston rush hour traffic a bit faster than I thought I would, getting to my delivery at 9:45 this morning. Unfortunately that was the only easy part about this morning.

Once I got to the place I found out that the docks only were accessible from one direction, and it wasn't the direction I entered the place from. Getting turned around was fairly easy, but the next part was anything but. On the left is a picture of the dock I was supposed to get in to, and the ones below show how tight the place truly was for my truck. The very last picture was taken over an hour after arriving at this location. I talked them into letting me use the shipping dock which is a lot better placed for a truck my size. This is the first dock I have not been able to get myself backed into, ever. I still don't believe that it can be done with a 53' trailer and a sleeper cab.

New Caney, Texas: Flying J

Milage wise I am very well positioned to make my delivery tomorrow. Unfortunitly most of those miles are straight through the Houston area. I will be moving early enough to miss the worst of the morning rush hour, by like five minutes if I am lucky.

It is in the seventies here and really humid, so I won't be able to shut the truck off like I did last night. I know from experience that I don't sleep well in humid conditions. I was looking forward to sleeping with the windows cracked open again tonight though, so a bit disappointing. One thing I was not expecting, though I really should have, was the number of bugs that were going to be out and about. The front of the truck looks liked someone took a bug gun and just started blazing away at it. I think I will have to swap my windshield wipers out, since the winter blades see to be having real trouble with the bug guts.

If you were ever wondering how Neosorb (sorbitol) is transported to get to where they put the sweetener into things, well it is carried on trucks in blue steel drums. Since that is what this is a load of, pallets of blue steel drums.

My frames aer still being made, apparently I first got them four and a half years ago. Even the person I was talking to was amazed that they were still being made. Usually the life of a frame is only a few years on the production line. So a new frame has been ordered and they will give me a call when they come in. My contacts are from a slightly more recent prescription, but it looks like it is time to make an appointment with the eye doctor, just to get myself updated and perhaps order some new lenses for this new frame.