Highland Park, Michigan: Unloading

I am at the beer distributor with my load of Molson, and am getting it unloaded now. After this I can head straight South for home. Then the first thing on my list of things to do will be to get my glasses fixed. Then plow through all my mail, or was it crawl into bed and sleep?

Driving in the early morning hours is always a play on colors and today was no different, except for the complete lack of clouds as far as I could see. Leaving the truck stop at five in the morning it was completely dark, but the glare of headlights drowned out what ever stars there were. As I drove East the sky was constantly getting a lighter shade of blue, but if you looked up you could almost see it shaded in layers, light at the horizon to midnight black in my mirrors.

For the longest time there was a stripe of orangish red going across the sky along the horizon, then a stripe of yellow, then the blue. I am not certain when it showed up, but that stripe lasted a long time, slowly getting wider as time went on. Like little white accent marks the contrails of planes in the distance were the things that were white in the sky.

This time there was no gradual emergence to the sun, instead as I crested a hill it was suddenly there. It seemed like it was resting on the road, perfectly centered between the trees that line the highway at the top of the next hill. It was a giant ball of orange fire just resting there, blinding me as I scrambled for my sun glasses.

The rest of the trip here was done squinting through my sun glasses, hoping for the moment the sun would finally be high enough in the sky for my visor to do some good. Now it is just warming the inside of the cab as I sit here, tapping away at my computer.

Gary, Indiana: TA

I finally have the load that I will be able to go home after. Running the quick beer run over to Rockford, Illinois, only took up about five hours of my day. Unfortunately making certain that I had a load after that one that got me home took an hour or two in the morning that I can't replace now. My fourteen hour clock was up at 7:15 PM, and I parked myself here at the TA at 7 PM. So pretty much all of my driving to deliver this load will be happening tomorrow. I have a decent sized window open for the delivery, so should have no problems getting unloaded. Then it will be time to head for home. I might stop and get the truck washed on the way, but I doubt it.

One More Day

I am going to do the load to Rockford, but only because they have another one to Highland Park, Michigan, then home after that.

Off to Gary to do a BEER RUN!!!!! or two..

Three Rivers, Michigan: Meijer

Unloading this morning was easy, even though I needed to back to two different docks to off load my three pick-ups. I got there a bit early, 6:30 AM, for my delivery and was the second truck there. This turned out to be a good thing since the driveway rapidly filled with trucks, the last one in line was stuck sitting on the street. Unloading went very quickly, and I was out of there by eight. I am now sitting in a Meijer parking lot with a couple of restaurants nearby if I feel the need to eat something other than what I have in the truck.

Last night they tried to get me to agree to do a load to Rockford, Illinois. A beer run like I did two weeks ago, unfortunately at this point if it isn't a load home I am not taking it. My dispatcher is understanding, but she has to push against the load planners and the people above her to get things moving. If they had let me get home for a bit this past weekend, I would be fine to keep running, but I still haven't gotten my glasses fixed, and I have a lot of other things piling up that need done.

Fremont, Indiana: Petro2

Once again I am positioned about an hour away from my delivery, this time in Three Rivers, Michigan. I could have gotten closer, but not had the facilities that are available here. For some reason I have gotten used to showering in the morning, and don't plan on giving that up unless I have to.

The delivery tomorrow should be fairly easy, the problem after that is what will get me back home tomorrow. There was a mention of a possible beer run tomorrow, which wouldn't be to bad if it went to Perrysburg to deliver. The fun part here is the fact that the dead head to get the beer run is about the same as if I went to Toledo. So either way I am driving about two hours to get where I am going.

My glasses are still broken, and I think they will be unfixable tomorrow to make getting home even more important. After all, if I lose a contact, there is no way I can drive anywhere with one eye. I think I would die laughing if that did happen, since they would have to get another driver out to where ever I am to get me and the truck home, and I would insist on home and not the closest yard.

Barberton, Ohio: Still Waiting

Through the word is that the payment should go through soon, so hopefully I will be able to get out of here and on to the next stop fairly soon. I did get to watch a decent movie on Netflix during this break, Black Ops. Interesting premise, so so execution, and of course they leave a possibility of a sequel.

Barberton, Ohio: Loading

They added a pick-up to my day and pushed back the delivery until tomorrow morning at 7 AM. They also do not have someone that can deliver this for me. So it looks like I will be taking this all the way to Three Rivers, Michigan. Then my prediction is that I will sit until I am almost out of hours on my fourteen tomorrow then they will let me go home. I am hoping that this will not be the case, but I wouldn't bet against it happening.

The load is ready to go here, but they are waiting for payment before being able to load it. I don't blame them, the automotive industry is teetering right now like a house of cards. If one place doesn't get money for their parts, then it all may fall. Of course the reverse is true, if all of the parts places demand payment up front they all may fall the other way as well.

Either way I am sitting here eating lunch while watching a movie on Netflix.