19 December 2012

Bowling Green and a Lovely Evening Off

I started the day in West Memphis, Arkansas... in an area which is basically like five huge truck stops all bundled together where I-40 and I-55 meet. You'd be hard-pressed not to find a place to park at one of them. I'd fueled up the night before so that I could leave first thing.

I was expecting rush hour traffic in Memphis... but there was hardly any at all. It was a brokered load of rubber tires and the bill of lading said that if it wasn't a drop and hook (which it wasn't) that I had to unload the tires to the rear of the trailer. Thankfully, that ended up not being true. I didn't have to help unload at all (nor were lumpers involved at any point). I was expecting to spend several hours unloading the tires by hand and to hit heavy traffic either in Memphis or Nashville, so I'd told dispatch that I wouldn't be ready for my next load until tomorrow morning. I sent my "empty and available" message, but they didn't have any other loads readily available and I didn't exactly mind having the evening off.

It was kind of nice to have an evening off and to find myself 20 minutes from Bowling Green, where I have friends. One of them drove down to the truck stop and kidnapped me for the evening. Dinner out was such a treat. And it was nice to see familiar faces.

I'm picking up a load about an hour away from here early tomorrow morning and heading down to North Carolina. I hope they can dispatch me right back north from there because I'm supposed to be home on Saturday. Here's hoping!

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