An old man's career goes flat, Snackbar moves to open deck

This is pretty much what it's like in FL


https://youtube.com/shorts/MFCb-YBZq6I?si=0CLsYljyj7sFykWB

 

APU is purring like a kitten now. I had a 14:00 pin point pickup appointment. After the APU place got me done, I just headed straight there. I got there 11 ish and they were still assembling the unit I was picking up. I picked up some sort of industrial water chillers which uses flammable refrigerant. Both units are mounted on a big I-beam frame. It was almost exactly at the appointment time when they backed me in and loaded it...by then it was pouring, so got to secure it in the rain. It's another whopper of a load, a whole 6000 lbs (including the I-beam frame) I picked up in Newberry, SC, 8 miles away from the Love's there. I was planning on staying at that Love's and leaving out Wednesday morning, but they're remodeling the place and have all the showers closed. So, I took off and decided to stop at the Pilot(McD's side) in White Pine TN (a little off route). Only parking available was reserved, so I went across the interstate to the other Pilot (Wendy's). Surprisingly, there were many open spots. I found out why when I went in to use the restroom...they were remodeling too and shut down their regular restrooms and were using the shower rooms as restrooms, so no showers there either. Got up and thru Knoxville just fine, but had to dawdle around a little before heading into Nashville. Got caught in a rubberneck backup in Lebanon TN for a wreck on the eastbound side.

Portion of I-40 reopens in Lebanon, TN following deadly multi-vehicle crash

One lane eastbound was open when I came went by there. They were still picking up debris and freight from the wreck at 9 am. Managed to make it all the way to Boonville MO for the night. My plans are to get to N. Bend by Saturday and put in a restart before delivering on Monday.

 

I think I've done the best I could do today.




Went from Sidney, NE to Jerome, ID. Had 1 minute of drive time left on my day when I set the brakes. Would have had a little more time except there was an incident 3 miles before the exit. A double dump trailer carrying pig carcasses had to slam on his brakes for a construction slow down and left a good portion of his load on the back deck of his truck and all over the road...they had to get a piece of equipment from the construction site to push the pig bodies out of the road. Still lots of guts and grease left on the road, but they got the bodies mounted up on the shoulder. That's gonna stink really bad before long, it's supposed to be pretty warm up here for a while.

 

Makes me glad I don't work for the road maintenance department.

 

They need to hire you guys to build us an upstairs shower room in Wichita, kinda like the one Rancho has. That way they don't have to cut concrete to run drains

 

Finally made it to N. Bend yesterday. I decided to do my 34 in Jerome ID so I could hit a Love's on the way to N.Bend to get a shower before delivery. If I would have gotten to this TA on Saturday, then it would have been 2 days here without a regular cleansing (no way I am paying for a shower at this place). I stopped at the Ellensburg Love's to top off my tanks, which was a big mistake. That Love's was completely remodeled recently, including a whole new fuel island and new pumps. Now, they're doing something behind the Perkins restaurant next door and have the driveway you used to use to get to the fuel island shut down and you have to use the entrance by the shop and drive thru the parking area to get to the fuel pumps, and we all know that sometimes it takes some drivers a while to back in to a spot (including myself on certain days) so that backs up the line out to the roundabout. Got fuel, went to get DEF and their brand new DEF pump wouldn't let you put more than a dribble in before it tripped. After fighting 3 gallons in, I gave up. Then....I hit the backup from hell. Starting at the Indian John rest area, it was 0-10 mph until 3 - 4 miles past the scales. It took me just under 3 hours to go from Ellensburg to N. Bend. By the time I got to my parking spot I had 7 minutes to spare on my drive clock. And while talking to other customers in the Popeye's line, it was almost as bad for drivers coming down from north of Seattle to head east. Honestly, you couldn't pay me enough to have to deal with this area's traffic on a daily basis. It's getting to be almost as bad as LA or NYC.

 

My "HUGE" load