An Eventful Trip

I'm spending the night in Moriarty New Mexico tonight and I'm going to bed early because I will have to start my day around 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning to make my 10:00 a.m. delivery appointment in Phoenix Arizona tomorrow.  This 2,000 mile load allowed four days on it but I couldn't pick it up until the end of the first day which meant I had no hours left to work with after getting loaded, and then on the fourth day of the run they have me scheduled to unload at ten in the morning.  That makes this thing very tight.  I'm doing quite a bit of night driving just so that I can make it work out right.

It's a light weight load, only 4,500 pounds - it's a truck load of Styrofoam insulation panels - take a look.

The route took me right through Tulsa Oklahoma, so I called my good friend Jim Rogers and we had lunch together.  It was good to see him again - he seems to really enjoy having me "pop" in unexpectedly like I do.  He calls me about every three or four days and asks me where I am just to see if I might be anywhere near by.  He says it's like playing "Where's Waldo?"

I left out of Tulsa this morning at about three in the morning.  The full moon was beautiful as it shed it's borrowed light on the open road before me.  I saw a lot of deer out grazing beside the highway under that light also.  Once the sun came up I saw two wild turkey hens with about eighteen or twenty little baby chicks scurrying around with them in the grass along the side of the road in the Texas  Pan Handle on I-40.

I had a bit of a surprise yesterday when I got a phone call from my friend Daniel Babayev inquiring where I was at.  This is strictly an internet acquaintance of mine from a web-site that helps people understand how to get a truck driving career started off on the right foot.  TruckingTruth.com is where he and I are both moderators in a forum where folks ask questions about anything and everything related to the trucking industry, but mostly it is new people seeking information on how to get started in a new career.  One of the features on that web-site is a tracking page that helps you keep up with where other truck drivers are at.  Daniel had told me earlier in the year that one of his goals this year was to catch me on the road and meet me.  He is only 22 years old, and we have enjoyed teasing each other at times on-line.  He teases me about how old I am, and I him about just being a kid.  Well, it turns out that we were going to be passing each other on the highway as I was headed to Tulsa.  So we planned it out and stopped and had breakfast together at a truck stop.  We had to be quick because he was hauling his first "high value" load, and wasn't even supposed to be stopping anywhere.  His driver manager actually called and interrupted us telling him that he needed to get moving.  So we cut it short and went on our way, but it was fun to get to meet him.  He is an interesting young man.  His parents came here from Russia and settled in the Sacramento California area, but he was born in the U.S.  He also is a Christian.  He gave me a handful of nice teas to try on the road.  Apparently those Russians are big tea drinkers.  Here we are together at the truck stop.

One more event happened that I missed.  I found out today that another member of the forum was spending the night at the same truck stop I was at in Tulsa at the same time.  So, this was quite an eventful trip, I'm only sorry that I missed getting to meet "Mongo" at the truck stop.  I talked to him on the phone today and discovered that we had both been sleeping there at the same time.