Time To Get Back To Work

Well, I had a wonderful time at home for Thanksgiving.  Stayed home for 5 or 6 days.  It is always hard for me to leave once I've been home a few days.  It is one of the greatest of the many difficulties that go with this job.  Just about the time I get to feeling nice and comfortable at home with my precious wife, then I have to up and leave her again.  It never gets easy.

We had such a sweet time together.  I enjoyed cooking a large pot of seafood gumbo for her and the girls.  Our daughter Sarah got engaged while I was home.  Her "beau" actually met me out on the road at one of my deliveries in Texas to ask my blessing before he proposed to her.  We are very happy for them both.  He came by the house and did the lions share of stirring the roux for me, so if that keeps up as a family tradition, he will be a fine son in law indeed!  We've grown to love Austin just as much as he loves our little girl, so we are glad to have them joined together.

I left out early Monday morning and headed to Delhi Louisiana where I picked up my load which has five different stops on it.  I managed to get the load secured and ready to go, and then made my way up into Marion Arkansas where I shut down for the night.  I drove all day the next day to get myself parked in the parking lot of my first stop in Chicago, IL.

Here is a picture of the guy unloading the fifteen bundles of aluminum that came off at this first stop.

This load is a little crazy in that I now have to backtrack down to Louisville, KY for my second stop, and then back north up into Indianapolis, IN for two more stops,  Then I will have one bundle remaining on my truck which I will drive all the way up to Wausau, Wisconsin.

Tonight I decided to stop at a truck stop rather than trying to sleep at the customers lot.  I'm at a Pilot just on the north side of Louisville.  I will get up and leave at about 5:30 in the morning hoping to be one of the first trucks to get unloaded there tomorrow morning.

This new job is really working out well.  It pays very well, and they seem to have all kinds of work to keep me busy.  My Driver manager often gives me my choice of several different loads that he has available.  That is something very few truck drivers have the privilege of doing.  Most of us are just told where we need to go and that we should have been there yesterday.  As of now I see this as a long term position with some very positive things about it that kind of help make up for the sacrifices one has to make when doing this kind of work.  Nothing can make up for the time that you miss with your family, but knowing that you are able to provide in a meaningful way for them, while absent, helps to mitigate the lost time together.