Okay, it is now
Thursday afternoon and I am sitting at the Gulfport, Mississippi
terminal waiting (I wish I could say patiently, but I am anxious for
them to get me out of here – I have a very nice load that runs up
to Farmington, Connecticut waiting on me at the plant in Delhi) for my truck
to be serviced. Knight Transportation is very particular about
taking care of their equipment – I am glad of this. They want you in a terminal at least every 7,500 miles, for greasing
and changing of some filters. If you are getting the job done
like you should be, you are going to be stopping in at a terminal
around every third week. It is not unusual for me to run around
three thousand miles each week, but when I have to stop in at a
terminal I never know how long it will take. They are usually very
efficient, but it seems that today they are extra busy. Oh well, it
gives me a chance to catch you up on my goings on. I slept at my
receiver Tuesday night and around five o'clock the next morning I
started hearing some noises outside my truck so I peeked out my
curtains to see the welcome sight of a gentleman pulling out of the
warehouse door with a forklift to unload me!
That is one of
the many benefits of sleeping at the receiver, occasionally you will
get lucky and get unloaded quicker than you expected. Since I was in
the Atlanta, Georgia area it was a welcome sight because the traffic
around there is terrible at just about anytime of day, but at this
time of the morning it gave me a chance to get out of there, avoid
the morning rush, and move on down the road to my final stop in
Northport, Alabama. Here we are getting unloaded under the cover of
darkness.
Once I got that
done I got a pre-planned load to pick up a load of logs down in the
Port of Mobile, Alabama. I bet you never thought I'd be hauling
logs. Being from East Texas we see a lot of log trucks on the road,
and to be honest, they are a little scary looking. Okay, I've got to
come clean here, I'm not talking about these kind of logs:
No, the logs
that I've got on my truck are aluminum logs – that's what they call
them... logs. I've got 46,000 pounds of them on here. I'm taking
these 7” round by 20' long "logs" to the plant in Delhi. This is
what goes in one end of the factory and comes out the other end as
the extruded shapes that I haul all across the country. They heat
these logs up until they are glowing cherry red and pliable, then they are
forced through a “die” and come out the other end as a usable
shape in various industrial uses.
I've been
entertaining myself with these unusually named towns in this area,
names like Chickasabogue, Pascagoula, Chubby, and a few others that I
can't remember right now. I've seen interesting names of places all
across the country. I stayed in Possum Trot Kentucky one night, and
I've driven through Hell's Gate (why would you name your town that –
who would want to move to that town?) I even passed by a town called
Toad Suck! Oh yes, and who could forget the town of "Boring" New Mexico? I'm not sure why I got distracted on this thing about the
town names like this, but I guess I'm just getting bored sitting here
on hold when I'd like to be moving down the road.
Towns I've ridden my bike to in Ecuador: SigSig (not very original, but made up for it with some terrifically awesome arches you pass under just before the town); El Pan (the bread... again, lacking in originality); La Paz (peace).
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