Tired and a bit frustrated

I am sorry for not reporting our happenings yesterday as Josh and I were very tired, and getting grumpy and we were so ready for bed that we weren't even thinking straight. So now our story begins.

As you know we had to leave out at midnight to be able to get to Chicago on time. I know Josh didn't sleep very well in the time we had but he got up on time and headed that way. I was up for awhile but have to admit that I went back to sleep shortly and got a few more hours of sleep in. We make it there in plenty of time, even a half an hour early to our relief. We get there and it was a difficult place to decide where we are supposed to be entering but Josh goes inside and says we are signed in and the first of the list to unload. That would be all fine and dandy but they put us on the wrong list and we notice all these other drivers going in the other entrance. Josh goes in and asks what is going on and lo and behold we are the wrong list and now we are third in line, but that isn't the worst news. The plant had a power outage from the storm the night before and they are running behind getting their own trucks loaded so that they could start unloading the incoming trucks. Josh quickly was using this time to talk with other truck drivers. He almost seemed relieved to have someone else to talk to besides me. Big men talking about their big trucks, it was cute. After sitting there for quite a bit and seeing all these other trucks trying to find a place to park as the their little lot was filling up quite quickly Josh and I did manage something like a nap. It is like having a baby and waiting for any little noise indicating that is our turn to unload. We waited for 6 hours. Josh decided that since we were so close to being off duty for 8 hours and that would reset his clock we waited another two hours. It didn't reset and Josh was frantic as now we only had an hour of drive time and we already had our next load assignment we needed to get to. He called up the company and found out that we had put him off duty and it should have been sleeper berth to be able to reset the clock so they were able to do that for us and we were on the road again.

The grimlins were at work again on the truck. The indicator light for the hazard lights was flashing like crazy and no matter what we did it wouldn't turn off but also the hazard lights themselves wouldn't work and wouldn't come on. We started up the truck and then the check engine light was on, perfect. The bunk air conditioning just works when it wants to and last night it wasn't wanting to, perfect. I know these are little things but it does seem to upset you when are needing a good night sleep.

After our clock reset we were off to Hammond, Indiana to pick up some steel coils. Once again our GPS went crazy. We at least got to the town and we had directions from the company on how to navigate through town and thankful for that. It was an extremely small compact area we had to snake our way around in and got to the dock and loaded right away. We leave there and I know Josh is tired and not thinking straight and we miss our ramp for the interstate. I have to navigate our way through many little towns to be able to get back on the interstate. It wasn't difficult to do except for the fact that there are stop lights at almost every block, and lot of the stop lights were not working due to the storm that passed through. We also saw a lot of tree damage along the way so they must have got hit hard. Josh was having trouble understanding which road I was wanting to take, as he is the human map, if he has been there before he remembers it quite well, but this was new territory he was trying to picture this all in his head as we are going down the road.

We did have a pretty good scare as we were driving through these towns. As you know there are these places that sell fireworks that just seem to pop up all over the place this time of year and these towns were no exception. As we were passing one we heard a very loud bang and we both jumped. My first thought is we blew a tire, Josh thought something had hit the trailer, thankfully it was neither as we realized they must of set off one of the fireworks as were going by. I can do without that kind of excitement.

We get to the nearest truck stop that has scales to weigh the load as we know we are close on max weight and Josh had adjusted the tandems before we left out and wouldn't you know it he was spot on again! It was the perfect weigh, it is just one of his many talents. We pass two weigh stations on the interstate and wouldn't you know that both of them were closed but Josh always wants to scale the load than risking a ticket at the weigh stations and I don't blame him. We made it to Decatur, IL last night and got to park in the McLeod terminal as we are having the truck looked at this morning to see if we can work out some of the grimlins out of the truck. We were both getting kind of snappy with each other and suddenly that truck seems even smaller when you aren't happy. I knew this day would come but I am learning not to say everything that I am thinking especially if it doesn't help or if it is about something that can't be changed. Josh decided that we needed to get out and have a real meal and we decided on Texas Roadhouse and was wondering if they allow trucks to park there (without the trailer of course). We then found out that McLeod has a company car on site and we could use that to go out to eat! How great was that! We more than ate our fill and came back to the yard around 9 p.m., got in the truck and went directly into the sleeper. It would of been better sleep if the a/c would have worked but hopefully we are going to get that fixed today and not have to worry about that for awhile.

This morning I decided to wash my hair in the wash basin that I brought and that was fun! (total sarcasm there) The water of course was cold and I manage to get water everywhere on the floor but I told Josh it is duel purpose, I get my hair clean and the floor mopped at the same time! Win Win! The smallest things that you want to do in a truck is such a struggle and I think it is wearing on me already. I am looking forward to time at home. I also had a headache last night and you have to realize that no matter what you are doing there is a constant stream of noise ALL THE TIME. I am currently in the drivers lounge while the truck is getting looked at and even though it isn't completely quiet I am enjoying the quiet office noises.

We have to be in Granite City by noon so here is hoping they have the truck done in time to make our stop. I took no pictures this time as things were hectic, maybe today I will get some to post.