Text message.

Don't worry about the trip number.

From the new manager. 

???

That was the text, lol. hadn't spoken with her since yesterday so I had no idea what she was referring to.  A while later another text: Take LE075 to Amarillo to have it repaired.  

Good Lord, I'm not even at the house, I thought, is this something that has to happen right now?

So I said I'm not at the house ATM, can it wait til later or even early morning?  

She said tomorrow would be better, just treat it as a regular load and leave when you would with that. 

In other words, we are slow and she is trying to keep people busy.  Oh, I would have left today.  But I was literally in the middle of smoking a ham and cleaning and getting stuff done. I can drop everything I'm doing - but the ham? Yeah I could have dumped the thing in the oven at 250 and it would have been good for them by the time they got home for work.  

I would have gone if it were an emergency or if she just said she needed it to go. 

So I figured to get up around 4 am, get over to the yard, fire up the truck and hook to the trailer and get on over to Amarillo tomorrow - 500 miles - and try to get back at least 100 miles this way.  For the life of me, I can't remember where I stopped the last time I did one of these runs.  Cramming my brain but it's not coming to me.  I'll have to look at a map. 

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That trip over.  Dallas this morning was a mess. Not much traffic, but even in light traffic, people just don't deal with driving in the rain very well. Case in point was the idiot driving at least 80mph if not 90,. He went over into the exit ramp lane to pass everyone, then attempted to zip over 4 lanes. I saw it coming before it happened and immediately started hitting the brakes - heavy.  He lost control of the vehicle the car spun around 2 times, how he didn't crash head on into the center divider, I have no idea.  How everyone else that this occurred directly in front of was able to stop before ramming into him - well I'll just assume that everyone was actually paying attention to the road.

But even braking early, I came awfully close to ramming one of the cars and subsequently pushing it into the idiot in the car that had stopped, facing the center divider. Yes, I call him an idiot because he was driving stupidly for the road conditions.  Whatever.  Driving further, 2 cars had collided.  Further - a car on fire in the center lane.  No apparent collision, not sure what happened there, but it was holding up traffic. Further down, a truck accident, then a pickup that slid off the road, down a steep embankment and got stuck.  I should have figured this would happen in the rain and just gone around Dallas, but I thought since traffic would be light because of the virus, there wouldn't be so many issues. 

I dunno, but I stayed away from people as much as possible on that trip. Amarillo is under heavy reporting of people contracting the virus, I didn't do anything there but drop the trailer and get out of there. I never came in contact with anyone there.  My stop last night at the truckstop the same.  Minimal human contact and staying away as far as possible.  Love's - the 2 stops there, well that's a roll of the dice.  The first one was virtually empty, just washed my hands really good and got out of there. Today's stop? Fuel, bathroom, wash hands in hot water and soap and get out of there. I can only do so much, but I'm doing whatever I can to keep from getting this virus. I'd hate to bring it home and get everyone sick. 

I figure this virus is going to change a lot of things about how we live our lives in this nation.

I dunno, but while I'm maintaining as many safeguards as possible, I"m not happy about the idea that the government has basically taken over everything without even having to declare martial law.  But I have no desire to go into all of that right now, I just got home, got a hot shower, washed thoroughly.  Dunno about any work.  This is Friday so runs get handed out for the weekend today.  Nothing yet, but it's still early. 

Anyway, enough for this one.