Wednesday - late afternoon

Just got home land yes, I left at the normal time this morning. I wanted to get to the shop to get things fixed on the truck before heading over to the plant in Crossett. Turns out the lone mechanic we have left there doesn't know how to do much.  Grunt work, yes, diagnostics? NOT AT ALL. I have a ABS light on, the engine brake isn't working, the cruise control won't disconnect when hitting the brakes (it MUST do that, it stopped working as month ago), there is an air leak and the ac still has that lingering problem.  

He can fix NONE of those problems.  He wouldn't even try to fix the air leak, which was perplexing.  Why not? Because I can't fit under there.  ???  Whatever.  I've got all of those problems that have to go to a Peterbilt Rush truck center shop to fix now? That's untenable. HUGE waste of time.  

So I'm chatting with the office personnel while the "mechanic" does the only thing he is able to do, which is replace the quarter panel in front of the front row of drive axle tires.  It got destroyed by that tire blow out, he put a new one on and not with any great ease.  I dropped the crappy trailer and picked up another one.  I have no idea about this one excepting it does have an actual outlet on the rear of the trailer to offload.  The other one had center outlet with a pipe it can go into if you need to use it, not a good setup at all.  

Tomorrow should go easier than yesterday as far as offloading goes just for that fact and because I checked everything, it all looks good - but you never know.  

But yes, I'm tired already of the drive, drive, drive scenario. FAR more mileage on this Ennis runs than on my normal one and I wouldn't want to do this for any extended period of time.  It takes many more hours on each leg to get everything done.  And now I am sure that someone stole fuel out of the truck.  The exact same scenario today excepting the 99 miles from Lufkin - go up to the plant, load and come back.  The fuel needle is well above the 3/4's tank mark and would still be above it even with the extra miles from Lufkin.  

There was no shortage in the tanks this morning, thankfully but a thief that gets away with stealing hundreds of dollars worth of fuel once? Will probably try it again. I now have 2 sets of eyes watching out for the truck. People living there take some sort of ownership apparently, they are nosey and to some extent, I don't mind it. 

What I do know is that I have to get up at 4 am to leave by 4:30 am to get to the park and leave there in the loaded truck by 5 to get to Ennis by 8.  Whatever. The Interstate should be easier to navigate and I'll be done with the day earlier.  I don't want to get up that early, to throw that out there, but I don't make the schedule I just follow it. 

After that, yes, it's still slated for 3 full days off.  

Maybe if I have some energy left over I can do some mowing tomorrow. If not, hopefully Friday but there is rain possible, the forecast isn't that high that on the percentage scale.  

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Ugh.  Got distracted, it's now getting close to bedtime.  Definitely going to bed in time for enough sleep to be able to get up early. 4:00 am.  Not looking forward to it. Trucker's life.  

Nite.