Election Day

Hopefully everyone that I know at least gets out and votes. 
I did last week and am thankful because I'm in a hotel in Illinois today, there is no way I could have voted except mail in.  I am very glad that I was able to get in there - and it was so fast. Now I'm seeing reports of long lines everywhere.  That's a good sign, at least people are taking this seriously.  It's still amazing that half of America decides who is in power for the rest of America that doesn't vote. It's too early for any results to come in yet.

And, my time at this hotel is almost up.  I've enjoyed free wifi and a nice hot shower and a comfortable bed in a quiet room and watching as much of the election coverage as I can on Fox News.  But I'm 24 minutes from check out time and the people at the plant yesterday said they won't have that trailer unloaded until sometime this afternoon. They simply have too much product in their main tank, it turns out, it's not a plant shutdown as I earlier thought.  The chemical company that loads our trailers will not allow a customer to partially unload a trailer and sent it back like that.

The reason being is that the remaining product will heat up quickly and cause pressure problems - and - this plant doesn't have a scale so there is no way of knowing how much product was taken out.  Tho I believe if what I have heard is true that they would charge them for a full load regardless.  I guess they have allowed some trucks to go back partially loaded in the past, but that is far and few between.

Anyway, taking off the 10 hours they deduct every day for detention - which is a load of bs but I have no say in it - I am at 16 hours on the detention clock which is still a very nice sum of money.  And I suspect I have at least several more hours to go.  But, around noon I'm going to start getting antsy.  I want to get at least far enough today to be able to make it home tomorrow.  I have an appointment on Thursday to have a skin tag removed and I don't want to miss that appointment.  OTOH I'd like a minimum amount of detention hours, 20 to be precise, which would mean me not leaving that plant until 3:00 pm.

Whatever the case, I have a lot of data on my phone because I was off for 10 days and I hardly used any data at all during that time.  So I can pretty much watch Fox all day long streaming either on my phone or use my computer to have a bit bigger screen while waiting in the truck.  And I think I'll head to Starbucks after leaving here. Turns out there are several drinks they have that are Keto diet friendly and I have hadn't Starbucks in a long time.  It's a place I love to hate.  I love some of their drinks, I hate that they charge over 5 bucks for what amounts to glorified coffee.  I just don't go there as much anymore because of that.  There are other reasons but they really don't come into play as to whether I will patronize their establishments or not.

Well in fact I could sit IN starbucks and use free wifi, totally forgot about that.    I got so mesmerized by the election stuff I totally slacked on looking for land. Sort of a wishful thinking thing at the moment.  I'll have to put a significant down payment on any property - 20% at least - to be able to qualify for a loan.  Or find owner finance, but that doesn't seem very likely after already having had searched quite a lot.

Time to gather me things and get out of here.                                       

Day 22.
On the road.  I weigh myself a few times at the truck stops but it's after I've already had coffee and drinking water and eating, plus heavy clothing on cause it's cold up here, so not really an accurate reading.  Thankfully.  Drove all the way to the Love's in Hamel again yesterday, and that with problems with the quaalcomm. There's always some kind of problem when you switch to a different truck.  I was amazed I made it that far considering the time lost.

And the truck, gag.  Dirty inside.  I was afraid of that and hence brought a lot of cleaning supplies.  The steering wheel was sticky, filthy dirty and so was the rest of the truck.  I scrubbed most of it down and sprayed spray everywhere including that stuff you spray on fabrics - Febreze - to make it smell better. It took 3 times on the carpet in the sleeper before it finally started smelling nice in there.

I can't sleep with that in my nostrils much less do anything else.  It's a nasty atmosphere it creates and I really don't understand how people basically living in their trucks live like that.

I got up here - Mapleton, Illinois - hoping that I would get some detention this time. It's been several times up since I got any.  So I pulled into the plant truck parking lot, walked to the security shack, they called. She was on the phone much longer than the usual "okay, I'll let him come in". That was a good sign.  Security guards actually don't know anything about what's going on, they just relay messages.  Anyway, she said, ok go on in, they're going to have you park somewhere.

Yeehaw!  That means drop the trailer and leave, they can't take it today! And sure enough, the guy was out there waiting.  Yup park it over there.  But I had to call my manager first. With all this new stuff from this company take over, who knows what they might want to do. But no, she said go to the hotel. And hotel I am.  3rd floor too, I love the top floor.

Well I dunno what I'm going to do.  Maybe nothing.  I'm still hacking away with this cough.  I can't get rid of it, but then again, I've had coughs that lasted months in my history so nothing new there. But laying in bed and resting certainly couldn't hurt.  I woke up last night just hacking away, took an hour for cough medicine to stop it enough to get back to sleep. I'm really glad now that I think about it that I didn't have to head back today. A day of rest and get paid for it. They're still paying detention for this run anyway and apparently the hotel is in the contract.  If they make use leave in the tractor without the trailer, it's automatic hotel.  It's also automatic loss of 10 hours out of 24 for pay, but I'll take it. I'll get minimum 20 hours of detention.

I don't necessarily need to go home anyway. I"ve spent plenty of time there in recent days and I have enough diet food to last me. Even if not, WAlmart is across the street I can get some more food that will work for this diet if necessary.

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Well, I went to Walmart anyway. Got a nice tub of roast beef - zero carbs.  And some more heavy whipping cream for my coffee.  And now I'm nicely running around in my skivvies in my motel room. Well why not? There isn't anyone else here, no one is coming and I intend on resting.  There's a few good movies on and this place actually has HBO at least.  I'm sitting here making money, nothing better than that.  It's nice and quiet too. No loud neighbors, no one above me, just the hum of the fan.  It's rather cool here at 50 degrees, that's my version of cold really so I have the heat going a little. 

I've gotten much more used to be away from the dogs, tho Addler very much doesn't like it when I leave him at the other house.  But he gets over it quickly.  Rene sends me videos of the 2 zipping around the back yard and playing, his version of playing is like a galloping horse, lol. I'm thinking Rene should really get a dog of her own tho.  When I'm home, she misses my doggies a lot and I just think she should have one of her own.  I know she can't afford dog food, I already bring over a lot of it anyway, if she got a small one it wouldn't be much more on my dog food tab per month.