Friday Morning.
Weighed myself after 6 days of not having been on a scale.
I was only down 1 pound.  It was neither surprising or disappointing.
It's better to see it go down or even stay the same than having it go back up.
I ate some big meals out on the road this time. Not carb laden meals, but definitely
some calories involved with it. I suspect this next coming week will be worse for
calories and probably getting kicked out of ketosis. 

Today? I'm headed up to Barnsdall, Oklahoma.  I was unsure whether she was going to send me anywhere so close to departure date, but I'm really going to need this little trip on the paycheck after next.  It's a 2 day trip unfortunately. Last time I took this trip, I made it back within 20 miles of the yard.  Ohhhhh so close but yet so far!  I didn't mind tho. I just went to sleep, stayed in bed much longer than I needed to - but, you have to be off the clock for 10 hours.  But, on that trip, I was bobtailing up there, a mission to get a trailer that was needed for another trip going out.  So I gained time not being slowed down on the way up with a heavy, loaded trailer.  I'm hoping to make it back to Paris tonight.  I don't know if I will, but that's about an hour and 40 minutes out from the yard.  I'm just hoping to get home tomorrow with at least half a day left so I can get some stuff done.

I am leaving on Sunday.  I made that decision yesterday.  I don't want to have to get up so early and then travel all day and then be tired when I get there. I may be tired anyway, but not as much as if I were getting up at 2:30 am to get to Dallas in time to find a parking space to get a shuttle to get to the airport to get through security.  I've done it before, many times, it's just much easier I think to treat a vacation as just that: a time to take it easy, not a time to have to be rushed.  That's the plan, we'll see if it works out lol.  Apparently Southwest's $20 per direction "early" boarding isn't worth it after researching it.  It is likely that there will be people there that take priority for being whatever members and having had purchased higher priced tickets.  I'll just take whatever seat I get, lol, the first leg is to San Antonio. 

We won't be in the air very long before landing again. Not much to see in San Antonio, we won't be there long enough to do anything but shuffle from one gate to another. 

Oh, the reason I have so much time this morning? I woke up early, long before the alarm clock went off. I knew there was no returning to sleep so I didn't really try. Another side effect of this diet is you seem to need less sleep and still feel good the next day.  This will be a 14 hour day so I hope that holds fast all throughout the day. I mean, even if I feel tired this evening, I should be good to get at least the Indian Nation turnpike behind me.  Just a long stretch of highway, a terrible road actually, it's in horrible condition but it's the fastest way up there. Other ways will ad at least 2 hours to the trip.

Meanwhile, I watch with great interest this caravan. Some of which have already arrived in Tijuana.  Democrats spewing their nonsense all over TV were wrong, I believe intentionally wrong.  They said the caravan was made up, blah blah blah. Now they're at our border and apparently a bunch of them have been caught trying to illegally cross the border.  Is it an invasion as Trump said? Of sorts I suppose. It's not a military invasion, but no one in their right mind thought that was what Trump meant when he says that.  Where are all these people going to go if they get in here? Who is going to house and feed them? You already know the answers: American taxpayers.  These people aren't sponsored tho I guess some of them have family members already up here.  I would suspect they aren't here legally either.

Well that's it.  I have a pile of things to do when I get back.  I took it easy yesterday.  It's just the nature of having been out on the road for an extended period. 5 days is my version of an extended period.  Other truckers would say being out a month is extended, well and find for them, I don't live by someone else's clock or hometime happiness.  Some of them don't want to go home for a myriad of reasons.  I do want to go home, I need to go home lol.

Well it's that time, to get out of here. Take the dogs to the other house, get to the yard and get this ball rolling. 

So a trailer finally showed up yesterday at 3:50 pm.  My only goal was to make it north of Houston. I knew that driving through there at night virtually guarantees sailing right through it, there might be some traffic - all major cities have traffic 24 hours a day - but nothing that would slow me down. I also figured that the 610 West/North loop would be flowing good. It's the best hazmat route around downtown - IF it's not congested.  I wanted to stop at the Love's in Cleveland, to fuel and take the 30 minute break. But, nahh.

It was listed as full on the trucking app several times, it was late and I blew past it. I got up to a small truckstop 50 miles up the road, it was full, amazingly. I've never seen that place full.  I was going to spend the night there, yawning, tired, past midnight.  I did go to sleep but 20 minutes later a very noisy truck came rolling through ever so slowly, as if the driver wanted to wake every one up.  That 20 minute nap was all I needed.  I got up and drove the rest of the 130 miles out, arrived at the yard at 2:30 am and went to bed in the yard. I had no desire to do all the paperwork and everything else at that hour of the night.

It  was cold. 25 degrees. I got up at 9:45 am, a yard full of drivers. I struck up a conversation with one of them and the next thing you know there was a crowd.  I had things I wanted to do, but it was adult conversation and not to pay myself on the back, but I can keep a party going when I want to.

Anyway, I finally left there and headed home.  But I stopped to get something to eat first.  Interestingly, you can get food a restaurants for keto. It's not sold as such, you leave out the potatoes and anything with high carbs and you're fine.  I just felt like talking. The waitress there knows me well, I had to call her off my usual lol. But we started talking buying properties and houses.  Nice interaction. After that, to the other house to get my dogs. But, same thing, sat there and talked for over an hour.

I literally wouldn't have done any of that if I had known I was getting sent out tomorrow.  With all the trucks sitting in the yard, I figured I wouldn't actually go out again until after I get back from Phoenix. I'm not complaining, tho. It's an overnight trip and there's "almost" no likelihood it will tak me beyond Saturday. This is trucking, you never know what's going to happen. But it's up to Barnsdall Oklaohoma. You drive up there, switch trailers, and leave in 15 minutes.  You can make it back a good 3/4 of the way before running out of hours.  That puts me getting back to the yard sometime mid morning Saturday, which gives me the rest of Saturday to get home, get my stuff ready and figure out what I'm going to do for going to Dallas. Do I stay at a hotel the night before on Sunday and get free parking? Or leave early Monday morning?

I have no clue right now, lol. I'm in a funk right now. I have been gone 5 days and I just want to relax and do nothing. I suspect that's not going to last, as I'm trying to motivate myself.  Just that it's going on 4 pm already and I haven't even been home an hour.  I least want to make some dinner and get food for the short trip ready.

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I'm changing some of my thinking about flying.  No late night flights.  You don't recover from that for a couple of days.  Early flights - like what I'm doing - is fine but getting up too early to get there is not fine. It's the same effect, the day is ruined.  Sleepy, tired, cranky. What's the point. It's a vacation. I didn't have the option before, I do now.  Money was always the issue.  I am still cheap as far as airfare is concerned. Not just the cost of the ticket, either, the cost of all the "extra" fees. Who'd thunk that taking a bag with you was "extra"? Lmao.  Southwest airlines still has 2 free checked bags and their price for where I am going was far cheaper than anyone else's when taking those extra fees into consideration.

But see? I don't want to get up at 3 am to get to the airport.  So, I found a hotel/parking/shuttle deal and it will add to my trip, not take away from it.  I'll leave out of here sometime late Sunday afternoon, arrive at the hotel, check in, do whatever I want to, get up at Get up at 5:30 am, get there at 6, check in, get through security crap and be there much earlier than I want or need to be, but that's the breaks in airport security. You could get in within minutes, you could be pulled aside and given hell.

I've had both.  Some dude running his gloved hands down my crotch and ass area, feeling me out like we were going to have sex. Freaking nasty.  Whatever. You deal with it or you don't fly, that's the end of the story. I can't drive there, it's too far, takes too much time.  Apple maps has it listed at 16 hours and 48 minutes. Take at least 2 hours off that the way I drive and it's still a long, long drive.

I already drive for a living. I like flying, tho flying nowadays is nothing like the memories of flying in the 70's and 80's.  Planes were never fully packed like they are now.  And now, I'm reading about the fact that airlines are packing so many seats into these planes, that the seats don't match up with the windows.

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I've come to the conclusion that tho these people here may want to lose weight, they aren't that serious about it. It started out ok, we had a plan, but after a couple of weeks, I was handling this stuff doing the cooking and much of the buying.  I bought a bunch of stuff before I left, we had discussions about making it.  I'll eat what's leftover, if there isn't anything, I'll just make more. I had all the recipes printed out and laying there.

You have to be motivated to lose weight.  Someone else can't do all the work for you.  That's basically what I've been doing and I'm done with that as of today.  I'll make food for myself and they can eat whatever they're going to eat.

But I'm starting to get signs that it's possibly time to think about moving on.  I never thought this would be anything permanent, kept that on the shelf in my brain.  Relationships, all kinds of them, are complicated things. People change their minds about other people.  They think one thing one day, a year later they might think something different.  I have never thought that whatever happens here, that they might not see things differently.

The spark of the interaction is all but gone. I try to get it there, but their matching it isn't there, like it used to be.  Conversations are becoming void of any detail.  Not on my part.  Texting/messaging isn't what it was.  You just see the signs. Those are a few of  the things. I've been around awhile.  I'll see how this goes in the next coming months but if things continue to go the way they are, I will be moving on.  To where, I don't know.

I have crazy ideas. I don't want marriage. I don't want FWB.  I don't want any of that. I just like to live with people. It's been my life, it's nothing I'm going to somehow break myself of in my mid 50's. I could see a large property with cattle and a small farming operation.  Something with it's own water supply.  Something that is as off the grid as you can be and still be connected to society.  And having people there to run all of that.  Not a cult, not a thing to start conspiracy theories, not a thing to do strange things, just a thing to live a simple life.  To enjoy being in the company and presence of other people.

The internet can serve a purpose, but it appears to me that it's the end all. As if technology has replaced thinking, analyizing,  interpersonal - real life, in person - relationships.

I've spent a lot of time trying to define my goals.  Land? Rentals? What?  Land is the thing that appeals to me.  Rentals is the thing that brings in money. I dunno yet. My credit score jump 38 points and I am hoping after all these credit card companies report, it will launch into "good" range.  I'm almost there.

I get to these points in life and I spend too much time mulling on what to do next.  Usually, tho, I know what I can do. I just take too long to act on it.  Right now? Naw, I have no clue.  Keep saving money,  yes, but as far as living here or not? Moving or not? Where would I move to? I haven't got a clue why they are acting they way they are.