I walked out of my hotel room this morning to go up to front lobby and found something weird.  Zero traffic.  I thought about it for a sec, it's Monday morning, what is going on here?  Like the Twilight Zone, this area is very busy with traffic during the weekdays. Then it hit me:  Labor Day. Of course! I'll be working on yet another National Holiday! Woohoooooo!  I did the math earlier: with mileage pay, stop pay, detention pay and holiday pay it's almost $1,600, a little short of the $1,700 I claimed yesterday but still quite decent.

The plant is open 24 hours a day, 365 days per year - and the trucks taking full trailers down and empties back up also work every day, so it's a fore-gone conclusion I'll be driving back today, the question remains when?  There's a driver over a the yard right now that came in last night, I'm going to text him in a few and see if he's heard anything over there for an arrival time for a trailer to show up.  I'm really hoping this morning, that would get me back tonight.  Perhaps the amount of trucks waiting at the border slows down on holidays?  I have no clue.

The downed tree in the Phoenix back yard.  Destroyed the fence between yards - their fence at that point - and my 4 foot tall chain link fence that separates one side of the house to the other in my yard.  I had put that up years ago to keep the dogs out of that side of the house where the ponds were. Well there's still a pond there and the fish are way too big for it.  I told Mark he should put a listing out for trading fish.  Big fish for several little fish in exchange - or sell them and go buy some little fish and start over.  Poor fish, I mean some of them are pushing 14 inches long!  Anyway, I dunno what's going to happen about fixing the fencing.  The people behind us are extremely poor.

Their house has been falling apart for years now.  It needed a paint job 10 years ago. Now the paint is gone and the elements have slowly been eroding the wood on the side of the house.  I said something to this neighbor about that rotten tree years ago as well. That thing is going to come down sooner or later, you need to cut it down.  Yup, well I can only breath a sigh of relief that the house wasn't touched by that nonsense. 

The errant new tenant - he had only been there a month I found out - is moving out, a  much larger sigh of relief.  Mark said he was 90% out. I said fine, don't push him, let him get his stuff out of there without prodding and get the thing emptied out.  I won't have to waste a trip to Phoenix and the money involved in flying there, going to court  and getting him forcibly removed.  I'll take the loss in rent in exchange for the loss in rent, airfare, court costs, loss of days worked, etc. 

Well, I'll just hope they get the tree remains taken care of, if not I'll hire someone to go over there and cut it up and haul it out of there. 

And - rent. At the other house where I live.  I forgot to leave a check and Maria forgot to remind me until after I was on my way down to Brownsville. Oops~!  It's not officially late until tomorrow, I think, and then they can start charging a daily late fee.  But I'm hoping to be home either tonight or late tomorrow morning. 

Actually late tomorrow morning would work better - I could drop off the boat starter at the repair shop on the way home.  In fact, even if I do make it back tonight, I'm still going to stay at the yard so I can get that over with.  I doubt it will take them long to fix it if they'll do it. It's a starter/alternator place that sells new starters and fixes old ones. Hoping to get mine fixed. 

That starter and engine are really the things holding us back from having some boating adventures.  The other stuff isn't near as important as the engine running.  I think I should get a trolling motor not just for fishing but also in case the outboard motor ever quits.  At least have some sort of propulsion to get back to shore. 

Well, hotel time is over. 10:00 am.  They claimed they would have a trailer there by 11:00 am.  I am doubtful of that, but I can't stay here forever anyway and I'd like to be there if/when a trailer actually shows up.