For whatever reasons, I didn't sleep well - at all - last night.  I was up more than half the night.  I did get to sleep when I went to bed and probably around an hour and a half after I woke up - but I was miserable.

But whatever, get up, take a shower, get out of there, get to the plant.  Lol.

This plant - of which I haven't been here in at least a year - had added extra entry precautions. Namely, taking me to a booth in the office, taking my temperature - they are doing that everywhere now - and then having me read and sign off on some sort of affidavit that I don't have COVID-19, haven't been around anyone that has and haven't exhibited a huge number of symptoms.  That was a bit reaching. Do you sneeze?

YES! IT"S ALLERGY SEASON.  My eyes are itchy, watery, red, I've been sneezing for days but who can't tell the difference between allergies and a virus when it hits you?

Anyway, I got in there, waited 30 minutes for anyone to show up, the dude that unloads the trucks finally showed up.  Can you get out of the truck to let me show you where to park? Yes, I said while thinking I've been in here enough times to know how this works.  But he had painted lines where he wants the trailer angled in at and where the tractor - almost jackniifed according to the arrows, should be at.  I just want the trailer lines, I don't care how someone else got the trailer in there at what angles the tractor was to the trailer when they finished.  Different drivers do things differently, the end result is all that counts.

And frankly, after hearing from the people at the West Virginia plant about how long it takes other drivers to get the trailer parked there, I don't want lines telling me where the tractor should end up.  I was totally cordial and nice to this guy, lol, my thought life differs from words coming out of my mouth, I really am not in to offending people for no particular reason.

So, I did my thing - the truck was not jacknifed when I got the trailer into position.  Actually, it was off about 8 inches, I was going to do a pullup and finish the job getting it perfect, but he waved me off.  I got out - do you want it between the lines? I was going to pull up and get it there...no, he replies, this should be just fine.  Okay! Can I run the truck while waiting? Uhh, no he said, so I complied. 

Yeah, I had looked up the temps.  It was already hot and not that late.  The heat index was showing it going up to 110 - in Pennsylvania! Dang!!  I shut the truck off and tried to go to sleep - telling ya, I was brain dead from lack of sleep.  Well, it started heating up in there quickly, I did manage to sleep a bit, but I woke back up, the heat was starting to affect me.  By the time the dude knocked on the door of my truck, I was starting to get miserable.  When I opened the door to the truck, the heat blasted me! 

He said - your truck doesn't have a generator - no, I replied - he's referring to an APU but close enough.  Okay well it's going to get really miserable out here, you can run the truck.  Thank you Jesus! And thank God! I fired it right up.  And thank you! Fired that thing right up and blasted both AC's  it was hot in there. 

I had no reason to think anything wasn't going right with the offloading, but a bit later I got out, went to the passenger side, opened the side box where I keep my bottled water and then notice the dude staring at the manual dump valve on the trailer.  I'm going to dump the trailer air, he looked up at me and said. Sure! The valve dumps the air from the air bags on the trailer only, letting the bags down and angling the trailer down for better flow of product. 

But it became clear there was more to this than just dumping the air bags.  He was genuinely confused about something.  Need some help?  Can you come take a look at this? I walked around back of the trailer - he had the emergency shutoffs in the right position but the emergency valves weren't opened.  You cannot offload the trailer with them closed, lol.  I can't explain what I had to do here without visuals, just too much to even try to write about - I spent 10 minutes before being able to get them to rise - their are airbags that inflate when pressurized and it took a minute to figure out what was going on.  It was rather surprising that he hadn't even begun unloading, I had no idea all of this was going on and he didn't say anything to me, until I just happened to be out of the truck grabbing some water bottles. 

Whatever the case, 5 hours later I left. It's some detention pay, no biggies. I got out of there and enjoyed the drive out of that area back up to the Interstate. Very scenic.

I drove 329 miles before stopping - I was still tired from lack of sleep. Drove into a rest area and crawled into the sleeper.  Set the alarm on my Iphone - if I go into a deep sleep it could be hours before I wake back up.  And sure enough, that alarm went off and it was if it was the middle of the night waking up out of a deep sleep. 

And it's about time to go to bed, thankfully. Was just too early to be sleeping.  Other things going on - Maria and not finding a house, yet.  Taylor on her way back to Missouri - she had a memorable experience at dad's wedding.  James is home, went to work today. I think the boys are still at grandma's in Arkansas, they won't be coming home until Taylor gets home. Issues at work that were brought up to me - that is a post for tomorrow or whenever I make the next post.

Oh!  I have  17.30 hours left on the 70 hour clock. I have 941 miles to go.  GPS is telling me 13 hours and 27 minutes. But it assumes speed limit speeds. I calculated my arrival time at the yard.  Lol.  With mandated breaks and stopping 2 times more for fuel, plus pre trip and post trip inspections all eating up time?  I'm either going to make it all the way back - or - I'm going to be within 30 or so miles, I'm guessing and have to stop for 34 hours lmao.