After 25-1/2 hours, they finally came out to get me to bring the trailer into their facility, drop it at the rack and come back out to wait for them to unload it.  A 3 to 7 hour proposal, but I'm finally going to get out of here today.  My goal will be to make it to a truckstop just south of Neelyville, MO today and then finish the rest out tomorrow.  I've stopped at that truckstop several times on this particular trip in the past - just lack of available hours to get any further down the road.  Under normal circumstances, you start in St Louis in the morning, finish the drive out up here and then get the trailer unloaded and then start heading back. So you are already down 8 or more hours off the on-duty clock.

I won't have that problem today, but I doubt I"ll want to drive past 10:00 pm, which is when I expect to hit Neelyville.  That is, if I get out of here when I figure I will. I have to say I wouldn't have minded another day here, easy money.  I thought I would have such a chance earlier when I saw all kinds of service vehicles coming in, including a truck with a new heater blower - big ole' giant thing used in the chemical process - and then a crane to lift the old one down and the new one back up.  As it turns out, it only shut down half the plant, the other half still functioning so they were able to get their ethylene levels down enough to be able to take my truck full of it.  They're still busy installing that new one.

As it stood, I went to my favorite restaurant 12 miles away, ate the skirt steak they are famous for and now am stuffed lol.

Enough of this. The Republicans are done with the defense of Trump and now question and answer session going on starting tomorrow.  I'll be watching as much of that as possible. And after that whether they are going to allow additional witnesses, which I suspect will be a contentious engagement, but time will tell. As for today? They are venting off the vapors in my trailer and I will be leaving soon to hit the endless road. 

Well this is different.
Normally - always - when I come to this plant (Ilinois, 60 miles south of Chicago give or take) - I come to the plant, call them, they come out and get me and then wait, up to 7 hours, for them to offload the trailer.  This time? They have too much ethylene from the previous trucks that were here - 1 yesterday and 1 the day before that. They didn't tell me that tho, the man on the plant phone said he'd "let them know". An hour and a half later, I went back to the phone - it's outside the plant, you have to call them to get in - and then was told that information.

I'm closing in on 4 hours waiting outside this plant.  The man said "it'd be a while" lmao.  I know what that means, hours and hours...and hours.  And then, when they do finally get to the point they can take the product, it will be a minimum 3 more hours to unload it.  So, this 3 day trip highly likely going to turn into a 4 day trip, nothing I can do about it. But I'm getting paid to sit here and do nothing so I'm good with it, especially considering work has temporarily slowed down once again.

The funny part? Their rail cars showed up. They don't even need what's in the truck now.  I doubt they'll send me back, they're going to pay shipping costs regardless of whether they take it or not.  They started using rail cars to get rid of us and the higher costs of trucking it up here versus a rail car that can hold over 3 truckloads worth of product and lower shipping costs.  Plus we get paid to sit around waiting, that's even more expense. 

So, what to do? Listen to the impeachment trial of course. It's on right now and I'm listening to it on my bluetooth earphones. At least until I get bored of it, tho now it's Republicans turn, we haven't heard much from the Republicans in these proceedings, Schiff and Nadler have consumed most of the time. 

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7-1/2 hours now.  I'm ready for a hot meal.  If they don't come out and get me in the next hour or so, I"m going back to the phone and asking them what's up.  This plant is probably open 24 hours but that doesn't mean they unload trucks 24 hours a day. 

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Now 9 hours.  I've been dying for a cup of coffee all day long. I had one cup this morning, but I usually drink 2 or 3.  Plus it's cold out, just a good day to have a cuppa or two.  The plant won't let me in to do anything and now that I"ve been sitting here so long - on off duty status on the ELD - I'm only a couple of hours away from a full 10 hour reset.  Meaning I could drive all night long if I wanted to, which I don't, but just saying it would be a waste to throw that out the window to drive the 9 miles it would take to get to the nearest convenience store. Yes, 9 miles.  Lol.  I dunno why, but a lot of these chemical plants are built out in the middle of Nowhere, Egypt.  You'd think they would have a hard time finding people to live out in the middle of nowhere - but the pay is extraordinary. 

Meanwhile, Taylor sent me a video clip from the video camera.  I clicked on it - and watched a man walk by our house, drop his bag in front of the driveway and then just walk right up onto the porch.  We do not have a view of the porch - which will now be fixed with another camera - but the camera has audio and you could hear him trying to open the front door.  Just like that, just try to walk right into the house and presumably take whatever he could find.  My gold chains are well hidden - he'd have to do some serious searching.  But, there's video games and video consoles he could easily walk out with and other stuff that is worth money.