The loading plant yesterday had an unusually large number of trucks loading and I was already a late load as it stood. 2:30. I got there at 2:15 and waiting an hour and a half before they could even get to me. They were out of product and were making more. But it takes time. I didn't get out of the plant until 5:00 pm. Faced with the prospect of either driving all night long or - quitting after around 300 miles and just finish today.
But, the way this interim manager is working things, she is keeping me far busier than the previous manager, I figured she'd dump me with a load for this weekend. So I decided to battle the fatigue and drive all night long. I got to bed "last night" at 5:00 am. I can tell you, around midnight? I'm ready to go to sleep. I pushed through it, got it done and now sitting here waiting on a trailer to come up from Mexico. Actually, I still have over an hour before I can start driving again anyway, taking my 10 hour break. 6 hours of sleep is all I could manage, going to try and get an hour nap here in a few minutes.
Yes I'm in Brownsville and yes I decided to try hitting up the stores here again. The HEB store had a hundred people waiting in line to get into the store. The Walmart parking lot was almost completely full. I didn't bother wasting my time at either but I did, finally, find a 6 pack of paper towels! And James found chicken at one of the supermarkets yesterday - buy as much as you can. He got $80 worth. No ground beef was available. I'm half thinking to stop at one of these small town grocery stores on the way back up and see if I can score some meat at one of those.
All the restaurants are closed to dine in and many of them aren't even letting you in the door. In fact, some of them actually have barricades in front of the doors. It's drive thru only and truck drivers - can't go through drive thru windows. So I gave up on all of that, but - the Wingstop doesn't have a drive thru window so everyone has to go inside the store to order, fortunately for me, so I got a nice healthy order of cajun seasoned wings. I have plenty of food with me, I just wanted something hot. My food I have with me will last me through next trip - which will be on Sunday. It's Friday, I'm hoping to make it back home tonight, get the dogs and get a full day off from work at least. One can hope!
Actually, I have a package of liverwurst in my fridge - I'm looking forward to a nice sandwich made with that later on. That was like the only meat left in the Kroger's I was at the other day 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 I haven't had that stuff in a long time, just kind of forgot about it lol. I'm not starving and likely won't be, just a few extra added inconveniences on the road. I'm still perplexed by all of these drive thru's that basically telling truckers to screw off. Truckers have LONG memories of getting such treatment. Not that some of these places give a damn, but there are certain things that some municipalities do, for example, that piss off the trucking community to the point that they start calling for a ban of taking anything into those towns. You put up enough no parking restrictions in a town for truck drivers to take their breaks? It gets on social media and the next thing you know "I'm not taking anything to that (town, city, state). Lots of drivers won't even go into California. It is, by far, the worst state to drive a truck into and drivers just summarily reject loads going into that state.
Not ALL drivers of course, but there is a substantial number of them that refuse to go anywhere near that state.
And now word that our small town is shutting down as of tonight. That's the deal where restaurants and bars are closed down, save doing curbside food service. And probably the theater will be closed down as well. There are several colleges in town, but they've already implemented their own lock downs and severe restrictions on students traveling anywhere and trying to keep them engaging in "social distancing". We don't have any big sports venues in our town. It's mainly just going to affect the few bars that are in town and all of the restaurants. It was only a matter of time, I'm kind of surprised they waited this long.
Well, hopefully y'all are faring okay in all of this. I don't know of any place that isn't really being affected by all of this, the restrictions are starting to grow more and more severe. I think New York was contemplating a "shelter-in-place" decree, California just did that, tho I don't know the specifics. Been kinda busy today to do much reading of news and it's all the same s*** every day, the only real news is that drug that already exists that may be able to ward off this virus. Oh, that and some politicians that are raising eyebrows about selling off stocks at the "right" time before the stock market tanked, some straight up in-your-face questions being asked of them.
It's some strange times we're living in. I am still perplexed by the hoarding. I can see people buying up food - but the toilet paper thing is really strange. I thought it funny at first - just ridiculous really - but now that the hoarding has crossed over into food - all kinds of food from fresh meats to canned and dry goods - it's not really funny anymore.
But whatever. We aren't starving and besides bottled water shortage - I really need that for my truck, I keep a case of it in here at all times, not just this virus garbage - I'm doing ok. No signs of any sickness - yet - washing my hands whenever I can, using the Purell sparingly - I only have a tiny bottle of it. Keeping my distance from people. Given a warning when I come home that I was going to be sprayed down with lysol - lmao - I replied I'll just take a good long hot shower and clean up well. I understand them being a bit wary of a person living with them that travels all over the place and potentially exposed to this crap and having 2 little kids that don't need this stuff. I don't wonder if I should just stay away from the house temporarily - my boss is keeping me busy enough that I could basically live in the truck.
I dunno. Perhaps just isolate myself in my bedroom and keep the kids away from me, that's where all of this stuff gets spread around.
Anyway, taking a nap and hoping a trailer shows up soon.
