Knoxville,TN

Let me start off by saying once again, I AM SO HAPPY!! I felt like a life line has been cut away when we didn't have our aircard. I finally feel whole again. LOL!!

Ok, so yesterday we picked up a super top secret load up in Illinois. Of course we had to drive 400 miles to get there! We picked it up and headed out of there around 1800 last night and we had to deliver to an undisclosed location in the Knoxville,TN area at 0800 this morning. It was a short overnighter, but it made this payroll.

I am kind of bummed because I think we may have had our first service failure in over 2 years. We left out early and were purosely driving slow because we couldn't park at the receiver because it was gated. So our plan was to get there right on time. J stopped a few times to kill time but unfortunately, the receiver is on east coast time and we didn't realize it. So instead of being right on time, we were an hour late. I did notify our FM and apologized profusely for the mix-up, and did the same to the receiver once we got there. Thankfully the receiver didn't seem too worried about it. The truck that had a 0900 appointment got there early so they unloaded him in place of us and then when I got there we took his 0900 appointment. I can't say for sure if we got a service failure or not, because I imagine I would have received a call from my FM chewing me out or something. LOL Or at least a message about it on the Qualcomm, but I didn't get either. So I guess we will have to wait and see. We did notify them when we realized our mistake and that was when we switched drivers at 0300. At least we let them know so they could communicate with the receiver instead of us just showing up an hour late. Either way though, I feel really bad. We are always on time, unless there are circumstances beyond our control. So to be late just bums me out. At least I care enough to be bummed, right? :)

Once we got unloaded I headed over here to the Petro in Knoxville at x369 on I-40 so we could get a trailer wash. J woke up in the process, probably because I about popped the clutch pulling in. (It is on an uphill slope, my bad!) As with any guy, or any guy in my family I should say, the first thing he is thinking when he wakes up is food. So after I got the trailer washed out we headed into the restaurant to grab some lunch.

After filling our bellies, we headed back out to the truck to find that we had a load waiting on us. YES!! It definitely seems like things are starting to pick up. We are picking up at Mars in Cleveland,TN anytime today before 2100 hours and delivering to Victorville,CA. I like these loads to Aspen Distributing there in Victorville because they are always a drop and hook. That means we don't have to wait for them to unload it. We just drop our loaded trailer and hook up to and empty one and head out. Done deal.

Since J woke up, Or I woke him up, in the middle of his slee schedule, we are still parked at the Petro. I am going to let him sleep till around 1500 then we will go inside and grab a shower and then head out to pick up our load and be on our way. Oh, we do have to get fuel first and send in the last trip we dropped today by 1600. Must do that!

On the way down here today, I came own I-75. It was such a beautiful drive. Especially from Lexington,KY down into Knoxville,TN. Tons of mountains and beautiful green pine trees. Other varieties of trees that are all different shades of green. And some exquisite tree that had purple buds on it. Probably just some ordinary tree, but that color purple amid a sea of different shades of green was just mezmerizing. Also this part of the country has tons of rock bluffs. It again amazes me how trees can grow on a rock ledge or out the side of a rock bluff with what appears to be no more than a few inches of dirt. That is persistence my friends. Or maybe that is just God. But it was truly a beautiful drive.