Gurdon,AR

Here it is folks, Day 1 of me driving solo. Last night I spent the night up in Anna,TX at the Love's. I got up this morning and headed out around 0530 to head to Justin,TX to grab and empty trailer. I was available at 0500, but didn't figure I would have a load until around 0800 so I left Anna at 0530 to make the hour drive to Justin so I could beat the traffic.

I made it over to Justin and as I figured, there were no empties. I sent in a message to my FM and after about 20 minutes, he tells me to head over to FedEx to pick one up there. It was right down the road so I was in posession of one empty trailer rather quickly. I still didn't have a load at this point, so I headed to the Pilot at x65 on I-35W to wait for a load assignment.

Midmorning I recieved a message asking if I could repower a load headed to Brownsville,TN. It was only 541 miles from the Pilot where I was so we made arrangements to have the driver bring the load to me there. He finally made it there around 1130-1145 and after fueling and doing my pre-trip, I was on the road around 1230.

I had noticed that morning at the Love's in Anna that I had a headlight out. After I left Ft Worth with my load, I stopped at the TA out in Rockwall,TX since they had a shop. There I was able to get a new bulb for my headlight. Being Mrs Independent, I headed out and changed the bulb myself and was on the road again. Although that stop did take about an hour.

I had a nice drive up until Texarkana where the weather started turning bad. I made it to x63 on I-30 in Arkansas and there I decided to call it a day. After all, it was 1730 by this point and my body was screaming for me to stop since it is used to stopping at 1500!

I have stopped at the South Fork Truck Stop here for the night. It was raining cats and dogs when I got here. Major bad. I decided that I was hungry enough for a bowl of their red beans and cornbread that I would brave the puddles so I could get inside. I must have been REALLY hungry, because my trip inside consisted of me walking through what I thought was a shallow stream of water, but turned out to be about a foot deep. I was soaked up to my knees. These two older truck drivers were standing outside deciding the best way around the water and about fell over laughing when I walked through and they realized exactly how deep it was. Hell, I was cracking up too. We all had a good laugh about it. :)

I did manage to have a nice supper inside and now I am in the truck getting ready to go to bed. I can leave at 0300 in the morning and I have until 0930 to get there. With 271 miles to go, I should make it just fine. I just hope I can get through Memphis rush hour traffic without too big of a delay. We shall see.....