I saw them looking from across the truck stop, time after time. My first thought was a defensive, “What are you looking at, Buster?” Then I realized that they weren't looking at me at all, they were looking at the beautiful woman I had by my side. A woman in the truck stop is a rare thing and the drivers are lonely. I'd looked at other couples in just the same way before, envious of the lucky driver to have such a companion. This time I got to be that lucky man.
Of course some of the women one sees in truck stops are prostitutes, “lot lizards.” They're never as attractive or smartly dressed as Cate though, no one would mistake her for a whore.
We took another road trip out east, this time to Connecticut, for Thanksgiving. Shoshana had flown back from England to have Thanksgiving with Amir's family so we stopped in Cleveland on the way to see them. We had a full holiday meal with his mother. The timing was perfect since the kids were going to leave Thursday morning to drive to Buffalo to be with Amir's father. I was afraid we'd pack up after dinner and they would take us back to where we'd parked the truck, at a customer of Stonebelt's on the outskirts of Cleveland, but we played Cards Against Humanity till around midnight and we were all beginning to yawn. It was still too short of a visit but damned nice to see my daughter and her man.
I was restless that night, uncomfortable in the confines of the sleeper and I had to pee an inordinate amount, having to climb over Cate, slip my cloths and shoes on and stand behind the dumpster in the frosty stone yard time and again. Sometime before dawn I'd had enough and started my work day on the electronic log. It was a long trek all the way across Pennsylvania, through New Jersey and a bit of New York, past New Haven to Madison. Plus it was going to be one of the busiest travel days of the year, through some of the worst traffic in the nation. An early start was good.
It promised to be a full day but there was plenty of time. I'd calculated the trip and figured there would be a couple of hours to spare on my 11 hour driving time. On top of that we made good time. The load that we were carrying was light so there was no trouble climbing the mountains and could use the upgrades to pass heavier trucks that might have been governed just slightly slower than my truck, making the trip easier.
We ran into traffic in Jersey, of course, but that was to be expected. We were tempted to cross the George Washington Bridge in order to admire the Manhattan skyline but quickly chucked that option for the Tappan Zee Bridge. Traffic would be bad enough on 287 the afternoon before Thanksgiving as it was. Almost to 95 there was an overturned truck on the westbound side, traffic backed up and at a standstill. We were thankful that we weren't going that way.
All in all we were making great time, until we crossed the CT line. Almost immediately traffic slowed to a crawl and the overhead sign read, “Expect delays next 29 miles.” We crawled along. I thought, “Hmm, at 5 mph it will take us an hour to go 5 miles.” Of course it wasn't that slow all the way, traffic opened up occasionally. I wonder if I ever even got to ninth gear though, I'm sure I never got all the way to tenth. There was one time one of the signs said, "Bridgeport (or somewhere) 6 miles, 45 minuets."
I was seriously beginning to wonder if we were going to make it all the way to Madison legally. I was questioning whether I'd go on if my hours ran out. I was in good shape, despite my lack of sleep, but still, if anything were to happen due to some idiot, and there were plenty of those in evidence on the road that afternoon, it would automatically be my fault since I wasn't supposed to have been in that place at that time. And the logs were electronic, there was no possibility of fudging them like in the old days. Fortunately there were a couple of truck stops on the way. If we stopped we'd either have to finish the trip in the morning or have the Schneiters come get us. As it turned out I pulled into the service plaza that sits directly behind their house, where we were going to park for the weekend, with 11 minutes to spare.
