B. J. and the Beep

There's a man on four-foot stilts poking around in the ceiling.

I have no idea what the problem is, but it feels as if half the truck stop is under construction. The fellow on the stilts is just the obvious part. More background noise than I'd hoped for, but what the heck.

B. J. is in Mississippi at the moment. At least that's where he called me from. He'd just read an email his employers had sent him.

“About the idling thing?*” I asked.

“Yeah. They finally made up their minds which gadget to roll out. Took 'em long enough.”

“Well, they had several ways to go.”

“That's what the email was about. They went through all the choices, good and bad points, why they liked the one they picked.”

This sounded interesting. Truckbert Logistics* likes to brag about their technology. Their trucks are pretty close to the state of the art. I'd been wondering what they were going to do about idling.

“So what'd they pick? That fuel-cell system?”

“Naw. They said it didn't have a track record. They wanted something reliable.”

“Oh. Well, I guess that makes sense. But you said they didn't like the APU's with motors. That nobody could use them in California, and they were afraid soon you couldn't use them anywhere.”

“That's right. The ruled out the motors pretty early.”

“Hm. That leaves the battery-powered APU's.”

“Nope. They only last ten-twelve hours. Not enough for a restart** without firing up the truck every once in a while. Which kind of misses the point, the company thinks.”

“Uhhh...”

“No APU's. Said they weren't cost-effective. Too many of our trucks are team or slip-seat. They wouldn't use the units enough to make it worth the money.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “I'm a slip-seat driver. My schedule can't be too different from your slip-seaters. And I can assure you, I spend as much time parked as the next guy.”

“Not as many restarts, though. And yeah, I know that don't add up to that many extra hours. I'm just quotin' em.”

Another thought popped up. “Uh, B. J., how many of your trucks are team operations?”

“Less than half, that's for sure. And a lot of the rest of us use their trucks when they've put enough miles on 'em.”

“Then--”

“Don't ask me. That's what they say.”

I sighed. “All right. So what are they rolling out? Bunk heaters?”

“Nope. They only help in the winter. Too much money, not enough benefit.”

“Electric blankets? Fans? Window screens?”

“Too easy to steal. You know what a bunch of thieves we are.”

“Then what are they doing?”

“Adding a new program to the satcom. You idle the truck long enough, it beeps at you. You don't shut down, they start docking your pay.”

I closed my eyes and took a breath. “Ingenious,” I said.

“Let's hear it for technology,” he agreed.

- - - - -
*Truckbert Logistics is a fictional entity. It is in no way meant to resemble any real corporation—especially the one B. J. works for.

**I mentioned the concept of a restart here. It's in the footnotes there, too.

A day full of little things

From a seat eight feet in the air, butterflies are no longer quite so anonymous.

In a car, you hardly see them. They're just flickers as they come up to the windshield, get caught in the bow wave of compressed air you're pushing in front of you, and go flying helplessly over the top of the car.

Or not.

From my seat, I can see them thirty or forty yards ahead, working their way across the highway. Getting tossed around by the wakes of passing cars like a feather in a dust devil, then recovering and flapping laboriously on. If you're not careful you'll find yourself cheering them on.

Don't. Enough of them lose to get you down if you let it.

The things that pass through your mind when you've got this much time for it...

* * *

Pulled into a rest stop in West Virginia, took care of the immediate problem, and came back out to the truck. Parked just past it were a pickup truck, a car, and three vans. Judging by the logos on the vans, they were presumably a church group on an outing.

All three vans were enthusiastically window-painted (with that colorful stuff they sell for the job now that white shoe polish is out of style). The one in the center had a logo just odd enough to catch my eye.

HONK IF YOU LOVE JESUS
HAKUNA MATATA

Hmm.

A closer look showed me another window with a title: “SIMBA VAN”.

Ah.

And the one in front was the “RUDOLPH VAN,” with snowflakes all over and a red pointy furry cap painted on the back window.

In back was the “STITCH VAN.”

I wonder what the age group was...

* * *

The Maryland Welcome Center on I-68 Eastbound is closed at the moment, but the rest of the rest area is still usable.

It's on the side of a small mountain (or a big hill, depending on how you look at it). There are three parking lots terraced upward from the Interstate: one for cars; one for cars pulling trailers, RV's, etc.; and one for tractor-trailers. Long steep stairways link each one to the one above it. The restrooms, vending areas, Welcome Center (when it's open), etc. are at the top.

Guess where the lot for semi's is.

Oh, well. I needed the exercise. And the refreshment prices in Maryland rest areas are noticeably better than they are in West Virginia.

Oh, and the view! The valley spread out in front of you, forest and field and a fair-sized lake. There's even a fair-sized shade tree to stand under while you admire it. I cheerfully took advantage of that. (Actually there were two, but the other had a picnic table under it. Which was occupied. No need to be rude...)

Walking back down, I noticed they'd put a couple of portapotties down on the truckers' level, for those of us who weren't up to the climb. Thoughtful of them. I didn't notice them until I got back, of course.

Just as well. It was nice.

* * *

Had my first blowout today.

Just driving down the road, minding my own business, and something went “boom!” behind me. I looked back hurriedly and saw a huge strip of tire tread bouncing out from under the trailer. Many flapping noises, but the trailer didn't swerve or try to pull me around, so I drifted over to the shoulder and slowed down as fast as I could.

The shoulder was about as wide as the rig. If I stopped, I (and whoever they sent to fix the flat) would have about six inches on either side of the trailer. Since what would be six inches away on one side would be 65-mph traffic, I found I wasn't thrilled with that position. So, emergency lights flashing, I crept up the shoulder at about 15 mph, looking for a wide spot to park.

I found it about a mile up the road, just before the next exit. The margin for moving around was a good two feet here. Maybe more. So I got on the satcom and told the company where I was and what had happened. Then I sat for two hours waiting for a repair truck. And the tech spent another hour or so replacing the tire.

Not very exciting. Only one tire had blown, and the other one in that pair had held the weight until I found a good stopping place. It had happened within ten miles of a repair shop my company deals with already, so no fuss there. And there were minimal complications (when that much rubber goes flying off that fast, ugly things can sometimes happen).

No complaints. In a situation like that, boring is good.

* * *

Somebody in the next room is trying to sell a python. Sounds like a good stopping place.

G'nite.

I, Trucker

I have a laptop again. Some of you may be pleased to know* that I'll be updating this blog a little more regularly now. At least until somebody steals THIS computer...

Meanwhile, I'm sitting in a rest area in the hills of East Tennessee. Not observing the weather. It's too dark. They didn't have a truck or a load ready for me until fairly late. So I ran until nightfall and parked in the first place I found.

Since that's not too exciting, I think I'll talk about what I did yesterday, during my home time. Don't worry, it's actually relevant. Honest.

As you may recall, when we last saw our hero he was engaged in moving out of his house, following the death of his wife. This process was interrupted several times by silly mundane considerations like trying to earn a living, so it didn't get completely finished until yesterday.

The last trip involved moving a few pretty heavy items. Heavy enough that wheels and a ramp seemed to be called for. So I went to the U-Haul(tm) place and got the smallest truck they had with a ramp. Then my new landlady and another friend helped me load the last few odds and ends of my previous life into the truck. My friend took the car, my landlady joined me in the truck, and we started the trek to the Place of Storage.

On the way, a car cut sharply in front of us. Missed the bumper by a good two feet. My landlady flinched.

Then another one swung in in front of us and hit the brakes. My landlady jumped, then muttered something—I think about his probable ancestry.**

After the fourth or fifth time, she just glared.

And it occurred to me. As it had earlier that day in the car, when someone had come across three lanes of traffic to settle in front of my radiator, then decided this wasn't really his exit and swung back left, then changed his mind again and swooped past me toward the off-ramp. The other friend was with me that time, and made a fairly mild remark about the driver's attention span.

And I'd nodded politely, with no particular emotion.

It's become that routine. I've come to EXPECT people to act as if the huge speeding hunks of metal that surround them were incapable of hurting them. To assume that my lightning reflexes, placed continuously at their service, will preserve them from anything that might come of their latest whim.

I read a book once that was set in Isaac Asimov's “I, Robot” universe. That imaginary future is full of robots, each programmed with three Laws of Robotics. The first of those Laws is

A robot may not harm a human, or, by inaction, allow a human to come to harm.

On a world where these machines have been serving mankind for centuries, we have a scene in which our hero stands on a sidewalk and watches people casually crossing the street—often directly in front of delivery vans, heavy freight trucks, etc. After all, all the vehicles are driven by robots, right? And a robot cannot allow a human to come to harm, right? He'll get out of my way...

Apparently there are a lot of people out there who treat all their fellow drivers exactly like that. And especially the ones driving the really big, dangerous things.

This evening, in heavy rush-hour traffic, I saw the yellow stripe on the green exit sign ahead. The lane I was in was about to become exit-only. I slowed slightly, letting the tractor-trailer beside of me pull ahead, and hit my left-turn blinker.

About ten seconds later, as I carefully began my move to the next lane, the car behind me accelerated. About four feet before he would have impaled himself on the corner of my trailer he slowed back down.

And then he threw up his hands in disgust*** and started (I presume) telling his wife what an ^$$#@!% I am. Didn't I know I was supposed to let him by?

A trucker may not harm a real human, or, by inaction, allow a real human to come to harm.
- - - - -
*If you're not pleased, please don't tell me...
**Fairly mild, I believe, and more concerned with intelligence than reproductive habits...
***Both of them. The car was driving itself for about two seconds.

Eat fresh

Had to drive all night last night, but I got enough sleep during the day yesterday to survive it. And the scenery was nice, while I could see it—they had a long detour in place on the Interstate I was supposed to take for the first part of the trip.

I've done worse.

This morning I actually managed to sleep with the engine off. Didn't have to start conditioning the air until after lunch.

Lunch was interesting all by itself. Subway(tm) has a presence in a lot of truck stops, and most of the time they're pretty much what you expect from a Subway(tm). Today, though, I saw something a bit different.

The food was pretty much standard.

But the service...

The lady in front of me ordered a foot-long sub, went through the whole down-the-line condiments thing, got to the register—and then found out that not all foot-longs are $5, except during special promos.* She started to raise a stink--

--and the manager cut her off, by simply picking up the sandwich, dumping it in the trash, and inviting her to start over. No muss, no fuss, no arguments.

I got to the head of the line, and found they'd put spicy mustard on my sub instead of adding bell peppers. I didn't get to finish the sentence—he'd already gently lifted off the cheese, mustard and all, and sent it to join the lady's sandwich. Five seconds later my sandwich was the way I wanted it.

(Now I'm irritated. I'm typing this from my notes a week later, and I'm not sure where this truck stop was. Oh, well. If I figure it out, I'll update this soon. That kind of service is worth talking about.)

I learned a bit more about Subway(tm) than I wanted to, though. The lady's second choice was a cold-cut sub. Hold the bologna. Except apparently Subway(tm) makes a special meat for their cold-cut sub. It has all three cold cuts integrated into it.

Bologna, salami, and (what's the other one?)? All blended together in one slice of, um, something?

The lady declined. I meditated on how good it was not to like cold cuts...

- - - - -
*She said they always are in Myrtle Beach, where she lives. Interesting if true.

Rain capes and wrong doors

I woke up this afternoon, just in time for the thunderstorm.

Had to drive all night last night. But I had enough warning to take precautions. Didn't fall asleep once. Saved that for this morning.

This time of year, in daylight, I've gradually lost some of my shame when it comes to idling while I sleep. Good thing, too. As it is, I woke up just as the sky went dark and the air got cool enough to let me shut off the engine. Minutes later the bottom fell out of the sky.

And then nature called.

And nature, of course, could only be answered in that building across the parking lot.

Before I started this trip, I went by a local army surplus store. My army poncho was starting to feel damp on the inside, and I thought I'd get another one if the price was right. Instead I found one of those “manager's special” shelves where they put the oddball stuff they run across somewhere for almost nothing and then sell for “real cheap.” In this case, they had Swiss Army surplus “ponchos.”

Only these were Europeans. Which meant the “poncho” was actually a cloak.

I like cloaks. One of my favorite cold-weather items is another surplus-special—a Yugoslavian Army ski-trooper's cloak, solid wool and heavy enough to make you think you're wearing armor. My biggest problem with it is that Atlanta's seldom cold enough to justify wearing it.

This rain cape would be useful a lot more of the time. And it was five bucks. I got one. And now it was time to test it.

It passed. It was waterproof,* it didn't get in the way much, and you could toss it back with a nice dramatic flourish when you stepped in the door. Swiss camo looks just different enough that you can claim it's a fashion statement. And getting back in the truck is actually easier.

I don't like raincoats, as a rule. They're too much trouble to put on and take off in a tight space. Ponchos are better for that, I've found; but they are still kind of clumsy climbing in. But a cloak is open in the front, not the sides. That same flourish that looks dramatic coming into the room can clear the front of the cloak and let you grab the handles to climb—while your back is still dry. And when you get up to the seat, you flip one snap and finish taking it off in one motion. You still have to find a place to let it drip, but nothing's perfect.

I think I'll have to get a couple more of these, while they're still in the bargain bin.

* * *

Went back to sleep for a while. Then nature called again. Not quite so loud this time, but then it wasn't raining. So I slowly crossed the parking lot, turned to the right, and went through a familiar-looking door. For some reason I no longer recall, I decided to wash my hands first.

Good call.

Just as I was pulling out the paper towels, a lady walked into the room. My first reaction was “Doesn't the cleaning crew knock?” Then I noticed she was as confused as I was. Just as she started to ask me a question, I looked around and noticed something missing.

In just about any large men's bathroom, there are, ah, certain items of furniture lining one or more walls.

Not this time.

I left with as much dignity as haste allowed.

- - - - -
*Don't say “of course.” I've had one poncho where the plastic simply didn't get applied to a strip about two inches wide, the whole length of the garment Ripstop nylon is not waterproof by itself. My left shoulder was not appreciative...

Keeping cool

I'm sitting in the truck stop, sipping a “Thirst Freeze” and feeling virtuous.

It's ninety-plus outside, and has been for most of the day. I've been idling the truck more than I feel comfortable doing.* Even at night it's been too hot to sleep out there without it. But still I don't like it.

Today I asked one of the nice ladies at the convenience store if there was a mall or something I could flee to in a tractor-trailer. She said yes, there was one fairly close, and gave me detailed directions. To the back side, where the parking lots were usually pretty empty. “I've never heard of a trucker being run out of there,” she said.

Comforting.

I followed her directions, and found them good. This is always a pleasant surprise. Doing what she said dumped me into a large empty lot near one of the anchor stores. Empty enough that I didn't have to worry as I maneuvered this huge clumsy thing into a row of ten or twelve empty parking spaces and shut it down.

As I locked up and started for the mall proper, a security guard happened by. On a scooter. Three-wheeler, with a platform for the driver to stand on as she drove it. Apparently the Segway has generated some competition. This thing was bigger and a bit clumsier, but for patrolling parking lots it would be just as good. And, I suspect, a lot cheaper.**

I stopped her and asked if it would be ok to park here. No sense taking chances.

She said no problem, as long as it wasn't for an extended period.

“What's an 'extended period'?” I asked.

“Oh, well—overnight, for instance.”

I assured her I'd be out before dark and went on my merry way. Much reassured.

I wandered the mall. I skimmed the satellite centers. I found a bookstore!

Heaven.

And I did remember to get out of there before sundown. And got back to the truck stop before it filled up. Had a wonderful time, and used less fuel than I would have sitting in an idling truck all day.

And now I'm hiding from the heat a little longer, in the truck stop. Soon I will go to bed. And maybe by midnight or one I'll be able to sleep without running the truck any more.

Frozen cherry limeade, anyone?

- - - - -
*Emotionally, that is. I'd be a puddle in the cab if I hadn't been idling, but it bothers me.
**They had a guard on a real Segway inside, so things aren't as grim for the fad as I make it sound...

Personal hygiene tip 244

Goop(tm) is not the world's best shampoo.

For those of you who didn't grow up around a mechanic, Goop(tm) is a heavy-duty waterless hand cleaner used to take grease, motor oil, etc., off skin that's been too close to heavy machinery. It does its work well. It's said to work well as a spot-treatment for your clothes, too. And if your spot is a grease spot, I'd be surprised if it didn't.

As a shampoo and body wash, though...

For one thing, there are no suds. This actually matters, because I use the suds as a “finished” indicator.

• Lather, rinse, repeat.
• When the lather comes up big time, stop repeating.

Goop(tm) could cause infinite loops.

And it's not really made to deal with ordinary dirt and grime, though it does handle them fairly well. My hair is pretty oily, but still—this isn't what it's for.

And it doesn't rinse off as quickly and tracelessly as soap. At least, I didn't think so.

What can I say? It was all I had this morning.

I've talked about cleanliness on the road before. Not much has changed. But one thing I didn't mention earlier: Truck-stop showers cost, on the average, about $10—or a 50- to 75-gallon fill-up. Kind of steep, but they include all the amenities. Sort of. As in, the truck stop supplies the soap and towels.

This morning, I was at one of our terminals. They supply a shower. Period.

I knew that, and I'd brought along a towel. It wasn't until I'd stripped and turned on the water that I noticed that the soap box in my toiletries kit was empty. I haven't needed my own soap in months. If I hadn't packed the Goop(tm) in the toiletries bag—just so I'd know where it was—I'd still be grumpy and itchy.

As it is, I'm just grumpy.

This, that, and the other

This
The vagaries of manufacturing. Last night I showed up at a plant to pick up a load. They'd gotten about half of it done and were revamping the production line to make the rest. (Just-in-time manufacturing is a wonderful thing on both ends...) The changeover was a fairly quick procedure. I should have my load in another hour or so.

A half-hour later, the forklift driver came out to ask how much my truck could legally haul. Seems he'd looked at the load list he had and added up the weights. It came to about 50,000 pounds. That sounded a bit off to him.

Uh, yeah. I've never hauled more than about 46,000. And I was at the ragged edge of legality then. 43,000-45,000 is as much as you can reliably load. Anything much over that is a crap shoot.

I told him that and he said “Thought so.” Then he went back inside.

Five or six hours later, he came back out. The production line changeover hadn't gone as smoothly as they expected. It had taken them this long to admit it wasn't gonna happen tonight. So they guessed I could just take what I already had.

By then I was so far past my legal driving limit it wasn't funny. Slowly and carefully I crawled out the gate and parked on a piece of shoulder they leave open for just such unfortunates.* And then I went to sleep.

That
Woke up this morning and wended my way back toward the Interstate. A half mile down the road I topped the hill and saw a beautiful white cloud below me.

The fog bank looked like cotton candy, or that stuff they use nowadays to stuff pillows and soft toys. Somehow insubstantial and solid at the same time. I would have loved to sit on the hilltop and look at it. Driving down into it was another matter.

But duty calls. So I continued over the hilltop, descended into the grayness—and out of it in seconds. It was much “shallower” than I'd expected. Like driving through the ghost of a huge loaf of French bread.

Through it and out, and down the road I went.

The other
Barreling into the city** this afternoon I suddenly realized a pigeon had merged with the traffic.

Don't ask me why, but that bird had settled into the stream of cars, about two cars up from me. It changed lanes two or three times before it had an attack of good sense and went for altitude.

The stuff I read when I was a kid was right. Pigeons can fly at sixty or so.

- - - - -
*I count my blessings. A lot of companies won't do anything of the sort.
**--at a legal speed, of course—but anything over twenty is barreling along in this thing. Feels like it, anyway...

Blink and you'll miss it.

Too hot to sleep again. And I'm tired of maudlin. So I'm sitting by the window, blessing the slowly cooling breeze. And thinking. And writing. And I hear a noise and look up.

And there is a man on a horse, coming through the truck-stop parking lot at a nice clip.

He's riding English-style, very straight in the saddle, both hands on the reins. The sound of the hooves says “trot,” but the rider isn't bouncing.* Which means (to my limited horse-savvy) racking horse or walking horse. I've been to a few horse shows. I've seen rackers, but never a walker. So I can't say which this one is. Just that it isn't a generic horse.

And if it's a show horse, it isn't practicing for a show just now. No high-stepping, nothing ostentatious arch of the neck. It's just moving along. Fairly quickly, too.

I read once that the rack, like the walking horse's stride, was for covering ground while not shaking the rider to pieces. That both types were originally prized for long-distance travel in relative comfort. Kind of the Gold Wing's of their day. Seeing these two, I believe it.

He rode right through the middle of the parking lot and right out the other side. Never came back through. There isn't a road out of the lot on that side, but then my idea of a road has changed since I started driving these barges. Maybe there's a path or something he knows about.

I wonder what the story is, there. But not very hard. Too hot to think about it.

- - - - -

*Oh, I beg your pardon. He isn't “posting.”

B. J. and the Secretary

B. J. and I were picking up at the same location tonight. Our appointments were set for about four hours before their shipping department opened, so we had plenty of time to talk.

“Second time this week,” he said.

I stared thoughtfully at a tiny light in the sky. Evening star, obviously. Jupiter or Venus? “Waiting for somebody to show up, you mean? I hope you had somebody to talk to.”

“Oh, yeah. And she was a lot better lookin' than you. Long tall blonde. Skinnier than I usually go for, but we was just talking anyhow.”

If I were a woman I'd be miffed. As it was I was just mildly envious. “Anything interesting?”

“Just the usual. How's the freight, what're your bosses doin' to you, you know. She didn't show me pictures of her kid, but she let me pet her dog.”

“Friendly one, eh?”

“Oh, yeah. Noisy, though. And it's a pit bull, so it still keeps the riffraff away.”

“Friendly pit bull? Well, I've heard most of them are, if you don't train them the other way.”

“Yep.” He grinned. “Her bosses don't know that, though. The critter's a purebred, but her vet put 'mixed' on the papers so she could keep it on the truck. 'No aggressive breeds,' the rule says.”

I shook my head. Further comment seemed unnecessary.

“She was a little surprised I wasn't doing any better than I was,” he said. “Thought my dispatcher must not be doin' his job. Then she found out I was driving legal. That explained it, far as she was concerned.”

“She doctors her logs?” I tried to sound surprised. It wasn't easy.

“More than some, less than others,” he said. “If you drove one mile under the speed limit eleven hours a day, you could drive the miles she logs. She don't keep extra logbooks tucked away in corners, but she don't write her hours up 'til after she's done for the day, either. Sometimes for two or three.”

“Do you ever feel like a freak, talking to people at the truck stops, B. J.?”

“All the time. When I hired on with Truckbert* they put us through a week of orientation. And they spent half a day explainin' exactly how to fill out a logbook. And how the only good way to fill 'em out was honest and legal and above-board, and how they wouldn't stand for any fudging at all.

“Then I got on the truck with my trainer, and the first thing he showed me was how to fudge my logbook. Figured that was more important than if I could back into a dock. Said I'd figure that out, but if I couldn't take a load because I didn't have the hours, I wouldn't get enough miles to live on.”

“I never learned that.” I said blandly.

“Sure you didn't. To do him credit, he didn't teach me to out-and-out cheat. He wouldn't run more than the legal hours in a day. But he wouldn't log any hours he didn't have to, either. What he was doin' was getting as much driving in between restarts** as he could.

“So I did my logs the way he told me to. It was his truck, after all. And when I got back to the terminal, the safety guy looked 'em over and give me the evil eye. Said, 'You do know, don't you, that to get this many miles in this many hours you'd have to average better than sixty? Including two-lanes, side streets, and parking lots?' And I said, 'Yessir.'

“And then he looked at my trainer and asked him about some little details where I didn't have the carbon paper in the right place when I signed 'em.”

I grunted. “As always, should you or any of your I. M. Force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions,” I quoted.

“You got it. And then the tape self-destructed. Good luck, Jim.” One of the reasons I like talking to B. J.-- he actually catches some of those obscure references I toss around.

“But you don't cheat yourself, now that you're on you own, right?”

“Pretty much, no. Might be why I'm always close to broke, I don't know. Got to admire Truckbert, though. They pretty much got their behinds covered, no matter what I do.”

“Mm-hmm. If you try to stretch things and you get caught, it's all your fault. They told you not to.”

“Yep. Even made me sign a paper saying they'd told me not to. And if my dispatcher gets ill with me for bein' honest, he does it on the phone. No paper trail.”

“Nice.”

“Ain't it? Anyway, the blonde I was talking to? She said she was on a dedicated run, making fair money. But the way her route's laid out, she can't make the miles they expect her to on the hours she's got. Looks good on paper, but you just can't drive that fast. Sixty-plus in the parking lots and through the red lights. So if she didn't doctor her logs she couldn't get the loads delivered. And her dispatchers and her load planners, they've got to know that. Makes you wonder.”

“Does it?” I still couldn't figure out if that star was Venus or Jupiter. Silly thing to be wondering about anyhow.

“Not really. But it makes me sound a little less cynical.”

About that time the shipping department opened, and we went back to work.
- - - - -
*Truckbert Logistics is not the real name of the company B. J. works for. But you figured that out already, didn't you?

**To oversimplify things a bit, the driving rules limit three things: the time you spend behind the wheel, the length of your total “workday,” and the number of hours you work in a “work week.” Once you've hit your limit on any of these, you have to shut down until you're legal again.
A “restart” involves shutting down for 34 hours. At the end of those 34 hours, your weekly “clock” is reset to zero.
If you're out for more than a couple of weeks, and you're getting enough work to make it worth the trip, you can be sure you'll have to do a restart at least once. But the less often you have to, the more driving you'll do...