Miami versa

A city bus is a bad thing to have on a crowded street. But an eighteen wheeler stuck behind a city bus is worse.

Another item for my list of Less Than Profound Morning Thoughts.

It turns out I really did find the right place last night. Delivered the load this morning as soon as I could legally get out of the truck. And now I am leaving, going out the way I came in. It's much more pleasant in daylight.

Miami is not a place I like to come. As a trucker, anyway.

No offense to those who live there. (I don't want Michael Weston hunting me up to defend his family's honor.) I'm sure I'd enjoy visiting. But this isn't a visit. And for someone from my company, at least, a trip to Miami is not a fun thing.

For one thing, it's a black hole. Freight goes in, but not a lot of freight comes out. The first time I took a load to Miami, it took the load planners two days to find something for me to haul back. And, as I have said several times, if a trucker isn't moving, he isn't making money.

Then there's parking

If you're on the tollway, it might or might not be bad. I've never come into Miami on the tollway. What I can tell you is that on I-95, there are no truck stops for the first 129 miles. No rest areas for the first hundred or so.

There IS one place to park, only about 90 miles up or so. But you can get nervous, sharing a parking lot with a scale house. What if they decide to start the morning with a surprise inspection, you fall asleep thinking...

Ah, memories...
After delivering that first load in Miami I spent hours looking for a truck stop. I finally found one far to the west. Hours later my dispatcher called to ask where I was.

And how I'd gotten there. That truck didn't have propellers, did it?

Seems his tracking software used a graphic display, on a scale that usually had no trouble showing him (for instance) the town nearest where I was parked. Not this time. On his screen, I was sitting in the middle of nowhere.

Surrounded by water.

The truck stop I'd found was thirty or forty miles west of Miami. On a tiny island in the middle of the Everglades.

This time--well, I talked about that yesterday. But that's in the past.

They had a load to get me out of Florida when I came in. It's waiting for me to pick up in the morning. And it's less than ten miles from the first batch of truck stops on I-95.

I will sleep soundly tonight.