North Pole

I had to wait until Monday morning for them to get an appointment set for me to deliver. My worst nightmare and it happened, got a 10pm appointment. Hate those after setting up all day long. I can't sleep in the daytime remember, especially after getting a good night's sleep. I went over to drop the load and then search for an empty trailer, that took almost a hour to find one.

They next gave me a load setting on their drop yard in Macungie, PA that needed to deliver in Mahwah and Clifton, NJ the next morning. It had to drops on it and I had to pick up the load and drive to the first stop in Mahwah, which is on the New York line in far northern New Jersey, and luckily they had enough room I could park at 2am and wait for them to open. I got about 1 or 2 hour nap in before they showed up to unload the first half of the trailer. I had until 3pm to deliver the second half of the load so I stayed at the customer until I had a 10 hour break in and then finished the load.

I was given a Budweiser load out of Newark, NJ next. It was going to Traverse City, MI. Never been in this area of Michigan before. Very northwest tip across the lake from the upper peninsula of Michigan. Further north than Toronto, Ontario. I figure it is the winter vacation spot for Santa's elves and they needed the beer for the big party after Christmas Eve. Here it was my delivering there on Christmas Eve and it looks closer to the North Pole than home. Couldn't hitch a ride with Santa so not making it home.

Starting out with the load I discovered that I had a ground problem with the trailer lights. Fairly new trailer too. When you turned on the lights the brake lights came on and stayed on. So had to find a shop in Penn. to get it fixed, by the time I got that done I had to get some sleep, it was 11pm by then. I was a little tired.

Next morning had sunny skies and moderate temperatures and headed west and try to make it as close to the my delivery as possible. I was lucky that the temperatures Thursday in Traverse City was near 30 degrees, couldn't believe my luck. It was actually colder in Indiana and Illinois than where I was. Pretty country up there, and the town was a resort area on Lake Michigan. Didn't see any elves though, course they were still working I'm sure.

Picked up a load of water about 100 miles south of there near Grand Rapids that I will deliver in Rockford, IL on Saturday morning. I am spending the night in Gary, IN tonight and it is raining hard outside. Same system that was dropping 2' of snow west of here, just a little warmer here for some reason. Supposed to change over to snow tomorrow afternoon, but I'm going to be sitting in Rockford by then.