CANTON, MI to SMITHVILLE, TN: 550 miles
Sunday August 16th, I started my day at noon at our terminal with the pre-trip inspection of the truck, adding fuel and DEF. I had arrived on Saturday at 1:00am so needed to be off-duty for thirty-four hours in order to reset all my DOT clocks. I drove an hour to the Sheetz in New Baltimore, OH for something to eat. I drove another seven-and-a-half hours and shut it down at a mom-and-pop truck stop somewhere off a country highway in Tennessee at 11:00pm. As I was pulling in three flat-bed trucks hauling trees for lumber pulled up next to me. Their cargo seemed massive. I approached one of the drivers and asked if they were over the 80,000lbs limit. He replied that they were by a lot and the reason they traveled at night and off the main highways.
Monday August 17th, I started my day at 9:45am with the pre-trip inspection of the truck and just a little over the minimum ten-hour DOT Regulation Break. I drove an hour-and-a-half to the consignee where I arrived at noon. It was a large facility and I had to go to several places before getting to the right one. When I was finally at the right dock there was a problem with the locking mechanism for the trailer. The personnel there kept insisting that all I needed to do was hit the mechanism at a greater speed so it would unlock itself. I refused. My responsibility is to my equipment and not to make their job easier. Someone else had to wedge a piece of wood on the lock so it would stay open and latch on my trailer.
BOOK REVIEW: Girl, Forgotten by Karin Slaughter (2022), THRILLER – RATING (****)
A suspenseful thriller filled with twist-and-turns. The sequel book to Pieces of Her but can be read as a stand-alone.
Andrea “Andy” Oliver is a thirty-three year-old recent graduate of the US Marshall Service. Her first assignment is as part of the security detail of a Federal Judge that has being receiving death threats. The judge is trying to figure out how a freshly graduated rookie got on her security detail. Leonard “Catfish” Bible, a veteran Marshall, is partnering up with Andy and serving as her mentor.
Andy’s secondary mission, and the reason she got the assignment, is to investigate the unsolved murder of the judge’s daughter that occurred forty years earlier. Andy’s secret past links her to the same town where the judge resides and possibly to her daughter’s killer.
Overall very entertaining.
