Boy what a night and morning already.   We pulled in to a TA truck stop last night because Greg needs to get maintenance done on the truck, such as oil change and filters, etc. and usually the good thing about TA’s is they can do it at night while you sleep and you don’t lose any time on your clock but Bubba and his buddy Doofus run the night shift here in Atlanta so that’s when the problems began.  First off they were busy and could fit us in about 1 to 1:30 am.  They took Gregs number 3 times and apparently had never heard the name Greg before because Bubba asked him 3 times what his name was too.   So – They will “call us when they are ready for us”. Good.  No problem we will get a couple hours of sleep and then take the truck over to them.   Needless to say, no call came and I told Greg to call them.  “Nah, they are just busy they will call us when they Are ready”.  Ok.  Back to sleep.   5:30 still no call.   Greg please call and see what’s going on.   No they are just busy.   See how this went?   Anyway, he finally decided to call and the lady who answered the phone said we weren’t on the list but she would go check and see when they could get us in.  30 minutes.  Great!  By the way, she says, Bubba said he tried to call you at 1:15 this morning.   Uh no he didn’t.  We were awake at that time and we have no missed calls on the phone.  She says “that’s odd.  I have been hearing that a lot lately”!   Anyway, we head over and Bubba has decided to take another truck in front of us for some reason – did we just not call?- so it’s going to be another hour.   “They will call us”.    We know this because Bubba isn’t working on anyone’s truck but standing at the counter laughing and talking to another trucker.   Guess he gets paid by the hour not the job.   Anyway, back to the truck.    So the lady calls us back in about an hour and says they are ready for us.    Another guy came out to talk to Greg about what oil he wanted and stuff.  Guess bubba and doofus went home.  Finally – all set.  Wait and wait.   Guy #3 comes back to the window and says he can’t change the oil or do the maintenance because whoever did it last time torqued the drain plug on the FIBERGLASS fuel pan and he is worried if he pulls any harder he will bust the FIBERGLASS fuel pan.  Fiberglass in a semi trackter?   Who thinks of these things.   So now it is 9:30 and we have to head to the KLLM repair shop fortunately here in Atlanta and let them work on it.   

DG: And God comes through once again. Apparently we were not supposed to have the work done at TA.  KLLM shop had no trouble getting the plug out and the entire service will be cheaper than at TA. Life is so much less stressful when God is in charge. 

So we are waiting at the Morrow terminal, in the shade, writing on the blog. There is a nice breeze blowing. Another gift from our Heavenly Father. Otherwise the heat would be unbearable. 

Shouldn’t be much longer now. We should have time to get to our pick up with a little traveling time left on the clock. It will be an early stop which means we will be on the road early in the morning. 600+ mile trip to deliver by 9:00 am on Friday. 

Annie – Finally got on the move but only a little bit of time left on the clock.   We stopped at a Loves truck stop to weigh the load and trucks were piled high so we couldn’t stay there for the night.  Found a Flying J outside Dalton, Georgia to stop.   Pretty packed but had a few spots open.    Went in and got a shower.   Sitting out in the Georgia heat for three hours while they worked on the truck we worked up quite a sweat.  Now time to eat some dinner and turn in.   

DG: Snuggled in after a shower and dinner. Sleep comes easy these days as the hours of focussed concentration required to steer these behemoths down the road at highway speeds is a daunting task. This job is much more physically demanding than I first thought. But I do believe I am getting better at it. 

Long day tomorrow as we journey back north to Illinois. 

Good night and God bless.