Somewhere in the Vicinity of Hegins

Somewhere in the vicinity of Hegins, Pennsylvania. Well, I just passed the exit on I-81 south, anyway. I'm headed down into the Washington, D.C. area for a 10:00 delivery. I wish I'd run on down and gotten a leg up on the traffic, but I was attacked and overcome by the sleep monster. I should get into the area in plenty of time to make my delivery, but I'm probably going to sit in morning traffic for a bit.

My pattern is all screwed up. Because I'm not getting much sleep I'm having to stop and steal 3-4 hour naps. But those naps throw me behind, and then being behind prevents me from getting a full sleep period later on. The cycle repeats, over and over again.

I got off-track on Monday. I made my delivery at 09:00 without much sleep. But I figured I could keep going, and expected the company to get me dispatched relatively quickly, it being Monday and all. So I settled into the sleeper berth with a book (which was You Suck: A Love Story), expecting an impending dispatch.

They didn't send me another load until about 15:00. Thanks to the book I'd lost track of time and, to my horror, realized I'd missed a chance for a 6 hour nap. By the time I went foraging for fuel (finding a place around 17:00), my reserves were running low and I needed a nap. I had hit the road Monday morning with 4-5 hours of sleep and had been up for around 12 hours. So I took a nap. That's where the pattern started.

I picked up my load in Burgaw, North Carolina around 23:00 and was off for Massachusetts (a long haul). I made it as far as our terminal in Chester, Virginia before I took another nap (though I have an excuse - the trailer I picked up the shipper was missing a mud flap, and I had to wait for our shop to open to replace it).

Anyway, as you can see, the pattern had set.

I'm partly to blame because I should have gotten more sleep on Sunday night. But the company is to blame, as well, for leaving me sitting there for 6 hours, slowly leaking out my energy. Besides, if not for the Canada trip and not getting home until Saturday night, I might not have been sitting there on Sunday evening, clinging to each precious moment that I was out of the truck, and knowing that the only thing between me and getting back into the truck was that next sleep period.

Hey, I can blame Mama, too. Because of the Super Bowl, Criminal Minds ran late. Mama stayed up until almost midnight watching it. I couldn't very well run her out of her own living room. I guess I could have showered and walked up to the truck, and got plenty of sleep. But, well, I didn't (see previous issue).

I suppose my life would go a lot easier if I just accepted my fate and didn't resist the truck. Just get back in and go. And really, isn't the bunk in the truck a lot more comfortable than Mama's sofa? So why do I keep winding up on the sofa?

Man, I have to finish my laptop upgrades and start getting into those hotel rooms on the weekend. See, I'm going to go there to write, and I'm going to ...

Oh, nevermind. I'll probably hang out at Mama's and play World of Warcraft. How sad is that?