Spirit of the Road

by Rick L. Huffman

  As we were tooling along on the westbound side of I-24 in Tennessee, a brown mini-van on the eastbound side lost control and careened across the median directly in front of me. I feared that it would hurl itself directly into my path but, fortunately, it regained traction and remained on the median. I am confident, however, that the episode caused me to release a few drops of coffee into my Spiderman boxer shorts.

  It came as no surprise when the company had no directions available for the customer in Fridley. Instead of calling dispatch for instructions, I called the customer directly. Based on experience, it would be easier to pull a wisdom tooth with a pair of tweezers than to persuade dispatch to go out of their way to find directions not already in the system. The company frowned on drivers calling customers or shippers directly, but they were usually happy to help—unlike the dispatch office, for whom making an extra phone call was, apparently, as harrowing a task for them as putting toothpaste back into the tube.

  We made it to the Pilot in Paducah, Kentucky for the night after driving all day in the rain. Kitty seemed happy to be back on the road. It’s probably because she knew daily treats awaited her and, more often than not, a bit of whatever I was eating.

  I awoke Saturday morning shivering in a freezing truck. The Opti-Idle unit was not functioning properly. Opti-Idle is an in-cab thermostat that allows the driver to set the desired temperature, and the truck turns itself on and off to maintain that temperature while reducing idle time and saving fuel. Every fifteen to thirty minutes, an alarm sounds for five seconds, then the truck cranks. Some drivers complain they cannot get a good night’s sleep with the truck shutting on and off throughout the night, but it has never bothered me. In this case, however, I was slowly losing air pressure when the truck was off. When the air pressure goes below 60psi, a low-level air alarm blasts with the annoying velocity of a submarine Klaxon. Brian says that I probably have a bad fan hub and will require shop time. For now, I had the unenviable choice of leaving the truck off and freezing, or continually being awakened by the alarm.

  Upon defrosting my bones, I got going and made it to the TA in Janesville, Wisconsin for the night. I allowed myself to indulge in one of my favorite treats—Wisconsin Cheese Curds. Cheese curds are sometimes referred to as "Squeaky Cheese" because a defining characteristic of fresh curds is a squeak against the teeth when bitten.[68] I often buy a couple of bags of curds when I come to Wisconsin, but they tend to lose their squeak after a couple of days. Kitty likes cheese curds too—and she doesn’t seem to mind if they squeak or not.

  Week 46: World’s Largest Truck Stop

  We made it to Hudson, Wisconsin on Sunday, just across the river from Minneapolis/St. Paul. We were fortunate to get a parking spot at the TA there because it is usually full and congested.

  We arose early Monday morning and delivered to another CVS store in Fridley. Mercifully, this one was not as difficult as the one in Niantic. However, we waited for almost two hours before unloading began. Then, another truck snagged the spot where I was going to park after delivery. Now, I had nowhere to park to await the next load offering. Dispatch said it might take some time, so we went back to the TA in Hudson. For all I knew, we’d be sitting all day, and I did not want to spend it sitting in a mall parking lot.

  We finally got a load offering and, as luck would have it, Hudson was 35 miles in the opposite direction from the shipper. Our load was at the 3M plant in Forest City, Iowa.

  Forest City Community Schools operates a wind turbine that provides 60% of the energy for all city schools. The wind turbine started as a physics project, and it began producing in January of 1999. Forest City also claims to be the smallest town in the United States with its own YMCA.[69] The load was not ready when we arrived in Forest City and I was out of hours by the time we got it at 7pm. We spent the night at the shipper. To my dismay, we would be going to Chicago again. I made a vow to watch for low viaducts this time.

  We got up at 4am to be greeted by a howling, frosty wind that cut through my clothing like a machete. The frigid air punished my body when I got out to unhook from my empty trailer and hook to the loaded one. While I am not an advocate of working in the blistering heat of summer, I prefer it to cold weather. My body ceases to cooperate with my mind in sub-zero temperatures. After playing a round of "joust and parry" with dispatch, they rescheduled my Chicago appointment to a more reasonable time.

  I saw someone dressed as Darth Vader at a truck stop in Walcott, Iowa, and then I remembered that it was Halloween. Days on the road tended to overlap and merge. Friday or Saturday was no different from Monday or Tuesday, and holidays had little meaning. A trucker often recognizes only two distinctions: road time and home time.

  Walcott’s interchange on I-80 is home to an enormous complex of restaurants, motels, and truck stops, including the Iowa 80 truck stop, which is the world’s largest. Set on a 220-acre plot of land, the Iowa 80 is four times bigger than the average truck stop and two and a half times larger than Disneyland. The Iowa 80 gets five thousand visitors daily and has a staff of four hundred and fifty employees. It has everything from the basics of food and fuel to truck washes, a truck museum, a movie theater, and even a dentist.[70]

  We shut down for the night in Dixon, Illinois, the boyhood home of former President Ronald Reagan.[71] During his teen years, Reagan served as a lifeguard along the banks of Dixon’s Rock River.

  We arrived in Chicago the next day with plenty of time to spare. It went much better this time. The customer refused twenty boxes of scrub brushes due to some minor damage on the boxes. I called the company to find out what to do with them and they told me to bring them to the Ottawa terminal. This was fine with me—it gave me a chance to have the truck’s Opti-Idle repaired.

  There was nowhere to park at the laughingly tiny terminal, so I dropped my trailer at a nearby truck stop and bobtailed back to the terminal. Fortunately, the boxes of scrub brushes were small enough to load into the cab.

  I had dinner at Cracker Barrel while waiting for my truck to be repaired, and then went back to the truck stop to spend the night. A Triple X adult arcade was just across from where I parked. As I sat and watched patrons enter and leave, I grew amused by the various behaviors. Some glanced about nervously, as if they were on a covert mission while others walked in with bluster and pride as if they owned the place.

  I woke up five minutes before the alarm rang and responded with a resounding “Shit!” I hated to wake up just a few minutes before the alarm went off. Our next load offering was from Kewanee, Illinois to Indianola, Mississippi.

  Kewanee is acknowledged as the Hog Capital of the World, and it holds an annual Hog Days Festival every Labor Day weekend.[72] The title of Hog Capital dates to 1948 when Frank Preston Johnson of Kewanee introduced a resolution into the 66th Illinois General Assembly. The following is an excerpt from Mr. Johnson’s speech:

  “And you, my colleagues from the great city of Chicago, who grunted the loudest during the reading of this resolution, you in your innocence may cherish the delusion that you have little in common with the Illinois hog. I assure you that you do—PLENTY! Every city must have some economic justification for its existence. That was true in the ancient past, and it is true today.

  Ships made Carthage

  The wars made Rome,

  Beer built Milwaukee,

  Gold made Nome,

  Cotton built Atlanta,

  The harbor made New York,

  But good old Chicago

  Was built on pork!”[73]

  The shipper in Kewanee loaded us in record time, and we made it to a truck stop in Ozora, Missouri for the night. I considered going through the truck wash, but sleep proved a more attractive alternative.

  I got up at 3am on Friday with the intention of going all the way to Indianola. However, by the time I got to Winona, Mississippi, my enthusiasm was gone and I stopped for the day. I ate at a mobile home converted to a restaurant across from the Pilot truck stop. To my utter dismay, they had no bi
scuits to compliment my breakfast. Heck, it was blasphemous to have a Southern breakfast with no biscuits! To add insult to injury, the waitress was rude and unfriendly. I resolved to check my map when I returned to the truck to ensure I was in Mississippi, and not New Jersey.

  We delivered to Indianola on Saturday morning where, seeing no one inside the guard shack, I rolled right past. The guard, who had apparently been hiding under the desk, ran out in a rage. He stomped up to my window as mad as a hippo with a hernia, but when I convinced him it was an honest mistake, he began to calm down.

  There was only one slot in the drop yard to park a loaded trailer, and I incensed another driver by getting to it before him. I had pissed off two people in less than five minutes without even trying. Imagine what I could accomplish with a focused effort!

  I finished in Indianola without enraging a third person, and then we went to Grenada, Mississippi for the next load. We shut down for the night at the TA in Earle, Arkansas. Other than inadvertently pissing off two people, this had been a good day.

  Week 47: Toad Suck Park and Beer Nuts

  I got a welcome laugh on a rainy day as I passed Toad Suck Park at exit 129B on I-40 in Arkansas. The legend behind Toad Suck is that it was a favorite place for bargemen, traveling the Arkansas River, to pull over and drink rum and moonshine. They are said to have “sucked on bottles until they swelled up like toads.”[74]

  Passing Toad Suck inspired a reminiscence of some of the more uniquely named places I have encountered in my travels. Among the more memorable are Intercourse, Alabama; Flush, Kansas; Hell for Certain, Kentucky; Square Butt, Missouri; Big Butt, North Carolina; Cumming, Georgia and Climax, Georgia; Hog Jaw, Arkansas; Two Egg, Florida; Stinking Creek, Tennessee and Big Ugly Creek, West Virginia. The Frog City truck stop in Rayne, Louisiana offers an entrée of frog legs or a frog burger. And if dirty laundry hampers your resolve, you can wash it at Suds Ur’ Duds in Corinth, Mississippi.

  The rainy day in Arkansas dampened my mood when I noticed the windshield still leaking. The Ottawa shop said they’d replaced the seal, yet the leak remained. I "rolled & dripped" my way to Sallisaw, Oklahoma where we spent the night at a Mom & Pop truck stop.

  Sallisaw derived its name from the French word "salaiseau" meaning salt provisions. Salt deposits along the stream in this area furnished salt used by buffalo hunters and early settlers to preserve meat. Evidence of old salt kettles can still be found in Sequoyah County.[75] [76]

  Monday’s delivery to Tulsa went fine, but then we sat at the Flying J all day before getting a load offering to Romeoville, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. After loading at the Kimberly-Clark plant in Jenks, Oklahoma, I was out of hours. The shipper refused to allow me to park there overnight, so I had to look elsewhere. I remembered seeing an old, abandoned Wal-Mart building on the way in, so I went back there to park. A rapping on the window roused me from sleep at 11pm, and a police officer informed me that I could not park there. The officer, an older man, apparently recognized my fatigue and told me I could stay if I would pull to the back of the building. I appreciated his mercy, but it was difficult to go back to sleep after being awakened.

  Tuesday was a long day of driving that ended at the Pilot in Bloomington, Illinois. The Pilot was packed to the gills, but we luckily secured a spot and I got a glorious shower. Bloomington is adjacent to Normal, Illinois and is the proud home of the snack food, Beer Nuts. The Beer Nuts company is still family owned, and Bloomington remains the only production site.[77]

  On Wednesday morning, a thick blanket of fog helped to make locating the customer in Romeoville a unique adventure. If not for calling to confirm the directions, I might never have found them.

  After delivery, we picked up another load in Bolingbrook, just four miles away, which delivered to Topeka, Kansas. We ran all day and made it to the Kansas City terminal for the night. I performed some minor faith healing on my logbook, but I kept it looking legal. Necessity dictates that rules sometimes be bent, although I have yet to bend them beyond the point of feasible repair. I hate telling little white lies, so I avoid putting myself in a position where I have to whenever possible. Nevertheless, the rigid inflexibility of DOT regulations makes it impossible for a driver to never be forced into logbook creativity. While I do not endorse lying on a logbook, inflexible rules for an unpredictable job set the stage for unavoidable moral conundrums.

  Thursday was a crazy day. It started out okay—the delivery to Target in Topeka went fine. Afterward, I had an array of beaten up empty trailers from which to choose. All of them, except one, had at least one bald tire. The one with no bald tires was missing a mud flap. An AWOL mud flap is not as bad as a bald tire, but it still invites a ticket at a weigh station. Choosing the lesser of the evils, I decided to take my chances on "One Flap." We went to Hill’s Pet in Topeka for the next load; the same place we had gone during my first solo week.

  The Shipping Department at Hill’s Pet told me this would be a live load, but offered to load it on a newer trailer if I preferred.

  “Heck yeah!” I exclaimed. This would rid me of "One Flap."

  As I waited to be loaded, I got out for a visual inspection of my tractor. I noticed that one of the steer tires was going bald in a couple of places. It looked bad enough that I called the company Breakdown Department, and they told me to go to Cross Midwest Tire in Topeka to have it replaced. They added that I should tell Cross Midwest to use the spare tire on the back of the cab.

  When I arrived at Cross Midwest, the technician pointed out that my spare tire was a recap, and it is against DOT regulations to have a recap as a steer tire. I called Breakdown again and they reluctantly agreed to buy me a new one. I was confused by the reluctance because I sure as heck wasn’t going anywhere without one.

  After getting my new tire, I returned to Hill’s Pet to find that my trailer still was not loaded. I went in to talk to Shipping, and they told me it was loaded on the original trailer I’d brought in.

  Fabulous! I’m stuck with "One Flap" again.

  Pet food is always a heavy load, and it is imperative to get it weighed as soon as possible to ensure a legal weight. The only nearby place to weigh was at the city scales, just down the road from Hill’s. After waiting there for what seemed an eternity, the "Weighmaster," who was attired in a pair of Boy Scout shorts, arrived on a bicycle. It brought surreal closure to a crazy day.

  We went to a truck stop in Maple Hill, Kansas where I purchased a new mud flap and replaced it myself. The temperature was dropping rapidly and, by the time I got the flap on, I could no longer feel my hands.

  Friday was a ball breaker! Once again, I had to bend the rules to make my appointment in Aurora, Colorado. We then zipped to Ft. Lupton, Colorado to pick up a load going to Hoosick Falls, New York. I was happy to get a good run, but this one would test my ability to conserve my remaining logbook hours. I would be as dry as the Sahara for hours by the time I got to Hoosick Falls. However, my hours were tight because of a superb week—around 3200 miles.

  We drove 670 miles on Saturday and ended up in Brooklyn, Iowa. Brooklyn is a small rural town known as the Community of Flags. Brooklyn’s permanent display of flags features an enormous American flag on an 80-foot pole. The flags from all fifty states, all branches of the Armed Services, and different special interest and international flags surround the gigantic flag. Brooklyn’s downtown streets are lined with flags of various countries.[78]

  After doing the math for my trip to Hoosick Falls, I realized I’d be cutting it even closer than I’d previously thought. Spending the night in the Community of Flags might turn out to be a source of irony. The Hoosick Falls run just might leave my butt flapping in the breeze.

  Week 48: Kitty Goes to Jail

  We got to a rest area just west of Kingsville, Ohio on Sunday, which marked three consecutive days of over six hundred miles. Management of my remaining hours was going to be tighter than spandex on a Sumo wrestler, but it just might be possible to do it within legal boundaries…barely
.

  We left at midnight on Monday, and we made to the customer in Hoosick Falls both on time and legally; before I promptly locked my keys in the truck. I feared this eventually happening, and I kicked myself for procrastinating on getting a spare key made. I peered into the truck helplessly while Kitty sat locked inside, meowing happily as if nothing were wrong. I cursed the Gods for failing to endow her with the intellect, the strength, or the fingers to open the door.

  I walked inside the customer’s building and sheepishly approached a woman sitting behind a desk in the Receiving Department.

  “I have a delivery for you, but I’ve locked my keys in the truck,” I announced with embarrassment.

  As she called a locksmith, I remembered a trick Brian showed me. While I won’t describe, in detail, the method of breaking into a Freightliner, a strategically placed coat hanger—and a lot of luck—will pop the door right open. I had nothing to lose, so I found a coat hanger and tried it. As I fumbled and probed, Kitty watched with curiosity, oblivious to her imprisonment. After a few minutes of clumsy probing, I hit the sweet spot and the door popped open. I heaved a sigh of relief and thanked the woman whose attempts to find a locksmith had failed.

  With the crisis behind me, I began to admire the beauty of this quaint little town. A gentle breeze swept through a wooded area behind the building, and a temperature of 68 degrees belied the typical harshness of upstate New York weather in November. Earlier, as I drove through the heart of picturesque Hoosick Falls, it struck me as a perfect setting for an artist. I later discovered that it was.

  The artwork of Grandma Moses was first discovered in the window of Thorpe’s drugstore in Hoosick Falls.[79] She is now buried beside her husband on a hill in Maple Grove Cemetery, overlooking the town she loved.