She-motions
Today was a very emotional day for me. In a good way... read on!
This morning I woke up at 5:30 am to begin my day. By 6:15 I was leaving the Petro station I stayed at last night and was headed a block down the street to the Pilot station where I was assigned to get fuel. There I fueled up, grabbed a tall hot coffee and then set out for Brooklyn NY.
I was a little nervous at first, as I've never really been IN the city of NY nor any of it's boroughs, save for passing through once before via the interstate. I was thinking of a million different things that might and could possibly go wrong once I had to exit the interstate on this trip.
I may have to stop and slide my tandems all the way forward to help with tight maneuvers. I may get lost and spend hours trying to find my way to the facility. I may end up so focused on street signs or stop lights that I hit someone or otherwise get in an accident.
The first leg of my trip wasn't too bad, fairly good traffic moving at a fair pace. I had to take a spur interstate into Brooklyn and as soon as I got on I-278 the madness set in. Bumper to bumper traffic... crawling along, slowly but surely moving. Which of course only allowed me more time to get more nervous.
As I neared my exit, which took over an hour, I got more and more butterflies in my stomach. I was getting sweaty palms and feeling quite anxious. I just knew that at any moment I might possibly hurl all over the steering wheel.
But with great fortune I found that my directions were good, my instincts were keen and I was sailing through Brooklyn with ease. It felt good... I was cautious and careful, watching mirrors and looking ahead and making professional decisions. But I was still nervous, which made me more respectful of the tight city streets and it's patrons.
I made it to my destination and found that two other trucks were ahead of me. The facility was in an alley at the end, of course I would be expected to back all the way down this alley, about the length of a football field, to bump the dock to get loaded. I waited on the side of the alley perpendicular to that alley, waiting for one of the two trucks to emerge.
Suddenly, in this shady alley there is a knock on my truck door. I turn to look and find that a man is standing between me and a very shiny white Hummer. Strange, I thought.
I cracked my window and asked "Can I help you?"
He said, "Yep, I need you to back into that alley and then turn back out of the alley to your right, where you will go around to the back down that other alley. We have a dock back there for you to pull into so we can load you and send you on your way."
EXCELLENT! I did as he commanded. After backing into the first alley, I turned to the right and made another right turn into the other alley to head around to the back of the building. There was another truck just getting ready to be finished up so I waited in the alley before I pulled in, as it was VERY tight and needed all the space I could get for successful maneuvering.
While I waited, I decided to take a stretch and it just so happened that there was a little memorial pier that went out into the bay right next to where I was parked. So I grabbed my camera and my cell phone and headed out to see what I could see in the bay.
As I got out of the truck the phone rang and it was Nate. I'm so glad he called at that moment, because he got to share a very tender, emotional moment with me on that pier.
I walked out amazed at the size of the ships in the harbour. Huge freighters, ferry boats, fishing boats... it was freakin' awesome. Then... I saw Her.
Lady Liberty
Off in the distance in all Her glory.
I cried.... I couldn't help it. She was so beautiful. Even now as I recall that moment when my eyes first gazed upon Her my eyes mist and my heart rings out in joy.
I can't explain how it felt to finally see Her in person. Many of you may not be aware of the Patriot within Gi-Gi. How much I love my country and how proud I am to be American. My love for Freedom brought me to tears today as I saw a great American symbol of that Freedom for the first time ever, first hand today.
It was fantabulous I tell ya!
After gazing upon Her beauty, it was time to back up to the dock and get loaded and then get the heck outta dodge! The loading took about 15 minutes and I was on my way out of the big city quicker than expected.
Although, that trip still took me a little while since they had a detour to get back on the interstate which took me UNDER the interstate and through what I presume was downtown Brooklyn.
I had to pick up another part of my load back down in Jersey, this time in North Brunswick. It wasn't too hard to find, thankfully. But when I pulled in the folks didn't know what to do with me. They weren't expecting a 65' rig to pull up. Lucky for me (and them I suppose) they were only loading on one pallet of stuff so they just brought it out on a fork lift and that was that.
I got out of Jersey and made it to Carlisle, PA to our terminal. I ordered out for dinner... Mmm good Chinese! And now I sit getting prepped for sleep. I will be making my delivery in Groveport, OH tomorrow afternoon and spending the night at our Columbus terminal. The who knows where the wind shall blow me.
hehe... I said blow me. haha
Take care my dear readers! I hope to be able to blog again soon!
This morning I woke up at 5:30 am to begin my day. By 6:15 I was leaving the Petro station I stayed at last night and was headed a block down the street to the Pilot station where I was assigned to get fuel. There I fueled up, grabbed a tall hot coffee and then set out for Brooklyn NY.
I was a little nervous at first, as I've never really been IN the city of NY nor any of it's boroughs, save for passing through once before via the interstate. I was thinking of a million different things that might and could possibly go wrong once I had to exit the interstate on this trip.
I may have to stop and slide my tandems all the way forward to help with tight maneuvers. I may get lost and spend hours trying to find my way to the facility. I may end up so focused on street signs or stop lights that I hit someone or otherwise get in an accident.
The first leg of my trip wasn't too bad, fairly good traffic moving at a fair pace. I had to take a spur interstate into Brooklyn and as soon as I got on I-278 the madness set in. Bumper to bumper traffic... crawling along, slowly but surely moving. Which of course only allowed me more time to get more nervous.
As I neared my exit, which took over an hour, I got more and more butterflies in my stomach. I was getting sweaty palms and feeling quite anxious. I just knew that at any moment I might possibly hurl all over the steering wheel.
But with great fortune I found that my directions were good, my instincts were keen and I was sailing through Brooklyn with ease. It felt good... I was cautious and careful, watching mirrors and looking ahead and making professional decisions. But I was still nervous, which made me more respectful of the tight city streets and it's patrons.
I made it to my destination and found that two other trucks were ahead of me. The facility was in an alley at the end, of course I would be expected to back all the way down this alley, about the length of a football field, to bump the dock to get loaded. I waited on the side of the alley perpendicular to that alley, waiting for one of the two trucks to emerge.
Suddenly, in this shady alley there is a knock on my truck door. I turn to look and find that a man is standing between me and a very shiny white Hummer. Strange, I thought.
I cracked my window and asked "Can I help you?"
He said, "Yep, I need you to back into that alley and then turn back out of the alley to your right, where you will go around to the back down that other alley. We have a dock back there for you to pull into so we can load you and send you on your way."
EXCELLENT! I did as he commanded. After backing into the first alley, I turned to the right and made another right turn into the other alley to head around to the back of the building. There was another truck just getting ready to be finished up so I waited in the alley before I pulled in, as it was VERY tight and needed all the space I could get for successful maneuvering.
While I waited, I decided to take a stretch and it just so happened that there was a little memorial pier that went out into the bay right next to where I was parked. So I grabbed my camera and my cell phone and headed out to see what I could see in the bay.
As I got out of the truck the phone rang and it was Nate. I'm so glad he called at that moment, because he got to share a very tender, emotional moment with me on that pier.
I walked out amazed at the size of the ships in the harbour. Huge freighters, ferry boats, fishing boats... it was freakin' awesome. Then... I saw Her.
Lady Liberty
Off in the distance in all Her glory.
I cried.... I couldn't help it. She was so beautiful. Even now as I recall that moment when my eyes first gazed upon Her my eyes mist and my heart rings out in joy.
I can't explain how it felt to finally see Her in person. Many of you may not be aware of the Patriot within Gi-Gi. How much I love my country and how proud I am to be American. My love for Freedom brought me to tears today as I saw a great American symbol of that Freedom for the first time ever, first hand today.
It was fantabulous I tell ya!
After gazing upon Her beauty, it was time to back up to the dock and get loaded and then get the heck outta dodge! The loading took about 15 minutes and I was on my way out of the big city quicker than expected.
Although, that trip still took me a little while since they had a detour to get back on the interstate which took me UNDER the interstate and through what I presume was downtown Brooklyn.
I had to pick up another part of my load back down in Jersey, this time in North Brunswick. It wasn't too hard to find, thankfully. But when I pulled in the folks didn't know what to do with me. They weren't expecting a 65' rig to pull up. Lucky for me (and them I suppose) they were only loading on one pallet of stuff so they just brought it out on a fork lift and that was that.
I got out of Jersey and made it to Carlisle, PA to our terminal. I ordered out for dinner... Mmm good Chinese! And now I sit getting prepped for sleep. I will be making my delivery in Groveport, OH tomorrow afternoon and spending the night at our Columbus terminal. The who knows where the wind shall blow me.
hehe... I said blow me. haha
Take care my dear readers! I hope to be able to blog again soon!
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Saylor