In The Banana Belt

I haven't had too much to say about James of late. It is just that he isn't doing much other than sitting and waiting. The one nice thing is that he is presently in the southern part of Iowa and the weather is a bit nicer than we presently have in Saskatchewan. Not that our weather is too bad at present. Heck, compared to a couple weeks ago, this is balmy weather, however, James is presenlty able to go around in a tee shirt and a summer jacket. That is much better than what we had today here in the Hanley.

Of late James is doing that old military thing again. 'Hurray Up and Wait'. He had to tear down to St Joseph, Missouri to pick up a brand new trailer. Then he was off to Iowa to start to pick up his load. But then things started to go sour for him. First the trailer wasn't quite right and needed some fixing. As well on the way south the clutch started to act up again. Now is this a driver thing or the way the boss installed the clutch a month or so? I'm not sure. All I know is that James says it is not working properly once again.

So James managed to get the truck looked at this morning. To manage this, he had to wait overnite just outside Waterloo, Iowa so the mechanic could look at the truck first thing this morning. Once he got the truck out of the shop he found out that two of his loads won't be ready until tomorrow (Wednesday). I guess one of them needs a crane to lift the load onto the trailer and it was scheduled for Wednesday. From about noon onwards today he got to sit around and do nothing but sit. You sure don't make any money doing that.

As I was mentioning above, James picked up a brand new trailer. The only problem was that the boss didn't think to get a licence plate for the darn thing. So of course James is driving around without a plate on this unit. Once he starts north after he is loaded he will be going through scales. At the scales, they are certainly going to question why there is no plate on the trailer. If not the scales, then the at the border he is going to get questioned big time. So James called the boss who was going to courier a plate down to James where he is to load tomorrow morning.

Now the way James luck goes, the courier will miss him by a couple miles or be in the wrong state or some other stupid thing. James will end up sitting once again waiting to have the courier catch him or something like that so he can start northward once again.

You sit and you don't make any money as you get paid by the mile. Of course the bills don't give a hoot whether you make money or not, they still come pouring in!

The saga continues. . .