April 19, 1990, 2010

FIRST 5 YEARS:(Thursday- Laredo, Texas)
Woke up in the motel room and hung around 'til about 10 AM CST. Figured I would be leaving today so I checked out of the room and went to the the terminal. Found that the chances of me leaving today were pretty much non-existent.

I and 6 other drivers went to the "Hunan Chinese Restaurant", got us a table in the back and kind of partied for a couple hours...ran up one big bill! We had fun and tipped the waitress pretty good we all thought.

Went back to the terminal where I left the group and got me another motel room for the night. There I stayed until tomorrow. I did wonder to the pool to see if anyone was hanging around but found no one.

SECOND 5 YEARS:(beautiful Summer evening with the Arkansas Highway Patrol)
I had picked up a heavy, but legal, load of beef earlier in the day from around Amarillo, Texas. I was moving east and had stopped in Oklahoma City at a truckstop and had a late lunch or early dinner. As I crossed into Arkansas, the state truck weigh station was open and weighing customers(trucks). As I entered the scale, the sign with messages for the truckers to read came on. It read,"Park truck & bring in paperwork". So I did.

I left my logbook in the truck(it was legal and up to date) and took my permit book and load paperwork in. I never took my logbook in unless it was directly asked for. The "station" master was a highway Patrolman with his patrol car sitting outside. He was on the phone with his feet up on the desk and munching on some kind of cookies as he talked. I waited for him to get off the phone and then said, before he said anything, " I stopped in Oklahoma City and had a large buffet. Did it send me over my weight limits?" He smiled back and said no and went on to say that he had to do 7 more inspections and put windshield stickers on before he was done. He said he didn't want to do actual inspections so what he would do is look at my paperwork, walk another my truck and then put a sticker on the windshield. That was great for me as it would keep me free from most all US inspections for 3 months and possibly for a year. He then said, while smiling, that he would deny that he did it if I was to report him. We got talking about a few things while he looked over my permit book and load paperwork. He never asked for my logbook. We then walked around the truck and we were joking around about Clinton being President. I mentioned the death of the highest ranked highway patrol woman in Arkansas and his joking around ENDED. It was obvious that our conversation was finished. He put the sticker, saying that he had inspected the truck, on my windshield and bid me a good evening. I left as he pulled in a bobtailed tractor to do the same as he did to me.