AL to KY to TN
I woke up to our alarm clocks at 03:00, but my trainer remained asleep. Not wanting to wake him up by climbing out of the top bunk, I continued to lay in bed. At 04:00 my trainer was still asleep, but I decided to get up. I freshened myself up in the bathroom at the Petro Dodge City truck stop. I had Dunkin’ for breakfast—they surprisingly opened at 04:30. I also bought a truck atlas.
I did the pre-trip inspection then continued our journey to Bowling Green, KY. Arriving at a warehouse, I moved the tandems to the back and backed into the dock. We waited while the large rolls of paper were unloaded. This took maybe 30-45 minutes. We took this time to let my trainer’s dog run around.
Now that our trailer was empty, we took it to a Knight drop yard in Lebanon, TN. I had to drive through several roundabouts to get here. I became a pro by the end of it. At the drop yard we picked up a loaded trailer with a destination of Breinigsville, PA. It was due for delivery at 22:00 tomorrow night. While at the drop yard we ate pizza that the office staff had bought.
We drove to our fuel stop at Love’s in Baxter, TN. Here we took showers. I was nearly out of driving hours for the day, but we still needed to start the 763 mile trip to Pennsylvania.
So my trainer drove with the plan to stop a truck stop he likes in Raphine, VA—a truck stop with some good BBQ. During our drive, my trainer explained how he uses the Jake brake for steep grades. We didn’t make it to Raphine before my trainer got tired. So we stopped at a Love’s in Meadowview, VA. We took the last parking spot.