Thursday afternoon in Memphis

I waited outside of the Williams-Sonoma facility for more than 3 hours, while they finished loading my trailer. The workers' shift change occurred during this time. Literally 500 cars must have occupied the cove where I was. Many of them drove erratically and impatiently. I was appalled by the behavior. One pickup came within a foot of hitting my parked truck, head-on, at 35 mph. I couldn't see what the driver was doing, but I hoped he straightened up by the time he reached the main roads.
  It was past sunset when I was called to get my trailer. My experience inside the gates went smoothly. The bills said there was 38,000 lbs of freight in the trailer, but it pulled as if it was much lighter. I scaled it anyway, at the Pilot Travel Center, 20 miles away. Sure enough, I was light as a feather. It's our policy to scale any load whose bills indicate 30,000 pounds, or greater. And we don't trust scales that are located on shippers' property - they are notoriously inaccurate.
  After scaling, I drove 5 hours, nonstop. We weren't running behind, however, I wanted to make sure no minor delays would cause us to be late. I've been tied up in 40 minute traffic and accident delays for the past 3 days, straight. We have to plan for them.
  It started to rain as I drove through Nashville, and got heavier as I got closer to Knoxville. It warmed up a little, interestingly.
  I stopped at a truckstop at the 320 exit to hand over controls to my co-driver. I think the town was Crossville, but it might have been the other "___ville". Since we have electronic logs, I don't pay as close of attention as I used to. So, I parked in front of a disabled fuel lane, while my co-driver and I took turns going inside the store. A benefit of teaming is not having to struggle every evening for a proper parking spot, as the solo drivers do.
  I ate a Wendy's chicken sandwich as my co-driver followed the navigation system back onto I-40. There wasn't much going on up front, so I didn't linger up there for very long. After brushing my teeth, I reclined on my super-comfortable air bed and put my phone keys to work. This was an average day for me. My life is alright.