Valentines

Poor Helga needed a jump start today when we checked out at Noon - we'd left Paisan in the sleeper to avoid making her adjust to yet another temporary environment, and we left the sleeper heater on. Apparently, twelve hours of running the heater is too much for Helga to handle. She started right up, though, and has been a happy truck ever since.

We put ourselves back in service and found a nearby Walmart to park and wait.

Someone emailed me and wanted to know what's up with our fascination with Walmart parking lots. There's method to our madness, honest, and it's two-fold. First, Walmarts and Sams Clubs are wonderfully supportive of truckers and RV-ers. Unless restricted by local ordinances, almost every Walmart and Sams will let trucks and RVs park overnight, without charge, without a hassle, without being towed. That can mean a good, restful sleep for a trucker who's too broke to fund a hotel or too tired to continue on to the next truck stop. It also saves campers a boodle when they're in between scenic stops.

Secondly, when you're in line with dispatch waiting for a load, where you wait can make or break your chance to get a load offer. If a customer has a hot load, you're more likely to get that offer if you're within city limits as opposed to 40 miles out of town waiting at a truck stop. That strategy has worked well for us so far.

So we rented a couple of movies from the handy dandy Red Box and munched on cheese and crackers for a light late supper. By the way - if you haven't seen District 9, I highly recommend it. It was MUCH better than I expected; the premise includes aliens, but it really isn't a sci-fi movie. Just do your best to get past the mandatory Humans Are Evil message. *rolleyes*