The New Year's run: 2 weeks in the deep South

On December 27th, after a fantastic Christmas at home I went to the yard in S. Kearney. I was prepared to go North because that is my luck and after Canada week how could it get any worse anyway right? Well, what a nice sup rise to see on Qualcomm that I was to get a relay trailer right in the yard and bring it to Lake City, FL! A nice mileage load (980) and no live load or searching for pick up location. After running around NJ for about 6 hrs gathering some loads from Newark and other close locations to the the yard, I was ready to get under the FL load. As I pulled in with a trailer from the vicinity the driver who I was relaying from was unhooking my trailer--perfect timing. Loads are relayed for many reasons, usually to get a driver home. This load was coming from IL and he lived in NYC so he was dropping it here and I would continue to FL with it. It was a Wal-Mart load which always means the trailer is dropped loaded, never live unloads to Wal-Mart D.C.'s (distribution center). As I only had about 3 hrs left on my day, I figured I would stop in DE or MD if I could make it. As I suspected, the NJ Turnpike was a mess at this time of day. As my hours ran out I was literally across the DE Memorial bridge on the NJ side. I stopped at a Pilot which I was thrilled to see had a welcome looking bar across the street called the Turnpike Tavern--a truckers bar. I went in ordered some food and listened to all the drivers tell war stories about impassable snowstorms, dealings with asshole 4-wheelers (cars-the bane of truckers' existence, good only for cutting off a truck then hitting the brakes, text messaging while driving, doing makeup and every other stupid act that causes fatalities, the majority of which the truck driver walks away from and the 4 wheeler occupants die). The driver next to me was a 43 year veteran of the road and we exchanged stories about the lousiest truck stops (the TA in Montgomery, AL), lot lizards (truck stop whores), fuel prices etc.