Seymour, IN

When I was a kid, I used to pass by truckers on the road and they were always enigmatic to me; the drivers and their trucks were like zombies on the road - road zombies. I never saw them getting loaded or delivering, only driving at all hours of the day and night. Today, I was a road zombie.

I finally got my truck back from the shop this afternoon - 24 hours after they took it. As I was hooking up to my trailer and getting ready to leave the yard, I got beeped. "You still here?" Yes. "Hold up for a minute." As I found out, what I was holding up for were instructions to swap loads with another driver near the WI-IL state line. So much for having my trip planned out.

By the time we swapped loads, it was well past dinner time and the sun was beginning to set. I'd been sitting at the yard for 24 hours, so driving all night was fine by me. And so my zombie status began. Indianapolis was my goal, but I figured I'd end up stopping before then. Along the way, I kept checking my GPS for the distance to my next checkpoint. Oh, it's only an hour. I'll just keep going. I did that a few times, and voilà: I'm in Seymour, which is south of Indianapolis. Basically, I had to come at least this far if I wanted to have a chance at making my delivery a day early. I'm not even certain they'll take it a day early, but there's no sense in wasting time if I don't have to.