Enough is Enough

Enough of NJ already!! We loaded Monday at McGuire AFB with two stops. One was north in PA and the other south in MD. We drove across the flight line to get loaded.

We headed north (as directed) and arrived only to be told that because our truck was loaded not only with their explosives but also with larger explosives for the other base, that we could not enter the base for delivery. Um, you'd think someone would have known this and planned better, but hey, we're paid to drive, not think, so we called dispatch and awaited plan B.

Plan B: proceed to second base in MD, unload and return to shipper. Ok. We made it to MD, and since we were past open hours, we had to put our truck into secure hold. This base does not allow you to stay with your truck so the police drove all four of us to the local Super 8. My first ride in the back of a police car!!! Whoo hoo! At least we had a shower, TV, and a nice clean, cool room. The next morning brought my (hopefully) last ride in the back of a police car back to base to unload.

We unloaded and headed back to McGuire wondering why they didn't have us just return to PA to unload, but again, we aren't paid to think. We arrived to the bewilderment of the transportation department who also asked why we didn't just return to PA. Our answer, "we just go where dispatch tells us." They understood. Now, the question was....do we keep the load, unload, or what? We needed fuel and really didn't want to spend the night in secure hold (we preferred to go to the local truck stop for a good meal at the restaurant and to use Idleaire * instead of having to idle the truck all night for a/c.

*Idleaire is a system you may have seen at truck stops with long yellow tubes that hang down from a scaffold structure and provides heat or a/c as well as satellite tv, internet connection and phone service. It's cheaper to pay for that than idle the truck and its also better for the engine.

Finally a decision was made to unload us and have us return the next morning to reload and go to PA. We hit the truckstop, had a good dinner, slept well and now we are back at McGuire waiting to load. The security police at the truck inspection station at the gate told us we should buy a house nearby since this was our third day in a row going through inspection.

Meantime, I caught Sosa being cool: