Taking my break in Des Moines

Good afternoon,
I am taking my break in a Pilot truck stop in Des Moines, IA.  I drove all night until 8:30 AM and parked in this truck stop.  Not too bad.  Pretty quiet for the most part.  I slept for a couple of hours, woke up....had some lunch and decided to post on the blog.

One of the nice things about driving at night verses driving during the day, is that the traffic is so much lighter.  The make up of the traffic is very different also.  Most of the people on the highways that drive through the night are Big Trucks.  It is usually more comforting to be around big trucks that it is being around automobiles.  The cars are so much more mobile and can move so quickly.  I never know what a car is going to do.  They make me nervous.  Big trucks on the other had are pretty predictable.  Since I work for Swift and our trucks are governed to not go faster than 62 miles per hour, most of the other trucks on the road are faster than me.  I just wave at them when they go past.  Most times the other drivers wave back, but not all the time.  Different trucking companies have their trucks governed at different speeds.  There are a few other companies that have their trucks governed at 62 mph.  There is one that i can think of that is governed at 60 mph!  Some aren't governed at all.  You don't see many like that anymore.  The trucking industry used to be wide open.  It wasn't regulated all that much in the past.  Those days are gone.  This is probably the most regulated industry I have been a part of.  OK, I almost got up on my soapbox there for a minute....enough of that!  The other thing I like about working nights is that it is much easier to get unloaded at the stores in the middle of the night.  I can get in and out of the stores faster at night.  The loads also don't weigh as much at night.  The loads that are delivered in the evenings are the frozen foods, dairy goods and Deli food.  The loads delivered in the very early morning hours are the meat and produce loads.  Meat and produce weighs less than frozen foods.

One of the best things about driving through the night are the sunrises I get to see.  I have included a picture of one from this morning.  I was driving south on highway 35 heading towards Des Moines.  I pulled over and tried to catch the colors, but the camera on the cell phone just didn't capture what I was seeing. 
The nice thing is that I get to witness a new one everyday when I am driving through the night.

OK, from here I will be headed to Springfield, MO to drop off the load in the caves.  There has been a change to my itinerary, in that i was supposed to pick up an empty trailer and now I will be be picking up a loaded trailer going to Moberly.  I will start driving again at around 8:00 PM and hopefully will finish in Moberly, sometime before 10:00 tomorrow morning.

I will write more later.......Tom