HAPPY NEW YEAR

We made it into Columbia, New Jersey Sunday afternoon and made it our home for the next 34 hours, as we could not deliver the Army truck until Tuesday. As Sunday evening rolled around it was quiet at the truck stop. Craig and I did manage to stay awake to welcome in the New Year. If it were not for us staying on Pacific Time, there would have been no new year’s kiss at midnight. We heard a few firecrackers going off in the distance, but the truck stop remained quiet, which I did not expect.

Monday found us relaxing, Craig was hooked on watching Grey’s Anatomy, the second season on DVD, and me watching a TLC marathon of Moving Up. We did manage to do our own moving up from the truck to take showers and do laundry.

Up early Tuesday, we headed towards Newark. We expected there to be more traffic than what there actually was, and we arrived at the port to drop the truck off in a little over an hour. Finding where to go and who to see is always an adventure when going to docks. We had the pleasure of dealing with longshoreman who said we were responsible for unloading the truck, or we could just leave with it. Who were we to argue, so we took their instructions to find the “yellow door” to have the receiving clerk check us in. We then had to find “Cheech” in a white truck driving around the premises. I used my feminine ways as “Cheech” did not seem to want to stop when Craig tried to flag him down; but I managed to get him to pull over. I will let your imagination run wild as to how I managed to do it.

After Craig played soldier, unloaded, and drove the truck to where they wanted it, we got the paperwork signed, found a spot to park, and waited for our next assignment. This is where our day got real interesting.
  
As Craig and I were discussing the new assignment……BOOM…… The truck and trailer lurched forward knocking over water bottles and tossing a few items on the floor. I looked at Craig and said, “What the @$#%$ was that?", just as another semi truck pulled in beside us on the passenger side. Seems the driver made his turn a bit too close and was not watching his rear trailer and hit the right rear portion of our trailer with his rear wheel, which dented his wheel and broke a spring on his trailer.

  

We both leaped into action, Craig calling the Safety Department, and I retrieving the accident kit. I took pictures of the accident scene, and talked to a couple of witnesses, who with a little coaxing, agreed to give me a name and phone number for contact by the insurance company. Now think back awhile to one of the last times Craig was in New Jersey. Seems he had another driver back into him while at a truck stop. I am beginning to think we should not be allowed back into New Jersey for our own safety, as it seems New Jersey drivers have a tendency to want to hit us.

  

With our damaged bumper, we headed to the nearest truck stop to repair the brake and turn lights. After all, we had another load to pick up in Syracuse, New York. Speaking of New York, when we were at the port in Newark, if there were not any buildings in the area, we could have seen New York City and the Manhattan skyline, not to mention the Statue of Liberty. As we were leaving and rounding on an onramp to get back onto the freeway, I turned to look over my right shoulder and to my delight caught my very first look New York City! It went by so fast I did not even have a chance to think about taking a picture. We will certainly look forward to seeing the Big Apple sometime in the future.