THE FRUIT MAN

I hate Summer. There, I said it. Of all the seasons, Summer is the one I least like. It's hot, it's crowded no matter where you go, and the Interstates and rest areas are packed with RV'ers. But there is one thing I can tolerate during the summer months........fresh fruit and veggies! And there is no better place for that, then in the Salinas Valley of California, where the temperature is also to my liking, unfortunately it is very crowded, not with RV'ers but with tractor trailer rigs!

After going empty yesterday morning, and dispatch thinking we had plenty of hours to do 3 pick ups of assorted fruits and vegetables headed to Spokane, and then us having to inform them we only had 2 hours of driving time available for the day, we dropped our trailer at Fresh Express and bob tailed to the Pilot Truck Stop. There I waited patiently, knowing that at any moment, I would see what I was dreaming of. And then there he was! On his first pass around, his eyes never met mine. Heart broken, but not discouraged, I knew he would come around again, and when he did, our eyes met and my heart skipped a beat. It was pure heaven, as he walked up to my door, displaying before me his bounty of cherries and strawberries. Like a kid in a candy store, I had hit the Mother Lode, and eagerly paid my money for the red, luscious, sweet fruit we would soon be enjoying. After all that excitement, it was a day of relaxing, as we knew we would not receive a dispatch until sometime today. But the weather was great, a cool 70 degrees with a gentle breeze, the people watching entertaining, and with TV and Internet reception, life was great. We couldn't ask for anything more.

This morning we awoke to this:
Good thing we probably won't get a dispatch until later this afternoon, or there would be some pounding on some doors in order for us to get out of our parking space. The guy parked on the outside got interrupted so many times by people trying to get out of parking spaces on the other side of him, that he finally got wise and moved to a legitimate spot. Time will tell just how long this driver in the black truck in front of us will remain. It looks like we have time to wait him out, but I may have to resort to something other than eye contact to find my fruit man today on his rounds!