Sortie numero deux

Back over the stupid Delaware River and into New Jersey again having to pick up an empty trailer in Barrington (nearly where I dropped the last load) They don’t seem to understand that I live far way from everything and yet in the middle of the east coast. New Jersey has a way and that was not made for but is entirely dependent on large trucks. Lame-o.
The next stop was down into the southern part of the state. Down into that odd part that feels a lot like where I am from because ecologically and geologically (or hydrologically) it is very similar and (of course) as the crow flies, it is less than 50 miles away. Clement Pappas was the name of the shipper and the product: Juice. Why juice here in rural southern jersey? Cranberries maybe, or all the fruit from Wilmington (all the tropical fruit on the east coast is shipped into the port of Wilmington (like ALL the bananas.) Dole and Chiquita have big holdings there*.
Juice is heavy and it sloshes so the whole load bucks and kicks miserably. 42,000 pounds of juice. From there I took it back over the bridge and across the Susquehanna right at the head of the bay. And down into Baltimore through the tunnels and on to the misery of Washington DC beltway traffic at 5:00pm (bad timing) and then west on 66 (even worse traffic!) into the rolling hills of the hunt country and up a narrow 4 lane road to a Family Dollar Distribution Center in Front Royal.
The next load, Beer, adult juice, from Anheuser-Busch in Williamsburg (right next to Busch Gardens!) taking it up to Hagerstown, Maryland.
I am hoping the next load is not a bullshitty 200 mile one like these. Now I am in Ashland just north of Richmond and tomorrow I will pick up this beer. Having been home, which was very nice, I have some new stuff in the cab, more clothes, good healthy food and some décor. I feel better. Being at home also relaxes you into loving the road again. You don’t count mile markers quite as much.

*turns out it was because of cranberries. Clement Pappas, the internet tells me, was a greek immigrant who started a lot of food processing operations in southern jersey (which is quite a (non corn and soybeans) agricultural producer) (thus the otherwise rather dubious moniker "The Garden State.") Gradually these operations focused more on Cranberry juice and then other juices (I had, in addition to cranberry, orange-pineapple, and red grapefruit.) The fucked up thing though is that now apparently they import most of the cranberries from Massachsetts or Wisconsin. Food, in todays paradigm, is apparently not worth making unless it is well traveled.