Jersey-Chicago-Dallas

I woke up early and headed to the truckstop in Centreville where I drop my trailer before coming home. Pleased it had not been stolen I hooked to it and carried on back to Washington where I made the first delivery of those big fabric rolls i had picked up on friday. Then it was up to New Jersey for the second stop and after that a wait. I headed to the truckstop in Paulsboro and hooked up to the idleaire. It was really hot and I was willing to pay not to be. (Idleaire is a system that pipes a lot of services into a truck. Among them:heat/ac, cable tv, phone, internet, electrical outlets etc... at a rate that is cheaper per hour than idling the truck (an idling truck uses about 1 gallon per hour. and many truckers idle the truck all night, even when the temperature outside is comfortable. think about that, cost wise and fossil fuel usage wise)) You have probably seen this service. It looks like a number of metal box trusses spanning the parking lot with yellow tubular appendages dangling into each space. If you haven't noticed it before you will next time you see it.
It took a while to get a load (something I don't get given that I was in the beating nasty core of the east coast megalopolis. but finally I did and I headed up to Perth Amboy to pick up some steel, hooray for steel!
Perth Amboy is located on a point where the Raritan River from New Jersey meets Arthur Kill (a tidal strait that separates Staten Island from New Jersey) and flow into Raritan Bay, a bay of the Atlantic Ocean) If the whole NYC metro area were a big cow, Perth Amboy would be the spot where that cow was about to take a crap. Not that I'm sure it doesn't have its lovely bits. It is he birthplace of Jon Bon Jovi.
This steel production facility used recycled scrap to make lower quality wire and bar products. It was on the banks of the Raritan river and all about there were odd bits of scrap metal including a rail line that came on to the property just to bring in railcars that were ready to be scrapped.
I was picking up some rebar which was coiled into big beehives, an odd way to ship it since I imagine it must be uncoiled and straitened before use. It was headed out to (Mr.) Belvidere, Illinois, near Rockford. By the time I had it strapped and tarped my shirt was as soaked as if i had spent the time in a driving rain.
I drove it the first night to western PA and slept well. I had gone through a cold front and up into the hills. A bit of rain and temperature drop of 40 degrees.

I stopped the next afternoon in Chicago parked at what I like to think of as my secret spot, a little Speedway on the south side at 35th and California with a tiny lot that I always pray will not be full. I was excited to see a friend of mine who lives in Andersonville. I was going to bike. If you know Chicago you know this is a bit of a hike but, having not done anything particularly active for a while and loving, as i do, the biking in the city, the 12 miles went by quickly.
The next day I made the delivery in Belvidere and then was directed to Schaumberg (a far northwest suburb of Chicago and home of the Chicagoland's IKEA. The load wouldn't be ready until 11pm so using my Apple Brand iPhone (which has made my life immeasurable more fulfilling) I found that i was pretty close to a Metra commuter line station, biked there, hopped on and visited some other friends in Chicago. the headed back out, picked up my trailer, loaded with pipes and bars of various shapes and sizes and tarped just in time to guard against a brisk and torrential downpour.
The pipes were destined for Dallas and that, faithfully, is where I took them.
I got there on Saturday night and since the load wasn't to be delivered until Monday I spent Sunday exploring Dallas.
My intent was to head to a nearby Home Depot to buy some chain and a padlock for my bike and then to head into downtown with my primary goal being the Dallas Museum of Art. En route to the Home Depot I developed a flat, since it seems that the roads in texas are sprinkled with broken glass, just for fun.
Using again my iPhone I found that my only hope was a target on the south side (it was sunday) and I bussed down there, fixed the flat and headed back into the city.
To my delight there was an Art fair going on and so I had some overpriced beers and saw the collection of the DMA (who's collection certainly indicates a city of wealthy patrons) for free. and i sweated a lot and got sunburned. what a delight Texas is.
On the way back to my truck I got another flat.