whirlwind tour of the eastern u.s.

i love my job and i love my life. at times, i don't know where i will be the next day. i have the privilege of transporting anybody from young school-aged kids to our military. i go from large cities to cities that are not even on some of the best maps you can buy. i drive on roads 10 lanes wide and i drive on back country roads that require some "creative" maneuvering. this past week, i left on a tuesday about 1730 and drove to chattanooga, about 1 1/2 hours south. i picked up a group that was going to washington, dc. i was relaying them to another driver who was waiting about 2 hours south of dc. the lady who is the tour director, joy, is one of my favorite people. due to her personality and experience, all of her trips are well planned and executed. we left chattanooga about 2030 and arrived in raphine, va. about 0315. from there the other driver would take them the rest of the way. i was going to bed.
about 1100, i left raphine and headed home, about 325 miles south. i got to my office about 1500 and our administrative assistant came outside and said "don't leave, the boss wants to see you". i knew i was in trouble, was going to be fired, and be living under a bridge somewhere!!! when i got in, it was a whirlwind. i was not in trouble, but i was going to chicago and my flight was leaving in just over 3 hours!!! and, rushing home to pack, pick ups kids, eat dinner, take them to their mother and get to the airport. my flight was scheduled to leave at 1940 bound for charlotte, nc. i arrived about 1845, got checked in and went to a lounge beside my departure gate. long story short, my 1940 flight left at 1920!!! never had a flight leave that early. got to charlotte and due to high winds, my flight was almost 2 hours late. after a very turbulent flight, i arrived at o'hare about 0130 and got to my hotel about 0300 and asleep about 0500. i was back up at 1100 and went to mci to get a rental bus. this was a brand new, 2008 mci. 20 minutes later i was going thru a construction zone on i90 and got side-swiped by a RODEWAY (intentional caps, yes i am screaming) bob-tail. he hit my mirror so hard, it flipped around and was touching my windshield. he kept on going. never stopped. surely his mother was a dog or he had no father. it took me over a mile to get over and it took almost 30 minutes to fix the mirror. hat's off to those help trucks that patrol our inner-city interstates who help motorists. i arrived at our shop about 2230 and had 2 trips the next day. one to the airport with an sec football team and then to flat creek, nc. in 2 days, i had covered a lot of ground. knoxville-chattanooga-raphine, va-knoxville-charlotte-chicago-knoxville-flat creek, nc.-knoxville. while all this sounds wild, in reality it is "all in a days work" and i would not trade it for anything!!!
until next time...