Really should have stayed another day at my Arizona oasis. Last night I stopped in the Mojave Desert, which was hot though nicely isolated. Tonight I was planning to stop in Victorville, get up early and deliver this load. No, said my manager; keep on to the TA in Ontario (California, not Canada), because maybe she could arrange delivery for today. Well, I had called the receiver on Friday, and been told they were booked solid, but whatcha gonna do?

So I’ve sitting here on the outskirts of LA since late this morning. It has been very hot, there is nowhere to go, and this truck stop is no exception to the rule that TA’s are about the least pleasant of all the major truck stop chains.

Too hot to think well enough to write, too hot to sleep. Yes, I’ve idled the truck several times for the sake of the A/C for much longer than the legal five minutes. Which works fine as long as you don’t mind the noise and the horrible inefficiency and the greenhouse gases and the watching for cops, who have in fact cruised around here several times today. As almost everyone else has been idling as well, I assume everyone is monitoring the CB for some code word to warn them to shut down.

The sun has gone down now, which is a relief. My first LA sunset. Once the sun reached a certain angle, it began to disappear behind a veil of smog.

The parking show has been tremendous. It’s a huge lot and I got here early. For the past few hours it’s been trucks in a blender, round and round, back and forth, in each other’s way. Some most peculiar parking maneuvers been going on.

But I did eventually get starting writing, and I need to get back to it if I’m to pretend this gambit is working at all.