tell us about your last Truck stop restaurant experience

TA #6 in Columbia, New Jersey. I was there one day waiting for a load call. I was out of the cab with the hood opened on my truck checking fluids, hoses etc., when I heard a sound like someone slowly crushing an aluminum can in there hand. Only it was a lot louder. Of course I'm like WTF and start looking around. Next thing I know I hear someone yelling in Spanish with a "hey man" in between now and then. I look over and there's a guy standing outside of his long camper hooked onto his pickup and there was tractor and trailer slowly side swiping him with is trailer as he went by. Camper guy was taking up two truck parking slots, but there were lots of parking that morning because most truckers had already left. Had to be intentional, dude in the truck just ran his truck down the side of that camper ripping off the aluminum siding, canopy, side door, etc. Then just kept driving away and on down the road. A bit later I saw the camper dude walking across the parking lot with a big crumpled up piece of aluminum siding torn off his camper. That was some funny sad shit.

Perhaps take note that truck stops are not free over night parking for motor-homes and campers, if they're not in the process of being shipped that is.
 
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I worked at a truck stop in the late 70's, Casey's Union 76 in Columbia, SC. Some of my co-workers were trustees from the nearby Carolina Correctional Institute. Very busy place, especially watching the lot lizards go from truck to truck late at night. It was a pretty eye-opening place to work for a very naive 19-year old.
The restaurant food was always good though.
 
We used to have a truck stop just outside of Frederick, MD, on I-70 about 15 min from my house. We stopped in for breakfast a few times, it was good diner/truck stop food. It was demolished in 2001 and replaced with a Costco. We (MD) had a string of tax-happy governors that kept raising taxes on diesel fuel. Being such a small state, truck drivers began passing that truck stop and refueling in either PA or VA where diesel was cheaper. It was kinda sad to see it go, but I guess that's progress...
 
These are some good reminiscences and stories. Very interesting. Hope there are more comin' down the pike!
 
So I was a "gas station attendant" or whatever you call the guy who fills up the trucks. A lot like you'd see at gas stations in the past, but with diesel #2. Instead of a 20-gallon fill-up, it was a 250-gallon fill-up. I had to check 18 tires instead of 4, and I often added oil by the gallon, not the quart. On some trucks, the oil dipstick was 6 feet long. Love bugs plastered on front of those cabs a half-inch thick.

It wasn't unusual for me to be filling 4 rigs simultaneously, as there were 2 pump islands with lanes for 2 rigs on each. One day it was really busy, with rigs lined up 4 abreast all the way out to the frontage road. I was hustling my ass off. I'd put the nozzle in the tank, click it on and engage the catch, the same way your gas nozzle works. The tank's fuel fill opening is a lot bigger though, a 5" opening iirc. You could wedge that nozzle in there though, and with the pressure from the pump, it would lock in there pretty good. That's when things got bad.

The rig in the third lane was full, the tank being filled on the opposite (passenger) side . The driver paid up inside, hopped in his truck and pulled out. Problem was, I hadn't had a chance to yank the nozzle out of the tank, and the driver never heard or felt a thing as the truck moved forward, nozzle wedged in the tank, the rubber hose stretching but holding, pulling the entire pump loose from the island. He still doesn't realize he's now dragging an entire diesel pump, hoses and all, wires hanging out, alongside his rig. He'd made it all the way to the onramp before someone flagged him down. During that time, he'd gotten up to 35-40 mph and the pump was somersaulting over and over, parts flying off, destroying itself.

I ran around two rigs to the pump island he'd left, only to see an empty square spot where the pump had been, wires and pipes sticking out of the concrete pad, diesel fuel everywhere. I just stood there, stunned.

I finished my shift, pretty sure I was fired. I went back the next day though and my timecard was still there. I clocked in. Outside was a brand new pump. No one ever said a thing to me, not the manager, or the owner. It was like it never happened.
 
Steverino said:
So I was a "gas station attendant" or whatever you call the guy who fills up the trucks. A lot like you'd see at gas stations in the past, but with diesel #2. Instead of a 20-gallon fill-up, it was a 250-gallon fill-up. I had to check 18 tires instead of 4, and I often added oil by the gallon, not the quart. On some trucks, the oil dipstick was 6 feet long. Love bugs plastered on front of those cabs a half-inch thick.

It wasn't unusual for me to be filling 4 rigs simultaneously, as there were 2 pump islands with lanes for 2 rigs on each. One day it was really busy, with rigs lined up 4 abreast all the way out to the frontage road. I was hustling my ass off. I'd put the nozzle in the tank, click it on and engage the catch, the same way your gas nozzle works. The tank's fuel fill opening is a lot bigger though, a 5" opening iirc. You could wedge that nozzle in there though, and with the pressure from the pump, it would lock in there pretty good. That's when things got bad.

The rig in the third lane was full, the tank being filled on the opposite (passenger) side . The driver paid up inside, hopped in his truck and pulled out. Problem was, I hadn't had a chance to yank the nozzle out of the tank, and the driver never heard or felt a thing as the truck moved forward, nozzle wedged in the tank, the rubber hose stretching but holding, pulling the entire pump loose from the island. He still doesn't realize he's now dragging an entire diesel pump, hoses and all, wires hanging out, alongside his rig. He'd made it all the way to the onramp before someone flagged him down. During that time, he'd gotten up to 35-40 mph and the pump was somersaulting over and over, parts flying off, destroying itself.

I ran around two rigs to the pump island he'd left, only to see an empty square spot where the pump had been, wires and pipes sticking out of the concrete pad, diesel fuel everywhere. I just stood there, stunned.

I finished my shift, pretty sure I was fired. I went back the next day though and my timecard was still there. I clocked in. Outside was a brand new pump. No one ever said a thing to me, not the manager, or the owner. It was like it never happened.
Click to expand...
That's a helluva story.
 
DinoMikeSr said:
TA #6 in Columbia, New Jersey. I was there one day waiting for a load call. I was out of the cab with the hood opened on my truck checking fluids, hoses etc., when I heard a sound like someone slowly crushing an aluminum can in there hand. Only it was a lot louder. Of course I'm like WTF and start looking around. Next thing I know I hear someone yelling in Spanish with a "hey man" in between now and then. I look over and there's a guy standing outside of his long camper hooked onto his pickup and there was tractor and trailer slowly side swiping him with is trailer as he went by. Camper guy was taking up two truck parking slots, but there were lots of parking that morning because most truckers had already left. Had to be intentional, dude in the truck just ran his truck down the side of that camper ripping off the aluminum siding, canopy, side door, etc. Then just kept driving away and on down the road. A bit later I saw the camper dude walking across the parking lot with a big crumpled up piece of aluminum siding torn off his camper. That was some funny sad shit.

Perhaps take note that truck stops are not free over night parking for motor-homes and campers, if they're not in the process of being shipped that is.
Click to expand...

That place isn't far from me.
 
For the last 8 years, I've worked in Chicago and lived in Columbus. I rented a place in the western suburbs and drove home every other weekend. Since the 65 to 70 route is so boring, I would take Route 30 across upper Indiana (through Ft Wayne) and then across and down through Ohio. A lot of times, if I wasn't in a particular hurry, I'd just pull onto some farm road and navigate through Ohio and Indiana with my compass. I ran across a lot of little towns. Some of them neat, some of them absolute fucking nightmares. There were several where I swear every single person I saw was mentally challenged. Then I watched "Goodnight Sugar Babe" and it highlighted a terrible crime in Findlay, OH. Every person in that doc had a fucked up Texas Chainsaw kind of look. I hear it happens through years of inbreeding. So, Ohio and Indiana, y'all been screwin' a lot of people you ought not have been screwin'.

I don't have any interesting truck stop stories, though there were several Pilots and JA's along the way. There was one place on 30 outside Warsaw, IN that had a really good restaurant.

I do have a rest area story that kind of creeped me out. But that's for later.
 
fanuvbrak said:
For the last 8 years, I've worked in Chicago and lived in Columbus. I rented a place in the western suburbs and drove home every other weekend. Since the 65 to 70 route is so boring, I would take Route 30 across upper Indiana (through Ft Wayne) and then across and down through Ohio. A lot of times, if I wasn't in a particular hurry, I'd just pull onto some farm road and navigate through Ohio and Indiana with my compass. I ran across a lot of little towns. Some of them neat, some of them absolute fucking nightmares. There were several where I swear every single person I saw was mentally challenged. Then I watched "Goodnight Sugar Babe" and it highlighted a terrible crime in Findlay, OH. Every person in that doc had a fucked up Texas Chainsaw kind of look. I hear it happens through years of inbreeding. So, Ohio and Indiana, y'all been screwin' a lot of people you ought not have been screwin'.

I don't have any interesting truck stop stories, though there were several Pilots and JA's along the way. There was one place on 30 outside Warsaw, IN that had a really good restaurant.

I do have a rest area story that kind of creeped me out. But that's for later.
Click to expand...

speaking of small backroads towns.....I'm in S. AZ and in the west out here , the four corners states there are scattered little "settlements" here and there, I guess you could call them "off griders" except they are old established places and generally have utilities (at least electric,water is probably well and sewer probably septic tanks)
You'll run across then on state highways/roads going through the mountains where there are long distances between populated places. Like this route which you'll be lucky to see more than 40 cars on your 5 hour route (the straight N to S line between Lordsberg and Gallup, NM)....
Anyway they will be like 4 or 5 houses and nothing else....They always creep me the fuck out and I will not stop near any of them. They just ooze "Texas Chainsaw" and the really "off grid" type ones which you'll encounter on some backroad dirt byway are even scarier because you just know they are misfits and whatnot (usually flying 'mericuhn flags and perhaps POW flags, etc and / or have numerous junk in the yards etc...yikes !
 
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