Surrounded by it’s all about me people in Durham!

This mascot played a role in what famous baseball movie?

No that car isn't in the way!

PAC Docks

I bet you didn’t know that in Durham you can park on the street for free for 6 days.  Well at least that appears to be the case as you can see from the orange tag that we found on the back of a car parked in front of a fire hydrant in the lane we park in to stage for the docks in Durham.  Security at the PAC told Vince the car had been there for a few days (February 14 is the date on the notice, not sure how long it was there before the notice) and that they had called to get it towed but the city had refused to do so.  When we read the notice it states that this individual has 7 days before the city will tow it.  If you want it towed sooner you have to call the watch commander to request a hearing. Also there was no citation on the car either.  I don’t believe at home that a car sits for more than 72 hours before being towed and sitting in front of a hydrant or in a fire lane will get you towed even faster.  That means when we return for the load out Sunday, you guessed it, that car will still be in the way.  So if you ever find yourself in Durham and don’t want to pay for parking just leave it on the street.

Notice on the back of car

See hydrant - Park in front of Hydrant - Really!

 When we arrived at the truck stop after load in, Vince parked in the farthest corner of the very empty truck stop.  He does this so we get a good walk in any time we go into the truck stop and it puts us away from the noise of the trucks coming and going.  Don’t you know that two hours after we arrived a driver pulled in right next to us. Now I am talking there are 75+ empty spots in the truck stop and he pulls in right next to us.  I told Vince I felt like I was at the movies, because it never fails that there will be empty seats every where in the theater and I will get the seat kicker or talker directly behind or in front of me.  Vince’s theory was that this guy was too lazy to walk into the truck stop to go the bathroom.  That just grossed me out on so many levels and while most drivers are not like this, like any industry they have bad apples too.  Now while we don’t know this to be true, thank God I didn’t find out with my own eyes. I will say we never saw him go in or out of the truck stop. 

But what I really didn’t appreciate, between 1:00-2:00 am this morning, was his waking me when he left.  He had pulled in ,while we were backed in, and since he had one of those trucks that has the alarm that goes off as he is backing up, it rang the whole time he was backing out.  Seriously, you know:

(a)    you are going to leave in the middle of the night

(b)    there are multiple open parking spots all over the truck stop

(c)    you are either incapable or too lazy to back into a parking spot

but you go ahead and park next to someone anyways. As Vince stated it “not even right next to them but right on top of them”.  Unbelievable!  In this situation I would love to quote my buddy, Jim who has a great name for these types of people but since I am trying to keep this blog in the PG rating category, I will just let you insert your own name for these types of individuals.

Durham PAC

Vince took the pics for me before load in, because yes, I was still asleep.  Love the stadium which is right next to the PAC, it reminds me of one of my favorite movies. Tomorrow we load out of Durham, next stop Toledo.  We have been spoiled by the nice temperatures and with the prediction of icy conditions in the northern part of Ohio for Monday. We plan to just relax and enjoy the next two days.  

Having grown up Reds fans Vince and I appreciated this brick