Monday, June 30

8:30 a.m.

Early this morning Sheila disappeared, and when she came back into the room she was crying. She had been at the repair shop, desperate to see whether we would be able to leave today, but when she got there she saw the truck had been moved out of the garage to the back lot to make way for another truck that had broken down last night. Her heart dropped, she said. At this point Sheila had lost more than $1,000 waiting for the truck to be finished and had racked up more than $600 in hotel, rental car, taxi and food costs. The company would reimburse her expenses but she couldn't make up for the lost time. She had a new truck that no one had the knowledge or parts to fix, and that was not her fault.

She said all those feelings converged into anger when she saw the truck waiting on the back lot with no mechanics tending to it.

"Why don't you make that guy wait for a week like I have?" she said, pointing to the truck that had taken her truck's place. The mechanic she spoke to bristled at the question, but she went on.

She went on to talk about all the money and time she had lost, the bed bugs and the lightning, hoping for a twinge of sympathy.

"That is why I am not a trucker," he said, smartly.

"Well if it weren't for truckers, you wouldn't have a job," she retorted.

The back and forth continued before she called Jerry Eddy, a senior vice president of operations at Covenant, in tears.

"I need to get on the road. I need to get on the road," she said.

10:30 a.m.

We are saved. Covenant is sending a tractor trailer to come get us so Sheila can get back on the road and work. We will have to take the driver of the truck back to Chattanooga, but after that, Sheila can get back to making money. She won't be in her own truck, her home, but she will be able to move.

7:15 p.m.

Sheila, Clara Belle and I are finally headed home to Chattanooga. Ironically, right as the truck from Covenant arrived to get us we discovered that Sheila's broken truck had been put back together. Now we can roll our eyes about all that happened. It was an act of God, or so the insurance company says.

Over the days of waiting in cramped spaces, I think Sheila has began to think of herself as mother figure to me. After all, we have been through so much together. Tomorrow we will wake up in separate places, but she asked me if I needed her to call and wake me up in the morning. "Do you have an alarm clock?" she said. "Of course I have an alarm clock," I said, both of us laughing.

I may have been a helpless case in the big bad world of 18-wheelers, public showers and greasy repair shops, but soon I would be back in the realm of four wheelers.

Covenant recovery driver David Bryson idles in Atlanta traffic while on his way to Greenville, S.C., to bring a new truck cab to Ms. stanford.

David Bryson helps Ms. Stanford transfer her belongings to the new truck. Mr. Bryson will stay the night in Greenville before traveling to pick up another truck.

Ms. Stanford transfers some bedding from her old truck to her new truck at Christopher Trucks in Greenville, SC.

Ms. Stanford loads some of Clara Belle's bedding into her new truck at Christopher Trucks in Greenville, SC.

Ms. Stanford climbs into her new truck to start her journey back to Chattanooga.

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