By Michael Asch, Molly Jenks, and Anaya Jones
On a bitterly cold November night, neither the iridescent parking lot nor the striking yellow sign of Love’s Travel Stop would draw a crowd. However, those who stopped by had their reasons for being at this Love’s truck stop at 10:51 p.m. on a Monday. People from all walks of life, from Fed-Ex drivers delivering mail to Love’s employees waiting to go home to truck drivers racing to meet deadlines, crossed paths when they pulled off I-40 into the brilliantly lit lot of Love’s.
Ronnie Thomas of Ayden, North Carolina, a self-employed livestock hauler, had no shortage of things to say about cows and what it took to drag them from place to place. He has been hauling cattle for 34 years and showed no signs of stopping anytime soon.
“All my life this is all I’ve ever done. Haul livestock,” he said. “I guess because it’s more dangerous” than hauling other types of freight, he added.
“The more dangerous it is the better I like it. It’s just the way I’ve always done it.”
Thomas has owned his own trucking business for 20 years and is no stranger to traveling days on end on the open road. His next stop was Louisville, Kentucky where he would unload the livestock on his truck and head home to Ayden to pick up more. “I’ll be back [in Louisville] hopefully tomorrow evening. Most times if I have another load to carry I’ll go right back again.”
He turns serious as he says, “I try to stay out the way of the darkness, you know what I mean? I try to stay in the light. A lot of crazy stuff goes on at truck stops, or used to. It’s not as bad as it used to be, so I can’t say that anymore.”
Brightening up again, he recounted a sordid memory from his 30-plus years on the road. “There used to be these girls, what they called lot lizards,” he said leaning in close. “I want to say they don’t have them anymore.”
The possibility of running into lot lizards is not what draws Thomas into Love’s truck stops. Instead, it’s the bathrooms.
“Love’s Truck Stop is the best place to stop for me… because it’s cleaner.”
Like Thomas, Cecil Bailey, who drawled his first name so it sounded more like “SaySul,” is also self-employed, but as a landscaper instead of a long haul trucker. Bailey stopped at Love’s to fill up on gas after giving a friend a ride to work. Bailey said he got gas tonight so he wouldn’t have to wake up earlier in the morning. “I stopped mainly because they got gas for $2.25.”
When he’s doing a landscaping job, he likes to “get up, get it done early, get back to the house,” he said. “Long days. Cold, right now.”
Michael Cross, a FedEx employee, was hesitant to talk at first, but loosened up and chatted about his route. He takes packages from Richmond, Virginia to Charlotte, North Carolina and back. “I’ve been working for FedEx for five, six years,” he said. He started part-time and worked his way up to become a driver for this “great, great company.”
Cross said he hasn’t seen anything particularly strange at truck stops he patronizes. “I don’t think nothing out of the ordinary. I think just people really tired. I don’t know. People acting kinda … quirkiness. But nothing, nothing too much out of the way. Nothing like gunshots or anything like that.”
He bought a soft drink and a bag of pork rinds for the road.
Two college juniors, Anthony Salley of Winston-Salem State University and his unidentified girlfriend, who attends UNC-Greensboro, stopped at Love’s on their way back from her cousin’s wedding. “Me and my girlfriend is coming from a wedding in Portsmouth, Virginia,” he said, standing outside the truck stop, “and I’m going back to school in Winston she’s going back to school in Greensboro.”
Salley, an accounting major, and his girlfriend, a pre-med biology major, have been together for four years. He’s from Virginia and she’s from South Carolina, but they met in high school when they both moved to Charlotte. Salley says he doesn’t usually stop at truck stops, but, “my knees hurt. For real. My knees hurt.” He happened to see Love’s and decided to take a break from driving.
“I been driving since 7:30. What time is it? 11:11. Damn. So, driving for about three hours and a half.”
As Salley walked inside, Alex Pitchardson, a Love’s employee, stood by the curb looking down. He was bundled in all black attire, smoking a cigarette. He wasn’t much of a talker and seemed to liven up only when he talked about the slow pace of North Carolina and his desire to go back home to New Jersey.
“I hate it here,” he said.
Finishing his smoke break, Pitchardson walked back into Love’s and took off his hoodie, revealing dusty red hair. He showed another side of himself when he saw Lisa, a fellow employee. They laughed and playfully shoved one another.
Like Pitchardson, Lisa is also from New Jersey and misses the fast-paced lifestyle of the Northeast. “Everything is too slow. I’m used to the city,” she said.
“When I was a teenager, my parents separated. My mom’s family is here,” she says by way of explanation.
The most interesting thing she has ever seen at Love’s was a man who said his wife put him out. “And he lived here for three days. We let him take showers. We fed him.”
What keeps Lisa at Love’s is that the pay is good for this type of work. She often works night shifts, which last from 11 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. “Or whenever you get off. Usually 9 a.m.” She admitted she’s getting sick of the night shifts.
“I’m getting old,” she said. “I’d rather be at home, asleep.”
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