A New Favorite Spot For 10 Hour Break

So last night my trainee and I were headed from North East, Maryland across I70W into St. Louis for a multi-stop load of yummy Herr's potato chips.

Typically when coming through this way, I'll stop at the Love's in Greenville, IL, but my partner in crime needed to do some serious laundry and that Love's doesn't have a laundry. So I'm checking trucker path literally checking out every little stop trying to find a place to stop (that she had hours to make it to) with laundry that wasn't already full.

I found an awesome "little" place off exit 68. LOL, it's not that little but I sure never knew it was there. Yes, it's a religious mission, but they're not pushy and such genuinely warm and caring people. The place is called Road Angel/Association of Christian Truckers. Clean, well lit, paved parking for 50.. yes 50 big rigs, a 24/7 Driver's lounge, 3 showers, laundry, chapel, home cooked hot meals, coffee, tea, fresh fruit/snacks and it is all completely FREE. It's not a truck stop but is a rest Haven for truckers. It's run by a couple named Dock and Mary and staffed 24/7, 365 days a year. They operate strictly on donations. They won't ask for one, but there's a little wall mounted lock/donation box by their little guestbook sign in table.

I had a really tasty bowl of homemade beans and ham, cornbread, sweet tea, homemade oatmeal butterscotch cookies. Heck they even offered to cook us breakfast before we headed off to make our deliveries this mornin, but we really needed to be on our way. They are retired OTR owner operators and it was so nice and felt like home.

If any of you are ever in the area, I highly encourage you to stop by. I know I certainly will. They only asked if they could pray with us before we went on our way, which was certainly fine by us.

Never turn down prayer or a good meal. Sounds like a fantastic set up.

Absolutely. They are open even on Thanksgiving and Christmas and offer a big holiday meal, whether you've got time to spend the night or just to drop in and say hi when passing through.

That sounds really awesome. I've marked it on trucker path so that I can remember if I'm ever that way I'm no personally religious but I definitely respect the religious beliefs of others and find that people with sincerely held beliefs are often kind and generous.

I have a friend who loves that place. It was started by a trucker.

Yes it was, Big Scott. Very nice people. They used to run a similar place near Milton, PA is what they told me. They enjoy having drivers stop by to share their stories of the road with them. They live vicariously through us. Dock and Mary are genuinely wonderful people and I'm honored to have had the opportunity to meet them.

Wow this is really interesting and also very cool. It is nice people like this that always makes the worst of days a lot better. Thanks for sharing this and I will definitely have to check this out if I ever get that way.