Choice scenes from the parking community at GATS — night 1

Wednesday night at GATS — sometimes the set-up turns out to be as eventful as the show.

I made the TA Petro Truck Parking Community at the Great American Trucking Show (3013 S. Haskell Ave.) by 7 p.m. last night to meet a guy who didn’t get there until three hours later, given the hiccups and delays of long travel. As usual at GATS, where owner-ops turn out in numbers, and where the the lot is a central evening gathering point for entertainment and diversion, I wasn’t alone, of course.

Daniel and Phyllis Snow, on hand with their “Goose” Freightliner, cooked burgers over a truck-side grill with an owner-op couple back in the lot, the guys from RiteLoad, in from Pennsylvania, continued set-up of a variety of displays and more.

Speaking of Riteload, I caught this message on the back of the shirt trucker-songwriter Taylor Barker happened to be wearing.

Perhaps most interesting of all, I had a short conversation with singer-songwriter Leon Everette you’ll hear more from later — the gospel man with a long history in country music as well. Owner-operator Bill Weaver and Everette started up a bit of sound-checking shortly after I arrived as the Kingsport, Tenn.-based Stone Creek Four continued to set up equipment for the next three nights’ worth of shows. A little more on that schedule for those bringing their trucks to GATS:

If happen to catch my colleague and Indiana-based Moeller Trucking driver Paul Marhoefer tonight, wish him a big happy birthday.

Watching Everette and Weaver wind their way through the next couple hours’ worth of music, eventually with the absolutely excellent backing of the Stone Creek Four, was an unexpected treat. You can catch them both, again, as noted on the schedule above, at 9 p.m. Saturday. You may recall Weaver’s 2015 rendition of Everette’s classic “Hurricane” at the Trucker Talent Search All-Stars show at GATS that year:

This year, Everette (left) and Weaver warming it up at the TA Petro Parking Community Wednesday night ahead of show open on Thursday.

Shortly after this scene, the screen was showing classics from trucking movie history.

Enjoy your run. Hope to see you in Dallas.