Feeling Better About Things

Yet again, another week has passed since I've had any time to write. Currently we're sitting in Missouri at a Flying J, waiting for the morons in Omaha to send us a load. It's been like this all week, actually. We get a load delivered and then sit for hours, or even overnight, before they decide to give us another one. We delivered yesterday at 10pm, and here it is, 230pm and were still sitting. The farthest we've moved is across the parking lot here to get a better space.

On a brighter note, as I'm here watching drivers try to park and generally fail miserably, since Greg is going home for 6 days around Thanksgiving, I'm going to go home with him, and then Thanksgiving morning, he'll drive me to the airport near his home and I'll be getting on an airplane to Boston, so I can spend my Thanksgiving with MY family, not his. Not that they're bad or unenjoyable people, I just prefer my own people. I also haven't seen New England since October 12. 6 1/2 weeks is WAY too long to be gone.

If all goes well, I should have somewhere around 20-30 hours of training left to log when I get back in the truck after the holiday. With any luck, I can be in a terminal the following weekend, and be in line for a truck on the morning of Dec 6. I've been told that Werner's account with Dollar General in the New England area is severely hurting for drivers right now, so there's a good chance I could get on that dedicated account. I'd be home every weekend and get exercise unloading the rolling carts from the trailer into the stores, too. Now if I can just finish up my hours and get a truck, I'll be all set.

So as I've seen more of this land we call America, I've come to start taking notes on some of the more interesting or thought-provoking things you find. One of the most interesting is the fact that our government finds in necessary to tell anyone passing through Oklahoma on a specific section of highway that if one was to exit here, they could find the ammunition factory where they make all the bullets our country is using to declare it's supremacy. I'm serious, there's a HUGE sign just before the exit - US MILITARY AMMUNITION MANUFACTURING FACILTY

Texas is an interesting place. The state is so large that they feel no road should be posted any less than 65mph. A 2-lane such a Rt 5 thought Vermont, or Rt 4 though New Hampshire would be posted at 65. It takes quite a bit to get used to going that fast.

We were in SE Kansas the other day. We passed a church with a large sign board out front. Apparently someone there has a good sense of humor, as the message read -
HONK IF YOU LOVE JESUS.
KEEP TEXTING IF YOU WANT TO MEET HIM

And last night as we were coming through Missouri. The MODOT has a clever employee, as well. Someone put up a message reading
PICKUPS ROCK
THEY ALSO ROLL
BUCKLE UP

Wondering What's Really Going On

Wow....I haven't seen an internet connection in 12 days. WTF. Anyway, Long story short, I've been all over the place in 12 days. Been to Texas, Colorado, California, Arizona, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, BACK to Texas.

This past weekend was a joke, though. We picked up a load coming from Illinois, bound for Laredo, TX, and point south into Mexico. Now we don't run Mexico, but we get it to within 9 miles of the border. We didn't make it. Our load was plenty on time to get there, but Werner has a fleet of daycab trucks that simply run back and forth between 2 pre-designated cities Monday thru Friday. We got a message on Friday evening that a daycab from Laredo wasn't going to be meeting a daycab from Dallas, and that we needed to meet the little whiny SOB in Buda, TX, and swap trailers so he could get home to his loving family......I'll spare my exact thoughts on the daycabbers, as most of them are rather full of expletives, and I'm trying to keep this a PG show.


SUPER long story short - we went to Dallas, got stuck there for 3 days, Greg was almost fired when he went to get his Medical card renewed because the "doctor" in Dallas is a quack, we had 2 loads assigned and then taken away, Werner fired 2 other drivers that same day for iffy medical reasoning, and we finally escaped the prison (seriously, the terminal is surrounded by a chain link fence with razor wire loops on top), and got a load to Houston. That we delivered, and headed to a Wal-Mart DC for another load.

So here I sit, in a Houston-area truck stop, awaiting the repair shop to get to us to fix an air leak on the trailer we picked up. I was really hoping to have my 275 hours completed prior to the Thanksgiving holiday, when Greg returns home yet again. Somehow I'm fairly sure that I'm going to be screwed. Again. Thanks Werner. Sometimes I wonder if you really WANT me to work for you. Or if you'd rather see me walk.

Thoughts.....and Beer

Well I made it through Greg's home time long weekend. We were in Jonesboro until Tuesday afternoon, the 2nd. We got rolling sometime around 3pm, headed for western La to a Proctor and Gamble (P&G) plant. Our load was around 43,000lbs of Tide products, bound eventually for Arizona, however we were directed to drop the load in Dallas, Tx. From there we took a trailer north into Oklahoma City, and proceeded to come back south from OKC to Denton, TX with a load of shock absorbers for the Peterbilt manufacturing facility located in said city. I could have spent the whole night there, admiring all the shiny, new trucks rolling off the assembly line, unfortunately, we had to get a load of Dispatcher Brains from Denton out to Golden, Colorado. Roughly 800 miles with an empty trailer. Werner finally decided to let us know that I'm off curfew now, and I can drive any time of day or night. With this new knowledge fresh in my mind, I drove straight through from about 7pm to 4am, watching the Texas countryside pass by in the amazingly clear night. We switched drivers in Laredo, Tx, and ended up at the Coors Brewery sometime around 2pm. I can vouch for the fact that when Coors says "Brewed IN the Rockies" -- they mean it. So now we're about to get pointed towards Iowa with our 45,000lb load of bottled beer.

Two observations from being in Texas -- ALL the bridges are posted for height, not just the ones that are lower than 15' like they are in New England. I've seen a few bridges that are posted at over 20' clearance. Good to know, my 13'6" high trailer might be close to those......

Also, purple neon in the south means one of two businesses are there. It's either going to be a Mexican restaurant, or an adult store......