Thursday, November 23, 2006

11-23-06 - Thursday - Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I'm spending this day of giving thanks in Tacoma, WA. It's really rainy here. I think I saw the Ark floating by. Seriously. It's soooooo wet and rainy here.

I delivered the load to Puyallup, WA last night. I got there at 8:30pm and was told that they didn't open till 10:00pm. The guard told me that I couldn't et into the yard till 9:30pm. I asked where I was supposed to go with my truck and she told me she thought there was a bar about a mile down the road that she had seen some trucks parked at. I really thought that was crazy. Oh well. I drove about 100 yards down the road and found an empty parking lot next to a office/industrial park and slide in there for about an hour.

At 9:30pm I went back to the customer and the guard let me in and sent me to door #64. The last door on one side of a 150 yard building. I parked and walked to the other end of the building where the receiving office was. I got there and was second in line to check in. OK, I then realized that I had left my silly little guard issued ID badge that the security guard gave me, back in the truck. Damn. I asked the other driver there if I neede it. He said yes, they will ask for it when they check me in. Oh well. I walked back to door #64 in the pouring rain and got my silly little guard issued ID badge from my truck. I got back to the receiving office and was now about number 8 in line. Damn. OK, I finally got up to the window and gave the receiving clerk there my paperwork for the load. She spent a few minutes looking at my paperwork and told me to move my truck to door #117. Damn. I hate doing the truck shuffle! Why? I mean, why would I be sent to one door, just to be sent to another one. This feels like I'm back in the Army! Crazy!

I backed into door #117 and went into the dock area to find the lumpers, (people that unload the trucks). I found the guy that was in charge of the lumpers and waited in line to talk to him about the cost to unload the 12,000lbs that I was hauling. After waiting about 25 minutes I got to the guy and asked him how much it would cost. He told me $50.00. No problem. I raced back to my truck to request from CR England the info to fill out the check to pay the guy. I waited about 15 minutes and got the codes and numbers to fill out the check and ran back to the dock.

I got back to the lumper guy in time to wait in line again for another 20 minutes. I paid the lumper guy and went back to my truck to wait. At about 1:30am my light went green on my dock door and I went in to the dock to get my paperwork. Long time to wait to get 7 pallets unloaded. Oh well.

I found my way to the local "Flying J" truck stop, but as you can imagine, at 2:00am, it's packed and no parking spaces available. I found a Travelodge Hotel near the truck nstop that had a parking space for a truck. I got a room for 2 nights and put it to bed for my 34 hour restart.

Below are some pictures from the past week.


This is my truck. Truck 92714!


This is my truck in front of my house.


Here in Jackson, WY delivering some beer.

A view of the mountains above my pickup point in Ogden, UT.

More to come next week!

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