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!

11-20-06 - Monday - Snow, Ice & More!

I left out of Denver and grabbed a load from the Budwieser brewery in Ft. Collins going up to Jackson, WY. No problem. The load assignment didn't say anything about needing loadlocks. The Budwieser people seemed to think they were pretty important. I bummed 2 of them off of another driver and all was good. I was really heavy comming out of the customer and spent about 45 minutes sliding the tandems back and forth. The drive up to Jackson was pretty uneventful. There were 70 mile an hour wind gusts going across i-80, so it was slow going. I put it to bed somewhere along a small two lane road in upper WY. It was already looking pretty snowy, but the next morning when I headed up the road for the last 100 mile to the customer, it was nice a slick. Packed snow and ice on the little two lane mountain road. Fun, Fun FUN! NOT!

I made the drop and headed towards the second drop in Twin Falls, ID and found out along the way that the customer for that drop didn't want the delivery until Monday. That was three long days away. My DM had me stop where I was and wait till he could figure something out. He had me bring the last of the beer load back to Salt Lake and then grab a load out of Ogden in the morning. I spent the night at the SLC yard and got the Ogden load going to Phoenix the next morning.

Saturday was a beautiful day. I had the load and headed south. The Grand Canyon area is so amazing. I figure as long as I'm riding all over the country, I might as well try to enjoy the scenery.

I stopped for the night in Tuba, AZ. Cool name. It was dark when I got there and Dark when I left, so I have no idea what it actually look like there.

I got to the customer in Tolleson, AZ, which is right in Phoenix, at about 9:45 am. My appointment was for 3:00 pm. I begged them to take me early so I could get on to my next load before it got too late. Well, they got me into a door at about 12 noon. I paid the $140 lumper fee, (England reimburses all lumper fees), and waited while they unloaded me. I didn't get out of there until 5:00 pm. OUCH! I fueled as quick as I could and raced down to Casa Grande to pick up my next load.

I got the load of nutritional supplements and put it to bed for the night just west of Phoenix. The load is only 12000 lbs., so I'm making really good fuel economy. Saving money and running a long trip up to a customer just south of Tacoma, WA.

Can't upload pictures from here, I'll upload them as soon as I'm not on the road trying to do everything wirelessly at a truckstop.