11-28-06 - Tuesday - In a cave!

Today I delivered in a cave. That's right. I got up at 3:00am and drove about 35 miles down to Kansas City and found the delivery customer. It was a cold storage facility in an industrial park called "Subtropolis". The worlds largest underground industrial complex. Miles and miles of roads underground and warehouses and offices. I found out that the entire complex is an old lime stone mine.

Anyway, I got my delivery done and by 8:00am I was waiting for another load. About an hour later I got my load assignment. I was to pick up in Schuyler, NE and run a load of meat to El Paso, TX. I got to Schuyler at about 2:00pm and was on the way by 3:00pm. I stopped in Grand Island and put it to bed for the night.

Below are some pictures I shot recently.


The clear blue sky in Utah a few days go.

The Rocky mountains in Utah.

My truck docked in the underground.

This is a view of the roads underground.


One of the many entrances to the underground.

11-27-06 - Monday - It's all about the weather!

The weather the past few days has been good, bad, and ugly. I picked up from the customer in Tacoma, WA on Friday morning. I got 24,000lbs of shrimp cocktail rings with cocktail sauce. Yummy! Unfortunatly, I have to haul the load, not eat it.

I got as far as the Blue Mountains in Oregon and put it to bed for the night. When I woke up, there was about 8 inches of snow piled around the truck and on the roads. I did my best to clean the snow off the hood of the truck and crawled up the road. It was about 530 am and there wasn't much traffic on I-84, but the trucks I did see had their chains on. I was already pretty much up the mountain, so I just pushed through it at about 20 mph.

Later in the day after I got down towards Boise, ID, the weather really cleared up. I cruised down through Utah and into Wyoming before stopping for the night. I stopped in Ft. Bridger and got a shower and watched some local TV.

A word about TV in the truck. The truck has some sort of built in TV antenna that has a connection behind where the TV goes. Usually, I can tune in something. After I get to my house next time, I hope to rig something that will hold my spare DirecTV antenna. Untill then, I will deal with broadcast TV.

Sunday I made good time. Blazing across Wyoming and into Nebraska. I got to about 25 miles from where I was planning to stop in Grand Island, NE and traffic came to a halt. The road had been wet and possible icy. Well, it was very icy for the cars that crashed on the bridge near exit 291. We all sat there for about 2 hours while emergency crews cleared the road. Unplanned delays, gotta love it.

I had a good dinner and a goodnights sleep in Grand Island, NE. Monday I headed out and the roads were still pretty slick so it was slow going untill I got a bit further south. I stopped in St. Joseph, MO and called the customer in Kansas City to see if I could deliver early. That wasn't happening. They only take deliveries from 6-9 in the morning. I parked it and found some local TV to watch and got connected to the internet.

I'm going to get some good sleep now. I have to get up way early tomorrow.