Off to Colorado!

Well at least this time I wasn't stuck in Texas for 4 days waiting to get loaded. lol. This time I went to Laredo, and then I got loaded for a load to Dallas (about 450 miles), but it was due the following morning, so I automatically knew I would be driving a grave yard shift. Those are never fun. I don't mind the drive shifts where I get up at like 3AM and on the road by 4, because then I'm done by like 1 or 2 in the afternoon and it was half dark and half light for the shift. Where as, this monday evening, I forced myself to try to go to sleep around like 4pm, and by 10:30 I was up and getting things together. By 11:30 I was headed over to the CR England drop yard because thats where I was picking up the load from. Basically I was dropping my empty trailer there and picking up a loaded one and then taking off for dallas. By the time I got the trailer and hit the road, it was about 1AM. When I got to dallas, I made it there about 8:30 or so, and of course as I got in town with the traffic and the constant turn offs (i mean turn offs as in get off one highway onto another, exit off that one back onto the one you just came on, etc). And the problem with driving throughout the whole night is no matter how rested I am, I always get to a point where I start zoning because since it was dark the whole time, my body obviously wants to go in back and go to sleep, but my mind is saying "nope, you cant. Get this load there safely and then go lay down."

So as I was saying, as I got in town with the many distractions (on top of me being really tired), Erin texts me, and I simply replied back "i'm in dallas. 30 minutes" implying that i'm too tired and distracted, let me get where I'm going and I can talk. lol. Didn't want to risk it. So I was assigned a load from laredo that, after I dropped off the dallas load, I was supposed to pick up a dallas load and head to washington state. Was like 2,000 miles. was like "sweet!" Especially after they took the other good load off my truck. But then when I woke up monday night to get ready to leave, they had taken that one from me as well. I was like "wth man?! I accepted this shorter load because you told me I would get a good reload, and then you take it away?!" So they said "oh we will get you something good. don't worry." So I get the load to dallas, Im sitting there waiting to be unloaded, dozing off as I sit here in the truck, and my qualcomm computer chirps and apparently i have a message. It's a load assignment! WOOHOO! Wait a minute! 35miles?!?!?! Are you freaking shitting me!?? lol. yup, that's right, they tried to assign me a load that had come from new jersey, was dropped in irving, and was due in dallas that night. I messaged my dm and told him 2 things. 1) I wasn't going to make any money on that load, and 2) since I was down near empty, I would need fuel and so i would actually end up losing money. He messaged back that he was trying to figure out what was going on. He then said "call me asap."

So I call him and i'm like "mike, don't they have company drivers for that reason?" He was like "yes they do, but apparently they don't work that late and so when this is supposed to be delivered, they have nobody to do it. The planner is saying if you will take it over for us, he will pay you a $75.00 delivery bonus plus he promises to get you a really good load out." I was like "mike, I will be honest with you. I'm a bit skeptical because two times in the past day now I've had what was supposed to be my 'really good load' taken back from my truck, so how is this time going to be any different?" He was like "i know, I don't know why they took your washington load off."

So when I finally got out of the customer, I had only like 30 minutes of time left and so I messaged mike saying "i'm off duty driving over to the truck stop, going to get a bite and probably end up going to sleep because I am so freaking exhausted! I would take that deal with the local delivery for the $75 but I don't think I'm going to have hours back before the load is late." Later on, about 3 hours later, he messaged for me to call him and I did, and he said that the planner really still wanted us to take it, and was still offering the bonus. Seeing that I would reset around 8PM and the load wasn't due till 10, I told him "alright I'll take it for you as long as I see that message with the AR for the $75!" I was basically giving up about 3 hours that I could have been asleep early and catching up, to help them out, but my thought process was "the more I'm willing to help them out, the more mike seems to get me really good loads, and so as long as they hold up what they say their going to do, I will do what I can to help them out. So I got the load delivered last night probably 11pm, i was an hour late, but 10 minutes before 10 I was 15 miles away and so I sent my arrival call and so according to the computer systems I actually was on time. The problem was my GPS got lost... LMAO (or got me lost. however you want to look at it). What happened was the street name that the customer was on happened to be the same name of a street in a rich neighborhood. So the gps said "arriving at destination!" and I look around and all i see are these huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge houses. I'm like "ummmmmmm... i'm thinking i'm in the wrong place!" But of course, i wouldn't have seen them very much at that point in the night because it was so dark. Had it been day time I would have probably known it was wrong. So I looked at the local directions, and I key the last highway into my gps. Basically it said to take 35W south, and exit 56A, so I put fort worth, and that highway in my gps hoping that it would at least get me to that highway, and thankfully it did! Then I went only 5 exits before I found the right one and WALAH! i was there! When I checked in, they were deciding on what door i should dock at and I said "if you have a doc that is pretty open with not too many people around, that'd be great! i haven't slept much in the past 24 hours and I don't want to risk it." So they put me in a dock that literally had nobody for a few spaces from it. lol. I was like "sweet!"

They got me unloaded quick, but then told me "wait in your truck, we will call you when your paperwork is ready." So here i am laying in back, thinking "if they don't hurry up i'm going to fall asleep here at the dock." I was noticing that the street that went by the customer was a really wide street and a few trucks had parked down near the end of the street where there was this big circle turn around area, they basically went down, turned around, and parked on the side of the street for the night. So before I had even finished being unloaded, I was divising a plan (yes I'm sure divising is not spelled correctly.) I was thinking "hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... I don't want to drive out from here, so I think I will go park behind them when I'm done and go to sleep!" Well, i did end up dozing off in the truck. I don't know if I heard my phone ring, or something else woke me up, or whatever, because i don't even remember being layed down in bed, but suddenly I was sitting up, and I had grabbed my phone and was staring at it for probably 5 minutes before I reallized "oh, my phone... OH! MY PHONE! heeeeeeey cool, a missed call.." So I called the number back and they were like "yup, your paperwork is ready, come get it!" I was like "ok." So I get my paperwork, and then I get back to the truck and drive over, park behind the trucks on the street (the street was out of the way so the only traffic were any trucks that were coming down to deliver).... Closed up my trailer doors, covered my windows, climbed back in my sleeper cab and went to sleep. The next morning, I went back inside so I could hit their restroom, and then I drove the 12 miles to the pickup for my current load.

My current load is going to colorado, so I didn't complain because it's about 750 miles. Not the 2,000 I had before, but 750 is decent. Plus it delivers by tomorrow night, so i did part of the drive tonight (about 7 hours worth) and then I will do about 5 and 1/2 hours in the morning and be there by 1 or 2 pm. If i'm lucky (and here's hoping) my dm will have me route to the local drop yard so I can leave this loaded trailer there and pick up another load going from there to somewhere else. He's looking into that with the load planner and it's awesome when i can do that because instead of waiting around so I can deliver, I literally drop the load, pick up my loaded trailer, and take off again. It keeps me rolling, and that's definitely important. A little over 2 weeks till i'm scheduled for home time just after Ally's birthday. She's turning 11. I giver her crap and say things like "sooooo ,,, you excitited? Big 10!!!" She's like "ddaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!!! i'm turning 11!!!" I'm like "9?!?!?! What do you mean 9!?" She's like "11!!!!" "8?!" lmao. Yup, i'm weird. ;)

So anyway, to close this off, I was going to maybe do another 100 miles or so, but this stretch i've been on tonight goes a ways between rest areas or truck stops. So when i got to this point and I saw a few truck stops right next to eachother, and it was 9 oclock, I thought, "i'm probably good for the night. Might as well stop while I know I have a place to," and pulled into the Loves Travel Center, and backed into a space. Went in to get a bite and use the rest rooms, and then came out to do my school posts really quick and figured better do my blog update! :) That's about it for now, more later!

Imagine this! For those of you who might be doctor who fans, imagine a cake that looks like the Tardis! If you're curious and interested in seeing what it might look like, you may get your chance in the next few weeks as that is what ally requested for her cake. I told Erin I thought that would probably be the coolest looking cake in her portfolio because I can visualize a cake that looks like a rectangular police call box with the little sign on the front and everything. Should be quite fascinating! Stay tuned to Erin's site if you'd like to see more! ;)