Abilene Motor Express....A New Place To Call Home

Yeah, I’m the same way.

 

It’s still a Knight Brothers run company…

 

Did something I've never done before at Abilene: I requested hometime for someplace other than my actual home.

I live in the Richmond suburbs, and since our main terminal is in Richmond, I very rarely have a problem getting home on time for hometime. We always got freight going back to Richmond, and they usually keep me east of the Mississippi so I'm rarely more than two days away.

But my dad's 75th birthday was yesterday, and that's enough of a milestone that I wanted to put in an appearance. Especially since my brother was gonna be there too. The Old Man doesn't get to see us too often, and very rarely both together in one place.

So I put in a hometime request for Albuquerque.

Took a 34 last week, hit the road Friday morning with a load to Tracy, CA. Due Tuesday morning at 7:00am local (so 10:00am as far as I'm concerned since I always stay on Richmond time no matter where I am). Load of printers from HP. Once I delivered the printers, they would (hopefully) find me something that would get me to Albuquerque by Wednesday.

And then the receiver (Costco) refused the entire load.

One of the pallets had fallen completely apart, and product was laying on the floor of the trailer. Another pallet was leaning over. These were very tall pallets, the kind that I would absolutely secure with a load lock because they are definitely a fall-over risk. But the trailer was bolt-sealed when I picked it up off the yard, so I had no way to access the interior. Apparently the Costco warehouse didn't feel like unloading a floor-loaded trailer, so they just said "Nope" and sent me on my way.

So now instead of sitting in Tracy, CA with an empty trailer and the load planners trying to get me to ABQ, they instead had to figure out what to do with a trailer full of product. Results came in pretty quickly: Take the trailer down to an HP warehouse in Los Angeles so that the product could be reworked (and hopefully secured for the next driver).

Once those instructions came in, I knew there was no way I'd be in Albuquerque by Wednesday.

Dropped the trailer, schlepped an hour across town to the Colton yard to pick up an empty, schlepped an hour and a half back across town to pretty much the same area I'd just dropped the previous trailer to pick up a load going to Albuquerque. And by that time I had 13hrs 15min left on my 70, with ABQ nearly 14 hours away according to my GPS.

It was touch and go, but I did burn off enough of that ETA to make it to the receiver on time. Got unloaded, parked the truck at the TA in Albuquerque, took an Uber to my dad's house and surprised the heck out of him since he had no idea I was coming. Had a great time with the fam and will be here for a couple of days.

Will be back in the truck Sunday and we'll see what the Trucking Gods have in store for me then.

 

I

was banned from Costco Tracy a few years ago. Got into it with one of their employees over parking on the street outside their gates. Best thing to ever happen to me. That place is a pain in the trailer…

 

Gotta take them when they pop up.