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

Boy, what a lonnnnng day yesterday. Was rolling out of Reno at 5:05 Richmond time yesterday for the 260 mile trip down to San Jose. Brandon's first trip over Donner was uneventful, he never left the bunk. When he did wake up I was at the fuel island in Lodi. I got to my delivery and truckin monkey was there with another truck. She walked me into the parking lot by phone. Let me tell you, these new construction Walmart HP loads are becoming more and more a royal pain in the ...hole. I spent an hour waiting for them to try and level out the the landing strip for the unfinished loading dock. In the meantime I had some dude show up in a cart pretending to be some OSHA enforcement cop telling me I'm not allowed on the construction site without a hard hat, googles and vest. The mood I was in I laughed at him and told him call the dude in charge in Washington. He was carrying on and I wasn't paying any attention to what he had to say. I finally got empty and pulled off the site to wait on my reload. Master Yoda showed up and so did another truck. I'm sure one of them listened intently to the OSHA dude.

I got my load assignment about an hour later. I had to drive to downtown San Francisco right across from Fishermans Warf to a Walgreens store and pick up a 1200lb damaged cooler, brace it in and bring it down to our Colton drop yard so they can load it with more freight during the week. No problem doing my assigned load, but let me tell you, I've been to downtown San Francisco before, it ain't cool. I called the store, got the manager on the phone and asked him 2 simple questions, (1) do you have a loading dock? No. (2) Do you have a fork lift? No. Then he tells me that it isn't a problem, we'll get it in the trailer. Right said I. I got directions then called into dispatch and told them what the deal was. They put me on hold then came back to tell me it was picked up last week and was sitting at a moving company warehouse in Fairfield. Much better said I. Got to Fairfield, and in 30 minutes it was on my trailer and braced in. My clock ran out so I had Brandon take it the rest of the way. We made it as far as Hesperia and called it a night. Right now we are sitting in Colton bobtail waiting on dispatch for my next adventure. Master Yoda should be here shortly so I'll be able to tell truck driver stories today.

 

Getting loaded here in Santa Fe Springs with a dry load going to Rome Ga for Friday morning.