Taking the plunge. My journey as an O/O.

True, but winter covers more area than construction, and is a little more difficult to avoid if you work over the winter.

 

So, Winter struck again today. How, do you ask?

Well, I ended my day yesterday at my final in Topeka, KS. I connected to an empty and checked inside. Not clean enough for my next shipper.

The next shipper was 12 miles away.

The only reefer washout within 50 miles did not open until 0800. So, instant waste of three hours of my life, as I had been planning on starting my day at 0500.

I Googled the facility, and it didnt have much of an entry lane, so I did not go park there to wait for them to open.

I arrived at the site at 0815.

There was a truck in the single bay, and two trucks outside. I squeezed myself into the shoulder of the road, barely out of the traffic lanes, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Then I waited even longer.

At that time I was about a quarter of the way through waiting, so I wont bore you with all my other waiting comments.

3 hours later, the flatbed truck with a small dozer and small bobcat skid loader, both loaded with enormous clods of frozen clay, were clean.

THEN I waited longer, as the cleaning team removed a few five-foot-wide shin-high piles of partially frozen clay from the bay. There were enough large, irregular rocks mixed in that they would not let me drive over them. I am glad they didnt let me, my luck has not been good this week.

3.5 hours after I arrived, I entered the bay, and was washed out in 10 minutes.

I ended up losing about 175 potential miles after waiting on the washout, dropping the empty, PTI on new trailer, chasing down the missing shipper, and fueling.

Why is this Winter's fault?

Frozen clay mud in heavy machinery treads is apparently more than a little difficult to remove. Half of the bay crew was using crowbars to break up clay because the pressure nozzles weren't doing squat.