Watkins & Shepard - The Adventure Begins October 8th

I started the day in West Memphis, Arkansas... in an area which is basically like five huge truck stops all bundled together where I-40 and I-55 meet. You'd be hard-pressed not to find a place to park at one of them. I'd fueled up the night before so that I could leave first thing.

I was expecting rush hour traffic in Memphis... but there was hardly any at all. It was a brokered load of rubber tires and the bill of lading said that if it wasn't a drop and hook (which it wasn't) that I had to unload the tires to the rear of the trailer. Thankfully, that ended up not being true. I didn't have to help unload at all (nor were lumpers involved at any point). I was expecting to spend several hours unloading the tires by hand and to hit heavy traffic either in Memphis or Nashville, so I'd told dispatch that I wouldn't be ready for my next load until tomorrow morning. I sent my "empty and available" message, but they didn't have any other loads readily available and I didn't exactly mind having the evening off.

It was kind of nice to have an evening off and to find myself 20 minutes from Bowling Green, where I have friends. One of them drove down to the truck stop and kidnapped me for the evening. Dinner out was such a treat. And it was nice to see familiar faces.

I'm picking up a load about an hour away from here early tomorrow morning and heading down to North Carolina. I hope they can dispatch me right back north from there because I'm supposed to be home on Saturday. Here's hoping!

 

I didn't have enough hours left to make it to La Mirada, but yes, that would have been a good place to park for the night. Thanks!

 

Feel free to send me a PM. I need all the help I can get. The board thing for chaining is a great idea. I never would have thought of it. I got the chains on through creative use of bungee cords.

The main problem was that I had no idea whether it was a bulb/lamp replacement or a fuse thing. I didn't end up replacing the headlight. I pulled into a truck stop and ran into use the restroom. I went back out to figure out which kind of bulb or whatever I needed..... and the headlight magically started working. It hadn't been working the night before or that morning, but it somehow fixed itself. I signed the "repaired by driver" section of the logbook page because "magically repaired itself" wasn't an option.

I drive a 2007 Volvo. Is that the right headlight bulb? I couldn't find the part number anywhere in the owner's manual or any of the paperwork and I was basically planning to remove the bulb and carry it into the truck stop and try to find one that matched it.

 

Picked up a load in southern Kentucky yesterday morning. Drove until I was about an hour from the delivery (which wasn't until this morning) and then pulled into a rest stop for the night. I delivered first thing this morning and now I'm back in Conover and trying to get a load to Indianapolis. I did get to have a shower and turn in some trip envelopes, so that's good.

Nothing went spectacularly wrong on this last trip, so sorry for the boring post.

 

What are the Sylvania X-tra bulbs for?

 

I have some, but I'm sure it's not the representative sample that I should be carrying with me. Thanks!