Good Night From II

With all the reports of nasty weather I'm very fortunate to still be at home. Don't know the official rainfall totals for yesterday but my pool is up about 3 inches from Friday.

Picking up a load of pallets later today headed for SoCal, deliver tomorrow. Looks like I missed the majority of the SoCal weather as well.

Some times it's better to be lucky that good. First person I ever heard that from was one of the best controllers I knew in 32 years of ATC.

 

Well made it home for some relax time but before I do, gotta drop the load i have locally.

I saw on Yahoo news that there was a very nasty multiple car pileup on I-25. Results were one person dead and quite a few injures. People please make sure you making right decisions out there on the road. I know we have no control over "Mother Nature" but we do have control over making the right choices in order to stay out of trouble. Also on my way here to El Paso, I witnessed a truck burn down on I-10...crazy stuff all around

 

Tulsa, OK. Glad that I stopped when I did. Looked at the weather map and some real crap moving into this area, and down south on US-75 which is where I am headed. Let this move out of the area. Also so glad that I did not follow the GPS routing me down to Memphis. What I mess from looking at the weather map.

Ohh just a short while later, and so glad that I stopped. the sleet and freezing rain has started and I do not even want to walk into the t/s through the parking lot.

 

I decided to stay put ... I only have just over 800 miles to go, all day Tuesday to drop the load, running recap and short hours coming back Wednesday and Friday. Figured I'll just take a 34 and not drive in the storm.

 

Was not that bad from Cuba to here today. Not sure about going East from there. Did stop in Stafford and was told that there was travel advisories out for the area, and that they were predicting more there tonight and about 4-6 inches tomorrow. If the weathe map is right, most of this will be past me by morning. Right now along with the sleet, thunder and lighting. I still have about 48 hours to get 770 miles. Did not really want to attempt US-75 down to Dallas today and it was not looking that great either.

 

I just left the flying J in Tulsa a few hours ago. We are on 75 south now and it's a good idea you stayed put. It's safe if you are going about 30 mph, but that's a good way to burn hours going a short distance. We are trying to get back to the target dc in TX and we can take it slow, if my co- driver runs out of hours I'll just take over.

MO was no cakewalk either I was driving in the wee hours of the morning from Columbia, MO to Lees Summit, MO when freezing rain started falling from the sky. I imagine its only gotten worse in mo since but when I was rolling through there the roads were manageable but with it only being 3 degrees ice build up on the windshield and wipers was an issue despite having the defrost on full blast. I had to stop periodically to clean the wipers off and to let the windshield warm up to melt the ice.

While I was in my hometown of Tulsa I got to have lunch with some of my family so it was a good end to a pretty tiresome shift. Hopefully the weather clears up tonight because we have a load from the DC back up to Tulsa for a 0530 delivery.

 

Sitting at the TA in Greencastle, PA for my 34. Back running Target loads; not surprising given that I'm on a Target dedicated account...

Had a bit of bad luck this afternoon. While backing my trailer into the dock at a store, my red air hose snagged on the catwalk and broke. Of course, this happened at the point where I was blocking the road. Threw on the blue line, held down the valve, and shoved it into the dock.

Spent the next hour on hold waiting for On Road to answer. Got the OK to bobtail 15 miles to the nearest truck stop and got a new hose installed. Grabbed the empty and headed to the DC where I managed to snag the BLUE hose on the catwalk parking the trailer. At least this time the glad hands separated. The hose has a few scrapes on it, but is still intact. I'll probably grab a new one next time I go to a terminal, and keep this one for a spare. (And then I have to remember to get my tools from home!)

Going to spend tomorrow at the buffet, watching the snow fall...

 

left vegas this morning and p/u load at apple valley dc going to desert palms. spent an hour waiting for another load. p/u that at mira loma dc and took that back to apple valley dc. thought they let me take my ten there but nope. lucky i had 1.5 hrs left. drove over to flying j here in barstow.

 

It has gotten worse around here in the last few hours. They say that it is supposed to be gone by early morning, around 3 or so. doubt that the roads will be in any kinda shape, especially 75.

 

Been here at the Flying J in Phoenix for a day. Delivered yesterday and waiting for dispatch back to LA to pick up our next TJ Maxx round trip.

Called my brother, who moved to OKC last month to avoid the California CARB situation with his older truck, and he's sat out today. Said it is basically undriveable, and coming from my brother that's saying a lot. He's started a gig leasing onto a company that delivers to oil rigs.