Amigo Meats in Chicago

The one place I dread delivering to is Amigo Meats in Chicago, IL. I had been to the one in Houston without incident, but the first time I went to the one in Chicago was traumatic. I follow the directions off the freeway and get to the street I'm supposed to turn on and it's a residential street with cars parked down both sides and a No Trucks Allowed sign clearly posted on the light pole. So, of course, I said to myself "I can't go down that street" and proceeded to pass it and look for someplace to get turned around. Bad move, just around the bend was a 13' bridge - so I backed up (good thing I was there plenty early and there wasn't much traffic at 3 am) until I could pull a U-turn in a wide driveway that I had passed and tried the alternate set of directions that I had been sent.

I followed the alternate directions until I came to another 13' bridge. Pulled a U-turn but the last street I had turned off of was a one way street and the street that went the other way had a 13' bridge. I found a street that I knew went back to the freeway, but guess what it had -- a 13' bridge. I was trapped in a not so nice area of Chicago in the wee hours of the morning by 13' bridges. I tried to flag down a cop -- what a joke -- he was more interested in harrassing the locals than helping me. I got a little desparate and very slowly tried to see if myh 13'6" truck would possibly get under the overpass since I was fully loaded --- nope. I turned down street after street trying to find one that didn't have a 13' bridge but couldn't. I did, however, find a street that had parking on it and actually had enough room for me to pull over and fire up my laptop.

I figured out roughly where I was at and found out how to get where I needed to be and set out again. Finally, I found my way onto the freeway -- had to get on going the wrong way because of -- yep, a 13' bridge. Got downtown, did a U-turn, got back on the freeway, followed the original directions, carefully turned down the original, narrow, residential street and found the receiver. They were on the left and on the right were houses with cars parked in front of them. Their staging area was the area between the curb and the front of their building (what fun trying to squeeze 6 trucks in that little area). When you got a door, you had to extract yourself from the staging area and somehow get your truck lined up to back in off of the residential street, into the inside docks that you have been looking at while you were 'staged' -- all while avoiding the parked cars, the supports between the docks where the door rolls down at night, and the 3' high curb that follows the edge of the driveway on the far side (another driver really messed up his side fairing on that one).

Finally got unloaded and got the heck out of there. I guess all in all, it's not any worse than many of the other docks I've had to hit, but the trauma of getting lost in Chicago in the wee hours of the morning makes me never want to see the place again. Did I mention that this was the second trip I had made after I started driving solo? Welcome to trucking lol! When I told my business partner (former co-driver) about my ordeal, he asked me several questions: Did I hit anything, did I hurt anyone, did I get the load there? I answered: No, No and yes. He then said: "Then you did great!" Now that's how you keep things in perspective

 

Nice to be back -- went solo last November after 21 months of team-- we got a second truck and are now driving 2 trucks and making the same money we did driving teams -- and that's after paying both truck notes and all expenses. Been able to save a little too! I'm enjoying driving solo (unless you count the dog) and run into my former co-driver on the average once a month out here on the road. We surprisingly got along great as a team, but they don't really run team freight so we ended up rescuing late loads most of the time. My dispatcher was shocked that I was able to handle driving solo as well as I have and now he tells us that we're the best drivers on his board. Been averaging 3,000 miles a week. I've decided to try and visit here more often -- I've missed this place