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

Which of the following... Trailer
Flat tire
Landing gear
Broken light
Brakes

 

So today was a first: I got to deliver to a warehouse complex in a cave that was completely underground:



I have heard of these kinds of installations before but this was my first time to visit one. And lemme tell ya, it was tight:





LOTS of twisty turns and close calls and near misses. Whoever designed this place clearly didn't have 53' trailers and sleeper cabs in mind. Couple of times I had to back up because I hadn't taken a turn quite wide enough and wound up with the side of my trailer about to rub up against one of these columns of rock.

It was a complete maze inside. I followed the signs to what I thought was the consignee and got VERY lost. No maps, no GPS, no big wall signs with "YOU ARE HERE!" diagrams, nada. Being lost inside a truck-hostile underground maze is just about as much fun as it sounds. It reminded me a lot of the underground levels in Half-Life. I kept waiting for Gordon Freeman to pop out from behind a column and shoot at an alien.

I finally found what looked to be enough room at an intersection to make a three-point turn to head back the way I came and was preparing to do that very thing when some guy in one of those Evil Minion in an Underground Bunker carts rolled up on me and told me how to get out without needing to turn around. I followed his instructions and, after a few more close calls with the rock columns and my trailer, found myself once again back in the open air.

I made a phone call to the receiving agent at the consignee, got specific directions on where to go, followed those instructions, and reached the consignee without incident. Except that now I had to go in to do all the usual paperwork rigamarole and find a dock. And not really much place to leave a 53' trailer and sleeper cab down in the underground. I tried as best I could to leave it out of everyone's way and went inside.

"Are you in a sleeper cab?"
"Yeah."
"Oh. Crap. That's too bad. The only doors I have available are the hardest doors to get into."
"Welp, that's why they pay me the medium-sized bucks."
"If you can't get in, let me know and I'll get one of our yard jockeys down here."

And off I went to Door 11. Door 11 LOOKED deceptively easy because it was sorta facing a section of the road which curved away from the door. So I could at least pull straight down that road and try to angle in. Blind-side back, naturally.






This is me trying to angle into Door 11. There was, of course, another trailer in Door 12 right next to it. They also had a large concrete block on the passenger side of my truck, placed there to protect some pipes from the depredations of careless truckers. If that yellow block had been another 2 feet back, it would have still protected the pipes AND made backing in to the dock much, much easier.

I tried repeatedly, sliding tandems forwards and backwards, trying to see if there was a way to get my trailer pointed in the right direction. But after 45 minutes or so, I gave up and went back to the shipping office and told 'em to call their yard jockey. He showed up and even HE had trouble getting it in that door. If the guy who does this all day every day struggles getting it into the door with a truck designed to be much more maneuverable than my sleeper, I don't feel quite so bad about not getting it in myself.

Of course, eventually I had to leave.


Which meant getting enough clearance between the front of my truck and this wall of rock directly in front of me while also not ramming the side of my trailer into the trailer in Door 12. There was some forward-and-back maneuvering as I slowly inched my trailer away from Door 12. Finally I had enough clearance to get my trailer clear, and I made my way once again out into the open air.

And there was much rejoicing.

 

Delivery pushed out till next day.

 

@ExtremeUnction that looks like Lanexa KS. Teeny tiny place. If it’s not, then there’s two places that are like that. Yuck!

 

Found a map of the place. You can see Door 11 down in the lower left corner.

 

This was in Independence, MO.

 

So, a very nice officer informs me that it’s illegal to have handwritten paper tags on a trailer... who knew?

Yes yes yes... if the Driver had done a proper precheck he would have noticed the trailer didn’t have real plates.... yes yes yes

 

That and he gave me a ticket for an illegal lane change ... was in left turn lane... I was wondering what I was going to do after making that turn into a car lot when I noticed a “no trucks allowed” sign... a few of them actually... whew... good thing I didn’t turn in there and get stuck... and no room to make a U Turn with Tractor Trailer... so I wait for traffic to clear and processed to safely go straight to where I then found the actual Truck Entrance.... totally different road... ya, nice to get actionable intelligence... as I turn I notice who? But the nice officer who wanted to speak to me.

Was not playing... didn’t care that I couldn’t complete a left turn without possibly getting stuck in a car lot... didn’t care that I could not safely maneuver a U Turn with Trailer behind me... nor did I know if it was even legal to do so... nope... only action was to be a left turn...

After I dropped the trailer, I went back to that intersection to run a few U Turns... it was tight with a bobtail, and even then required a back up to maneuver the complete turn without running in the ditch... so no freaking way would I be able to complete such a maneuver with full Tracter Trailer set up...

So, how was your day?

 

Man, where was this?