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

Sent to Flagstaff with a Walmart Reefer Load to swap out for a Volvo Load going to Reno.

And I screwed up coming out of Colton...

somehow after I preplanned my trip, the GPS reset and ran me east on I-10 instead of up to Barstow... by the time I caught it, in the middle of the night, I was too far East to correct... so I ran hard hoping I would get to Flagstaff before they did... DM calls at Sun up with the team info that I’m swapping with... I asked where they were... Arizona... ok, where? Kingman... DANG IT... then I had to own up to my boo boo... lol ... so they came back and met in Flagstaff... boy did I feel stupid... lol

I remember it happening the first time I was here in ‘15... but just a bit too late for this trip.

 

... shocked am I

 

I had three, THREE, trailers in a row with tire issues... got the first one replaced, second one patched, and the flat on the third on the yard, had so many things wrong with it after they removed the two tires that they took it out of service... lol

I should be good for a few days.

 

Well, I avoided the One Armed Bandits....
But the roulette wheel snagged $40

Can we even call them “one armed bandits???

 

I was wrong about the DOT Blitz. It never happened. I was disappointed. It’s like a holiday in the ports when they have a blitz. A lot of owner ops take the week off. In and out fast.

 

I passed through an inspection site in Arizona in the way out here... pulling everyone through then stopping random (I assume random) trucks for detailed inspection... like a row of ten... officers with creepers to roll under the trucks and everything...

I sighed a deep sigh as I was allowed to pass.

 

Cleanest trailer I’ve seen in a while! And it wasn’t me who did it! Can you believe another driver left this on the yard this clean???!!! Color me impressed!!!!

 

That was me.

 

Got a load going to New Orleans and then to Dallas. Will be driving through my old stomping grounds, and I should be able to see both my brother and my mom on the way.

However, it doesn't deliver until Monday at noon, so I have a fair amount of time on the load. No rush. Drove about 8 hours today and then pulled into Davy Crockett. Usually when I park here, I have to park on the edge of the lot, in the dirt-and-gravel bits with all the mud and potholes. Today, though, there was a spot right up front, on the asphalt and close to the building. Score! So I swung the truck around and started to back in.

But then a couple of other trucks pulled in the driveway, and since I'm a nice guy I let 'em pull through the gap between the back of my trailer and the front of the row of parked trucks so they could go about their business instead of waiting on me to get out of their way.

And apparently my courtesy was a mistake, because as I started to back in to the spot, a PTL truck started pulling through from the other side.

Welp.

So I'm not about to give up this spot, right? I continue to back in. Meanwhile, the other guy is equally determined to take the spot and continues to pull forward. And we eventually met in the middle, with the front half of my truck sticking out the front of the row of trucks and the back half of his truck sticking out the back.

I sat there with my blinkers on. He didn't move. I didn't move. I set my parking brake. He set his parking brake. Time passed.

Then I got out of the truck to walk back and talk to the dude. Because there's no use having both of us sit there like d**n.ed fools, and this clearly wasn't going to get resolved without some kind of parley.

Turns out, he had the same idea, because he was coming up to meet me at the same time I was heading back to meet him.

"Hey, how's it going?" I said.

"Well that's kinda what I want to know," he replied.

I held out my hand. "I'm Mike, btw."

He seemed surprised, but he shook my hand. "I'm Robert."

"Well Robert, I saw this spot here, and I swung around to back in. But I stopped to let a couple of guys go past me. If I hadn't done that, I woulda already been completely in this spot before you rolled up on it. And from the angle you came in, you had to have seen me stretched out and angling for that spot before you even turned into the lot. So you knew I was going there."

"Well that may be how you see it," he replied, "But I saw this spot before you got here, but I didn't want to do a U-turn like you did. So I drove around to the other side to pull straight through. I've been here since yesterday, taking a 34, and was just trying to get a better parking space."

Well, I've been in his shoes too, right? I've been on both sides of this situation. It was just one of those situations where nobody's really at fault, and there isn't a clear wrong or right. Just a conflict that needed to be solved by everybody acting like a grown-up.

"Tell you what, my man," I said. "I'll flip you for it. Winner gets the spot, loser has to find another spot."

And then he surprised me. "Don't look around," he said, "but there are a lot of dudes watching us right now. And they want to see us throw down. They want a show. And I don't want to give them one. So I'm gonna back out and find another place to park. You can have the spot."

"You sure?" I asked. "I'm willing to move if I lose a coin toss. No hard feelings."

"Yeah man, it's cool."

And sure enough, he moved his truck.

After I got parked, I went and found his truck. "Look, man, let me at least buy you a soda or a cup of coffee or something."

He laughed. "I was just going to come make you the same offer!"

And to make an already long story slightly shorter, we went into the truck stop and ate dinner together and had a great conversation. Turns out he's a brand new trucker, only been on the road 7 months (which probably explains why he wasn't stubborn about the parking spot). Like me, it was a late-in-life career change (he's 57), and we had a lot of other things in common besides.

He had started driving for CRST and hated them, so moved to PTL and doesn't like them either. So I told him maybe he oughtta give Abilene a try. He'd start off getting paid the same cents-per-mile he's getting now, but at least he'd be working for a much better company.

I think he's gonna give Trish a call come Monday.

 

EU, thats a helluva story with a great ending! Too many fights and gunshots exchanged over similar circumstances. Good when cooler heads prevail. I applaud yours and Roberts efforts and demeanors.