An old man's career goes flat, Snackbar moves to open deck

Looks like a good 68 mph job (will look good passing by at 68)

 

In all my e-log years, this is the 1st time this happened

 

Load delivered safe and sound and now I am back at the Arlington yard. Learned a valuable lesson today when working with an RGN...make sure you are as straight with the trailer as possible before disconnecting the neck. Backed in to the only spot I saw big enough to disconnect and get unloaded. Took the chains off the van, but walked over to the receiving to double check that I was where they wanted me...they said yep, so I hussled over and started going thru the process of disconnecting. It wasn't until I had pulled the upper deck free from the lower that I realized I had it at a bit of an angle. It's a mofo trying to get lined back up and get reconnected when your upper deck is a slight angle...but it was enough of a PITA that I won't make that mistake again!!!! At least I didn't drop the top deck off the lumber holding it up off my frame.

 

On the 1st trip with one where I had to detach, I was nervous about making sure I did it in the right order (I watched the YouTube video more than a couple times that SPD put out about detaching and stretching one of the extendable RGN's). When I went to pick the WSDOT van last week, I wasn't the least bit nervous...the guy they sent out to help spot me backing the truck on the trailer showed up just as I was getting things started...he commented that it looked like I had done this a time or two, he was surprised to hear that it was only my 2nd time actually detaching an RGN...now, I could see myself working for a company that hauls them around full time. Of course I haven't done it in sub-zero temps with tons of slush and snow compacted on there, so that might change my enthusiasm a bit.