Snackbar is chillin'....at Shaffer

Well, my live unload at N. Platte has turned into a drop and hook when they sent me the actual load info. (I kinda thought doing a live unload there was unusual). The Dallas Americold wass a gong show. There was a CRE sitting in the entrance of the staging area with his 4-ways on like he was broke down, so you had to go to another entrance and back up to the guard shack to check in. It took me over an hour to do a drop and hook. Load weighs all of 15000 lbs. Then, TXDOT decided to shut down 2 of 3 lanes on I-35E between 635 and the Bush turnpike jct without any warning signs. Took over an hour to get thru that. I made it to the Road Ranger near the OK border and found the last free spot and went to bed. I haven't looked at the details of how they have me routed, but my fuel stop is on I-40 in Hinton, OK...WTF? Going to N. Platte from Dallas and routing me on I-40? Looks like another fuel solution request will be forthcoming.

I did need to wash out my previous trailer before dropping it at Americold. While I was sitting in the Blue Beacon washout bay, I called the Wilmer shop to see how long of a wait they had to do a T1 service to my trailer. He said DAYS. Because it was empty, it would be locked out and done after all the loaded trailers. I told him that I wasn't dropping it on the yard, I am taking it to a customer after the service to have it loaded. He said it doesn't matter, if it's empty, it's done at a low priority. So, I did what the last driver did and left it for the next driver. #### if I am sitting for days waiting for a T1, the trailer can rot down to dust and blow away before I waste that much time...and that goes for any future empty trailers I have that are flagged as needing service. I can see why drivers ignore getting these trailers taken care of.

 

That's something that terminal desperately needs, but they're gonna have to make some parking adjustments to access it if they're gonna fence it in. They're gonna lose some of the bobtail and employee parking to put in an access drive way

 

I ran the route in my personal GPS that the Co-Pilot shows in order to make my assigned fuel stop. It adds 150 miles of US route driving (unpaid) to the load just to buy fuel in Hinton, OK. Sorry, that's a lot of wasted logbook time, I will get north of OKC and get a new fuel solution. I wonder how many drivers just blindly follow the company "suggested" routes because they're think they're being told to.