Sunday, February 10, 2008

Indianapolis, IN

Phew, what a long day! Getting this load was nothing but trouble, but once I hit the road, everything went well. After catching yet another nap, I went back inside to find out that the product they were short for my load wasn't even scheduled for another production run until first shift! So, figuring I had several hours to sleep, I just went to bed for the night, this time without even setting the alarm. Of course, two hours later (at very roughly 6AM; I couldn't even see the clock clearly), I get a bang on the door from the shipping clerk, since the load was finally ready, fourteen hours behind schedule. At least I'm going to collect $75 in detention pay for this, I figured.

But despite spending half an hour looking for the trailer, I couldn't find it in the lot that it was supposed to be in. On a hunch, I looked in another lot and found it rather quickly. I also found that it had a flat tire, which kept me from going anywhere! Yet another delay, though this time it was with a call to emergency maintenance, who in turn called a tire bank, who in turn called me to say it would be about an hour and a half. So I went back to sleep again, for lack of anything else to do and for a rather desperate need to sleep. I woke up to the sound of a new tire being put on, quite a bit more than an hour and a half later. Ultimately, I didn't even leave the shipper until 9AM, a full seventeen hours behind schedule. At least this run had enough extra time where I could afford the delay!

Once I hit the road, things went rather smoothly. Somehow I managed to squeeze in almost 650 miles today before my eleven hours ran out, which has me all the way up here in Indy again. The low tonight is going to be around zero with a wind chill of -20°F, so I'm just leaving the truck idle while I go to bed. I'll catch a shower and (possibly) do laundry in the morning; right now I'm too tired to even see clearly!

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