July 17 - catching up

I am way behind in this.

To catch up; I passed my solo test on the 11^th. No problem. Except my truck is back in Denver. Figures. I catch a ride with another May driver (Rick) back to Denver. Got home Saturday at about 16:00. Cool beans, too – Rick let me drive for a few hours.

Sunday – off

Monday, head in to the terminal to claim my truck. Gods, it's disgusting. Prior driver apparently never heard of a vacuum. Danny called contractor to clean it out. Won't be ready for hours, so I head home.

Before I go, I have a load dispatched – pick up a load from Coors at 23:20 tonight, deliver to Stockton CA sometime before Christmas. I foolishly estimate I can get there Thursday at around 02:00 – so they set appointment for 08:30. Sensible. Except that I've misjudged the truck. Average speed was not 55 – it was closer to 50.. so I was an hour late. Fortunately, the consignee was cool about it. Unloaded me in about 30 minutes and turned me loose.

Drive over was pretty much uneventful.. except coming down the west side of Donner Pass. Down shifted to 6^th cuz the load is heavy (44130 pounds).. but I kept having to stab the brakes. Never got hairy, but I was kinda annoyed that the jake wasn't sufficient even with the load on.

'Course, when the streetlights in Sacramento hit my dash, I figured out my problem. I'd shut the jakes off in Reno when I fueled, and forgot to turn them back on. Definitely a DUH moment, there!

Waited 3 or so hours after empty call for my new preplan. Take a trailer from Yolo yard to Hermiston OR. 700 miles. No problem. Except I have no idea where in Yolo the yard is. I query for destructions, and as I'm taking THE exit for Yolo, they come back. Not needed, as the yard is right next to the interstate and impossible to miss.

Pulled in, dropped trailer... and discovered that my repower isn't here. Query dispatch...it's still 300 miles away. GAH!

Sitting in this dusty yard in 100 degree heat, waiting for a trailer that I'd thought was here already. Sigh

This delay means I'm not going to be delivering it tomorrow evening as planned. Gonna have to be the original appointment: Monday at 08:30. Three days to go 700 miles. Bah!

So long as the trailer shows up before midnight, I'm gonna grab it and go 15 miles up the road to Dunnigan and take a damn shower! Laundry in Hermiston.

Glad the laptop is working again. Was bugging me no end when it wasn't. No idea why, either.

Got the trailer at about 21:45 and bugged out. Headed about 15 miles up the road to Dunnigan, and got my shower. Wheeee! Crappy water pressure, but it was hot. I could feel the scum and sludge leaving my body.

Glad the laptop is working. Now I've got real music to listen to. The few CDs I brought are already old, and we won't discuss local radio. Lets just say that there IS something worse than rap. Rap in Spanish. Oh, god that was awful.