September 26 - I hate city traffic.

September 26 – up at the crack of oh-my-God. On the road almost immediately. Directions to consignee were accurate – but the street itself is.. well, not exactly hidden, but difficult to find in the dark. It looks like a driveway for a small industrial subdivision.

Turns out,that's exactly what it is. To make matters worse, though, it's not lit. So, I drove past it once, circled around and found it. Hit the door only about 20 minutes late. Other drivers arrived later, but left sooner – THEIR loads were on pallets, not skidsheets. Takes a bunch more time to deal with skidsheets – especially if there are only two people working the dock.

Got out of there at about 9:30. Plenty of time to drive 100 miles, right? Wrong. Big city traffic was..... big city traffic. Routing had me going across the bay bridge (Toll). Traffic was completely stopped that way, so I went down the east side of the bay to Salinas, and then back up to Castroville. Drove up and down the street a couple times before I realized that the building I'm looking for is set back from the street – BEHIND another building. There's a moderately sized sign on the street, but nothing on the buildings themselves.

Oh well. Hit the S&R window a half our late and they start blathering about $85 for missed appointment. All I can say is, it better not come out of my check.

For now, I'm sitting in the 'waiting' area with 5 other trucks. There are 8 doors to the warehouse, 1 has a truck in it. That leaves 7 doors. Empty. 6 empty trucks sitting not 200 feet away. Already I hate this place. Let's see how long it takes them to 1) put me in a door and 2) load me once I'm there.

Didn't take long at all to put me into a door. Less than an hour, anyway. Now, let's see how long it takes to load...

A bit longer. Total time was 5 hours. Doesn't leave me enough time to get to Reno, and I can't stay here to run a split. Gonna have to get as far as I can.

Hwy 1 and Hwy 17 are right pleasant - and in some places quite pretty. On the other hand, I-880, I-560, and I-205 at rush hour .. can you say “nightmare”? Not only is traffic slow, but it's made worse by “me first-ers” . The kind of driver who will jump over into the deceleration lane to get ahead of one or two other cars. As a result, while it took me 2.5 hours (give or take) to go from Sacramento to Castroville this morning, it took me almost 5 hours go get as far north as Stockton. Gah.

Too tired to net.