Wheee! Wheee! Wheee! All the way Home!

I apologize about the lengthy silence here, but I have not had any internet service in the places that I have been spending my nights lately.  I'm at home now for a few days.  I got home on July 3rd, and I will be back on the road on Monday the 8th.  I couldn't help but think about the old nursery rhyme where you wiggle the child's toes as you're reciting it and when you get to the final toe you say "and this little piggy went wheee wheee wheee all the way home".  Yes, that's how I felt as I was headed home this week.  The last time I was home was the weekend of May 25th for Abigail's ballet.

I thought I might share with you my adventures since June 13th which is when I was hoping to go home but instead got dispatched up North to Minnesota.  It will give you just a little glimpse into the life of an over the road truck driver's daily life.

I started out on June 13th in La Porte, TX picking up a 47,000 pound load of granite slabs.  This is the type of granite you see being made into counter tops.  This load had two different stops in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  When I arrived in Minneapolis it was about 10:00 pm so I just slept in the customers parking lot so that I would be the first truck there in the morning and thus could get unloaded first without having to wait in line.  This first stop was simple, I easily backed into their warehouse where they unloaded their product with an overhead crane, and promptly sent me on my way to my next stop.  The second stop was much more interesting.  They had a lengthy, very curvy single lane drive that snaked it's way around to the back of the very large warehouse with signs pointing delivery trucks to follow that path.  Normally, if I am at a place I've never been, I'll get out and take a good look around to see just how I'm going to get in and out before I commit to guiding my gentle giant in there.  When you're driving a 70 something foot long vehicle weighing upwards of 80,000 pounds it's just smart to know how you're going to get out before you actually get in somewhere.  But, since the driveway was so long and obviously curved around to the back, well, I assumed they must have some way to turn around or exit back there somewhere.

So I go on back there and a Spanish fellow directs me where to park as the fork lift driver comes racing out of an overhead door to unload me.  While they are occupied with that task I'm trying my best to figure out how to get out because there's definitely not enough room to turn around, and I don't see any other exits.  When they're finished and I've gotten my paper work signed, I ask the Hispanic man how the trucks usually get back out of here.  He slowly tells me in his unique Spanglish dialect that they back all the way out.  Well that's okay with me because I actually kind of enjoy the challenge of backing an eighteen wheeler.  Yet my curiosity begs to ask another question of my helpful com-padre.   "What happens if another truck is pulling into the driveway from the other side of the building and we meet up somewhere over there with him trying to get in and me trying to get out?"  He simply says, "Well meester, that all depends".  Depends on what? I query him.  "That all depends on wheech truck driver is the most stubborn" he says as he turns away and walks off with a sly grin on his face.

By now my Quallcomm is making noises to me that I've been dispatched to Eau Claire Wisconsin to pick up about 40,000 pounds of miscellaneous building supplies to be delivered to a building supply store in Lincoln, Nebraska.  They take up all my legal working hours at this shipper getting me loaded, so that I can't drive anymore, so at 2:00 am I bed down in their parking lot for the night.  When I arrive in Lincoln it is about 10:00 pm so I sleep in yet another parking lot so that I can get unloaded first thing in the morning.

After unloading the building supplies I am promptly dispatched to Norfolk, Nebraska to pick up 46,000 pounds of angle iron headed for Greeley Colorado.  I can smell the smoke of the Colorado forest fires as I finally get to sleep at a truck stop where I enjoy the simple pleasure of having access to restrooms and restaurants.  Once I've delivered my angle iron I'm off to Pueblo, Colorado to pick up the load of "slinky coils" that I mentioned in an earlier post - they are headed to Salt Lake City, Utah.  Then I'm whisked away to Tooele, Utah to transport 8,000 pounds of Styrofoam insulation to Fresno, California where they are building a new cold storage facility for all that produce grown in those lush California Valleys.  Here is a photo of my slinky coil load just in case you would like to see some of the "stuff" that I drag around with me.

Just so you have an idea of what some of these places look like that I'm going through here's a photo of the view I enjoyed while sitting at a truck stop in Salt Lake City Utah.

From there I receive a message telling me to grab a "high value" load down in Fontana California that is headed to Houston, TX.  This turns out to be a 23,000 pound load of large reels of copper wire.  On these "high value" loads you're expected to stay with your truck at all times and report each stop you make to the home office.  They even request that you don't take a shower for fear that someone has followed you and is waiting for an opportune time to steal your valuable goods.  Well, they don't know it, but I took a shower on both nights that I was babysitting those reels of copper wire.  We were having excessive heat warnings over there in that area during that time, and I was sweating a lot so I took showers - quick showers!  I slept in truck stops with this load because it would be more secure that way.

When I got to Houston, I was thinking "great I'm going to get home now", but it was not meant to be as my quallcomm alerted me that I was heading to Brenham, TX to pick up 34 parking lot light poles to be delivered to six different locations in Texas and Oklahoma with the final destination being Mooreland, Oklahoma.  Well, it was going to be prudent management of my time to take a 34 hour break now so that I could re-set my hours for the coming week, and since my three girls were about 45 minutes away at Giddings, I cruised over their way and spent the weekend with them.  That was such fun surprising them like that.  We had a great time together.

Oh boy, this action packed post is getting lengthy.  After getting all my light poles delivered to their respective homes I got a message sending me to Fletcher Oklahoma to pick up 47,000 pounds of sheet rock going to Longview, TX.  This is now July the 3rd and my dispatcher tells me to take this load to the house and deliver it on Monday the 8th.

Yes I felt like that little piggy saying:
Wheee! Wheee! Wheee! All the way Home!