8/17/07

Old El Paso... Got to the customer a little early today and checked in. The load was assigned to me as a drop/hook, but there were no CFI trailers at the customer. The guy told me to back into one of two docks, neither of which looked like much fun. I had to blindside in around a trailer and next to a fence, with very little room to pull forward. With a little care and a few trips to the back of the trailer to check things out, it went fine.

Since he told me to back it into a dock, I assumed that the trailer was going to be unloaded. After sitting at the dock for a bit, I saw the guy standing on the dock waving at me. I walked back and he asked if I knew I was dropping the trailer there. No, I didn't know that, not exactly at least. Since there was no trailer to hook, I didn't think I would be making the drop/hook. No big deal. I lowered the landing gear, unhooked, and went on my way.

When I got on the board, I was number 15. That's not a real good sign in El Paso, as weekend freight there tends to be on the lighter side. When I got to number 10, I received a load assignment. To me, that meant one of two things. Either none of the drivers ahead of me had enough hours available to pull the load, or the 'planners' had my truck noted as one that has been low on miles in recent weeks. Either way, it was a good-looking run. It picked up in El Paso and delivered Monday morning in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Then, a second drop in Ohio would follow on Tuesday morning. It was going to be nice to actually have something to keep me busy for a few days. It was going to be nice. Alas, when I started toward the customer, I received a message saying that the load had been cancelled and I was back on the board.

I was number 9 on the board at that point, so I pulled into McDonald's for some lunch. Since I was close enough to the Petro to catch the Siricomm wifi network, I signed up for one day of access and hung out there. My Sprint Mobile Broadband service in El Paso is terribly slow, so I paid $6.95 for the day of wifi service. I had some personal matters to tend, and they involved uploading some e-mail attachments. I needed a decent throughput to get everything done. As I sat in my seat, a whore approached my truck. I had the windows up and the air on, so I just gave her the 'get away from me' wave. She stepped up on the step of my truck, so I gave her a more obvious 'leave me the fuck alone' wave. What followed next was hilarious. She stepped off the truck, reared back, and hocked a big-ass loogie on my door. I'm not sure what would be the appropriate response, but I started laughing my ass off. Just when you think you've seen it all...

When my load assignment finally came through, I was a little disappointed but I'll try to stay optimistic. I had to go back to our yard and grab a trailer that had just arrived, then take it to Roanoke, Texas for tomorrow afternoon. The run itself is a good one, over 600 miles for one day of driving. The trouble is that I will wind up on the board in Lancaster on a Saturday. That has not been a good thing lately, from what I've heard. I guess we'll see soon enough.

I ran out of hours on my 14 hour clock in Midland, so I'll get rolling from here in the morning. I get a chuckle out of certain things as I roll along. Get a load of this one. The speed limit for cars in West Texas is 80mph during the day. That's well enough. There are long stretches to cover and not much traffic. The funny thing is that most of the roads, for a pretty long stretch, just dead-end at the interstate with a stop sign. No on ramp, no off ramp. Just stop at the 80mph interstate and take a right.

Anyhow, I have a splitting headache right now so I think I'll take a few Tylenols and try to get a decent night's sleep.