12/27/07

I know a guy. He's some kind of senior citizen fella that pulls a tanker. Anyhow, he used to work for CFI. Before I started here, he mentioned that one of the things that was nice about CFI is that they aren't afraid to move the power to wherever the freight is. I wasn't too sure what that would really mean to a driver, having never experienced how the process works, but it turns out he was right. They do sometimes move us a long way to get a load and that is a good thing when you get paid nothing for sitting. Today I received, to the best of my recollection, the longest deadhead I've ever had. After I got unloaded in Great Falls I was immediately dispatched to Fort Collins, Colorado. That's some 720 miles away. I've had a handful of deadheads of over 500 miles, but I think this is my longest. I get paid the same empty or loaded, so CFI has to eat the cost of moving the truck and I don't have to sit and wait. I don't know who in Joplin made the call in this case, but whoever it was - Good lookin' out my brother.

From Fort Collins, I'll be hauling a load of beer up to Portland, Oregon. That will be another 1,170 miles or so. There's still hope yet for this to be a nice paycheck. With holiday pay and stop pay and border pay and the rest of it, I'll be approaching the $2,000 mark. Then I hope for one nice-paying run to close it out. Any time I've left Oregon or Washington with a load, the miles have been nice. Since there will still be a day left in December when I get up there, I have a shot.

I headed back down through central Montana on the state and U.S. highways from Great Falls to Billings. A funny thing occurred to me as I was a couple of hours into the drive. US-12 is the same street that runs across about three miles north of my house. There it's called Michigan Avenue, but it's the same US-12. There are movie theaters, bars, restaurants, stores, and such. In Montana... umm... maybe Kevin Costner dancing with some wolves or something. Not much else.

After a nice afternoon nap in Billings, I got back on the road and rolled on into Wyoming. I had the cruise set at 65mph and the radio blasting, just enjoying the ride. Then the road was pointing south and my truck was pointing west. Oops. Didn't see the ice coming. Better get off that cruise control. The rest of the ride was pretty damn slippery. Here's something I don't understand; There aren't that many highways in Wyoming. They obviously have a prevalent winter weather pattern here every year. Why in the hell do they do such a piss poor job of maintaining the roads? It's five degrees outside right now, so the salt wouldn't help, but it was sunny and in the high 20's today. Some salt on the roads would have allowed all of that moisture (now known as ice) to evaporate. Can they just not afford it or what?

In any case, I stopped in Evansville for the night. I have a few hours to go in the morning, then I'll take a break at the brewery to prepare for my nighttime dispatch from there. I've never gone across Cabbage before, so that will be something new. I'm obviously hoping for good weather. I seriously don't know how to use tire chains. I'm not entirely stupid, so I'm sure I can figure it out, but I'll just keep my fingers crossed. The Denver radio stations are saying they got blasted pretty good tonight, but my connection is so slow right now I have a hell of a time getting any weather reports to load. Since I don't have to go all the way down into Colorado, the highway should be in decent shape for me by tomorrow afternoon when I get to Fort Collins.

Now I think I'll load my latest game of Civilization III and wrap up my epic battle against Bismarck and the Germans. I've refrained from going nuclear in order to placate the Chinese, but they're starting to piss me off. This thing might get crazy.