Oh how nice, hauling produce. Actually, raisins and packaged foods to the rail head in Fresno.
Another Honeywell load from Fernley to Phoenix and then a Reckitt Benckiser load up to Lathrop, CA. I'm sick of driving in California!
Somehow I find myself under a load from Sears in Delano to a Sears store in Reno. My second trip to Reno in just over a week.
Oh, and that's just the first stop. I have to hand unload appliances and lawn tractors at a Sears Catalog Store in Fallon, NV...someplace east and south of Reno about 50 miles. I dropped my trailer yesterday evening and went home. This morning I had a dispatch for a Reckitt Benckiser load (HEAVY!) going up to Red Bluff, CA.
866 paid miles, 700 of which are in the People's Republic of California (55mph limit). I made it as far as Tonopah, NV last night. When I headed out this morning, I came across a broken down Werner truck just south of Tonopah (about 4am).
He had hit something in the road and it severed his emergency air line on one brake canister. His trailer tire had locked up and he couldn't get enough traction to pull the thing completely off the road. He was sitting with the rear of the trailer sticking out into traffic and no ability to cage the brake and get out of the way. He was calling his Emergency repair people when I left him. I made it down to Phoenix in one piece, finally. This morning I relayed a short load to a place in Reno and then scooted out to Fernley for my next load.
Son of a gun, it's a load of spark plugs going down to Phoenix. Imagine that. I made it all the way to Lone Pine last night. I went Off-Duty in the dark.
Woke up this morning to the high Mojave desert out one window and the Sierra Nevada out the other. Wow! Mt Whitney is located near Lone Pine. It is a fantastic view. Now I have to find the pictures I took. Made it to Reno, but they change the load to a "Drop" at the yard in Sparks. Well, I made it back from Otay Mesa to Fontana. I picked up a load going to Reno, NV. This will entail a run up 395 through Inyo and Mono Counties. Beautiful country to travel through!
Oh my gosh, that is a LONG drive over from Phoenix. Instead of jinking down to I-8 in Gila Bend, I ran down the Coachella Valley from Coachella to El Centro. Backtracked a little bit. The climb up and over the mountain and down into San Diego is killer. Smoked the brakes going down the hill.
I'm sure the morning commuters were not happy to get on the freeway at 70mph and immediately have to slow down for a 30mph truck crawling down the grade. Time for my sleep break and then I'll pick up an empty and shoot back to Fontana to pick up a Drop/Relay load (dropped by a local driver to be picked up by a system dog). ...the sun has set; Here we is, in Texas yet. I drove across Texas all day yesterday. I spent the night at another little truckstop, only this one was just a few miles East of El Paso.
I'm back in Phoenix for the night! I'll leave here tomorrow afternoon and make the last leg of the trip to Otay Mesa, hopefully getting through California after the scales close at Blythe. |
LIFE AS A WESTERN REGION DRIVERALRIGHT! I've passed my tests and I'm qualified to drive this beast. Now, let's get the heck on down the road. I'M A TRUE PUMPKINHEAD NOW. Archives
September 2012
CategoriesI find that I do my best thinking while the wheels are rolling the miles away. Unfortunately most of that deep thinking doesn't stick around when I'm done driving. I find that more urgent things take my attention and the earth-saving ideas I had quietly slip into the haze of half-remembered feelings and emotions. I should get a voice recorder or something. I'll have to remember to do that.
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