Oct 26, 2009
if its not one thing its 20 others
trying to get going early so we have some extra time never-ever happens.
after we left the hotel (aww the hotel)
we went to the swift yard in lathrop where of course they agreed there were no empty trailers. so they sent us to madera. one of the dispatchers told us there were 2 trailers at sealed air. about 1 1/2 hours later we are parked in front of sealed air's locked gate. they dont work on sunday. no personnal vehicles, no guard shack that sometimes they let you in even if a place is closed. and on top of that we drive around the whole complex and see only one trailer and it is backed up to a dock.
no emptys.
i sent a qualcomm message. and this time i called john in lathrop. he was so surprised at our news. so he sent us to central freight yard in fresno to grab an empty, he even gave us a trailer number. wow, cool beans, maybe he is on the ball. another 60 miles down the road and we are driving into the central freight yard find the trailer he assigned to us and....the trailer has been in an accident. the wheels and tires on the right side are not drivable
. but the one next to it is fine. we send john a message to please hook us to that trailer explaining the problem with the other one. and please send us the pick up number we need for fedex. they cant send that info until we are hooked in the computer to an empty trailer.~ or thats their story
anyway~finally, now it is just around the block to fedex, (really it is they share the same chain link fence) but it takes 45 minutes to receive that info. whatever, we got the information we are golden , lets get our pre-loaded trailer and hit the road for spokane.
not so fast......this load actually has an amount of hazmat that needs to be placard. usually the total weight is under 1001 pounds of hazmat. this time we have 2300 ponds of paint drums. the trailer is not placard. the shipper is suppose to do that. ok we can turn the signs ourselves except that the trailer only has signs on two sides. hazmat signs need to be placed one on every side. we called the hazmat hotline and they told us to go to a truck stop and buy the ones we needed. or we could wait until fedex comes in monday at 6am. we stoped at every store the might be a truck stop or truck repair shop, between fresno and madera, finally finding the one we needed. bought it and headed back. put the placards on the trailer, mark the hazmat book on the right page of what to do if something happens book. and we are off like a heard of turtles.
instead of picking up the load 14 hours early we got started 9 hours early.
we deliver our trailer to fed ex at 5:05 pm, monday and here it is 9:30 and swift has not sent us our south bound reload.
will is not a happy camper, and neither is his bunk mate
i love and miss you all more and more every day.
have a safe halloween everyone.
