Mar 25, 2010
houston.......houston means im one day closer to you...
this week has been a busy one. not really a lot of miles, but our loads are being dispatched quickly. thats the good part. we had one really good load from phoenix to tulsa. good miles. but from there we had short miles. arlington texas, el paso, oklahoma city, musgoee oklahoma, huston texas. short little one day drives. after we deliver in huston we hope to get a long run. we turned down a couple of loads that they sent us because they were out of our zone. west of the mississippi. turned down one to georgia, and definitely the one to bronks, ny. so maybe thats why we are getting little runs. i dont know.
i do know that texas wins the award for the state most proud of itself. the state flag is everywhere. and if its not the flag, its just single star being displayed. not just big business's , or business's that have a western or texas name. a dog groomer had big texas star on its sign. the ice cream truck had a flag, ok maybe that was so kids could see him coming.
texas also wins the award for 'best freeway merging' i use to think that california could not merge because they have some short on ramps maybe they just cant get up to speed. but texas has short (really short) on ramps and the speed limit is 70. they get up to speed and quickly decide whether to go in front of you or behind you. boy howdy, those cowboys can merge. they also get the award for stupidest street names and directions. for example, our directions said to go north on 64 east.??? they have numbered farm roads, and the numbers are not consecutive. fm 179, next one is fm 8251, next one fm 433 . i almost turn on the wrong one, i needed fm180, it was not directly after fm179 it was miles away and is also called, tusanna street which is what it says on the street sign. not fm180 like our directions say. ugh!
so far not one pick up or delivery in texas or oklahoma has had the correct address. one business adress was off by a whole block, and the guard said, they moved to this bigger wharehouse a couple of years ago, but i guess no one has changed it in the computer yet. we have such a hard time with first time drivers. (duh) one address was towards a houseing develpment and our directions warned us that if you miss your turn, do not turn into the houseing development., they will call the police who will give you a very pricey ticket. so why dont you give the drivers better directions? i dont know why they put fancy houses near the kimberly clark paper mill anyway. that is a sticky place to live.
another problem i have with the texas road signs--- my instructions say turn on 820 west. ok i pass the ramp for 820 north. ....but abut 30 min later i tell will i should have turned on to 820 west by now. after looking around he tells me i passed it.
oh no i did not, i was looking very carefully, i even turned down the radio so i could see better. he says i should have taken the ramp for 820 north. i tried to explain that north is not west. he said it is when your in texas, and for future directions, south is east and visa-versa. one time i was on interstate 10 south, we needed 610 . to the right on a big over head sign with a big arrow we see 610. somehow we should have known that texas 281 spur (or whatever ) was the connecting intersection to 610. and of course taking the next exit to turn around is no simple task.
saw a church, i think it was a church, it was called, the overcoming faith Christan center, maybe thats where you go to be deprogrammed when you move to texas as a catholic.
when our trip takes us down close to the mexico boarder there are a lot more precautions that are taken. we see a lot more green and white boarder patrol suv's. sometimes they have spot roadside inspections. we dont have to stop, just slow way down and they have tons of lights (drawing tons of bugs) and they just check under and on top of our truck as we drive by. .
this last load was from huston texas to logan utah. we picked it up at a walmart warehouse. and it didnt weight anything (16,000) so we like those loads , get better fuel mileage that way.
we deliver and find out this place is just disposing of the whole truck load. they are toys that have too much lead to sell. cloth bowling pin and ball set. when we arrive the business is closed but there is another swift driver already waiting. when the employees came and he was first to unload they just threw his load in the dumpster.......and then they did that to our load. the dumpster quickly filled up and they asked if we could following them to the city landfill and they would finish unloading. we got permission from our dispatch and off we went. got a couple of pictures at the landfill, i know once you see one dump youve seen them all.
our time is up. we've each worked 70 hours since last saturday, and its time to rest, do laundry, go shopping for supplies, sleep in a real bed for one night, watch a tv that doesnt go all screwy when a truck drives by and interrupts the reception and abuse the shower. take one when i get to the hotel, take one before bed, when i wake up, and before we check out..............oh yeah.
hope to be home next week for easter...
love and miss you all,
