Although we had been delayed for a number of hours during the prior days, we still needed to shut the truck down for a day to achieve a restart. (A restart is when we take a day off to reset our 70 hour/8 day driving limit. It's a legal thing in the truckers world.)
I chose to spend our day off in Portland, Oregon. The mechanics told me that they would try to get our tractor in for an oil change. Also, our trailer's aerodynamic skirts needed to be repaired.
We arrived at the Portland OC late Wednesday night. After dropping off the trailer & parking the tractor, my partner drive me to the motel. The Airport Clarion is the most luxurious motel Schnieder has in their network. We drivers pay only $50. I thoroughly enjoy myself whenever I get to stay here.
After a full night of rest & a good breakfast, I enjoyed a very long hike around the neighborhood. I get most of my exercise during these resets. The city of Portland has extensive bike & pedestrian trails. Very impressive.
With our reset complete, I returned to the OC. Victor would be driving us out. We found our trailer. It had been fixed, sort of. Uh oh. They tore off the aerodynamic skirts that were allegedly required by California law!! I voiced our dilemma to the mechanics. The supervisor was frustrated that his subordinates didn't patch the skirts as he instructed, but there was nothing he could do now. I made a series of calls to our emergency maintenance department, the California authorities, our customer, and our overnight/weekend supervisor. I wasn't able to gain any clear instructions or advice about what to do. So, we waited until morning to talk to our daytime/regular supervisors. When we did, they told us to go ahead and take the trailer to our destination in California. If we got into trouble along the way, they would cover us. The interpretation of the "skirt law" remains murky to most of our supervisors, fellow drivers & even law enforcement personnel. Some believe that it only applies to trailers newer than 2010.
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