Friday, October 10, 2014

DELAYS AND ISSUES

Owensboro Kentucky
  My morning started with a knock on my door. The farmer who allowed me to sleep on his property brought me breakfast and coffee! I expressed my gratitude. We chatted for a few minutes before his seven-year-old son/grandson drove him back to the house in the rugged golf cart. 
   When I booked this load, the shipper intended to have my load ready at nine. I arrived at 8:30. They were nowhere near ready. The shipping manager assigned me to a dock door. One of their forklift drivers had me loaded 2 hours later. 
   Since my load was over 43,000 pounds, I needed to find the nearest truckstop with a scale. As I arrived at the family-owned establishment, a fellow driver from my shipper was parking his rig. It boggles me how he had gotten there first. I had left a minute before he did. I guess my route wasn't the only one, nor was it the fastest.
   Leaving the truck stop, I followed the company-provided GPS directions. Almost immediately, it tried to make me take a derelict, closed road to the main highway. After it took three minutes to recalculate, it directed me onto yet more roads that no longer existed. Using Maps through a prominent search engine, I managed to cross the bridge into Indiana without encountering truck restrictions. Truck-specific routing is often absolutely necessary for older river towns. 
   Originally, I had planned to be home tonight. But, my trailer had excessively worn breaks. I came to the company yard in Edwardsville Illinois to have them replaced. The mechanic who wrote up my order told me that I probably would not have my trailer back until midmorning. That's just how it will have to be, since the existing brakes are too dangerous to run on public roads. I resigned myself to spending the night here.

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