Hay Trouble

Delivered steel plates to Van Dam Metal Works in Wyoming, Michigan, just outside Grand Rapids. Then we thought we had a load out of Mid-West Pipe Coating in Schererville, IN, only to be told we didn't have it. But instead we got a load of hydraulic door parts from R Batke & Assoc, out of Benton Harbor, MI - which was much closer. While we were waiting for them to load, we went to Point Blank Shooting Range across the street, and I shot a 9mm pistol for the first time. I did quite good.

(20 yards on the right, 25 yards on the left)

 
The door parts were for four drops; one in Iowa, and three in Nebraska. We got three of them off in one day, then the fourth the next morning. The people we delivered to in Nebraska were all farmers, and very nice. We delivered the first stop to Leland McCormick in Pleasantville, IA. He sold irrigation materials, and had built a giant new pole building that needed a door or six. Then we delivered to the farmers: Dan Winkleman in North Bend, Nebraska; Roger Klone in York, Nebraska; then Jeff Huffman in Maxwell, Nebraska.                 
                                          Maxwell, Nebraska

We set up a load of hay out of Gothenburg, Nebraska, just 30 some miles away from Maxwell, going to Garden City, Kansas, but the hay didn't work out. First we were told we could load right away, then it turned out not to be until after 3pm. Which then turned into 4pm, and then it wasn't until about 4:30 before we actually met up with the guy. Then we had to find a scale to get a light weight, since the co-op was backed up with corn trucks and couldn't be bothered with a hay truck. We ended up going to some random scale out in the country, which thankfully was only about 4 miles away.

When we got to the field, however, we started realizing what round bales would look like on our trailer, and it didn't look good. We were told it was 'a legal load, no tarp'. Then we find out it is going to hang over the sides about a foot on each side. We got a couple loaded, and one side was hanging out even farther than that, and we realize we are going to need to treat this as an oversize load with all the signs and flags, etc. And we realize we wouldn't be able to see back traffic out our mirrors. So we call the broker with our concerns that this wasn't a legal load. She said they do it all the time, you just need to dodge scales, and not drive at night.

Suddenly something was going south, and it wasn't the hay load. If we couldn't drive at night, there was no way we were going to get to our reload before they cut off at 2:00pm. After a bunch of hemming and hawing, we decided not to take the load, and asked for a 'truck ordered, not used' fee of $250 to cover our time and trouble since the load was not what we were led to expect. Needless to say, we haven't yet been called back on that count. Just because 'they' do it all the time, doesn't make it legal and doesn't mean we could get away with it.

So we drove to Elm Creek and spent the night at a Bosselman truck stop there, on our way to Salinas, Kansas where our Friday load was picking up. It was going to be 250 miles dead head, uncompensated, but better than taking an illegal load and winding up with fines and marks against us on our CSA score.
 
In the morning we got up and drove to Salina Galvanizing in Salina, Kansas and picked up a pile of pipe bound for San Diego, California. They pipe had already been stacked and staged, and they had three forklifts pick the whole thing up, and we backed under it, they set it down, we strapped it, and off we went. Quick and dirty. The load doesn't deliver until Monday, so we have a leisurely trip ahead of us.