Tight Fit

Drove to Barbour's Cut Terminal in LaPorte, Texas to pick up 4 tractors bound for Sulphur Springs, Texas. It was an interesting production, since we had to find and load our particular tractors ourselves.  I thought the guy was joking at first, but it was indeed up to us. We had to find our four out of about 30 blue tractors on the dock by looking at serial numbers, then get them loaded. The ramp they had available was a good foot shy of the height of the trailer, but we were able to climb them up with only a little difficulty.

Collin did all the loading, but I did get to drive one of the tractors up to the ramp. That was fun! We almost couldn't fit all four on the trailer. It was a very close fit, maybe an inch between tractors, and the front one's tires overhung the front of the trailer, and the back ones overhung the back. Chaining them down was a chore, too. Collin had to climb around under the tractors fussing with the chains, plus we were one chain short of doing a truly appropriate job, and had to use a strap in place of a chain on one axle. But we got it done.

Looks Like We Got Ourselves a Convoy

Loaded out at Sabre Galvanizing in Alvarado, Texas on the 14th, with a load of galvanized I beams bound for a solar project near Santa Margarita, California that wasn't going to deliver until Tuesday due to the MLK day holiday. We took our time to get to Buttonwillow, where we needed to meet the convoy. The road up to the site is very winding, and they had to shut the road down to opposing traffic while the convoy goes up. It was quite a drive. We couldn't leave until the convoy left, they were telling us it would be 3:00pm, which screwed us up for a partial load we were going to take to get us out to Terminal Island for a load on Wednesday.

Once we got down from the site, we spent the night up on top of the Grapevine, since we didn't want to go down into Long Beach until the morning.

Oh Hayl No!

Delivered lumber to Frank's Service in San Luis, Arizona, where we could have walked across the border into Mexico, then drove to El Centro, California to pick up more hay from Preece Farm, bound for Boyd, Texas.

This load out was the longest we have ever experienced. First the squeeze machine was 2 hours late, then it was a bit of a three ring circus with two squeeze loaders trying to load three trucks at once. Then the young squeeze driver pushed a bale off the front of our trailer, which compromised the integrity of the whole front stack, and it took two hours to figure out what to do. We ended up removing about 18 bales to stabilize the front stack.

We were running so late that Brent, our customer who happened to be there to watch the loading operation, gave us permission to not tarp, since the weather was supposed to hold good for an overnight run. We were pretty stressed, since we had to pick up our next load by 6:00pm the next day, and we were going to have to run straight through at close to max speeds in order to make it on time.

After hauling ass and getting routed around a fatal accident in Odessa, Texas where a four wheeler looked like it had been rolled into a burrito under a big rig, we arrived in Boyd at Southwest Hay Exchange about 3:00pm, and found out that we needed to be at our reload by 5:00pm, not 6, and we still had to get unloaded, then drive 30 miles to drive in DFW rush hour traffic. We called the shipper, who told us we could get loaded on Saturday morning. Whew. That took the pressure off.

We hung out at the Love's in Rhome while to traffic died down, got some tires we bought from Brent installed and took showers, then drove to Sabre Galvanizing in Alvarado, Texas.

511

Delivered grease canisters to Mills, Wyoming, then drove to PolyPipe in Evansville, Wyoming to pick up very large gauge pipes bound for Pomona, California. Back to SoCal. In Park City, Utah, we learned that I-15 was closed at the Arizona border. After calling 511, we learned that there was a 'police incident' that was keeping it closed for an extended period. We took a chance and kept heading in that direction, acting on the hope that the incident would be cleared by the time we got there. The further we got, we learned that a bank robbery suspect had committed suicide in his car, and the police had subsequently discovered some suspicious boxes, and they thought it was hazardous material - seriously hazardous. We ended up taking a detour from Cedar City over to Caliente, then back down to the 15 just north of Las Vegas. We only added about 75 miles, and two hours to our journey.

Belle Chasse Ferry?

Drove to Koch-Glitsch in Wichita, Kansas to pick up crates and trays bound for Alliance, Louisiana. The load wasn't ready until after 4:00pm, but we didn't get out of there until 5:30 local time, and had to be in Louisiana by 11:00am the next day. Made for a push to get there in time.

We drove through the night and made Conoco-Phillips in Alliance by 8:00am. Had some issues with the GPS thinking we couldn't go where we needed to go, because it had intel that said there was low clearance on the side of the canal we needed to be on, but there wasn't. It kept trying to send us on a ferry over the canal. Really? A ferry?

Getting through the gate at Conoco-Phillips was a bit of a time sink. We had to watch a safety video, and show our TWIC cards, and we were told that Collin would have had to shave off his beard if we were going any further in than the warehouse, due to fire safety concerns.

Drove back into Belle Chasse proper, to Tube Spec, to pick up our biggest load ever, a single pipe, about 15 feet long, and 2 inches in diameter. We were taking this pipe all the way to Arroyo Grande, California, and it didn't have to deliver until the 9th. So we had an easy run ahead of us.

Don't Sleep - Go

Delivered hay to SW Hay Exchange in Boyd, Texas. The weather was stormy, and we had found a load going out of Ennis, Texas that didn't pick up until the next day, so we dropped the trailer in the barn, and spent a stormy night at the Loves in Rhome.

Then we drove to Betafence in Ennis, Texas to pick up a three drop load of specialized fencing bound for Las Cruces, New Mexico, then Norwalk and Costa Mesa in California.

The first drop didn't deliver until Monday, so we spent the weekend in a nice Best Western in Weatherford, Texas. This after checking into possibly the worst room ever at a little place near the truck stop called the Sleep Go Motel. This place was so bad... the bed was worn out, the walls filthy, smelled like cigarettes, and worst of all our boots stuck to the carpet. Not to mention the tiny old shower.
 
Shiver. Needless to say we got our money back.
 
We delivered the first drop to Las Cruces High School in Las Cruces, New Mexico. This is a giant new school going up that has been under construction for over a year. Then we drove on to deliver drop two the next morning in Norwalk, California before going on to Costa Mesa, California.

As we worked our way through the deliveries, we came up with a load out of Chino bound for Lake Oswego, Oregon, which would get us home for Christmas.

We also managed to get a local load of steel sheets going from Riverside to Fontana that helped out, since we managed to forget to deliver a small box that belonged to the stop in Costa Mesa, and we had to go all the way back to get it to them.

Then drove out heading for home. We sat in LA traffic for a long time, since it was rush hour when we left.

Steel, Sand & Steeds

Delivered steel beams and misc steel parts to Charles Colton Middle School in New Orleans, Louisiana. The job site is a renovation near the French Quarter, in an historic neighborhood. Very narrow streets with cars parked on both sides, and no truck traffic allowed. However, there is no other place to unload, so we got to be the latest in a long line of trucks pissing off the neighbors. What else can we do?

Got a load out from US Minerals in Harvey, LA, south of New Orleans, and delivered to Corpus Christie, Texas. Then got a reload from Sintex in Rosenberg, Texas, some sinterlite bound for Wyoming. We drove the 180+ miles to get loaded, tarped, then found out the load may have been canceled.

Turns out the customer in Casper, Wyoming decided to cancel, but we were able to deliver to a company in Denver, which gets us close enough to our reload in Lovell, Wyoming. We were a little worried about snow, but didn't end up running into any.
 
We drove to CetCo/American Colloid, in Lovell, Wyoming to pick up some 'drilling product' or drilling mud, bound for Lake Harbor, Florida. Had a bit of a scenic tour when Samantha (our GPS) sent us the long way around, across the desert. Got some pretty pictures, but it was a little aggravating.

Then on the way out, Samantha kept wanting to send us up to I-90 via a road that was closed for the winter, and in trying to plot our own way back, I sent us 25 miles out of route before we realized it. : (

Drove through the Wind River Gorge, got some great pictures of it and Boysen Reservoir at sunset. Very cold. Will enjoy getting back into some heat in the south.

    

Had some time to kill, so we stopped in Kissimmee, Florida and watched the Medieval Times show. Good fun. Spent a lot of money - if we go again, we probably wouldn't buy the photos they took of us, but I would do the royalty upgrade, as that put us nice and close to the action. The knights were very fit and put on an impressive show.