Late papers = Late load

When you have been doing this job a little while you come to realise there are some loads that are just destined to be late, take my latest Bakersfield load for example.

We had the assignment in plenty of time, I was dispatched in plenty of time, the trailer was loaded in plenty of time, all that was missing was the customs paperwork so the load wasn’t going anywhere.

I finally got the notes an hour before the meat inspection closed, the problem was that meat inspection was over 2 hours away so that was 16 hours lost straight away, what a perfect start.

So I was handed the notes, I went to collect the trailer, scaled off and headed for the border, there was no rush now as meat inspection didn’t open till 08:00 next morning. Crossing the border was blissfully boring (that’s how we like it) and I parked up on the inspection house door so I could be second in line as soon as they opened. First in line was another H&R driver, a Dutch guy named Deit who had missed the inspection by 20 minutes.

Next morning I woke up to a blizzard, the snow was coming in sideways and it was already about 3 inches deep, the inspection only took about half an hour and soon I was heading south. As I got down below Shelby the I 15 was closed as 2 trucks apparently were engaged in an ice skating routine till one of them fell in the ditch.

After carefully navigating round Torville & Dean I met my next little obstacle, 2 oversized loads were sat on an incline, both with snow chains fitted, both wheel spinning like crazy and both not going anywhere. These were carefully steered round too.

This was the weather I had to put up with till I got down below Helena then it started clearing up, driving time was getting a bit short as I passed Pocatello so it was a night at MacCammon Flying J and pressed on in the morning.

The rest of the trip south was pretty uneventful apart from a 2 hour tail back from Primm going down towards Barstow and eventually arrived in Bakersfield. The load was tipped, lumpers paid, farewells given to an ignorant git who couldn’t even be bothered to acknowledge me, manners are free but unfortunately so is rudeness.

Today I took a short drive down to the truck washout, fuelled up, decided to wait till tonight for a shower so I could get down to the Port in time for an early collection, and guess what, it doesn’t open for another 1 1/2 hours. They are supposed to open from 8 till 12 then 1 till 4, I got here at 11:30 and it was all locked up with a pretty little clock in the window that said back at 1, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh !!!

As long as I can get these monkey pickles on in a decent sort of time im planning to get as far north as I can, I think Mesquite is pretty feasible, depending on how good the pickle packers are, we'll see !!!

Got the pickles packed pretty pronto, set the axles, scaled off and headed for Vegas and that’s where I am now, if you are quick and check the map you will be able to zoom right in to excactly where I am, right down to the parking space...