Well i'm sat in the Flying J at Barstow California and i deliver into Vernon in Los Angeles at 16:00 tomorrow although in the morning i will be pestering the dispatchers to try and make it earlier, it doesnt work very often but i always try. The problem is we have got our immigration medicals on Friday and i need to be back in Lethbridge for Thursday evening so i can get a bit of sleep before the early morning drive up to Calgary.
Its the Raymond Stampede on Monday but it looks like i'll miss it, i would love to go but i have had far too much time off lately with Claire & Andy coming over and moving house s i'm going to bite the bullet and as soon as we get back from Calgary i am looking to be going straight out again.
Okay so lets bring you all up to speed...............
I left Lethbridge on Thursday and went to collect my load expecting to camp out at the plant and run down next morning. When i got there the load was ready so i got under it, scaled off and headed south towards the border, i got to Milk River and was knackered so i called it a night and pulled the curtains.
Why was i knackered????? you ask yourselves, well because i wasnt going out till the evening i thought "Sod it", im going to get as much done as i could in those last few hours at home.....
We went shopping, picked up some papers from the lawyers (garage stuff) bought some grass food and weed killer, had a barbeque, did the lawn, drew up the garage plans for the counsel people and i fixed the WiFi on the home laptop.
All this instead of resting................
Anyway next morning i crossed the border, did meat inspection and fuelled up at the Pilot in Shelby, i normally try to avoid that place because they are so crap.................
Okay im sorry, but i think they are and this is my blog and my opinion, and i am the poor idiot who stood in the queue twice to get the pump opened and still had to go out and do it over the phone only to be put on hold, and its a bloody intercom !!!!!
I dont know whether its just me but the card readers never works on which ever pump i go to and there is always some goon in front of me who cant decide whether to have the macaroni or the coleslaw with his eighteen cheeseburgers, half a dozen corn dogs and half hundred weight of chicken strips.
Okay heres a little tip for all of you out there, if you are in a hurry and you need to get your pump open and you are running against the clock, do not get in the queue behind the tourist family because they are in that line for the long haul, if there are only 2 burritos on that hot plate do not set your little heart on one of them because i guarrantee you now the tourist family will have them both, not because they want them, but just to spite you and i also guarrantee you that their little offspring (Howie) who has just piled his breakfast of a bottle of Pepsi, 2 bags of chips, 2 candy bars and a bag of popcorn, 2 cheeseburgers and a family size bag of jerky onto the counter............................
..............is just about to be told by tourist Mom that he cant have them because he didnt eat his breakfast and this will escalate into a full blown touristy tantrum and tourist Dad will end up walking off then tourist kid will drop something on the floor in his tantrum which will break and have to be cleaned up before they can serve you.
Then when you finally make it to the counter armed with all the information you need to purchase the life blood of your trade (Thats diesel to you) the (new) girl behind the counter asks you for your DOT number and Licence plate which if you were me, you wouldnt have got round to memorising and informs you that this is company policy and you will have to go back outside and phone the information in, then when you phone puts you on hold.
Anyway 40 minutes later when i had fuelled the beast, got my reciepts and finally got away from that god forsaken place, i headed south, free and out on the open roads.
Okay so the diesels in the truck, the cards back in its cubby 'ole and im back in the driver's seat.
i got down to Idaho Falls and suddenly realised that i had left my Streets & Trips antenna back in 2162, bugger bugger bugger...............
I send a message to dispatch to get them to ask Dan (Pilot of 2162) if he still has my antenna. He does and even better he is on the I-15 heading north, we meet up at Payson Utah and i get the lead off of im and we have a good old chat, excellent, another friend made 8¬)
Met up with Andy Stone, another H&R driver and met up with him again in Beaver which is in Utah. This morning we drove down to Barstow together chatting on the CB (as you do) which is where we are now.
We are delivering to the same place tomorrow but Andy's appointment is in the morning and mine isnt till the afternoon (unless i can get it changed)
Oh i forgot to mention i stopped off at the Walmart in Nephi UT to get some stuff and while i was there i got some rather nice Fruit Of The Loom T Shirts ($4 each) and a snazzy pair of cargo shorts ready for when the the temperatures go over 45 degrees centigrade, which they did as we came down the mountains into the Californian low ground. Oh yes i got a new hat too !!!
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