Back to Abi-Normal

Made it home on the 28th of June for 4 days. Supposedly...early the morning after I got home Pat fell and suffered serious sprain of her left ankle. Thought it might be broke. Took her to the doctor as soon as she was in and she sent us over for x-rays. I ended up taking 2 extra days off and didn't get back to work until July 6th. I had to wait until Pat was at least able to hobble around and take care of her self.

I picked up a load from Longview going to Hutchinson, KS for next day delivery. I unloaded early next morning and waited until 4 pm that afternoon before they gave me a load that picked up Friday morning in McPherson, KS going to Addison, AL. They said I could drop the load on the Kansas City yard since it did not deliver until the following Monday. I was supposed to be able to pick up the load anytime after midnight, so I tried to take a nap, didn't work, but went on over to pick up the load arriving about 12:30am. Wasn't ready. He told me they were loading it though and would call me when it was finished. Two hours later they called me in and gave me the paperwork and....whoa...load was going to Indiana. Wrong address and wrong bill of lading number. He double checked and told me that the load I was waiting on had a glitch in the bar codes, one product had two different codes and couldn't load the trailer until morning when the IT department came in and fixed it.

Well, thanks a lot. Could have told me that 2 hours before. Come to find out they had another load on the yard preloaded going to the same place. Dispatch canceled the original load and redispatched me on the other load. I drove over to Kansas City and dropped the load at 7 am. They then gave me a load that was loading in Kansas City going to Fairburn, GA outside Atlanta. It didn't unload until Monday either but I gained 200 miles.

When I showed up to pick up the load it was delayed because Nestle Purina could not decide what they wanted on the truck. I had to wait 2 hours for them to figure it out. That only left me 45 minutes to find a parking place before I ran out of hours.

It was only 12 noon when I shut down, but since I didn't get any sleep the previous night I was ready for bed this time. I woke up at midnight and ate some breakfast and headed out for Atlanta. I stopped in Murfreesboro, TN for the night, and was thinking of staying until early Monday morning before heading on down to Atlanta, but I had an air leak on the tractor and I left out next morning so I could try and get it fixed along the way.

I figured it was the small air bag that the back of the cab rode on, same thing I had the year before. It could be fixed at a TA truck stop and the only one was in Cartersville, GA. When I got on the south side of Chattanooga I sent a message to break down department and they surprised me by sending me to a truck shop in Chattanooga to get it fixed. I turned around and went the 5 miles back to town and down to the shop and sat and waited until the mechanic showed up. Took him 1 1/2 hours to show up. Took him 5 minutes to tell me he didn't have the part to fix it. Break down then sent me down to the TA truck stop...surprise. I sat outside their shop for 1 hour for an open bay. When he pulled me in it took him 5 minutes to jack up the cab, bleed the air bag, pull it off, slip on the new one, air it up....done. Total down time 4 1/2 hours from time I first called in.

Drove on down to Fairburn where I delivered this morning. Got a load now of insulation going up to Nappanee, IN for tomorrow.