I ended up sitting in Laredo, TX until somewhere around 700pm or so when I was summoned to the dispatch office for my load. I was given 3 choices... Waco for a Thursday morning delivery (300 some miles), somewhere in Mississippi for a Friday morning delivery (700 some miles), or Grandview, MO for a Friday morning delivery (992 miles). I ended up taking the Missouri load with a delivery time of 1100am on Friday morning. In hindsight I should have taken the Mississippi load.
The plan was to drive as far as I could Friday night, then hit our Lancaster, TX terminal to refuel sometime thursday afternoon and continue on to our headquarters in Joplin, MO. There I planned to refuel once again before shutting down for the night. Then I intended to get up as early as I could stand and roll into the consignee somewhere around 900am for, what I hoped would be, an early unload so I could go back on the board ASAP for a decent weekend pull.
View Larger Map
I hooked to my trailer and decided to leave immediately to get as much driving out of the way as I could by way of I-35 north. My 10 just finished previous to the message but I only managed to get about 4.5 hours down the road, stopping some 80 miles outside of Waco at a small podunk truck stop at about 1230am.
I took off after my 10 hour was up, or around 1030am or so. I had some 200 miles to our Lancaster terminal and I finally made it around noon. Since I had to stop anyways I thought that would be a good opportunity for lunch. I'm normally not one to stop if I don't have to but, if I must, I take advantage to eat and do anything else I need to as well. I was finally out by 1245pm enroute to our Joplin, MO headquarters terminal. The drive was rather uneventful up US 75 and US 69 shy of the 7 mile long traffic jam for a stalled vehicle just north of Dallas. This burned up most of my 11 hours and I barely skimmed into Joplin with a few minutes on it, somewhere around 600pm or so. Being that I had 170 miles left to go and I had to be there by 1100am Friday I went right to bed with the intent to shower and grab breakfast before heading out.
Come 400am I opted to skip the shower in lieu of an extra hour of sleep. I instead woke up at 500am, grabbed breakfast, and headed out. I left right when my 10 hours was up, thankfully, but as it turns out I would rather have stayed in bed. I took off and headed up US 71 out of Joplin. I started to hit a bit of small hail before running head on into blizzard like conditions just outside of Carthage, MO. It was bad enough that I had to maintain between 35mph and 45mph for about 100 miles. That made for a SLOW move. Thank god nobody passed me in an attempt to get further.. that surely would have lead right into an accident waiting to happen. From the rocking chair it appeared as though 3 or 4 inches accumulated rather quickly, making for slippery conditions real quick. I think I finally rolled out of it 60 miles from the consignee and was able to maintain highway speeds the rest of the way, getting there aobut 25 minutes early.
This place was a bit hard to find as the address on all of the buildings were not clearly labled and I ended up missing it. A 2nd pass around the block, and reading the full directions this time around, really helped too. I rolled in and had about an hour wait due to a backup of freight on their docks. I wasn't worried though, and I think my patience and courtesy to the receiving lady went a long way because she originally told me there would be a longer wait. I think I was finally out of there at 1230pm or so and heading towards our yard in Kansas City, MO to wait for the next load as there was nowhere to head after I was unloaded.
In other news, Mary found a job driving with a local tow company. It's part time, which allows her to go to school and volunteer at the hospital, and still make a decent living. She'll be driving a regular flatbed until she learns the job well enough, then hopefully she will graduate to the Class A truck, which would allow her to tow Class 8 vehicles, or tractor-trailer combinations, to get repaired. In any case, its a good fitting job despite how reserved she may be about the job!
The plan was to drive as far as I could Friday night, then hit our Lancaster, TX terminal to refuel sometime thursday afternoon and continue on to our headquarters in Joplin, MO. There I planned to refuel once again before shutting down for the night. Then I intended to get up as early as I could stand and roll into the consignee somewhere around 900am for, what I hoped would be, an early unload so I could go back on the board ASAP for a decent weekend pull.
View Larger Map
I hooked to my trailer and decided to leave immediately to get as much driving out of the way as I could by way of I-35 north. My 10 just finished previous to the message but I only managed to get about 4.5 hours down the road, stopping some 80 miles outside of Waco at a small podunk truck stop at about 1230am.
I took off after my 10 hour was up, or around 1030am or so. I had some 200 miles to our Lancaster terminal and I finally made it around noon. Since I had to stop anyways I thought that would be a good opportunity for lunch. I'm normally not one to stop if I don't have to but, if I must, I take advantage to eat and do anything else I need to as well. I was finally out by 1245pm enroute to our Joplin, MO headquarters terminal. The drive was rather uneventful up US 75 and US 69 shy of the 7 mile long traffic jam for a stalled vehicle just north of Dallas. This burned up most of my 11 hours and I barely skimmed into Joplin with a few minutes on it, somewhere around 600pm or so. Being that I had 170 miles left to go and I had to be there by 1100am Friday I went right to bed with the intent to shower and grab breakfast before heading out.
Come 400am I opted to skip the shower in lieu of an extra hour of sleep. I instead woke up at 500am, grabbed breakfast, and headed out. I left right when my 10 hours was up, thankfully, but as it turns out I would rather have stayed in bed. I took off and headed up US 71 out of Joplin. I started to hit a bit of small hail before running head on into blizzard like conditions just outside of Carthage, MO. It was bad enough that I had to maintain between 35mph and 45mph for about 100 miles. That made for a SLOW move. Thank god nobody passed me in an attempt to get further.. that surely would have lead right into an accident waiting to happen. From the rocking chair it appeared as though 3 or 4 inches accumulated rather quickly, making for slippery conditions real quick. I think I finally rolled out of it 60 miles from the consignee and was able to maintain highway speeds the rest of the way, getting there aobut 25 minutes early.
This place was a bit hard to find as the address on all of the buildings were not clearly labled and I ended up missing it. A 2nd pass around the block, and reading the full directions this time around, really helped too. I rolled in and had about an hour wait due to a backup of freight on their docks. I wasn't worried though, and I think my patience and courtesy to the receiving lady went a long way because she originally told me there would be a longer wait. I think I was finally out of there at 1230pm or so and heading towards our yard in Kansas City, MO to wait for the next load as there was nowhere to head after I was unloaded.
In other news, Mary found a job driving with a local tow company. It's part time, which allows her to go to school and volunteer at the hospital, and still make a decent living. She'll be driving a regular flatbed until she learns the job well enough, then hopefully she will graduate to the Class A truck, which would allow her to tow Class 8 vehicles, or tractor-trailer combinations, to get repaired. In any case, its a good fitting job despite how reserved she may be about the job!