I just got off the phone with my office. My boss called to ask me if I had delivered the fire truck in Miami. Of course I did. Ports being ports, they had informed the customer that they hadn't received it. That's not unusual. They deal with such a massive amount of freight every day they tend to lose track. No biggie, later today I'll fax the proof of delivery to the office and that will be that.
I then spoke with dispatch to find out how the search for a load out of here is going. No luck so far. Florida is a strange place with regard to the kind of freight we haul. Sometimes there is more freight than you can shake a stick at, and sometimes there's just nothing at all. Part of the problem is that a lot of the freight coming out of Florida is cheap. The shippers know there isn't a huge amount of freight leaving the peninsula and don't want to pay much to get it hauled. We don't haul cheap freight and so the search for freight excludes the cheap rates outright.
The other problem is our hauling pattern. Out from the yard and then back again. That means we need a load that will go in the general direction of Wisconsin. This again narrows the choices a bit.
I'm still in a holding pattern awaiting a decent load out of here. I pay $5 a day to park my rig and only paid for the weekend when I got in. I called out there and let them know that I would be in to pay for an additional couple of days and asked that they please not tow my rig. She was really nice about it and thanked me for calling and letting her know.
I hope I get a load out today. My cash is running really low now and I can't afford to pay for many more days of parking. In the meantime the freight situation is holding me captive in Florida.