One of our owner operators was supposed to be at the yard at 7:30 this morning so we could move the snow plow blade and snow blower off of my trailer and onto his as he was taking that load to the North East. I was then going to go to Oshkosh and pick up a fire rescue truck to haul down to GA.
I got up nice and early this morning, had my coffee, and arrived at the yard and was hooked up to my trailer ready to make the transfer at a quarter past 7. At 7:30 nothing was happening so I wandered into the office to see what was up. The driver had overslept and was running a bit late. He finally arrived at about 8:30.
We got to talking as we were waiting for the yard man to finish loading another truck. He noticed that I was smoking a small cigar and said that he would be right back. He came back with a couple of very nice cigars. One was a Punch, and at the moment I can't recall the brand of the other, but it was also of good quality. He said he was giving them to me to make up for keeping me waiting.
I broke out my stash and traded him a couple of my better cigars, as I felt he didn't need to give me any cigars for keeping me waiting. Hell, I've overslept a time or two myself. We chatted about cigars and pipe tobacco for a while, comparing brands and our personal likes and dislikes. Finally it was time to do the transfer.
It went pretty quickly and then I took off for Oshkosh. I checked in there and was waiting for my fire truck. I got a call from dispatch a few minutes later telling me that the electronics had gone out in the fire truck so the load was canceled. There's nothing like quality craftsmanship. He asked me to go and pick up some generators and bring them to the yard and he would put me on a fire truck going to MS instead.
I got the generators and returned to the yard. He gave me the paperwork for the truck to MS and I went out to hook to that trailer and begin securing the load. Only one small problem; the driver that had picked it up still had all of his chains and straps on it and his truck was still hooked to the trailer. That made it kind of difficult for me to do what I needed. I recognized the truck as belonging to the brother of the owner of our company (my boss) so I went back inside to complain about the problem.
He called his brother on his cell phone and told him to get his ass back to the yard and get his shit off the load so I could get going with it. A few minutes later he showed up, apologized to me saying that he didn't think it was leaving until tomorrow. I was putting my stuff on as he was taking his stuff off just to save some time as the sun was moving rapidly towards the horizon and one can't move an oversized load after sunset.
I finally got all of my stuff on and in the process even talked him into leaving his two straps on the skid of parts. He's in charge of supplies so he can easily get more. It saved me a few minutes and also netted me two brand new straps.
By this point it was late in the day and I didn't have much running time left. I also had not yet received the oversize permits for the various states I would be traveling through as they had not yet come over the fax from the permit service. As we are always permitted for WI I decided to just make it as far as the truckstop (15 miles) and wait there for the permits. I needed to eat anyway as I had skipped lunch.
Dispatch called me before I even reached the truckstop. Some of the permits had come through. I had him fax them to the truckstop. I'll get the rest somewhere along the way tomorrow. The first non WI state I have to run through is IL and I have that one so I'll at least get a good start on it tomorrow.
I'll rest tonight, get up early to have some coffee and breakfast, and be ready to run when the sun makes it's morning appearance. With any luck I'll deliver this rescue truck at the base in Meridian, MS some time Thursday afternoon.