I'm currently sitting at the yard while my truck is being serviced. I'll be spending the night here and then tomorrow morning I'll be loading for Washington state. I'll be hauling an oversized load, snow removal equipment, to the port in Seattle and then a crane part up to the northern part of Washington.
It's been a few months since I've been out that way so it'll make for a nice change of scenery. I don't mind running the Northwest too much, it's pretty scenery and for the most part good running out that way. I'm looking forward to it. He offered me my choice between this load and one going to TX, but as this one pays better and I was ready for a change of scenery I opted to take this one.
While sitting here I was talking to one of our other drivers, an owner operator who has been with us for a fairly long while now, and as we were talking the subject of DOT violations, equipment problems, and the like came up. He told me that the boss had mentioned to him that I was the driver he never had to worry about getting into such troubles out there as he knew that I always doubled checked my equipment, thumped the tires, and made sure my paperwork was good.
All true enough but I was a little surprised by this. Firstly, I didn't know that the boss was actually aware of it, and secondly that he would actually mention it to another driver. It's nice to know that the boss is aware of what I'm doing out there on the road and has confidence in me.
While in the office picking up some paperwork supplies the office manager commented on my hat and asked me if I had made it. I told her that I had and she said that she liked it. She said she likes the look of cables but has never tried doing them herself (she knits a little). I explained to her how easy it is to do them and how it is done. She commented that it sounds easy enough and that she was going to try it on her next project.
For now I am just killing time here while they service my truck. Hopefully they'll finish it up soon as I would like to go ahead and get the snow removal equipment loaded and secured yet today to save me some time in the morning. I'll be stopping to pick up the crane part on my way as it's in a small town southwest of here and right on my way out.
As I'll be hauling oversized I'll only be able to run from sunrise to sunset and I'd like to get as many miles in tomorrow as possible. I'm scheduled to deliver in Washington on Friday which won't be much of a problem if I can get rolling at sunrise tomorrow. The sunsets are already coming earlier than I like for this type of hauling. In another month or so oversized hauling is going to be making for some pretty short work days and means not having time to take breaks during the day at all.
Oh well, at least when I do pull out of here I'll have a freshly serviced truck, a working generator (I hope), and some shiny new drive tires. My drive tires still had technically legal tread depths but were worn past the point of my having much trust in them so I insisted they put on new ones while I am here. I don't want to run into an early snow storm out west on worn down tires.