This morning I picked up a load at the Las Vegas Convention Center. They had a huge construction trade show there which ended this weekend and there were hundreds of trucks picking up the stuff that had been on display to take it all back where it came from.

Trade shows are always a circus, and this one was no exception. I had originally been dispatched to drive down to Vegas on Friday so I could pick up on Saturday. Shortly after crossing from AZ into NV I got the word that the schedule had changed and I would not be able to pick up until Sunday. I told them they would be paying for a motel as I wasn't going to sit in the truck from Friday afternoon until Sunday morning. They agreed.

A few phone calls confirmed what I already knew would be the case; most of the hotels were booked solid due to the tradde show and the few who still had rooms available wanted an arm, leg, and kidney for them. To hell with that. I found a small side of the road motel less than an hour outside of Vegas.

The motel wasn't much, a few rooms, a small store, a diner, and a small casino/bar. It would do. They didn't have internet service but they did at least have a few cable channels to watch. I checked in, the price was reasonable, and the food in the diner wasn't too bad. At least the beer in the bar was cold.

I hung around there until this morning. The nice thing about time zones is that they work in your favor when traveling West. I was able to sleep in and still make it to the convention center staging area before 7:30. They had a really bullshit check in procedure at this staging area.

In order to check in you had to go park your truck several blocks away and walk back to their office to check in. Now normally I wouldn't have minded that all that much even though it's pure bullshit to do it that way, but as it happened it was raining and windy in Vegas this morning. I wasn't an overly happy camper when I finally got to the check in window which was naturally outside with no sort of cover at all. I was soaked.

After checking in I then trudged through the rain back to my truck. It stopped raining just as I climbed back into my truck to change into some dry clothing. Figures.

The one small bit of satisfaction I got was that the rep for the company for whom I picked up must haave greased a few palms with the loading dock guys because he had set it up so that we bypassed the rest of the bullshit the organizing outfit had set up. I was supposed to wait around for an indefinite period of time until they called me for my turn to load. I waited all of about 20 minutes and got the call from my guy saying it was cool to just come on over and to not worry about waiting around for them to issue me their stupid pass.

I suppose it really isn't fair to the other guys sitting around waiting, but it wasn't my idea for them to set things up to jump the line like that. I just do what they tell me and the customer is always right. Except when they're wrong of course.

I got the big roller and the three little ground compactors loaded up, secured, paperwork all signed, and got the hell outta Vegas just as quickly as I could. By the time it was all said and done I had still been there for a few hours, but if I'd had to wait on the bullshit system I could possibly still be sitting there. I don't feel too bad about it.

I'm now parked in Southern Utah for the night. I've been debating on which route I will take to get to Northern IL. I-70 is about 50 miles shorter, but those mountains in CO are a bear with a heavy load. I-80 is 50 miles farther but doesn't have as many steep grades to deal with.

I figure I'll take I-80. Even with the added 50 miles I think it will wind up being faster and probably burn less fuel than crawling through CO. I'll sleep on it, but I am pretty sure that's the route I'll take.

One nice note, when I called the broker to let them know that I had made the pick up and everything went fine, the broker actually thanked me for doing such a good job. That's something you rarely hear from a broker.

It's cold and snowing here in UT right now. That part sucks and is also an added reason to avoid going through CO. If it's snowing here it's a sure bet it'll be snowing up in those mountains.

Ah well, tomorrow's another day in the loony bin.