Just another day of trucking
I am now hauling an oversized load down to Pensacola, Florida from Wisconsin. It's a fire truck I am taking to the Naval Air Station there. I normally enjoy oversized loads because they aren't allowed to move at night which means I stop at sun-down and get plenty of rest.
This load, I knew, Was going to be a problem. Firstly, I have a bad case of bronchitis which makes driving all day a real chore. I can hardly breath, am coughing all the time, and basically just feel like crap and would rather be in bed with a nice warm blanket and a bottle of Jack Daniels. But I have a job to do.
Today I got a fairly early start out of Indiana. I started rolling right after sun-up and was making pretty good time in spite of making several stops for more liquids, restrooms, and assorted being-sick-related things. Somehow I should have known it was all going far too well.
As I was rolling down I-65 in Kentucky early this afternoon I was passing a slow-moving Swift truck (all Swift trucks are slow moving) when I heard/felt an explosion. I knew I had just badly blown a tire on the trailer. I managed to get the rig safely off onto the shoulder and inspected the damage.
I was stunned at the amount of carnage that had been rent upon my trailer. Not only was one of the tires completely shredded, but the mud flap was destroyed, two tail lights were broken, an air line was leaking badly, my oversized load sign was neatly cut in half, and my license plate was, well, just gone. Amazing.
Now I was faced with a choice. I had just passed a truckstop a few miles back, and I could go to the next exit, some 7 or miles, turn around and go back. Or, I could continue down to the next one which was about 12 miles down. Ok, go to the next one. Check the map. Oops. Weigh Station between here and there. Not good.
I got on the cb radio and asked about the weigh station. A driver reported that the "chicken coup" was closed. Ok, good. On my way then. As I approached the weigh station I saw that nice electronic sign which read "Open". Hmmm. How nice.
I went through the scale at the required 12 mph, sweating bullets as I passed, just waiting for them to give me the red light that indicated "Come on in here, we wanna talk to you". Stayed green. Wow.
As I traveled on down the interstate, I looked in my mirror to see a DOT car coming up fast with the pretty blue flashing lights going. Rats, they decided to nail me after all. I breathed a sigh of relief as he shot past me to pull over the rig in front of me. Whew!
Anyway, I finally made it to the truckstop and had the repairs done to the tune of $975 and three hours of my time. Now, as I mentioned, I can't run after dark with this load. Time to figure things up. About one and a half hours of daylight left. Check the truckstop guide. Good, a couple of small truckstops just about 80 miles away. that'll work. Just pray for parking.
I rolled in here just as the sun was setting and did find a good parking spot wide enough for my load to fit into, and now I sit here in my truck pounding this out on my laptop over the wireless inernet.
Thanks to the blown tire I will now be about a half day behind schedule. Normally this wouldn't be too big a deal. Except, Saturday is my birthday, and I was really hoping to be back up someplace where I knew a few people by then.
Oh well, I'll just have to find some little place to celebrate on Saturday and get to know somebody. Never know, may even be fun. Such is the life of a trucker.