I finally made it home once again. I'm pooped. A couple of times I thought about just pulling in somewhere and finishing the trip home tomorrow. But I really wanted to sleep in my own bed tonight instead of the truck, so I pushed on. As I sit here in my recliner, swilling a cold beer and enjoying the feeling of not being in motion, I have to say it was worth it.

I hammered down to Miami today to deliver the final piece, a concrete pump heading for Guatemala. I got the the freight forwarder and as soon as I pulled in to the place I knew I was going to have trouble. The area where the docks are located was just a very narrow space between two buildings. Not a big problem for a straight truck or a day cab with a short trailer, but my long wheel base Western Star had a 50' spread axle step deck behind it. Not a pretty situation.

The guy walked out and asked if I could back it to the dock he indicated. I looked it over. The space between the dock and the other building was just about two feet longer than my truck. I could do it but it wouldn't be easy. Then he noticed that the pump was loaded front facing front on the trailer.

He said he couldn't pull it off that way as he needed to hook his forklift to the front of the pump which was, of course, pointing the wrong way to do that. At this point I had just spent several hours driving down to Miami in horrible traffic made even worse by miles and miles of work zones, lane closures, and accidents, and wasn't in any mood for bullshit.

I told the kid I didn't give a red rat's ass how he got the damn thing off my trailer but he was going to get it off or I was taking it with me when I head for home in exactly 30 minutes ( the ship sails in 2 days).

He called someone, speaking in Cuban Spanish. While I am hardly fluent in the language I know enough to know that he made some less than respectful references to me, which was ok as I knew I had gotten my point across. Another guy showed up within two minutes, lokked the thing over, and explained to the kid exactly how to lift it off the trailer.

He did it without any trouble at all, just as I knew he would once he got past the trying to make my life more difficult stage.

I still had to back into that damn dock though, just to get turned around to get out of there. With the narrow space it as a matter of backing in and then making a bunch of pull up/back up moves to inch the nose of the truck over in the opposite direction to lead me out without hitting the other building. A real pain in the ass, but I'd done it before so I knew all it took was some time.

Once I got out of the place it was after 3:30. Traffic on I-95 would be bumper to bumper at that point. Screw that, I ran some side streets and made my way out Miami's back door, out into the Everglades, and used back roads to get clear of the shit hole that is Miami. Growing up in an area does have it's advatnages. I know most of the roads through the Glades as I used to do a lot of airboating and fishing down there. Naturally I never poached any gators down there as that would have been illegal. That's my story and I stick to it.

No traffic problems at all, and I made decent time from there to home.

Upon leaving Miami I told dispatch that I was heading home and when asked when I would be ready to leave out again I told them at least a week, maybe a week and a half, and could be two weeks. I'd let them know.