Tuesday, June 17, 2008

DID SOMEONE SAY BEER?

"I found a great herbal mood enhancer. It has barley, hops and cool mountain water."

It took Sysco almost four hours to unload the frozen french fries from our subzero trailer. About an hour into the waiting, I was having fantasies about being a frozen french fry. The weather was quite warm and the temperature reading said 97 degrees, but on the bright side, there was a slight breeze.

After putting in our empty call, we were immediately dispatched just 18 miles away to the Miller Brewing Company to pick up over 44,000 pounds of beer. "Woo Hoo, party at the Shantz's truck tonight!!"

Then another fantasy came into my mind, wanting a nice icy mug of that cold delectable brew, but I knew that wasn't going to happen, so I went to work trying to find the quickest route on the LA freeways to make it there on time. We had a 45 minute window of opportunity and we were safely there and waiting for our dock number with 20 minutes to spare. This time while waiting for the trailer to be loaded, I ran the APU and sat comfortably inside the cab as it jerked and rocked with each pallet of beer they loaded.

Scaling a load in the greater LA area is like going on a treasure hunt. Of course the one scale within a mile of the Miller plant closed down at 5pm. Hence, the 30 mile run, in commute traffic, to a tiny little gas station that had a scale, in a part of town I would not like to see again, and especially at night! The scale ticket showed us over weight on the drives by 300 pounds, so with a little adjustment on the fifth wheel, and making sure we don't have too much fuel in the tanks, we just might make it to our destination without being summoned in for a friendly little visit to the scale master.

Speaking of destinations, we are headed right back to Kennewick, WA to the Mount Hood Beverage Company. Our delivery is for Thursday, but we don't know the time as of yet. Shouldn't be too much of a problem, it's only a little over 1000 miles to get there. But wouldn't you know it? While I'm typing this blog, Craig notices a trailer tire that needs to be replaced. So here we sit at the tire bay getting a new tire.

It's like we always say.... It's not a job, It's an adventure!

2 comments:

Paul Nichols said...

Wouldn't you know it? I accidentally put your blog into my blogroll. Finally.

Mom said...

99 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beer....

LinkWithin

Blog Widget by LinkWithin