A NOT SO JUICY TALE

With an appointment time of 8am Tuesday morning at the Tropicana Plant in the City of Industry, CA we thought we might run into the dreaded LA commute traffic. Leaving at 6am for our 50 mile trip to the shipper, we found ourselves, even with some unexpected construction and detours to the plant, arriving an hour early for our appointment. We checked in and were given a dock to report to. As soon as Craig had backed the truck to the dock and started to exit the truck to check in with the dock manager, I started feeling the juice being fork lifted into the trailer.

Now you would think with them starting before we had even checked in, that we would have been done long before our appointment time. Well, think again. As 8am came and went, and the security guard driving up in his little golf cart telling us the paperwork was done, even though we were still feeling them loading our trailer, Craig went inside to check to see what was going on. What he found out, was that when they thought they were done loading our 17 pallets of juice, they found that they had one extra pallet.

Oy Vey...... with scanner in hand, they started checking the pallets and found, thank Murphy's Law, that the very front pallet was the incorrect one. With some finger pointing and blaming going on, a handful of apologies tossed Craig's way, they started off loading all 17 pallets to get to the one rouge pallet that belonged on a trailer three doors down from us. By 10am we were finally loaded and on our way to a scale just around the corner. This scale is the first drive-thru scale I have seen. Right from the comfort of the driver's seat, we pulled up and paid for the scale ticket, happy to find we were legal, and driving off on our merry way, just like driving through a McDonald's, albeit, without the yummy french fries.

On the other side of the Grapevine, we took the off ramp so we could fuel at the Flying J, and we saw a big rig stalled out on the on ramp ahead of us. Every time he tried to get it moving it slipped further back down the ramp. Now of course, another big rig was coming towards him to get onto the freeway, and why he thought he could get his rig around this guy I'll never understand. He starts to make the turn and finds, of course, that he can not possibly make it. Now, we are blocked from making our turn onto the road to get fuel. I had a few choice words I muttered to the eager driver in a hurry, and watched as he finally realized that he had to back up.

With the road clear, we made a hasty turn and stopped for fuel and lunch, hoping that by the time we were done that the mess would be cleaned up. No such luck, as we exited the truck stop, we saw that the trucks were lined up still waiting for the disabled truck to be moved from the ramp. We made a quick decision to backtrack 2 miles southbound to the next exit and then return back northbound. As we passed by, we saw that the commercial tow truck had just arrived and was pulling the truck up off the ramp and onto the side of the roadway.

We drove the rest of the day with nothing more exciting then counting the miles as they passed by and using every minute of drive time that Craig had available. We stopped at a rest area in Willows, CA for the night and took off as soon as our 10 hour break was over.

Today, the skies are clear of smoke in Northern California for the first time in well over a month. With blue skies, and white clouds as our traveling companions, we have the mountains of Shasta and Siskiyou National Forest to enjoy, as we have our sights set on making it just pass the Oregon/Washington border this afternoon. That should set us up for a drive of just under 100 miles to the Fred Meyer DC in Puyallup, WA and give us time to stop at the Wal Mart in Chehalis for supplies. All that's left to do now, is sit back and enjoy the ride.