IT'S A SMALL WORLD

It didn't take as long as we thought for the "lumpers", (people who are paid outrageous amounts of money to off load and inventory the product), to come a knockin' on our door to tell us they were done. Only two and a half hours of detention on this run and we entered our empty call into the computer. We headed to the company drop yard, 4 miles away, and finished up the log, and closed out the run with all the needed paperwork placed in the trip packet. We were quickly beeped with a new dispatch, and while Craig laid back and relaxed, I went about writing down all the information and programming addresses into my mapping program.

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It's funny how things seem to run in patterns. We were dispatched to go to Twin City Foods again, but this time instead of in Arlington, WA we were headed to another one of their plants in Ellensburg, WA. Our appointment time was for 3pm, but that gave us plenty of time to drive the 110 miles there, and pick up pallets. We arrived a couple of hours early, but they happily informed us that their previous appointment hadn't shown up yet, and for us to back into dock #3 and they would get started on loading our trailer with frozen peas and carrots.

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Now if we hadn't been delayed, waiting for paperwork after our trailer was loaded, because the computer system was down, we wouldn't have been sitting there when I saw this truck pull up:

I know this truck means nothing to most of you, but Van Laar is my Mother's maiden name. She comes from a very large, farming family in the Central Valley of California. I have a cousin Steve that drives a hay truck, and a cousin Christie, who along with her husband drive truck for Sprinter, but any other family in the trucking business I was unaware of. But, reasoning told me, the name is not a common one,, so I had to be related to whomever owned this truck.

So when the driver came back to his truck, I walked up to him and asked him if he was a Van Laar. He shook his head "no", so I asked who might the owner of the trucking company be. He said, Brian and Gary Van Laar. That didn't ring a bell with me, so I asked if he knew what their father's name was. He called into the office, first to see if Brian or Gary might be available, but they were not, so he inquired of the person he was talking to if they knew what their Father's name was. It was Norman, and that would be my cousin from my Uncle Herman.

What a very unexpected surprise, and I was so excited, I forgot to tell the driver what my name or my Mother's name was, so that he could have relayed that information onto my cousins. But after thanking the driver and walking away, I was thinking. Who would have thought, that in Ellensburg, WA, I would find out that I have second cousins who are in the trucking business, out of Marysville, WA? Further more, had it not been for a glitch in the computer system at the shipper, I would have not been around to see their truck pull up. Talk about fate and being pointed out again, that this really is a very small world after all.