HAPPY FOR A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP

Both Craig and I had a very restful, solid, almost 8 hours of sleep, before we heard the beep of the QualComm with our next dispatch. We were going to Toppenish, WA to AB Foods to pick up about 40,000 pounds of meat. We needed to get there by 1pm and prior to arriving we had to get the trailer washed out. How convenient, a mile from the company drop yard in Pasco was such a place and we zoomed over there to do our part for the local economy.With a cleaned out trailer, we headed towards Toppenish, but with one very quick pit stop at the rest area in Prosser, where conveniently we made use of the Starbucks and grabbed us a nice frothy drink and a chocolate chip cookie. AHHHHH that made the drive into Toppenish just that much better!

Upon checking in, we were told to drop our trailer and that we were number 8 on the list to be loaded. We bob tailed down the street to a very large parking lot and settled in with our laptops while waiting to hear them call us on the CB that our trailer was ready. A little over 3 hours later and $40 dollars richer in detention pay, we received the call and headed over to pick up the loaded trailer. With a scale on site, we were scaled and legal and on our way south.This particular dispatch has us delivering to 4 different locations in the San Francisco Bay area and one additional stop in Castroville, CA. With the delivery times, we knew we had to make the most of the time we had left, in order to make them on time, and with that in mind, we pushed on and made it to LaPine, OR around 9pm. Wednesday morning at 7am found us back on the road with the company yard in French Camp, CA as our destination for staging for the deliveries Thursday morning.

Knowing that Bay Area traffic can be a royal pain, we opted to leave well ahead of schedule in hopes that (A) traffic would be lighter and (B) the first receiver would take us early. We got lucky on both counts and breezed into San Leandro a good hour ahead of time, and we were unloaded and headed to Fremont for our next two deliveries.The two deliveries in Fremont went smooth as silk, and off we headed to Livermore to U.S. Foods. Well, so much for things running like clock work. Although an hour ahead of schedule, once again the planners scheduled our last appointment giving us only one hour to get unloaded in Livermore and then drive 100 miles to Castroville.......and we were on such a good roll too! On top of that, we had to wait well over two hours to get unloaded, and deal with the screwed up dock area that was cluttered with tractors, which made it almost impossible to get into our assigned dock. By the way, we only unloaded one lousy pallet of meat here too and being charged $45 by the lumpers to unload it!


Finally at 12:30pm we were on our way to Castroville. By 2:30 we had arrived and grabbed an open dock. In less than 15 minutes we had our last 4 pallets of meat unloaded and we went empty. WHEW.......what a long day and it wasn't over yet. While heading to Salinas, because it was the only truck stop anywhere in the area, we received a message to get our trailer washed out again and drop it at Fresh Express. Looks like we will be getting a load out of there tomorrow. One thing is for sure, after a very long day, we will be happy to get another good nights sleep again..........and might I add, a well deserved one!