DOG TIRED

It's been a rough couple of days, which in actuality, seems like a week in my mind. We ended up getting a dispatch on Tuesday out of Fresh Express in Salinas, that didn't load until 4pm. But true to past experience, the load was done early and by 2:30pm we were loaded and on our way. The dispatch was to deliver to Charlie's Produce in Seattle at 3:30am this morning. Oh Boy........we were thrown right smack dab into night driving mode.

We didn't get to stay long enough in Salinas to get a restart on Craig's hours, so working around the system was going to put a strain on our body clocks. We also knew we had to drive as far as we possibly could when we left Salinas, CA and that is exactly what Craig did. We pulled into Canyonville, OR around 3am Wednesday morning, and somehow managed to find a spot and crawl into bed. I think Craig was actually asleep before his head even hit the pillow.

With what hours we had left to work with, and with that 3:30am delivery time looming ahead of us, we ended up having to stay in Canyonville until 7pm. Thankfully, that gave us plenty of time to sleep and relax and even do a couple of loads of laundry. At 7pm we were headed north with Charlie's Produce in our sights. It was a pleasant drive, and thankfully, Craig was much more awake during Wednesday nights drive. I think the couple of those Little Debbie's snacks he bought before leaving helped.

Charlie's Produce is literally in the bowels of Seattle, tucked amongst a construction area that never seems to be finished. The streets are old school, tiny and intertwined around overpasses, and maneuvering through them and the detour signs, we were thankful it was early morning and had no other traffic to deal with. When we arrived an hour early, there was already another TWT truck getting unloaded, but within 10 minutes he was on his way to his second stop and we were backed into the dock.

I took that opportunity to try and get some sleep between the jostling of the forklift going into and out of the trailer. Somehow I did manage to drift off, but it was short lived as they were done after 30 minutes. Then it was time to try and figure how to get back out to the Interstate through the road closed and detour signs through the construction area, and with the help of the GPS, we followed the signs through blurry eyes to a successful arrival onto the freeway.

With very little time left on Craig's 14 hour clock, we managed to find an easy back into a spot at the Flying J truck stop in Tacoma, sent in a message about our hours and drifted off to sleep. It is now 5pm as I write this, and we have received our next dispatch to pick up chicken in Renton, WA at Drapper Valley Farms. Our load is suppose to be ready at 8pm and it delivers in Spokane at 5am. Yep, you guessed it, another night of driving, but we only have a little under 300 miles to drive, and I'm sure our body clocks have adjusted somewhat over the past three night. If not, I'll be sure to have that can of Red Bull Energy drink ready!