OH HAPPY DAY

See.....I told you Craig was much better at crunching the numbers and doing the math than I was. He called me a few hours before his mandatory 10 hour break was over, and I of course was quick to ask, "are they swapping your load out with another driver"?. Craig just laughed and said, "no, I got it all worked out in my head, at least in theory", and then he proceeded to tell me just how it would all work out within the federal hours of service rules. There is something to be said for having a large sized head like my husband's, which is obviously filled with a fully functioning big brain that loves numbers and math. I think we are a good match, with my smaller head, and it's own good functioning brain, more inclined for creativity and organization.

You can see how happy I am to be back on the truck. I had the pickup packed up and made my way into French Camp to meet up with Craig around 7pm last night. A quick transfer of the food and my clothes, the pickup parked in the employee lot, and we were off to Merced to stage at our first delivery stop in the morning. We both did some research on Google Earth to see what the parking situation might be for an overnight stay, and we both agreed that there was a high probability that we would find a place to park. Upon arrival, even in the darkness of night, we saw an open parking lot and large dirt lot, good enough for us, and we called it a night.

In the morning, we were up and ready by 6am, too bad we couldn't say the same about the employees here. They finally started showing up a little after 6am, and we were told they would come out and let us know when they were ready for us. Then we waited and waited, and if it wasn't for the detention pay, there might have been a few cuss words, but I was content to be surfing away on the computer while Craig listened to the radio.

Long about 8:30am, we were finally summoned into a dock to off load the 2 pallets of meat we had for this location. You could almost get claustrophobic backing into the dock as there wasn't much room on either side once you got backed in. It took all of 15 minutes for them to take the 2 pallets off and then it was off to do battle with the San Francisco Bay Area for our next two deliveries.

Second stop in Newark, CA went well. We found it relatively easily, by passing it up, and then having to back down the street until we found one small little address sign that let us know we were at the correct location. There were only 4 pallets coming off here, so within 30 minutes we were in search of our last delivery of the day in Santa Clara, CA. After debating on several ways to get there, especially after earlier taking a "no trucks" allowed street, we rolled into the consignee and promptly told to get in line, it was a "first come/first served" situation. Well we certainly weren't in a hurry since we were 90 minutes ahead of our appointment time anyway.

All three places we went to today were surprisingly easy backs. You gotta love when businesses spell it out and places signs so that everyone is clear on what they need to do to get safely into the docks. Such was the case at our last drop, and being good little soldiers, we followed the directions and except for holding our breath when backing down a rather steep incline into the dock, and hoping that the landing gear wouldn't get messed up, we were in and out in record time. In fact, by 2pm we had put in our empty call and had been given our new assignment. It's off to Fresh Express in Salinas..........It sure feels great to be back on the truck again, this has been a happy day indeed.