AVOIDING THE STORM

Craig and his trainee Eric received their assignment on Friday to be in Salinas, CA at Fresh Express on Saturday at 1pm to pick up a load of produce. After supervising Eric's trip plan and pretrip inspection, they took off to Salinas to drop the trailer and stage until their loaded trailer was ready. Around 11am on Saturday the trailer was indeed loaded and they hit the road. Craig had been keeping an eye on the weather, and was planning on trying to get over all the major mountain passes on their route by the time they called it a day. Well......so much for that.By the time they hit Weed, CA it was snowing pretty good, and not wanting to put chains on if he doesn't have to, even though he does have a trainee to do the grunt work, they decided to shut down. I had also been monitoring the road conditions and was happy to receive his phone call saying that they would not be going any further, and would wait until after a good nights sleep to tackle the snowy, icy roads.

As is usually the case, things looked better with the start of a new day, and with bare pavement to drive on instead of snow, they took off early this morning with Craig having the morning drive duty. They switched driving duties in Canyonville, OR with Eric having the responsibility of getting them into the company drop yard in Pacific, WA which would set them up nicely with only an 18 mile drive for their first delivery at 2am tomorrow morning in Seattle. They have one more drop in Puyallup, WA at the Fred Meyer DC, which will no doubt put them in line for a run from Puyallup into Spokane.

As far as the trainee situation this time? It is as Craig and I like to say....."so far, so good". Let's hope it continues that way for the duration of the training period. And me? I'm getting real good on the Wii games, after all, I needed a break from all that baking I did yesterday. I know, it's a tough life, but I think I'm suffering through it quite well... ha ha!