WORKING UNDER THE COVER OF DARKNESS

I'm happy to report that we are back on a normal driving schedule, not that there is such a thing, or that it will last for any length of time, but at least for today, I can say it's normal. All that night driving and making of deliveries under the cover of darkness, makes it seem to me, like I have been back out on the truck for a week already, but it has only been three days.

Sunday, after Craig picked me up, we drove to a rest area about 10 miles from the Oregon border. We were up on Monday by 2am and driving to Chehalis, WA where we would stage for three very early morning deliveries on Tuesday. As usual, getting any sleep was difficult to say the least, but we seemed to get a few hours, and well, that was just going to have to be enough.

We started out at 10pm Monday night, driving first to Tacoma, WA to fuel up, and then to our first stop, also in Tacoma for a 1am delivery. We were a good hour ahead of schedule, but the shipper was sitting on the dock, forklift at the ready, to unload their one measly pallet from the back of our trailer. In and out in record time, less than 10 minutes, we were headed to Seattle for drop number two.

We never know what to expect whenever we delivery to Charlie's Produce in Seattle. The area has been under construction since 2009 and is not due to be finished until 2012. This time around, once we took our approach street to the business, we were hit with detour signs due to the road being closed. With the help of my mapping program and the detour signs, we weaved our way through Seattle and happily found a way into Charlie's.

We were now running about 90 minutes ahead of schedule, but they unloaded us quickly and we drove back to the area of our first stop where we had noticed some truck parking along the street. By the time we made it back to Tacoma, we had a good hour that we could park and take a power nap before heading to Puyallup, WA for our last delivery at 5am.

The delivery at the Fred Meyer DC in Puyallup was as it always is, get a dock right away, spend no more than about an hour getting unloaded, and then the waiting game as to what to do next. In the back of our minds we thought for sure we would be dropping the trailer there and getting another night driving load into Spokane, but were shocked when we were told to find a place to park for awhile.

We headed to the company drop yard in Pacific, WA and got a couple of hours sleep before we were beeped with our next assignment. We both breathed a sigh of relief when we saw that it was a load of frozen french fries to be picked up this morning in Othello, WA. YIPEE....we will get back to driving during the day! This load is scheduled to be delivered in Oxnard, CA on Saturday morning, which means we should have three days of easy driving ahead of us, and maybe I find a use for my camera again!