DREAMING OF SLEEPING AT NIGHT

I can't even remember the last time I posted.  Even though it was only a couple of days ago, it seems like at least a week.  My sense of time gets a bit warped when we do a lot of night driving.  It all started with that Foster Farms run, where we were delayed 5 hours with waiting for the load and then the bad tire.  That put our backs up against the wall to get to our three deliveries.  Craig has had to push it to the last few minutes of his driving hours the last three days.

They changed our appointment at Foster Farms in Kelso, WA, and thankfully this time there was no DOT officer looking through binoculars for seat belt infractions, not that he would have seen us not wearing ours.  From there, with the electronic QualComm sending out verbal warning messages, we made it to Toledo, WA and into the lot at Gee Cee's Truck Stop.  A short 8 hours later, we were on the road at 1:30am to get to our 4am appointment in Auburn, WA at the Safeway DC.  After getting their portion of the load removed from our trailer,  we were able to drive to the company yard in Pacific, WA to put in a 2 hour break to complete the split sleeper berth option, before heading up to Everett, WA to Food Service of America for our final delivery.


Even with leaving at 8:30am for our 11am appointment, and having only 50 miles to drive, we were sweating it a bit with the commute traffic headed to Seattle.  It was bumper to bumper traffic for the majority of the ride, but as soon as we got north of Seattle, it thinned out and we made our appointment time with minutes to spare.  Of course, wouldn't you know it, the place with the least amount coming off the trailer, (4 pallets), took the most amount of time.  We were there almost 4 hours waiting for the unload and the paperwork, while we watched Craig's 14 hour clock start ticking away.

Both of us were certain that we would be spending the rest of the day relaxing and dreaming of actually sleeping at night as we placed our empty call and started heading towards the truck stop about 10 miles away.  Even when the QualComm started beeping, we were confident that it was a load for the next day, and then as we listened to the information, shock set in that it was a load 120 miles away for 9pm that night.  It doesn't take a math scholar to figure out that starting at 1:30am, finishing up at 1:30pm would not get us to that appointment at 9pm.

They must have been short handed, because as Craig explained what he could do with the new assignment, with the hours that he had, he was told to do the best that he could.  That meant driving as close as we could get to the Fred Meyer DC in Chehalis, WA........we got as far as Olympia, sweating bullets through some stop and go traffic as the QualComm kept assaulting us with reminders of how rapidly Craig's driving hours were dwindling down.  Then we did yet another 8 hour break, and left at 11:45 pm to drive into the shipper, drop and hook, and start heading to Coeur d'Alene, ID for an 8am delivery that would not be met.

The drop/hook went like clock work, a stop for fuel and caffeine in Tacoma, and then an all too quck 2 hour break at a rest stop along the way to get some much needed sleep and complete the split sleeper berth requirement.  With the sun shining in our eyes, we are presently 39 miles away from delivery, and it looks like we will only be 90 minutes past the original delivery time.  Not too shabby if I say so myself.  Now do we dare think of getting the rest of the day/night off when we go empty?   A girl can only dream!