A WEEK OF NIGHT DRIVING

It's been a long week.  Never really adjusting to the east coast times we kept when we traveled to Chicago, we managed to find ourselves still on the night shift when we picked up our load at Fresh Express last Wednesday.  Craig did have fresh hours, since we ended up doing a 34hr reset in Salinas, but with the time constraints of a tight delivery schedule to three different locations, it mandated us starting our driving on day one at 4pm and driving until almost 3am. 

We made it to a rest stop about 60 miles into Oregon, where we thankfully found an open spot and camped out there until after 5pm when we once again started our day with a 2am delivery in Tacoma, followed by a 5am delivery in Puyallup, WA.  There is where we had to hand off out load to another driver who had just delivered some bananas.  It was after 7am when we finally got the green light at our dock, and Craig's 14 hour clock had run out.

We ended up trying to sleep amidst the noise of the yard goats zipping around with trailers and the constant beeping of them backing into docks.  We knew we would have yet another night of driving as all the loads coming out of the Fred Meyer DC are overnight loads into Spokane.  Our dispatch on the QualComm awoke us mid day with a pickup at 8pm and a delivery at 5am.  At least we would have a couple of hours to stop off at the yard to take showers and do a load of laundry.

After the unload, we were given a dispatch to pick up meat at Tyson in Wallula, WA so we zipped over there to their yard to drop our trailer before Craig's driving hours ran out.  We managed to catch some sleep before picking up our loaded trailer at 7pm and once again, driving through the night to get as far as we could. With a few stops for a caffeine boost and to eat, we finally arrived in Redding, CA around 8am.

We finally managed to fall asleep around noon, only to be rudely awakened by the sounds of the Thunderbirds doing fly bys at the Redding Air show at 4pm.  Damn those planes are loud, but we were able to go back to sleep and make our departure at 1am for our first delivery in Oakland, CA at 6am.  We arrived an hour early and much to our surprise, we were flagged down by their yard supervisor to come directly into the yard and back into a dock.  By 6am we were unloaded and making our way towards Modesto for our last delivery.

Since we had so much extra time, we decided to stop in Ripon, CA at the truck stop for some breakfast before making our final leg into Modesto.  We're sitting in the Sysco lot now awaiting to hear which dock they want us to back into, and then we are both hoping to catch a break and get back into a somewhat normal schedule.  The only photo I have been able to capture this past week was this sunset in Wallula, WA before we left.