Ahh, the swing of emotions.
Getting your Friday load,
And then it cancels...
Sent from my P00I using EO Forums mobile app
Getting your Friday load,
And then it cancels...
Sent from my P00I using EO Forums mobile app
Load One 2021
- Thread starter RoadTime
- Start date
CNN is reporting that after the game ended and everyone was sent home from the stadium, 24 mail-in points for the Chiefs were found in an equipment locker.
During the Super Bowl a streaker got into the field. The Chiefs offensive line couldn't stop him, either.
Bahahhaha. Thought that was going to be a battle. Ahhhh not so much. 
.
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One of the radio announcers did a play by play of the event. It was so funny, he called it like a regular football play all the way down to the end zone. It was hilarious to listen to. Oh wow, I just found it on YouTube. Enjoy
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Sunday morning they called with a load 50 miles away in the Fort Worth area going to Little Rock. I looked outside and figured the roads didn't look too bad, very drivable, the snow is coming from the west so I'll drive out from underneath whatever is coming in no time, maybe by Rockwall.
I was wrong about every.single.thing in that sentence. 3 hours to get to the pick up, then 12 hours to go the 360 miles to Little Rock. It was 11 degrees, not snowing or sleeting, but they're was this foggy mist thing going on. Under 15 MPH and the wipers could keep up. Faster than that and the windshield could be used as a sliding glass door for the shower. Like a glazed donut. The misting stopped about the time I got to the pickup.
I got loaded with the 25 pound box of, according to the CDC, 250 less-than worthless neck gaiter covid masks, and headed out. The roads in town were pretty slick through Dallas and to Rockwall.
Then the roads got ugly. Three different sections of the Interstate were closed due to ice. They routed traffic onto the frontage road. Cars and trucks off in the ditches and the median. Another 10 mile stretch was closed while they tried to extricate and tractor and trailer from the median.
The roads were slick and icy all the way to Cado Valley, then it started snowing like crazy. But from that point on it was 50 MPH, not a problem. Got to the delivery at 12:30 AM and of course they were closed, opens back up at 0730. I went to a little truck stop half a mile away and went to sleep. I woke up to 8 inches of snow and the roads haven't been touched yet. But the Sprinter plowed right through like a champ. Got unloaded, and somehow managed to make it the 6 miles up to the Pilot in NLR.
But the whole time, as bad as it was, I kept thinking, "At least I don't live up there where RoadTime lives, where they live there on purpose."
So I'm at the Pilot with a very narrow window to get loaded out (didn't get the one to NC) before the expected 6-10 inches starts to hit at 1800 and I go back OOS.
I was wrong about every.single.thing in that sentence. 3 hours to get to the pick up, then 12 hours to go the 360 miles to Little Rock. It was 11 degrees, not snowing or sleeting, but they're was this foggy mist thing going on. Under 15 MPH and the wipers could keep up. Faster than that and the windshield could be used as a sliding glass door for the shower. Like a glazed donut. The misting stopped about the time I got to the pickup.
I got loaded with the 25 pound box of, according to the CDC, 250 less-than worthless neck gaiter covid masks, and headed out. The roads in town were pretty slick through Dallas and to Rockwall.
Then the roads got ugly. Three different sections of the Interstate were closed due to ice. They routed traffic onto the frontage road. Cars and trucks off in the ditches and the median. Another 10 mile stretch was closed while they tried to extricate and tractor and trailer from the median.
The roads were slick and icy all the way to Cado Valley, then it started snowing like crazy. But from that point on it was 50 MPH, not a problem. Got to the delivery at 12:30 AM and of course they were closed, opens back up at 0730. I went to a little truck stop half a mile away and went to sleep. I woke up to 8 inches of snow and the roads haven't been touched yet. But the Sprinter plowed right through like a champ. Got unloaded, and somehow managed to make it the 6 miles up to the Pilot in NLR.
But the whole time, as bad as it was, I kept thinking, "At least I don't live up there where RoadTime lives, where they live there on purpose."
So I'm at the Pilot with a very narrow window to get loaded out (didn't get the one to NC) before the expected 6-10 inches starts to hit at 1800 and I go back OOS.
I dunno. After not coming back on for an hour and a half, with errors of motor speed and flame out, things like that, I punched it again and it started right up. That initial blower whoosh at startup sounded more like dragging a 5 gallon bucket across a gravel driveway for a couple of seconds, but after that it went through tour normal startup and is working fine. No telltale blower motor noise at all. Weird.
Aaaaand 24 hours later it stopped again. I'm at the repair place now. Hopefully they've got the parts in stock. One guy came in to work on it only because I called their answering service and they put me in touch with one of them. Otherwise no one wants to get out in this snow.
They've got plenty of D2 stuff, no D4 stuff. Awesome.
They've got plenty of D2 stuff, no D4 stuff. Awesome.
Update to finish the story, since everyone is on pins and needles wondering what happened...
Thursday... Little Rock location has no D4 parts. They could order them, but it'd be a week. The Russellville location didn't have any either, but that probably wouldn't have mattered since I-30 was closed heading west, anyway. Next closest was Memphis, but did they have any D4 stuff? No, they didn't. The winner, winner was Nashville Hot Chicken Dinner. All the way to Nashville.
Road conditions from Little Rock to Forrest City were just breathtaking. The snow plow guys were working really hard, but one look and you can see they just don't have the experience of their northern colleagues. From Forrest City to the other side of Memphis the roads were just wet, very drivable, and from there on in to Nashville the roads were dry. Secondary roads and parking lots were still a mess, though.
Got to Nashville at 17:30 and got a motel room. The next morning they replaced the blower motor and reinstalled the heater. I ran a couple of errands, new wiper blades, things like that, and something wasn't right. I could hear the Espar blowing, but nothing was coming out. It's kinda warm in the van, but not like it should be. I went to the back of the van to put the box cover over the heater, I built a wooden box-like thing to cover the heater to protect it, and it was definitely blowing hard, but nothing was coming out.
Then I noticed it was blowing hot air out of the cold air input duct. Basically blowing right onto the rear doors.
I was still right be Thermo King so I ran back over there. As I walked in the door the guy who did the work asked me what was wrong, I told him, and he said, "I put that back in exactly the way it was before."
I said, "May be, but in 16 years it's never once blown hot air out the cold air return."
He had me pull nto Bay 1 and he fixed it. He had installed it backwards. You'd have thought he would have picked up on the fact that under the van it was sucking air in through the tailpipe, but no. I guess he saw that long piece of duct and figured that were the heat goes. But I showed him the "Y" fitting inside the bunk so he could see the output going through to the front of the bunk and then also put the rear, to even out the heat, and the return duct was way in the back to pull the heat back they're to further even out the heating.
The funny thing is, the input and output are different sizes, using different size duct hoses. You could see where he really had to work hard to get that smaller duct hose over the larger input hole.
But after a week of eye-popping snow across Texas and in Little Rock, and no loads, before the computer put me back in service they called to see if I was coming back in, and I got a Saturday morning pickup going up to Vincennes, IN. Not a long load, but it paid like it was twice as long.
Overnight Friday night I got a call on one picking up Sunday afternoon an hour from Vincennes going to Laredo. Pays better than the average Laredo load, too, and it's 104 pounds. So ended up with a decent week.
And Ted Cruz came back from Cancun and he's got the power back on and the temperature rising in Texas, so the roads down they're should be fine by the time I get down there.
Thursday... Little Rock location has no D4 parts. They could order them, but it'd be a week. The Russellville location didn't have any either, but that probably wouldn't have mattered since I-30 was closed heading west, anyway. Next closest was Memphis, but did they have any D4 stuff? No, they didn't. The winner, winner was Nashville Hot Chicken Dinner. All the way to Nashville.
Road conditions from Little Rock to Forrest City were just breathtaking. The snow plow guys were working really hard, but one look and you can see they just don't have the experience of their northern colleagues. From Forrest City to the other side of Memphis the roads were just wet, very drivable, and from there on in to Nashville the roads were dry. Secondary roads and parking lots were still a mess, though.
Got to Nashville at 17:30 and got a motel room. The next morning they replaced the blower motor and reinstalled the heater. I ran a couple of errands, new wiper blades, things like that, and something wasn't right. I could hear the Espar blowing, but nothing was coming out. It's kinda warm in the van, but not like it should be. I went to the back of the van to put the box cover over the heater, I built a wooden box-like thing to cover the heater to protect it, and it was definitely blowing hard, but nothing was coming out.
Then I noticed it was blowing hot air out of the cold air input duct. Basically blowing right onto the rear doors.
I was still right be Thermo King so I ran back over there. As I walked in the door the guy who did the work asked me what was wrong, I told him, and he said, "I put that back in exactly the way it was before."
I said, "May be, but in 16 years it's never once blown hot air out the cold air return."
He had me pull nto Bay 1 and he fixed it. He had installed it backwards. You'd have thought he would have picked up on the fact that under the van it was sucking air in through the tailpipe, but no. I guess he saw that long piece of duct and figured that were the heat goes. But I showed him the "Y" fitting inside the bunk so he could see the output going through to the front of the bunk and then also put the rear, to even out the heat, and the return duct was way in the back to pull the heat back they're to further even out the heating.
The funny thing is, the input and output are different sizes, using different size duct hoses. You could see where he really had to work hard to get that smaller duct hose over the larger input hole.
But after a week of eye-popping snow across Texas and in Little Rock, and no loads, before the computer put me back in service they called to see if I was coming back in, and I got a Saturday morning pickup going up to Vincennes, IN. Not a long load, but it paid like it was twice as long.
Overnight Friday night I got a call on one picking up Sunday afternoon an hour from Vincennes going to Laredo. Pays better than the average Laredo load, too, and it's 104 pounds. So ended up with a decent week.
And Ted Cruz came back from Cancun and he's got the power back on and the temperature rising in Texas, so the roads down they're should be fine by the time I get down there.
Last edited:
danthewolf00
Veteran Expediter
That's some ordeal with the Espar.
Lucky you, finding a guy that could fit two ends together
Lucky you, finding a guy that could fit two ends together
