Fuel for Thought
Neat stuff!
Tonight I'm sitting in the Milwaukee, WI area, after a couple of good paying runs. After my week of short runs, I picked up a nice run Saturday afternoon, which delivered in Chicago this morning. I went down those old familiar roads again, Rte 35 to Gallipolis, OH to pick up about 1100 lbs of machine parts. I brought the parts home and spent the weekend with family, going to church, and just generally relaxing. I left last night a little before 11pm, for a 7am delivery. It was a pretty smooth ride, just a ton of fog... and as I got closer to Chicago, the temp dropped, and it turned into freezing fog... in which the droplets in the air were freezing on trees, and yes even the roads, causing some speed happy people to spin out coming down off ramps. I didn't have any trouble, nor did most around me.. it seemed to only be those who didn't realize the temps out, and slow down.
Anyway, I got into the delivery a bit early, only to find out they didn't open for another hour. After getting over the frustration, I settled in to check mail, and catch up on some things. About 15 minutes before the plant opened, I got a dispatch offer for a run to Milwaukee, WI, picking up about 13 miles away, in a half hour! I accepted the run, after notifying dispatch that the plant was not unloading me yet. I got unloaded, sent in my proof of delivery, and waited for my load info. To my surprise, and delight, I found out I was delivering to a division of Harley Davidson! To a guy like me, that's a dream delivery LOL. How cool is it that it worked out to be picked up so near where I was. If I had unloaded on time, I probably would have been an hour away from pickup at a truckstop. As it was, I grabbed the load, and ran the short run (about 100 miles) up to the plant. They were too busy unloading trucks for me to even suggest a plant tour, but man did I think about it! As it was, the area where I delivered was filled with that iconic image of Americana... racks and racks of V-Twin engines.... (insert best Tim Allen grunt here! Ah ah ah ahhh!) Oh well, enough drooling LOL... headed to a truckstop, and got me a nap... waitin on dispatch!
Dale is a solo van owner operator leased to FedEx Custom Critical, and can be reached with comments at [email protected] or by using the comments section of this blog.