Fuel for Thought

Rain, rain, and more rain...

           Today I'm sitting in Buffalo, NY, after delivering to Grand Island, NY this morning.  The load picked up in West Virginia late last night, but it ended up being later than it was supposed to.  The load's final destination was Montreal, QC, Canada, and I was scheduled to transfer in to another driver who would take it on up.  When I got my paperwork at the shipper, the Canadian paperwork had not been included.  Of course, being after hours, I had a confused security guard, and a couple of dock workers waiting on me, but no one had any clue what I was talking about.

           After a series of phone calls, they finally got in touch  with someone from the shipping office, who could fix it, who of course was at her home.  Turns out the person who was supposed to create the Canadian Customs Invoice didn't get it printed out, so this other lady had to drive a half hour back in to work and fix the problem.  It only took her 10 minutes once she got there, but I know she was NOT happy to have to fix someone's mistake.  So, I got loaded and rolling almost 2 hours late, which bumped my transfer time.  I had a pretty good ride, tho I didn't like the way the load rode.  It was 4 drums of liquid, all on one pallet... and I hate having it concentrated like that in my van.  I prefer that much weight broke up on 2 pallets, but after all the other hassle these poor guys went thru waiting and trying to find out who could fix it.. I didn't wanna say.. "hey.... by the way... " LOL.

             Got rolling about 9:30pm, and sometime after midnight, hit the rain and storms that blanketed most of the midwest last night.  I didn't driver thru anything too severe, just a good bit of solid rain.. just made me slow down and pay attention more.  Made the transfer at the new time, then headed over to Buffalo to sleep.  One good thing about the rain... the sound of it on the van roof made for good sleeping weather!  Nice and cool, but not so cool I had to idle.... :)

Dale is a solo van Owner Operator leased to FedEx Custom Critical.  He can be reached with comments at [email protected] or by using the comments section below.