This trucker has Bawls!

No joke, about thirteen tons of Bawls soft drinks in the back. Not even a refrigerated load!

My load was taken off by a lumper yesterday morning. Lumper is an industry term meaning someone who loads or unloads freight, typically on a casual basis with the shipper or consignee. It took me a while to get coordinated with my guy but he was quick getting the product out of the back and I got moving up to Huntsville, Alabama.


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When I arrived I managed to pull in to the wrong driveway for this plant (they have two, both at 2700 such-and-such a street). After conferring with the guard I drove down another block or so and entered the second gate, which the company was repairing as a Wal-Mart driver had knocked down one of the ends with his trailer earlier.

Loading was quick, as they had it staged and ready to go. As soon as they cleared a dock I backed in and about fifteen minutes later I had paperwork in hand and was almost ready to pull out.

Almost ready because they loaded all of this Bawls stuff at the front of my trailer and my load gauge was reading fairly heavy. I slid my tandems all the way back yet it still looked iffy. Fortunately, I know that the inbound Tennessee scale on I-65 north is beyond where I was going to fuel so I could scale there. If push came to shove I could float a pallet or two back by hand, as the floor of the reefer is a kind of corrugated metal.

It turns out I'm legal but nose-heavy, even with the tandems all the way forward and my sliding kingpin all the way back. I fueled at a tiny and poorly-designed pilot in southern Tennessee then drove back across the freeway to an independent truck stop and had a peaceful night there.