Waste of a day, a two-fer!

Where to begin...

Well, the following morning I returned to the Swift plant in Greeley, Colorado and the trailer was right where I had left it. I parked my bobtail next to the guard shack and went in to see if the paperwork had been reprinted yet. Yep, they were happy, I was happy, everyone was happy!

I hooked up to the trailer and pulled it back up to the parking lot exit and they did their final walkaround inspection. I signed a few more documents and I was on my way to the local truck stop to get scaled out.

Even though the tandems were slid all the way forward the trailer was perfectly balanced. This is great, as the further forward those rear wheels are the shorter your overall wheelbase is and the better you turn corners. I punched in the proper codes for HQ to know I was loaded and on my way and set out.

The first stop for this load is Lubbock, Texas so I motored down a number of state highways from Colorado through Oklahoma and into Texas. Finally, I stopped on the south side of Amarillo near a small truckstop I had been to before. It was full, but there was plenty of side street parking and I chose a spot next to a Whataburger outlet. No, I couldn't pass up one of their delights so I didn't eat in the truck last night.

Up early this morning to finish the last couple hours of driving down to Lubbock along I-27. Very easy miles, light traffic and the consignee wasn't hard to find. After a few quality hours there spent doing the Super Lumper Tango I was on my way to El Paso, Texas for the final drop on this load.


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Now, when I left the Swift plant yesterday they gave me a big package of paperwork for the load. There was one large manila envelope with an inventory of every single box in back, then there were individual envelopes for each stop. Plus the Bills of Lading for the first stop. For some reason, there were three even though they were all going to the same joint.

What I only realized after dropping the first load was that the brain trust back at Swift had left out the Bills of Lading for the El Paso drop! This could potentially be a fairly big no-no since you aren't supposed to carry a load without the paperwork for it. I messaged in to our crack team at HQ to let them know and to have the Bills faxed to the last consignee.

Now, we were told by someone at the consignee that they would take the load today if I arrived no later than 1530. I got there 45 minutes early only to be told they hadn't received the fax yet and it had to arrive in the next 15 minutes or they would make us wait until tomorrow to unload. I quickly phoned our folks and they made sure the fax was coming.

At the last minute, the office guy I'm sitting with gets up and retrieves the fax. He calls over to whoever he speaks with on their docks about the order and after several minutes of consultation I'm told that the order was originally supposed to deliver yesterday and since no one rescheduled it they wouldn't take it until the morning. This is, of course, complete horse hockey since the delay in question was because Swift was late with the paperwork by a day.

I'm invited to return at 0800 tomorrow morning, which nearly distracts me from finishing my voodoo doll that looks like the office worker. Several truckstops are a few miles away and I motor over to one and park it for the night.