Kansas City, Waukee and Milwaukee

... or, said another way, the past, present and future.

This morning it was Kansas City, Kansas. The shipper didn't mind me spending the night in their parking lot "so long as you're gone before first shift gets in tomorrow." I blew out of town at 0400 with no first shift in evidence.

Three hours later I was in Omaha at my first drop. Turns out, my instructions and the way the trailer was loaded were reversed. I took matters into my own hands and went to the second consignee first whereupon I find a ridiculous backing situation. It is hard to describe in words, and I had no time to take a photo, but basically it was a business at the corner of a curved street with a small parking lot with no way to back in to the dock they wanted without going over the curb. Over the curb it was.

The second consignee was an easy drop and as soon as I was done there I took my truck over to the local Volvo Truck dealership to have them look at my air suspension. When I started up this morning it was like someone had used a needle on a balloon overnight -- I had no air pressure at all. My rear air suspension was flat, the trailer brakes were set, the works.

Turns out there was a connection in the rear of my tractor that had developed a leak and it was put right suspiciously quickly. They even installed new front curtains for the truck to replace the original ones that came with busted tabs.


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As for the present, tonight I'm stopped in a rest area in Waukee, Iowa just west of Des Moines. A load was presented heading up to Wisconsin for delivery tomorrow and I spent most of the afternoon at a meatpacking plant in Omaha having my trailer loaded. Some of these plants are so small it is basically steers going in one end of the building and WHAP! burgers out the other a short time later. If you remember that chicken load I had the other day from Chattanooga with the large cardboard containers and plastic liners, it was the same thing here. Worse, when I came to a hard stop just before reaching the freeway there was a disconcerting liquid motion that rocked my entire truck forward and back a few times as it settled.

Tomorrow is an easy ride from Waukee to Milwaukee to complete the trip.