Morris, Illinois to... Morris, Illinois

After the trailer demolition derby yesterday (a wag who emailed me commented, "Tug test complete!") a trailer repair company came out and took the trailer and I bobtailed to a customer of ours in Morris, Illinois that had an empty I could take. There was some confusion and hurried changing of plans, but somehow it worked out that I got a trailer from a driver who had come in from Iowa heading to Elkhart, Indiana for the following morning at 0700.

I departed as soon as I legally could around 0300 and made it to the consignee for the load a smidge after 0700 due to filling up the reefer fuel tank before I headed in. Turns out, they didn't care since it was a live unload instead of a drop and hook, but they didn't care anyway since they are a "FCFS" outfit (First Come First Served).

I waited for three hours after I was unloaded, and that is what really screwed me for the rest of the day. The sat unit eventually beeped and I was ordered to Romeoville, Illinois near Chicago to pick up a load heading to North Platte, Nebraska that I would drop off at our HQ in Omaha then get a different load going to the house. Only, it was around 0930 and the end of the loading window was 1100 and I was something like 130 miles away. I did the best I could, arriving just before noon and was assigned a door.

Now, if I had been assigned the load an hour earlier, I could have made it to the shipper on time. Since I wasn't, it took about 4.5 hours to get loaded. Since I arrived late, our company can't get any detention pay from the shipper ("Hey, we told you when you needed to have a truck there, no money baby!") which leaves beating up on my dispatcher instead.

Because I started so early to get to Elkhart that morning, I had to shut down shortly after I left the shipper which will screw me tomorrow as well. It turns out, the farthest I could go was back to that same truck stop in Morris, Illinois that I started the day at -- a first!