Off to Texas, but not home

Our folks in the rear with the gear decided I needed to backtrack to that same PetSmart DC and exchange my empty van trailer for an empty reefer trailer. The next load had me heading north about 80 miles along state highways to Woodstock, Illinois to pick up 8 tons of pharmaceutical-grade saline solution for a company down in Texas that needs to be kept near room temperature. Since our reefers heat as well as cool, it will handle the nitty-gritty details while I putter on down the road.

Finding the place and getting loaded were no problem and after a slight detour on to the toll road then immediately back off on a marked detour I continued at my stately 55 MPH Illinois pace until stopping for the night at Troy, Illinois near St Louis.

This morning I was up very early and headed out around 0300 so the big city traffic was a piece of cake. After stopping here and there along the way to sleep, buy supplies and eat I managed to arrive in Colbert, Oklahoma this afternoon about an hour's drive away from the consignee.

I didn't question this load plan when I got it, figuring my dispatcher had a short hop from Texas up to Missouri lined up for the home time I had requested for this weekend. This was too much faith on my part and after some haggling we agreed that I would definitely be home next weekend and I'd keep running. Paycheck 1, time off 0.