Unload. Load. Swap trailers.

Yesterday I dropped off the last portion of the Wal-Mart load in Sterling, Illinois. While I was waiting a preplan showed up on my satellite unit to pick up 80 miles east near Chicago at about the same time as I was reading the preplan. I messaged back asking for clarification and mentioned that I hadn't even been unloaded yet and was told I needed to pick up this new load no later than 1830 that evening.

I managed to arrive 45 minutes early and found several other Hill Bros owner ops getting loaded. One had the bad luck to have some damaged cargo put aboard had to wait hours and hours for it to be taken off and replaced. He arrived four hours before I did and I left before him. At least he got there by his scheduled time.

The day ended for me in Rochelle, Illinois at the Flying J. I saw the truck wash there was empty so I pulled in for a long-overdue scrubbing. I tried offering a few bucks in tip money to the workers but they wouldn't accept -- the manager is anal retentive about that sort of thing. I mentioned that I normally do this when I get a wash and, according to them, there is a corporate policy against accepting tips at all Blue Beacons.

This morning it was off in drizzly rain to Kansas City, Kansas. I fueled in nearby Kearney, Missouri for $1.55 -- the lowest price I can remember paying for diesel.

The morons at Kraft in Aurora, Illinois where I loaded managed to only supply one copy of the Bill of Lading in a dozen or so pages of summary stuff and for some reason the AWG food warehouse people will not make copies! I had to pull back out on the street and run over to a nearby hole-in-the-wall truck stop to make a 15 cent copy then run back over to drop the load off. Stupid corporate types.

They wouldn't even let me bobtail out of there so I had to bring an empty with me. Stupid corporate types.

I did get a preplan for a change. This time I'm taking a load from nearby Independence, Missouri down to Russellville, Arkansas. The delivery time is Monday at 0700 but I'm going to have it there tomorrow afternoon.


View Larger Map