Driving, driving, driving... then waiting

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Since my last update I made it safely to Phoenix, Arizona to drop off my load of pet food at the PetSmart DC then late the following morning picked up a new load heading to the Denver, Colorado area.

There are several unusual things about this new load. First, almost all of our loads out of Phoenix have at least two stops and this one is headed to just one store. Stranger yet, the 21 pallets of goodies in back only weigh a combined 17,000 pounds.

Heading up I-17 to Flagstaff has never been so easy and once I reset my trip computer in Winslow, Arizona after I fueled it showed an average MPG of 7.9 for the rest of the way up to Colorado to the small northern suburb of Denver called Brighton.

I arrived yesterday afternoon hoping the store would be able to unload me early. Another strange aspect of this load is the Monday 0300 unload -- three full days to drive under 900 miles. As I've said before, weekend dispatches around here tend to be less than optimal.

The manager on duty informed me that the truck couldn't be unloaded any sooner since this store has a very small storage room. This means an impromptu 34-hour restart and a rare Sunday off while I'm out on the road. There are worse things, I suppose.

I was preplanned to take a load of beer from Fort Collins to Kansas City today to deliver first thing tomorrow morning but that will be pushed back a day to accommodate the PetSmart folks.