Round trip

It took a few hours for my dispatcher to line me up with a load. The plan had me heading west about 250 miles to a Tyson plant in Amarillo, Texas to pick up a load of meat heading to a Tyson plant in Emporia, Kansas. Unfortunately, it had to be there in just 20 hours and the total distance was 730ish miles, and the load wouldn't even be ready until late afternoon.

After a bit of juggling I was sent out to pick up the load as the planners arranged a t-call. That wasn't ready by the time I arrived at the shipper, got the trailer washed out then dropped it on their yard.

The ready time came and went, but I did get instructions to take the loaded trailer back the way I came to Oklahoma City and pass it off to another driver who would see it to its destination.

Time kept ticking away until just after 8 PM when I cleared the gate and headed east.

I hadn't paid much attention on the way in from OKC and figured I would scale at the first truck stop I ran across. Since the Tyson plant is about seven miles northeast of Amarillo from the closest truck stop there, I just kept going east. And going. And going.

Dummy me, it turns out there are no scales heading east until after you cross into Oklahoma! Luckily, the weigh stations were closed along the way and I finally got that taken care of.

Got into OKC just after midnight only to find I-44 in midtown shut down so that required a bit of rejiggering along side streets. The other truck was at the J on the east end of town and the driver had even saved me a spot, as he was on his break and wasn't leaving immediately.