Grand Island, Aurora, Phoenix, Colorado Springs

Monday morning my dispatcher was back from his (I'm assuming) lovely weekend and I pounced. "My weekend was a cluster, hellllllp," or something along those lines.

Soon a short trip plan materialized, taking a load of Pepsi stuff from Omaha to Grand Island, Nebraska. I've done that trip before so I know where to go, and I also know it is a few miles away from the Iams pet food plant in nearby Aurora that we haul from for PetSmart. Sure enough, after I was on my way to drop off the first load a pre-plan shows up with a trip from Aurora to Phoenix, delivering any time on Wednesday.

I've been to the Iams place a few times before so the routine there, while a bit tiresome, is quickly finished and I have 43,000 pounds of pet food in a new trailer attached to my tractor. They have a kind of rinky-dink scale there that you can use which is annoying because you have to get one set of tires on it, set your brakes, get out and walk back to the display to find out what the total is.

Anyway, I'm heavy but legal (the truck weight is fine, too) so it is off to the races. I manage to drive to Dodge City, Kansas by 2100 and decide that is enough for one day.

This morning I'm up and at 'em as early as I can legally leave. A few hours later I'm motoring along and another pre-plan shows up: grab a loaded trailer at PetSmart on Wednesday and deliver to two stops in Colorado on Friday, the final stop being Colorado Springs.

I was kind of hoping to get a load leaving Phoenix immediately so I can turn and burn back up into the high plains east of Flagstaff for cooler temps overnight. The downside is that the timing on this trip now becomes very tight, with three 620-650ish days in a row to make it to my first stop on Thursday night. All things considered, notably my poor mileage last week, I'll take it.

Today finishes up along the New Mexico / Arizona border in teensy-tiny Lupton, Arizona.