Foiled again

The trip out from Russellville, Arkansas to Atlanta, Georgia was ordinary in all respects until I neared the destination. I had been listening to traffic and weather updates via my XM radio for about half the trip, hoping that I-20 would be open by the time I arrived in late afternoon. Even a single bridge across the raging Chattahoochee river would have done, but alas, I was out of luck. Calls to Georgia's 511 travel service confirmed that I would have to make an enormous end around to the north or south to avoid the flooding and I didn't have enough hours left to accomplish that.

I stopped for the night in Villa Rica, Georgia, less than twenty miles to the consignee. This morning I got up at 0400 just to check 511 and I-20 was still blocked. Went back to bed for a couple hours then checked again around 0600. Still blocked. Crap. I waited a few more hours then reluctantly charted a course southward around the blockage.

Two hours of stop-and-go traffic later I arrive at the consignee after having driven under electronic billboards announcing I-20 was now open. I really must find a solution to my teeth grinding problem.

Then the new wrinkle: dispatch beeps me and tells me that another driver needs an empty reefer from AmeriCold so once I drop off my full one, grab an empty and swap with him (he has a regular van trailer). Since my next preplan is for a load of carpet out of Calhoun, Georgia, everyone would have ended up with the right kind of trailer. Only, when I arrived it was revealed that the only Hill Bros trailer of any kind at AmeriCold was the one that I brought, and it wouldn't be unloaded until 2330 tonight. Amazingly, even after telling dispatch this they insisted I look again to see if there weren't these two other trailers there after all. I contemplated sending them a message indicating that I found two magic trailers and everything was spiffy (to be followed by a "PSYCHE!" message a minute later) but thought better of it.

So I ended up with the empty van trailer and the other driver went bobtail, and I hightailed it north to Calhoun to wait for my load of carpet to be loaded.