5 freaking 30 am.   I swear If the alarm wasn’t Greg’s iPhone I may have thrown it out the window this morning.  Some days you don’t want to get up.   That’s me this morning.   I don’t know why.  We weren’t up late.    Just not ready and even the caffeine isn’t helping.  

Anyway, we are on our way to the receiver.  Already traffic is crazy.   We thought it would be a quiet drive so early but Indianapolis is hopping.  

6:45 am.  Arrived at receiver but was told we were at the wrong place.  “They always keep sending you guys here”.  This is the address we had but apparently they have another warehouse about 3 miles away.   So, off we go.  Again.  

7 am.  Arrived at receiver.  We are now at the right place.   There are several trucks ahead of us and wondering about the wait time so Greg walks up to guard shack to check in.   Apparently the waiting trucks are picking up.  Since we are delivering we can go on in.  Yay! 

DG:  This is only my third load on the new dedicated fleet and already I see a big difference. The shippers and receivers are much more laid back, seals apparently are sometimes optional and so far no one has even checked. I mean, what’s the point really. If you have everything and all is accounted for then seal or no deal you have your goods. Apparently these are all live loads as well which at first I feared was going to be a problem but so far they are pretty quick at getting us in and out. Let’s hope it stays that way. 

In the picture below you can see what appears to be four welcome mats on the concrete. What those are are mud flaps and the way they got there is by the driver backing against the curb catching his mudflats between his tires and the curb. I know because I did that once. Fortunately I only lost one but it taught me a lesson. 

Oh, almost forgot. Saw this in a service area in Ohio. Thought it was funny. 

I sent her a nice long message expressing my feelings about her and her campaign. I hope she gets it. 

8:40 am   Unloaded and ready to go.   That was fast!   We already have a new trip.  Something else new with the new route.  They have a a trip ready before or just after we finish one.  Definitely beats sitting for hours or days waiting.  Now on to Crawfordsville, Indiana.  

Early summer in Indiana 

10 am.  Arrived at a publishing place.    Apparently we have the wrong pick up number so dispatch is trying to figure it out for us.   My thoughts are how many trips do you have going out by KLLM today to Jeffeeson City, Missouri that this is an issue.  We are the only KLLM truck here and actually only one of three trucks on the place.   How hard can it be for them to find the load number.   Apparently impossible.  So we wait for dispatch.   

11 am.  Went in again to check.   Called dispatch again.  Finally have the 5 numbers and 1 letter they were looking for.   Rocket science here people!    So we are getting loaded finally.  

12:30 pm.   On our way to receiver.   We now have 32,000 pounds of books for Scholastic. Mostly teenager books. Cool! Now to get to Jefferson City by 8 pm.   

5:30 pm.   Arrived at receiver.  They are on break and will get to us shortly.   We are picking up a load here tomorrow but going to check and see if we can get it while we’re here.  

7 pm.  All done with unloading.  We drove around to the shipping side but they can’t load us tonight so we will have to call in the morning for an appointment. 

The clock has run completely down so we have to use mandate to leave which is something the DOT has in place for when you need to leave a shipper and your clock is up.   You have 30 minutes to get somewhere.   There is a Walmart close so we will go there. 

8 pm.  Greg is getting his blood pressure meds filled while we’re here.    Now if he just remembers to take them.   

Going to watch a bit of TV and turn in.  Good night y’all.