Laredo,TX

Whew! It has been a LONG couple of days since I last posted and we were in Marianna,FL. We made that drop in Arcadia,FL at the Walmart DC at 0330 in the morning. Knowing we would have some time to kill until day shift planners came in, we headed back up to the Pilot for a shower and to kill some time. Around 0830 our FM calls and asks if we are ok to do multi-stop floral loads. I tell him sure. A few minutes later we get a message from him telling us that they are going to have a solo load it and meet us at Prime Floral in Pierson,FL. I get directions and it is 250 miles away and decide I better get going! I hit the road and make it there around 1400 hours. J checks in and we find out that the driver picking up our load is picking up PART of our load. What they do is get all the trucks in from Miami and they break them up and fill orders and put them on other trailers for us to take. By the time all the trucks got there and they get us loaded it is 2200. All we knew is that our final stop was in San Antonio. When we get the paperwork to the trailer we are assigned we find out that we have 14 stops! Holy cow! It is almost midnight on Monday (almost Tuesday) and our last stop is on Wednesday at 1700 hrs and it is 1200 miles away. Trying to figure out how we are going to pull this one off, we head out.

When all is said and done, we are only about 2 hours behind at our last stop, which I consider outstanding. And all the stops DID say approximate time of delivery. What amazed me though is some of the places that they had us delivering to. Like the one florist in Mobile,AL. This was a floral shop, NOT a warehouse. It was on a main street and all it was was basically a house that was converted into a floral shop. WTF am I going to park a semi? Thank goodness there were no customers, but I had to jump a curb gettin into the parking lot and once I did, there was no room for any customers to park. Or how about the two stops in San Antonio that I had to back off of the street to get to the customer, on a two lane road downtown, and one was a blidside at an angle? Or of course the one down in Baton Rouge where we unloaded out on the street with our hazards on? Or, and this is my favorite, one of the five stops in Houston is on a freaking residental street!! After unloading on the street and blocking one lane, I ask the guy how the hell I am going to get out of there. He tells me head out the street we are on, and I will come to a major street and it will take me back to I-10. I question him about it and he says semi's so it all the time. Because believe me, there is NO room to turn onto a cross street. But I believe him and I take off. Going about 5 mph with trees scraping my roof and power lines bouncing on the trailer. One was so low that I don't know how we didn't pull it down. Thank the good Lord we made it out of there unscathed. And to top it off, every single stop was a driver unload, by hand, because all the boxed were stacked on the floor.

So yesterday morning around the 7th drop or so, I tell J to send in a message telling our FM that we would not be available until Thursday morning after we make our last delivery on Wednesday night. We were both awake for all of those drops because there was no way I could do them myself. And when I say that, I mean, if it was some different product, I might could have, but the way they stacked them, they were to the ceiling. My 5'2" frame couldn't reach the top of the rows! So we had VERY little sleep, but our driving was all legal! Just ended up working some after our 14 was up so that we could get the stops all unloaded.

After our final drop, I got out our trusty book, and checked for hotels. Found a Red Roof Inn and when we headed there, we say a billboard that promised truck parking. Once I got the truck parked, because we still had the trailer, all I had to do was wait while J checked us in and made sure they accepted pets. He came out and gave us a thumbs up so we were good to go. Grabbed our stuff and headed to the room. It was almost an all out battle over who was going to get to soak in the tub first. But J was bigger, and I have to admit, he stunk worse than I did, so I let him go first. :)

We had pushed ourselves out until 0900 this morning so we got up at 0800 and ready to go at 0900. Checked the truck and they already had us a load but it didn't pick up in Laredo,TX until 1700 hours. Knowing that we had some time, we indulged in the continental breakfast they offered and went back to the room to get the most of our money. J took a quick nap and I watched coverage of the Presidential Debate from last night. At 1100 checkout time, we were out of there.

From there we headed down the road a few exits to the Petro where there was a Blue Beacon and had the truck, trailer and inside of the trailer washed out. There was also a Taqueria across the street so we had to get some tacos for lunch and then I headed out to Laredo.

Having dealt with border crossings before, I really wasn't expecting our load to be ready on time. But I was pleasantly surprised when we stopped at the Flying J and we called and they said it was ready. We headed over and picked that sucker up and we were off. Stopped at the Pilot to get fuel, scale and grab a bite to eat and then we were officially on the road. We pulled out at 1820 and we have to be in Toughkenamon,PA at 0900 on Saturday which is 1877 miles away. Yeah, we are going to have to haul some ass to pull this off. No prolonged breaks for us! But we will still get another load after this that we should be able to deliver before payroll cutoff on Tuesday and it is already shaping up to be an outstanding week, so we will see what happens!