Seligman,AZ

What another gorgeous day today has been! J woke me up in Santa Rosa this morning and we only had about 830 miles left to go to our destination. I hit the road and made my first stop at a rest area just west of Clines Corners. From there I made it into Albuquerque,NM where I had to stop for fuel.

After fueling I headed out again, going slow since there is a big upgrade coming out of Albuquerque going west. This is where I had an "incident", although no one was hurt, I am sure another truck driver is somewhere up ahead of me still cussing me some 9 hours later! Coming up the big hill it is two lanes and then there it splits into three lanes, with another lane added on the right for slow trucks. I was in the right lane, where it was two lanes, coming up to the truck lane. I put my blinker on so I could get over and get out of the way of all the other trucks and traffic. As soon as I had room to get over, a 4-wheeler SUV swerves behind me into the right lane to get around me. Apparently, he didn't see the blinker that has been on for at least 10 seconds, since I had it on before the truck lane started so people would know I was going to get over and get out of their way. I saw him and waited for him to get around me and then started to come over. Big mistake. Another billy big-rigger behind me that ALSO apparently didn't see my blinker, and didn't have the patience to wait the whole three seconds it would have taken me to get into the slow lane, decided he was going to pass me on the right also. Now, I conceed that it was COMPLETELY my fault, I did not see him coming up behind me. And I would never have gotten in that lane if I had seen him. So I am at fault. But on a hill like that, the general rule, is that you let the slow truck over and pass on the left. Especially when my damn blinker had been on at this point for at least 15 seconds. People like that irritate me. Thankfully, I did see him and cut back into my lane. Granted I got the air horn, the utility lamps flashed at me, and although I didn't see it, I am sure I got the finger! I did get on the CB and apologized but he didn't say anything back, so I guess he was running with his CB off. But that was my almost accident for the day, and I still feel really bad about that.

After that episode, I made it as far as Grants where I made another bathroom stop, then another bathroom stop at the NM/AZ border and yet another in Flagstaff! Thankfully, I stopped for the day in Seligman,AZ because I had to go to the bathroom AGAIN! I don't know what my deal was today, but I had to make a ton of pit stops. I guess I need to lay off the liquids!

When we stopped there in Seligman, we were going to grab something to eat but they didn't have anything other than the usual hot dogs and nachos. We decided to head on down the road to the Petro up in Kingman which is about 60 miles further. They have the salad bar and that is what I am wanting. They have a good one.

From there we should only have about 250 miles to go to destination. J will get us there around 2200 or so tonight. This place is a drop and hook so I imagine we will head over to the Pilot in Hesperia for the night where we will wait for our next load. Pretty much guaranteed that we won't get anything until tomorrow sometime.

Actually we have a change of plans. Instead of going to the Pilot in Hesperia, we are going to go ahead and head to the TA down in Ontario. We need to get a PM done on the truck and they can do them there. Plus I am betting that when we do get a load, it will be down that direction.

We also need to get the truck down to Freightliner when we have a little extra time. The bunk a/c isn't cooling like it should. And we also keep getting a low voltage beep, even with the APU. So that will all be warranty work. Road assist said that the TA can do the a/c work, but they have a habit of just saying it is low on freon and charging the system and not checking the lines. They said we would be better off having Freightliner doing the warranty work. I am going to put that off as long as possible since we are on a decent roll and I don't want to have the truck stopped if we don't have to.

So there you have it ladies and gentlemen. Your daily update!