Hopkinton,MA

Aren't you guys lucky! You get to read two of my posts on the same day! LOL

After sitting for a few hours this morning, we finally got a load assignment around 0830. I was surprised to see that they were sending us down to Methune,MA instead of up to Easton,ME which is what I was figuring they would do. I guess that is what I get for figuring, huh?

As soon as they sent the info to me, I knew that there was no way I could make pickup on time since I still had to get fuel, send in our trips to be paid and I had to find a washout. Now I know what you are thinking. Why didn't I do all of that stuff while I was just sitting around this morning doing nothing? Well, I will explain that to you. The little truck stop, the Circle K with truck parking, is not a fuel stop and they don't do the Transflo scanning which we use for our payroll. Now, there was a Pilot about 60 miles north, but you know my luck. If I go north, I will get a load where I needed to have went south. Or if I headed south, I would have gotten a load that would have sent me north. Then the 60 miles one way would have turned into 120 miles out of my way once I back-tracked. So, I have learned, the hard way I might add, that I don't get EITHER direction until I have my next load assignment.

It turned out that it wasn't a big deal though because my trailer was already pre-loaded. When I saw where we were picking up at, I figured it would be pre-loaded since it has always been that way whenever we have picked up there. Knowing that, I didn't have to stress about getting there on time. Since we are in the Boston,MA area there are basically no truck services or trailer washouts anywhere close. I had to go south about 40 miles past my pick up to get a washout and then drive the 40 miles back to pickup. That made for an extra 80 miles that I didn't need to drive, but that I had to since our previous load was a meat load and those HAVE to be washed out before the trailer is loaded again.

I got there with no problems and went inside to get my paperwork then set out to find my loaded trailer. I was picking up trailer 26538 and wouldn't you know that particular trailer was parked right next to trailer 26358. How confusing is that?? Of course when I started backing up I went to the wrong trailer, since I was looking at it in reverse in the mirror. Figures, right? LOL I knew something was wrong as soon as I got out because the reefer wasn't running like it should have been. I glanced at the trailer next to it and that is when I actually realized the two trailers 26358 and 26538 were parked next to each other and I had hooked up to the wrong on! And of course the pin got stuck so I had to have J get up and pull the pin to unhook while I had the truck in reverse taking the pressure off of the pin. I hate when I have blonde moments like that!

It is a really heavy load at over 43,500 lbs. I am stopped at this Service Plaza but as soon as J takes over, we will hit a Pilot about 40 miles down the road where we can hit a scale and make sure we are legal. I think we should be, but we may be a little heavy on our steers since we have a full tank of fuel. But we definitely should not be over gross weight. We shall see.....