Monday morning I was back at the Job Site. Real purty day. Unbelievably there was another tube sitting there as well. The unbelievable part was that he had left the same place I had, Galveston, on FRIDAY....and arrived just a few hours later than I did.
He was hauling a midsection and I had a base. A mid is quiet a bit smaller..he took a more direct route than I did. I had almost 1200 miles in texas...he had a little over 1200 miles......TOTAL....but still. I left Wednsday. Sheesh.
Shortly....before I even got my safety equipment on even......
(you MUST wear safety equipment when exiting the truck. Hard hats (in case of meteor strikes) safety shoes and reflective vests (to make you a better target) at all times. Other wise the designated "safety" guy has "issues"). These Items of safety apparel are of utmost importance when your all alone on the padsite with noone around for miles.
......the "guide" showed up. He was gonna take us out to the padsite.
I'm shocked. This is waaaaaaaaaaaaay ahead of schedule. Usually they let us cool our heels for anywhere from hours to days. Fine by me. Off we go.
Short trip and were there. I'm shocked again. The cranes are THERE....and ready. I'm unloaded in no time.
Imagine that.
So....I pack up and head back to Pine Bluff Wyoming. I have cell phone signal there and check with the Beautiful Bride (tm) to see if any or our phonecalls and emails (beginning last tuesday) had netted a load.
Nope....all the agents are "still looking".
I'm outa there.
I drift on over to Big Springs Nebraska at the Bosselman's.
This truckstop has some odd aspects to it. I've been coming here for over a decade. Years ago they remodeled. For some odd reason they remodeled it so that instead of fueling coming in....the trucks fuel leaving.
That is.....the fuel island traffic flow is such that the trucks are pointed outbound of the truckstop when fueling....instead of inbound as is the case in most others truckstops. Odd really. Most truckers fuel first then park. For lunch or for the night. Heavy Haul usually fuels at night then parks.
At this place you pull in...make a U-turn....fuel...pull out....make another U-turn (cutting across inbound traffic) and find a place to park. Very inconvenient. No idea why they do it. It's caused a few "incidents".
So...I fuel....but don't park. I'm not staying. I go inside to pay for my fuel. I was kinda low so the bill came to $600 and change and I also got about $100 in fuel additives (Lucas injector cleaner and stuff)...
........so there I am waiting in line to pay about $700 and I'm politely informed by a little old grey headed chubby lady that I have to get in another line.
Why?
Well she's holding this line cause she wants some popcorn....new popcorn cause what's in the machine is old....and it's gonna take a while.
I'm a little confused. I'm trying to pay a $700 bill and I'm being held up by an RV tourist wanting to buy maybe $2 of popcorn.
Yup.
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After leaving lovely BigSprings and it's popcorn tourists I drift south. I'm supposed to drop this trailer (very specialized...not good for general use) at the yard in Tulsa where I got it....then I dunno what.
I get there in a couple of days...not being in any big rush since there's still no load to be found. Drop the trailer. Visit with the terminal manager for a while and then head south...bobtail.
I'd called the trailer guy in Houston to see if he had a general purpose trailer I could use. He did. I'm to get a hydraulic removable gooseneck lowboy three axel. Fifty ton.
Sounds good....I'm on the way. Meanwhile the Beautiful Bride is looking for a load...for the new trailer....outa houston.
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About nine o'clock the next morning the Tulsa terminal manager calls
"Hey Mick " he says...he calls me Mick "do you want to haul a compressor about a hundred and fifty miles....pays the truck $1700."
"Well yeah.." I said " .now?"
"Naw" he says..."Next Monday. Oh...it weighs 100,000 lbs..it's thirty or forty foot long..twelve or fourteen foot wide....and there's two of them. And I need you to go to Houston and get another trailer..since another driver is going to use that trailer you brought to haul one of them."
Ok
So I head to Houston. I'm gonna "deck" my little hydraulic and bring them both back.
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Things went fine and then it started to rain. Houston was flooded. I stopped at a truckstop in Huntsville to wait it out. I went on in the next day.
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"My" trailer was gone. Another driver had it making a short run....it's tobe back friday night and we'd deck it saturday.
Ok.
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We did that...this morning.
I'm in Austin now.
I went to the AT&T Wireless (formerly Cingular...formerly AT&T...formerly Ma Bell....formerly ....) and swapped my Blackberry 8800 for the Blackberry "curve"
The 8800 has GPS...but it only zooms out to about a thosand foot.
Now lets see...driving about fifty or sixty miles and hour is eighty to a hundred feet....per second. That uses up a thousand foot pretty fast....not too useful. The curve doesn't have GPS but it does have a camera....otherwise theyre the same phone. SmartPhone they call em.
I'm gonna do a post on Phones one day. I personally hate em. Try to guess why.
Off to Tulsa tomorrow.
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