We were blessed with beautiful weather on our trip back east from the Pacific Northwest to Ohio last week. This time of the year anything can happen and we were relieved when not only did it not snow, the weather was perfect cool, crisp fall days. Had we been making that run this week, our path would have had snow in the mountains for sure. I love it when we just happen to be in the right place at the right time.
Our trip from Akron down to Kentucky cancelled out so our next pickup happened to be in Louisville, Kentucky. We drove down there to pick up a load that is delivering straight to Las Vegas, about five miles from the hacienda. It sounded perfect – a light load, no tarps, and no stop-offs, but there was one little hitch in the giddy-up. It was an oversized load… a big ol’ a/c unit heading out to a job site in Las Vegas. We needed to get back home for scheduled doctor’s appointments so we agreed to take it. How hard could it be afterall?? Well, let me tell you… just the loading on Thursday was an experience. In the three months we’ve been doing these flatbed loads, we’ve always had perfect weather for loading and unloading. Not this time… it was pouring down rain for the loading. Jorge spent a few hours out there in it getting completely drenched while chaining that thing to the trailer. We hit the road but not for long. As it turns out, Tennessee doesn’t allow oversize loads to move at night. So we parked it and got up again early the next morning to try to make up for lost time. In addition to all the different state laws concerning oversize loads, we have to watch the city restrictions as well. There are times you cannot move an oversize load thru the larger cities at rush hours in the morning or in the late afternoons so we had to scoot thru the cities at just the right times. Again in Oklahoma, we had to park for the night as they didn’t allow driving it at night. It was a slow go. The next morning again back up and at ‘em. Jorge drove all the way to New Mexico where we stopped at the first scale house only to be told they were not allowing oversize loads to drive just then due to the extremely strong winds. That was on a Saturday afternoon and we knew New Mexico didn’t allow any night driving but Sunday driving was out of the question there too. After having parked it for a couple hours at the scale, they let us go in spite of the strong winds and we hammered down to toward the Arizona border. It was a wild ride but we just had to get to the Arizona state line before sundown or we would be stuck in New Mexico until Monday morning at sun up. Don’t you know there was a cloud cover and sunset came way too fast? We were only about 90 minutes to the border at sundown and so I decided to make a run for it. I was all prepared to win an academy award for my performance should I get pulled over. ‘But Officer…sniff, sniff.’ Thankfully everything went my way and we didn’t see a single highway patrolman at all. I’d write a country song about that white-knuckle experience but I think it’s already been written! ‘Let them truckers roll 10-4’ Since Arizona does allow Sunday driving, we pushed on across and made it to Las Vegas in time for dinner tonight.
We’ve been on the road since we were still with the other company back in July. I guess it is okay to take a little time off, especially for my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving. We have a lot of things planned including routine doctor appointments, a huge stack of mail to work my way thru, taking Big Red to the shop for some minor repairs, a little trip to a family wedding in Mexico for a few days, a trip to the Korean spa, and much more. Thanksgiving will have us busy with all the holiday traditions and lots of company from out of town. It promises to be a good time and my next update will be filled with a lot of pictures of our Vegas vacation.
Our trip from Akron down to Kentucky cancelled out so our next pickup happened to be in Louisville, Kentucky. We drove down there to pick up a load that is delivering straight to Las Vegas, about five miles from the hacienda. It sounded perfect – a light load, no tarps, and no stop-offs, but there was one little hitch in the giddy-up. It was an oversized load… a big ol’ a/c unit heading out to a job site in Las Vegas. We needed to get back home for scheduled doctor’s appointments so we agreed to take it. How hard could it be afterall?? Well, let me tell you… just the loading on Thursday was an experience. In the three months we’ve been doing these flatbed loads, we’ve always had perfect weather for loading and unloading. Not this time… it was pouring down rain for the loading. Jorge spent a few hours out there in it getting completely drenched while chaining that thing to the trailer. We hit the road but not for long. As it turns out, Tennessee doesn’t allow oversize loads to move at night. So we parked it and got up again early the next morning to try to make up for lost time. In addition to all the different state laws concerning oversize loads, we have to watch the city restrictions as well. There are times you cannot move an oversize load thru the larger cities at rush hours in the morning or in the late afternoons so we had to scoot thru the cities at just the right times. Again in Oklahoma, we had to park for the night as they didn’t allow driving it at night. It was a slow go. The next morning again back up and at ‘em. Jorge drove all the way to New Mexico where we stopped at the first scale house only to be told they were not allowing oversize loads to drive just then due to the extremely strong winds. That was on a Saturday afternoon and we knew New Mexico didn’t allow any night driving but Sunday driving was out of the question there too. After having parked it for a couple hours at the scale, they let us go in spite of the strong winds and we hammered down to toward the Arizona border. It was a wild ride but we just had to get to the Arizona state line before sundown or we would be stuck in New Mexico until Monday morning at sun up. Don’t you know there was a cloud cover and sunset came way too fast? We were only about 90 minutes to the border at sundown and so I decided to make a run for it. I was all prepared to win an academy award for my performance should I get pulled over. ‘But Officer…sniff, sniff.’ Thankfully everything went my way and we didn’t see a single highway patrolman at all. I’d write a country song about that white-knuckle experience but I think it’s already been written! ‘Let them truckers roll 10-4’ Since Arizona does allow Sunday driving, we pushed on across and made it to Las Vegas in time for dinner tonight.
We’ve been on the road since we were still with the other company back in July. I guess it is okay to take a little time off, especially for my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving. We have a lot of things planned including routine doctor appointments, a huge stack of mail to work my way thru, taking Big Red to the shop for some minor repairs, a little trip to a family wedding in Mexico for a few days, a trip to the Korean spa, and much more. Thanksgiving will have us busy with all the holiday traditions and lots of company from out of town. It promises to be a good time and my next update will be filled with a lot of pictures of our Vegas vacation.