I wasn't awake when Mike got to our next and final pick-up before we can head toward Sacrament for our home time break, but I do know he picked up in Van Nuys, California, at the Budweiser plant. Although I was sleeping, I did hear some of what was happening when Mike was at the customer! I'll call this the "load from hell", as it started out bad and continuously got worse... Apparently, Mike had to scale the load three times, before he realized that this "preloaded" trailer was just NOT going to scale legally for California weight and bridge limit. Because of this, he had to pull back into the dock and get the load reworked completely. I am not sure of the details or if they had to remove any of the freight because I was in the sleeper. I think I dozed in and out of sleep and finally we were on our way, with a trailer that was legal in California! Soon after starting out, Mike got a "red light" on the transponder. That's never a good sign, but he knew his weight was legal so he wasn't really worried. We usually just go through the scales and not a worry, but when Mike was on the scale, the DOT officer told him to pull into Bay 3 for a Level One inspection. Our tractor and Mike passed the inspection, but when it came to the trailer, that was another story! Apparently, the trailer had been in a previous accident of some kind because there was a definite noticeable BULGE on the rear panels of the trailer, which protruded out about 7 inches or more. The officers got together, started getting their measuring devices out, remeasuring over and over, going back to the DOT book and trying to find some way to remedy the situation. The officer noticed that someone had replaced some of the ribs on the bottom of the trailer (about 4 to be exact), but they had not fixed the bulging side of the trailer, which in effect, was not legal in width, according to the officer. Apparently, the trailer was 107" wide, which is about 7 inches too much. I took some pictures of the bulging trailer, which looked like it was pregnant.... Was our trailer going to have a "pup" as a good friend of mine, Julie said, jokingly...
This was taken with my camera phone, viewed from the the front of the trailer toward the back.... and the next one is viewed from the rear of the trailer.
It was a good thing that Mike had mentioned the bulge in the comments section of the Loaded Call on the Qualcomm, and I think that because we were going on home time, that's the reason that the officers didn't put us "out of service"! Instead, they gave Mike a "fix-it" ticket for $10.00 that had to be put in his name, instead of the company's due to the company being out of state, Arizona. This has totally screwed up our home time, as now Mike has to deliver the load to Woodland on Monday, instead of leaving the trailer in the drop yard to be relayed...This takes yet more time away from our home time because now he has to deliver the load, get the trailer repaired, and then... go to the DOT inspection area somewhere in California, to get the ticket signed off. Jeez, what a nightmare.! I hope I haven't left anything out, but if I did, Mike will be sure to let me know.
Now, enjoying our home time............... as much as we can due to the horrible circumstances. Oh, by the way, we were able to get some custom shelving ordered from Tap Plastic Company and the shelves will be ready by the 27th, before we have to leave again to go back to work.
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