Phoenix, Arizona to Columbus, Ohio and then to Oconomowoc, WI

And BACK to ARIZONA, again.....

This is how we went, so pay attention...

Well, it started out nicely enough, with a load we picked up in the Phoenix, Arizona yard which was going to Columbus, Ohio. This was a Del Monte load, which actually came out of Laredo, Texas. We picked up the load in the Phoenix yard and headed out toward Columbus, Ohio.

When we finally got there, I had to wait for almost 2 hours before the customer would even get me into a door. What a nightmare right from the get go. They were not very accommodating to me and I felt they were putting me off in an uncanny sort of way. It was very cold, snow all around and icy conditions and I didn't want to sit there and idle. When they finally gave me a door; I felt like they had given me the worst door possible; as there was no room for our rig to back in; there were mailboxes in front of the door with yellow posts which made it harder to get into the door. I tried and tried and couldn't make it. I in fact, bumped the dock support and then asked Mike to help me get in. I would spot for him and he would back it in for me. The next thing that happened was this guy came up to me and said he wanted my insurance and license and that I had broke the dock support! He actually showed me a picture he had taken. I couldn't believe what I was hearing so I told Mike what was said and I went back to look at the dock support. There was NO Way that I broke the darn thing; they were setting me up from something someone else had done. I immediately took my own pictures and talked with Tom from safety and had emailed the pictures immediately to Tom, who actually even said that the pictures looked like they were of an old break... The rust was evident in the pictures and there was no way I could have broke the support... My guess is that someone else did it and they wanted a Fall guy/girl... Me! Tom said to let them do what they will, but he would fight it. That was just the beginning of a horrible day! After all that crap happened, the customer decided that they didn't want the two pallets of cucumbers--they were rejecting them! Now I had a claim too, and to top it off, they loaded the pallets right back into the Nose of the trailer, which was hard enough to get offloaded, but 160 cases of cucumbers... come on, get real people! I hate it when we have a claim because you have to call Chris Brown, OS&D, and then find somewhere to take the stuff; either a food closet, or somewhere else, depending on what the customer wants.

Well, we took the trailer over to the Columbus yard because we needed to get out of the way since there was no room at Del Monte... When we got to the yard, Dan Cutter said that he had another load for us, that we could leave the OS&D claim in the yard, take another trailer which was out in the yard, and get going; someone else could handle the OS&D load later, which was fine with us; until, that is, we found out that the trailer which was left (the only empty one) in the yard, had a red air line lock on it--some driver was holding it hostage! Dan (operations manager) wasn't really happy about this and when he researched this and found out nothing, the driver showed up and was wondering why we were hooked up to his trailer; and that we needed to move our truck; I explained to this driver who was out of the Idaho Falls office that he was not supposed to put a lock on an empty trailer which was in the yard; that all trailers were first come, first serve; and no locks were allowed! He proceeded to yell at me and finally I told him that I would get the operations manager and he said, go ahead and get him" which I did. You should have seen Dan put this guy in his place, by telling him that not only did he cause us to lose a load, but that he cost Knight a new customer. He should have taken the guy's lock away from him, but at the time, didn't think about it= He basically told the guy that he is not supposed to put a lock on any trailer in Knight's Yard, at any time. Now you sort of see my dilemma.... this is how the whole trip was! I will add pictures and stuff for the next load after this... right now I have to get the puter put up and get out of the hotel room so I will finish this later on.

Ok, I'm back now... I'm waiting for the windshield to be fixed again. The one they had put in last week was done wrong! It leaked like a SIV. (Spelling?) Ok, to get back to where I had left off a few minutes ago....

Here's a picture of what I was dealing with driving from Columbus, Ohio to Oconomowoc, Wisconsin to deliver the Milk load. Now, mind you, it was -7 degrees, nighttime, (or darkthirty), traffic everywhere on the interstate... My washer fluid was frozen (now, how can that be if it was pre-mixed right?), but it was FROZEN and not working. When I pulled into an Oasis to park because I couldn't see outside of the front windshield, it was full and nowhere to park. I then carefully pulled onto the highway and found another truck leaving a spot on the on-ramp (cool, I'd found a spot--thank god because I had absolutely NO VISIBILITY) Check it out...






And finally, it was daylight! I could leave again.




Here I am at Roundy's in Wisconsin.... This place is hard to find in the summer, but when it's full of snow outside and ice everywhere, it's impossible! I was standing on the front of the truck after cleaning off the windows again in order to be able to see.



Leaving on the load back to Phoenix, this is I-39 in Illinois......









This is alongside the highway on I-39 in Illinois.... It's kinda beautiful, but I would hate to have to deal with this amount of snow all the time... Until next time... Gayle