Rendevous

Well, Mike did get a chance to meet up with Lori while she was in California - but not in Fresno.

Lori and Tamara made their drop in Fresno early Thursday and immediately received a load assignment to be picked up by 3 p.m. at the Wal-mart distribution center in Riverside. (A load of produce headed for Henderson, North Carolina.) The loading went quickly so they decided to hit the road to avoid as much of the rush hour traffic as possible.

Lori then got on the phone to Mike and they made arrangements for Mike to catch up with them outside of Indio (which wasn't that hard to do given California's 55 mph speed limit for trucks.) Mike got there about 7:00 and climbed into the cab to ride with Lori while Tamara drove behind in Mike's pickup.

Once Mike assured himself that Lori really can drive a truck that big, he relaxed and began to enjoy the ride. He checked out the "lay of the land" in the cab, watched Lori drive to get a feel for how to operate and manuever the truck, and took a short nap in the bunk to see if he could actually fall asleep (he can).

Anybody that's followed a big rig getting on the freeway knows how slowly they seem to move. From the outside, you'd think the driver must not be having to do to much since the truck is going so slow. In reality, Mike was amazed that Lori had shifted through four gears before she was even across the intersection and onto the on-ramp. From there it was up through several more gears before she was in 10th gear and at full throttle on the freeway. However, because this load was so heavy and the road was so steep, the truck was barely able to get to 50 mph - even with the accelerator all the way to the floor.

Why were some trucks able to pass them, Mike wondered. Was it because their engines were more powerful? Nope; Lori said the difference in the truck's performance can be significant depending on the weight and height of the load in the trailer. Mike was able to see proof of that later when they were able to pass other trucks with obviously heavier loads.

The plan was to find a Freighliner repair shop where they could get the truck's air conditioner and one of the headlights fixed. The first shop in Phoenix didn't open for another five hours so the caravan drove a couple more hours to Eloy, AZ. The air conditioning tech there was scheduled to be in at 5:00 a.m. so everybody took a three-hour nap till he clocked in.

While the truck was getting fixed, everybody had a shower and a nice breakfast before Lori and Tamara continued on to North Carolina and Mike turned the pickup back for home.