A bad streak

A new day is dawning - and we’re still sitting in Fort Morgan.

We arrived at about noon yesterday after dropping a trailer full of canned Arizona tea in Longmont, CO and spending the night at a local truck stop. We had spent most of the day at Prime's yard in Denver since we couldn't drop the tea until midnight. I practiced backing up the trailer for about two hours, developing a blister on the right palm from spinning the steering wheel back and forth. I only "spilled orange blood" (ran over an orange practice cone) once.

The instructions for this current load said get the trailer to Cargill Meat in Fort Morgan ASAP, so we did. And then the waiting began. Lori tells me there usually isn’t this much waiting around so I must be having beginner’s luck (all bad!) this week when it comes to getting in and out of shippers and receivers.

Once this load is ready (which they tell us will be 4:00 p.m. today), we’ll have 3 to 4 days of driving as we’re heading to Assonet, MA and Norwich, CT by Tuesday morning. We’re planning a stop at the world’s biggest truck stop, Iowa 80 in Walcott, IA, since it’s along the way. Our route also includes a trip over the George Washington Bridge into New York City and the Bronx. Lori says I get to be a “tourist” since this will be my first trip through “the City.” After that, no more excuses; I’ll have to drive.

Despite having to wait, this is actually a pretty good load since it will be next to impossible to get a new load over this weekend because of the Labor Day holiday. By the time we’re ready to get another assignment it’ll be Tuesday afternoon and everyone will be back to work.

I’m going to take a look at the Internet and see what there is to do here in Fort Morgan, CO. We really don’t want to hang out at Wal-Mart like we did yesterday. There’s a tour of the meat packing plant here at 10 this morning but I think we’re going to pass. It’s depressing enough seeing all the trailers full of steers going in one end of the plant and then coming out empty at the other. But hey, if you want steaks…