Boredom Part II

Well, we are now in Dallas but we had to deadhead (DH) to get here. Called dispatch where I asked them to ask Planning (the guys who figure out where the freight is going to be coming from and authorize trucks to move there if needed) what the forecast was for El Paso. For some reason FECC doesn't allow drivers to speak directly to these guys, we have to do it through dispatch. The word came back that they would pay us to go to Dallas, that El Paso was "dead." Could have used that knowledge on Friday! In the past, Planning would be available on weekends, (but no more) so we could have called Sunday and then been on our way to Dallas and set up for Monday. Instead, we spent all day Monday DH'ing to Dallas. So here we sit again. As I said, I knew when we accepted the El Paso that it was a gamble; I was prepared for the possibility of it not working. In retrospect, I still would have taken the job, but I would have called Planning late Friday so we could have moved. We checked in and there were 8 trucks in front of us last night, just a few minutes ago it was down to 3, so there is a good chance we will get out of here today. We got up relatively early this morning to beat the heat (supposed to hit 100 again today)and did our 30 minute walk with Buffett, since then I have been surfing the net and Donna has been reading and Buffett is asleep in front of the air conditioning vent. So we wait...tick...tick...tick...

Boredom!

This job is one of very high "highs" and occasionally very low "lows." The worst for us in three plus years has been having a blown engine in the Nevada desert and hitting a low bridge in Chicago. Right now we are in El Paso, Texas. We took an extended break at home after spending two solid months on the road and then caught an LG Electronics load out of Atlanta to Memphis. The afternoon following the a.m. delivery we were accidentally offered two different loads within minutes of each other. We had to choose between a load going to the Dallas area and one going to El Paso. The Dallas load paid more per mile but the El Paso load paid twice as much in total dollars and was still a good paying load per mile. We have had much luck getting out of Dallas rapidly and we had never picked up or delivered to El Paso, but I had heard stories of other truckers getting the best load of their lives out of there and others who sat for days waiting for a load. We have delivered fairly often in the Brownsville area of Texas (also on the Tex-Mex border), with somewhat mixed results in getting a load out. Sometimes great, sometimes not. So we had to make a judgement call. (Actually, since we have the option of declining any load offered us, they are all judgement calls) I opted to roll the dice and gamble on El Paso, thinking we would have half a day thursday and all day friday to get a load. Oops! It is now sunday afternoon and here we sit. Actually times like this is when we have some great adventures but the remains of the hurricane that hit South Texas earlier this week are sitting and spinning over the Southwest. The thing about a desert is when it rains it turns into a mess, which is not fun, especially when you have a 95 pound golden retriever with you. But like the cliched quote; when life gives you lemons, make lemonade, we have used this time to finally start organizing all our pictures and learned how to use this blog. The temperature is actually very comfortable right now and hopefully if the weather breaks we may get out to a minor league baseball game later this afternoon, which is one of my favorite things to do out here during the baseball season. So we make do, and wait for a load out of here tomorrow.......hopefully!