Rock Me Gently, Rock Me Slowly

Anyone else feel the effects of last nights storm in the Ohio Valley region? I was sitting here in KY (where I am AGAIN tonight) and all of sudden the truck was a rockin' and the rain was coming down in sheets! Glad I didn't have to be out tarping in that mess...hell...glad I wasn't DRIVING in that mess! It was raining again this morning when I took off for my receiver, but thankfully it quit before I got there to unload.

I had that white powdery crap I mentioned in my last post going to Gallent Steel. First...I pulled into the wrong place...oops! Got back out...down the road and into the "truck staging area". Called in...oh...gotta drive further down the road to another gate on a different road. Get weighed...go back to where they instruct me to go. Unstrap, untarp, getting tarps folded when the guy comes out and takes off one pallet of the powdery crap. Almost done folding up the 2nd tarp when he tells me that he's going to have to send me to another building because it's not what he thought it was. He was nice enough to help me get the tarps back on the bed of the truck with his forklift. Then head on to the other building...on the other side of the plant. Unloaded...and done! 

Contact dispatch and let them know I'm empty. They give me a number to call about a load of pipe to pick up. Get directions on where to go and I'm on my way. Now this is where it got interesting.

Down through some little town...with a hard right turn. And when I say "hard right" I mean "HARD RIGHT".  Imagine driving your truck in a V shape. That was how you got around that corner. Tight roads that at times you had to slow down so another truck get get around the corner before you went through. Lots of stop signs (pain in the ass!). Finally get to the road to turn left down to where they were. Rough road...very uneven...and about had a heart attack turning onto that road when the trailer came precariously close to tipping over...that's how uneven and steep that turn was. Thank God I was empty or it could have been a disaster. I just about pissed my pants it scared me so bad. Needless to say when I got the check-in...I had to use the bathroom really bad! LOL!

And I picked up my first ever load of pipe. Made me a little nervous at first...I know pipe can be dangerous to carry...a strap gets loose and you could be re-configuring the shape of someone's car. But I did an awesome job tightening the straps (so tight I might have some issues in the morning un-tightening them!)

So tonight...I'm sitting at a no-name truck stop (which has awesome parking) about 30 minutes from the receiver. The weather for tonight is not sounding good....rain and snow mixed. Blech! I'll just sit here in my nice comfy WARM bunk and get rocked asleep by the wind again tonight (as the wind has definitely been going for the past few hours). 

Oh...I forgot to mention...got another "lady" comment tonight. Went in to the truck stop and was talking to the lady clerk and she said "I gotta give it to you gals in trucking. I have so much respect for all of you doing that job."