Got up at 3 AM Pacific time (5 AM central -- I slept in an hour) and made my way into the greater Los Angeles area for my drop in Rialto. Found the warehouse easily with my GPS but the warehouse guys had trouble figuring out which door I should unload through. First it was 139, then 128, then 130. There were only three of us drivers there and almost 200 open doors, don't see why it mattered at all really.
One of the other drivers was a CFI veteran. He was going to a nearby truck stop to get a PM (preventative maintenance, like an oil change for a car) taken care of and I tagged along. Traffic was getting heavy by that time but we made the 10 miles or so with little delay.
Then I waited. And waited. Had breakfast. And waited. Had lunch. And waited. Finally, around 3 PM I got a dispatch to pick up in Parlier, CA tomorrow morning at 9 AM. I had to look it up, it is a town up near Fresno on CA-99. 255 miles from LA up there, then I plan on retracing my route to finish the day at this same truck stop, then deliver the following day in Nogales, AZ. The deadhead and dispatch combined is just over 1,000 more miles which will make this pay period the best yet for me as a solo driver, with something like 6,600 miles.
