Many people don't realize that one of the largest arid desert areas in the US is in the rainy Pacific Northwest. Mountain ranges on one side of the state force most clouds to drop their moisture in the form of rain or snow on the west side, in order for the clouds to make it over the mountains. This makes for very little rainfall and a large area of desert to the east.
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The following day I got started early and made my way east to Evanston, Wyoming, just over the border from Idaho. While I was in Idaho I stopped for fuel at Mountain Home, and noticed that there happened to be a super Wal-Mart on the other side of the highway with decent truck parking. After I fueled up I spent an hour getting groceries then headed back down the road.
Not every driver performs a thorough pre-trip every morning. Heck, some "drivers" jump up from their bunk to the driver's seat, start her up and get running. This isn't my way, and I'm glad... as when I got up in the morning my driver's-side steer tire was flat. After conferring with our road service folks, they had me air it up at the Pilot I was at and carefully drive about 30 miles to a truck stop that had a repair shop.
The TA truck stop that I arrived at was backlogged at least six hours, so after I tested the tire again and saw the air pressure hadn't gone back down, I went another 38 miles east to the next repair center and they saw me within about 30 minutes. The mechanics there dismounted the tire, looked it over carefully, used a water and detergent mixture to check for leaks but were unable to find any problem with it. Apparently, during the night someone had thought it was a fun idea to let the air out. That solved, I motored down the road to Ogallala, Nebraska and called it a night.
The load was originally scheduled to deliver on Monday the 18th but the deadline was pushed back a day for some reason. I stopped a few miles short at Des Moines, Iowa then the following morning I delivered the first of three drops on schedule. After you drop the first part of a multi-drop load you are dispatched with an arrival time for your second stop, which I saw was the following morning, even though the destination was only 250 miles away. I drove up there by lunch time to find a nearly deserted warehouse but the one guy on the dock didn't have a problem taking his portion of my load a day early. It turned out to be a single pallet of stuff that the shipper couldn't get on to the previous load.
I spent the rest of the afternoon moving towards my third and final drop, which I was scheduled to be at the morning of the 21st -- two days hence and only about 350 miles! This basically gave me two options: deliver on the 20th, a day early, or wait around at some midway point and get in a 34 hour break to reset my Hours of Service clock. I was weighing the merits of each scenario when I saw a sign for a Petro ahead... with a Dairy Queen and a Subway attached, in addition to the Iron Skillet restaurant! Problem solved, choice made. I will force myself to stay in such circumstances for 34 hours for the sake of my logbook.
