I arrived several hours early at my destination in Houston, Texas yesterday and was told to wait in a staging lot until my appointment time. I did so, then returned and after an hour or so I was unloaded. There wasn't room to park where I was, so I went about ten miles away to the nearest truck stop and snoozed for a while.
Late in the afternoon I was beeped to pick up a load of tires at Michelin nearby and take it to Laredo, Texas no later than noon. The way the trip was planned originally wasn't possible due to my break so I called in and they verified that I could pick up the full trailer very early in the morning and scoot out of town.
When I arrived to exchange trailers they told me to put my empty in "the gravel lot" then go find my full one and bring it back to the guard shack for the paperwork. After ten minutes of running around I found the muddy pit they consider "the gravel lot" and found that it was brimming with other empties. It was shaped like a question mark and once I got to the back and realized there wasn't an open space I just dropped it there next to another of our trailers and the trailer jockeys can work it out in the morning.
The trailer wasn't bulging at the sides this time -- a first for a tire load. It turns out they were truck tires piled in stacks instead of diagonally so that is why there were no bulges. Still, 40,000 lbs of tires though.
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I ran the load down to our terminal in Laredo then off across town to Uniroyal-pain-in-the-ass drive to deliver, then returned to put in my paperwork and get a shower. Except, there are no showers since the terminal is being remodeled. So, I went back across town bobtail and am taking a couple days off at the local Flying J.
So there.
