Saturday - late night

Today was - stay busy all day long day! Slept unbelievably miserably last night, might have gotten 4 hours of sleep.  Got up at 3:55 am, did all the junk I have to do, headed up to the plant, delivered, came back exhausted.  Saw 2 unbelievable accidents on the way up there.

But the thing that really got me was approaching the second accident.  I was just getting passed by a truck that was going at least 75 if not more mph, I was going around 73 when he passed me.  We came up on a trooper that was facing us with his headlights on only, no flashing lights, he was sitting right next to a weigh station sign. I figured he was turning the sign over from closed to open.  

The next thing I know, that truck that had passed me went over the crest of the hill and immediately slammed on his brakes. His entire trailer started sliding sideways - this dude was moving fast, it looked like he was going to slam into the vehicles that were stopped  on the damn highway. Those vehicles had no choice, they were all stopped for whatever was going on ahead. 

The problem was that you didn't see this stopped vehicle nonsense until you hit the crest of that hill. That cop wasn't doing anyone any favors just sitting there like that without his flashers going. It made no sense to me at all, especially where he was sitting looking like he was dealing with the sign, not attempting to warn drivers of impending danger ahead.

It was an absolutely spectacular save by that driver - that truck was sliding sideways AND heading straight for the rear ends of vehicles stopped. There would have been death and destruction occur right in front of me. I was lucky it was him and not me, I was loaded at 79,000 pounds, as soon as I saw him shutting it down, I immediately started shutting mine down and that was before I could even see what was going on.  That person got lucky or blessed, whichever it was, because the entrance to the weigh station was right there, he dove that truck into the scale house ramp, slowed all the way down to what appeared to be about 2 mph.

I would be shocked if he didn't piss or s*** himself after that.  It's hard to describe what that truck was doing, something out of a movie style move that I frankly thought it was impossible for him to pull himself out of.  It took 15 minutes of stop and go to get to where the "action" was.  There were 2 pickups, 3 cars and a detached utility trailer all over the place on both sides of the highway in the trees, ditched and on the shoulder. Both pickups were completely destroyed.  Mangled heaps of metal.

Truck emptied, I started heading back but noticed the run for Monday was gone. I was like, yayyy! I also have Monday off.  NOT. I called dispatch and the manager answered.  For whatever reason, the plant is shutting back down where we load and we are now supposed to load out of.....some town in ......MISSISSIPPI.  NO THANK YOU.  But, he wasn't asking me to do that. I won't drive that pile of trash truck that far, no thanks and no way.  He instead asked me to go to Bossier on Monday, pick up a loaded trailer, deliver it and bring it back over there. Bossier is across the state line maybe 40 miles or a little more from here. 

I'm gonna just have to cut this pretty short for it's late and I"m finally so tired I can't keep my eyes opened - a good thing and I don't have to get up early tomorrow.  We had Friendsgiving tonight and that was what I did after my nap, get up and cook potatoes and make sweet potato casserole.  It was a great dinner, we had it at a church that one of the families father is pastor and owner of.  Not a bad place to have a  get together like that.  LOTS of food and good conversation.

But, as I: said, I'm totally trashed, time to hit the hay.