Yesterday. Arrive at the plant, go through the temp check station - most of these plants are checking for fevers now before you can enter - get up to the security shack and - 2 vehicles ahead of me, not moving and security waving me down. Obviously, the plant is shut down. A fire visible and a spill not visible. That cost about 40 minutes of waiting time. By the time they gave the all clear, the traffic was backed up a quarter mile. It's a huge plant producing almost 100 different kinds of chemicals, it is open 24 hours a day and employs a lot of people and contractors. They own 6 locomotives just to move all the railcar traffic in and out.
Once inside, weigh the truck and go back to the loading rack Got me hooked up and I went to sleep for a while. But after an hour and a half I wondered what was taking so long? A while later, the loader finally came and said all done, our pressure was too high so we had to blow that off before loading you. I wondered if I would even make it to my first night stopping point after the plant eating up so much of my 14 hour clock time.
The scalehouse had mercy, at least, I wasn't in there 10 minutes before they had my paperwork. There's 2 plants up here. One is 750 miles and this one is 824. So, coming up here it's the same stopping point the first night, but then, in the morning, you have extra miles to drive plus this plant I'm at takes longer to unload. That's where I'm at right now. Another 4-1/2 hours of driving to get up here from where I was parked this morning. This plant also forces you to drop the trailer inside the plant and then you leave, waiting outside. You can't see the offloading operation from here so I can't tell when they're done. Just have to wait. I figured about 2-1/2 hours from what he was describing. I have to make it back at least to St Louis in order to be able to make it home tomorrow.
No guarantees there, but I"m hopeful. In fact, after this entry I'm going to take a nap. At least an hour lol.
No word from Kim or Maria about their current plight. I'll wait for them to contact me.
The newest guest at our house is still there. Bad marriage, she came to get away from it for a while. Dunno, but they've been having a bad marriage and marriage counseling hasn't helped them. She works from her computer so it doesn't matter where she is, she can do her work. Just an interesting situation that has been deteriorating for some time now.
I got Caleb his new refrigerator - well I ordered and paid for it anyway. Kind of a "once in a lifetime" thing. He seems to have a good marriage going and he seems to have his act together. I am trying to save money but I think this investment is well worth it when it comes to your own offspring and motivated and successful enough to get into his first home. I kind of feel sorry for him, the housing market there is tight, there aren't that many homes available so the prices are starting to skyrocket.
Mark told me on the phone today that someone offered $180,000 for my house. That's a lowball offer but a year ago it would have been a decent amount. Now the house is worth $40,000 more than that and no end in sight where it stops. Or even crashes lol. I've seriously thought about taking an equity loan out on it and going to the next land auction and seeing if I can get land. Then I only have the equity loan payment and no extra for the land, own it outright and only owe property taxes on it every year and property insurance.
I'm thinking of doing that because rates are so low right now. I dunno if anyone's lending right now, haven't looked yet, been kinda busy. This is my third trip in a row up here - great money but costly on road time. I wasn't sent a run for Monday so if I get back tomorrow perhaps I have the day off. Can't say that for sure, tho, this new manager has called me several times for taking runs out when I thougth I had a day off. He doesn't operate like the previous manager and I'm just getting used to his ways of doing things. If he calls with a run, I won't turn it down tho. I just think you get off their "good" list when you do that and then you may not get anything good coming your way.
Trucking is a whole different style of industry and mindset, especially with management and dispatchers. It has probably reversed back to an employer's market for drivers since COVID-19 has destroyed so much of the economy and taken away so many jobs. Before Covid, it was definitely a driver's market - you pick and choose.
Well enough for this one. I'm going to shut this computer down, put it up and take a nice little nap and hope to at least make it the 263 miles back to St Louis area so I can get this trip over with tomorrow.
