Friday, July 27, 2018

This morning I drove to the Daily terminal in Morton, Illinois.  On the way head over the radio that there was a roll over wreck ahead of me with an extensive traffic back up.  Not wanting to sit in that, I took the back way over to Peoria through "farm country".  When I got to Morton I swapped all my stuff over to a different trailer.  My next load won't fit on the trailer that I had.  

After all that was done I left there and drove over to the TA truck stop in Bloomington, Illinois for the rest of the weekend.  I load in Decatur on Tuesday.

Thursday, July 26, 2018

As soon as my 10 hours was up I left.  Since I don't have another load yet, I stopped for the night at the Iowa 80 truck stop in Walcott, Iowa.  That is right in the middle of several areas of potential loads.

Wednesday, July 25, 2018

Got a very slow start this morning, but when I finally did get going I drove 684 miles.  Stopped for the night at the Flying J truck stop in North Platte, Nebraska.

Tuesday, July 24, 2018

As soon as my 10 hours was up I left Sacramento.  Had a difficult time getting out of the truck stop.  It was packed.  I like driving through the Sierra Nevada Mountains and Donner Pass when I'm empty a lot better.  Was so happy to get the heck out of California!!  Things were going good until I heard on the CB radio that the road was shut down due to a motor home that was on fire. I got off at the exit before and waited it out at the Pilot truck stop.  An hour later traffic was moving again.  To make matters worse, traffic was already down to one lane because they were repaving the road. Here was the culprit.

Once I got past that it was smooth sailing again.  Here is the world famous Bonneville Salt Flat.  Not much to see, salt and mountains. **yawn**

And here is the stupid "Tree of Life".

Stopped for the night at the TA truck stop in Tooele, Utah with 5 minutes left on the clock.  Tooele is at the southern tip of the Great Salt Lake just west of Salt Lake City, Utah.

Monday, July 23, 2018

At 12:15 am PDT we all pulled out of here.  Drove into San Francisco.  Our permit route took us 100 extra miles out of the way and right through the heart of the tourist district of San Francisco.  We went right down the Embarcadero past Fisherman's Warf, Alcatraz boat ferry, and Ghiradelli Chocolate.  Ended up in a residential area.  Glad we did it at night.  We arrived there at 5 am PDT.  We had to stage in the middle of the road.

Here is what it looks like in front of us.

We had to go, one at a time, to the other side of the construction barrier and back in off the street into an alleyway to get unloaded.  Here is the alleyway.

Once the crane arrived and got set up, the first truck went in.  When he was done and out of the way, it was my turn.  I backed in without any difficulty. Only had to pull up one time.  Oh, one other thing...had to avoid hitting this pipe sticking up out of the concrete.  Otherwise the trailer would hit it and get stuck on it.

They lifted the thing off my trailer and I pulled out.

The first truck and I then left with me leading the way out.  We were getting very low on hours and could not wait for the other truck.  Getting out was just like driving in New York City, lots of traffic and not much room.  We drove back to the Sacramento 49er Travel Plaza.  Right back where we started.  Arrived and parked with only one minute left on my clock.  Dinner, shower, and bed.  Will pull out of here as soon as my 10 hours is up.  Good night.  I'm tired.