Friday, September 15, 2023

 I left at about 2:30 AM EDT (1:30 CDT) and drove the rest of the way to Killeen, TX.  South of Dallas it started to rain.  Thunderstorms most of the way.  Texas people can't drive in the rain!!!  There were wrecks everywhere!!! That caused traffic backups.  Took forever to get there.    When I got there, this was where I had to go to deliver.  It had just stopped raining.  Everything was wet.  

I entered the gate off the busy roadway like this.  Traffic stopped for me without any arguments from anyone.

The drive to the delivery site was not as good as it looks in these Google Maps photos.  Anything that was not part of the driveway was soft mud.   Getting in was not much of a problem.  Had to finagle a little bit.

Once I got empty I had to back out.  That was not easy.  Almost got stuck and broke the trailer in the process.

When backing out and making the turn at the "T" intersection my trailer tires went down into the mud causing the trailer to bottom out.  That's when it broke.  I almost got stuck there.  I was able to get it unstuck and continued to maneuver the trailer around the corner backward on my blind side.  It took a while, but I made it.  Here is what broke on the trailer.  The arrow points to the broken part.  Compare it to the normal one on the other side.

When I got straight on the driveway  I made a temporary "fix" to get me to the Houston terminal so the mechanic there can fix it Monday morning.

I left there and drove to the Love's truck stop in Troy, Texas for a much-needed shower and SLEEP.  Drove 690 miles today.  Not too shabby, 991 miles in about 27 hours.