Our LOST trailer

Ok, finally an update. Sorry folks, I have been remis at updating this. I even have had an email asking if we're ok! That blows me away that so many people are reading (I put in a Hit meter to show how many people have read it also,,,wow!)and "know" us thru this blog. I am really humbled. Thank you for caring Pete and Rose, we are doing just fine and yes, still truckin!
By the way, if ANYONE has any questions about otr trucking, team driving, etc. send us an email @ roadie363@gmail.com and I would be happy to try to address them. As we are doing the dedicated run now, there is less to talk about since it is the same route each week.
OK, now for last week. We started out by getting the load early at 7:30 (not due out till 1000) and hit the road. As has been our normal with this first run, we got to Des Moines area, and shut down for about 5hrs sleep, then on into Aurora, Il. Arrived at 1:30 for our NLT 4pm delivery time. Got our empty, and headed on to part 2 in Gary, Ind. We are starting to get into a routine now. Dropped that trailer, and bobtailed about 5mi to the local T/A truck stop for a shower, then back to the Conway yard, and parked for the nite. My dad cursed us for this run. While talking to him on the phone, he asked us if we have had any hazmat loads lately. We have not, but,,,,,, guess what?! The next morning I went in to get the paperwork for this load, and viola! HAZMAT load. It had some drums of a corrosive, flammable liquid (sodium cloride or something like that) so we had 2 placards on each side of the trailer. That is one of the requirements, all 4 sides must have placards. This proved to be the problem with this run. We had quite abit of rain and winds thru Nebraska, and lost one of the corrosive placards. We did not want to be fined so we stopped at 2 truck stops before we found one. So on with the trip,,,,we thought. We lost 2 more placards before we got to Salt Lake. WHEW, we didn't get caught going across the scales (they were closed).
We got back to SLC about 4:30am Friday, and dispatch at Conway was just working on the paperwork for our next load (the trailer was already loaded) and waiting for us. Headed back out of town about 5:30 and and had a nice run back to Illinois. This time weather was really nice, hit 80 degrees on the way back. We stopped for awhile at a rest area on the Wy/Neb border, and fixed ourselves dinner and enjoyed the weather for awhile. Again, we stopped for a few hours sleep near Des Moines, and got to Aurora about 1130 this time. Got on over to Gary, and the next chapter of this story started. We could not find the trailer with our load! We drove around the docks and the yard twice, and called ops to tell them. The security guard said there had been a mix up on the paperwork for an earlier CFI driver, he took ours, then brought it back. Hmmmm,,did he have our trailer also?? If so where was his load? We could not find another loaded trailer. Now we had a missing trailer somewhere! This is not looking good. We drove around again I verified the CFI trailers that were there were empty. This is still not looking good! We headed back up to the docks and from a different angle, we found our trailer! All the Conway trailers had been pulled away from the docks because they were hosing down the inside. All trailers were pulled away,,,except ours. It was hidden down between two trailer. Oh well, the mystery is solved an hour and a half later!
We hit the road, and decided to stop near Omaha for some needed rest. This second round is not due in till tues afternoon (weekend pulls) so we were not up against the clock. The longer we take to get home, the less time at home Sunday for us. We are off on Mondays. We parked for a nice 6hr nite and finally made it home about 9pm Sunday nite. We had no plans at home for Sunday, so not much difference for us to get home Sunday afternoon, or Sunday evening,,this week anyway.
By the way, we did see something of note on one of our runs thru Omaha. We saw a large plane approaching the airport nice and slow. We watched it for awhile, and realized it was one of the planes in the Presidents fleet. Kinda neat to see that!
So that is the latest. We have abit of running to do today, laundry, shopping for drinks, food, etc to restock the truck, etc. Kinda nice to be able to do that each week.
Again, if you have questions we can answer for you, we will do our best. We are by no means experts out here, but will share what we can.
Till next time, keep it safe out there! "The truck you save may be us!" :)
Cheers