14 Drops

I just returned from my longest trip here yet, as far the most drops ever anyway. I had 14 drops starting in Salt Lake City, UT then to Sacramento,CA and finalizing in San Diego, CA. All the while pulling an Amish furniture billboard.



















Everything went pretty good until I got into Wyoming. Things started getting pretty cold, they were forecasting wind chills up to 50 below across the state that night. Elk Mountain was in good shape luckily, as I had no weight on. The winds were pretty calm thank goodness. Once I got over by the 123 marker my buddy Bruno that I used to work with at Navajo was passing the other way and he warned me to slow way down because the road was solid ice. The eastbound side already had a big crash with cars and trucks sliding into each other. I had slowed to 10 mph and I hit the black ice and my truck started sliding off the right shoulder, I tired to counter steer but I had no steering control at all, even with the wheel turned left my truck kept going right. To avoid sliding in the ditch I tapped the brake pedal lightly and the drive tires slid and pushed the nose of the truck back towards the middle of the road. It was only a short span of road so I was able to get by without going off the road.

As we proceeded up the hill I had to take it very slow, the slightest touch of the pedal and I started sliding again. All the cars seemed to be following behind me and everyone was doing fine, one person in a pickup decided to jump out in the left lane and as soon as they hit the gas pedal they did a 360 and baked 'er in the median! LOL That's how it goes when you get stupid. Just at that time I heard a lo boy flatbed truck holler out on the CB that he was slid across the entire westbound side, so I got by just in time.

Once I made it over that hill everything was fine again and I delivered my load in Salt Lake the next day and proceeded on to Sacramento for the next morning. I made 3 stops in the area and proceeded to the Oakland area for 2 stops. The first stop was fun, I pulled up in front and checked in then had to drive around the block of tight streets and pull down the street behind their building, a dead end street. So the only way out was to wait for the light to turn green and back out into the intersection.

The second stop there wasn't much better, I had one door to deliver. When I got there I pulled up in front along the curb and found there wasn't anybody there. So I called the number on the door and the guy came down in a pickup. He was just getting ready to head to L.A. and had no idea I was coming, turns out that I wasn't supposed to deliver to his store, it was supposed to go to the factory down by L.A. but since he was headed there anyway he just took it for me.

So I headed south towards my next drop Thursday morning in Visalia. It sucked having to fight my way out of the bay on US101 at 5pm when I didn't really ever need to be there to begin with, but that's the way it goes. I found a little place my buddy Nick told me about along the way called 'La Casa Fruta' they have a nice restaurant, fruit market & gas station there. Had a nice meal and went to bed. Got up in the morning and headed to my first drop for the day in Visalia, then finished up all my stops down in the L.A. area on Thursday and three stops in San Diego on Friday, then headed back to Oxnard to start loading produce coming back home, which took me 6 hours to get there,190 miles, a very bad way to start, but that's how it goes in southern California.