Happy Endings

We waited a couple of days for our next load. When it came we were happy to see that it was picking up in Laredo. We've heard so much about Laredo that we were excited to finally get to see it firsthand.

What a crazy place that is! It sits right on the border of Mexico and is a go between for freight moving back and forth from the US and Mexico. American drivers take American freight bound for Mexico down to a broker and drop it off. Mexican drivers will pick it up and take it the rest of the way into Mexico. The same works in reverse for the freight coming from Mexico into the US. The only difference is that a lot of the freight coming from Mexico is destined for Canada and American drivers are allowed to deliver the freight all the way into Canada. The only thing we aren't allowed to do is pick up a load in Canada and deliver it to another location inside Canada. We must bring it back to the US.

So far, I like what I see in Texas. It's a large state and it's true that everything is bigger in Texas. Which is great because it makes it truck friendly. We have no problem finding a place to park and we don't get frowned at when we need to stop off at a Walmart for supplies. The Walmart we went to there even had a special parking areas just for big trucks. Wish they were all like that.

The load we were picking up was delivering in Canada. We took off with it and got all the way up to Indiana. I had been trying to get clearance on the load and finally the broker called me and said we weren't going to be allowed to take the load into Canada because we weren't FAST approved, or something like that. I told him we take loads all the time into Canada but he explained that with this load, the customer requires drivers to be FAST approved so that they won't get delayed when they cross the border because they needed the freight asap.

It was okay with us, it just meant a few less miles since we would now be taking the freight to the cross dock in Woodhaven, Mi and someone else would have to finish up the load. From Woodhaven we next picked up in Hayesville, Ohio and right back into Canada we went. This time to Oakville, Ontario.

Being tired from the long drive from Texas up to Michigan followed with the load back to Canada, we decided to just wait at a truck stop in Ontario to see what happened and get soe rest. We ended up being called by dispatch for help on a load picking up at a cross dock in Tonawanda, NY that was coming back into Canada to Weston, Ontario.

We didn't want the load because of the short miles so we turned it down. They kept after us and we kept saying no and they kept raising their offer price. They begged and pleaded and finally wore us down. We headed to Tonawanda to meet the other truck. We got there and discovered the other truck wasn't there yet.

We called dispatch and they said they had lost communication with the other truck but wanted us to sit there and wait. We asked what that meant, lost communication? They told us that the other truck had a team of two guys and apparently they were fighting with each other and the last phone call they had made to dispatch they had said they were going to pull over and one of the drivers was going to leave the truck. After that, they never answered the phone anymore when dispatch called them. The satellite monitoring showed that the truck was still moving towards us so they assumed that the truck would eventually show up.

After waiting about 4 hours, the truck showed up and both drivers were still in it. I didn't ask any questions, just got the freight transferred to our truck and they handed the paperwork over to us. I asked them if they had already faxed in the documentation needed to get clearance to cross the border and they just gave me a blank look. I said never mind, I'll figure it out. I made phone calls and found out that nothing had been done, so we had to get that taken care of. As soon as we were given the clearance, we headed back across the border to make the delivery.

I'm not surprised to see the guys fighting like that. I would assume that in this job it probably happens all the time. They say that carriers prefer husband wife teams or at least same household teams and I can completely understand why. Me and John have our moments out here, but because we are married, we have our battles and then we make up and life goes on. If it was a non relative you were battling with, I doubt that it would have a happy ending!