So, we were home and I was working on a new project (more about that in another post) and a load popped up on the board offering $5 a mile to Queens New York. We hate driving in New York and the tolls are crazy expensive but it turns out that for five dollars a mile we will go just about anywhere. It helps that I was shameless and got an additional $300 when I negotiated the load. So that extra would pay the tolls. It was, of course, a team load and they needed the product the next morning at 10am. We crossed the George Washington bridge and dropped down into Queens. About 4 1/2 miles on surface streets to get to the location. I park in the middle of the street and go to the store entrance……LOCKED! There is a sign on the door.
“Closed in observance of Good Friday”
Ok, but Good Friday was last week.
Call the broker and he says he would figure out what we should do and call back. Cut to four hours later. We have been parked in the middle of the street the whole time. Broker, who has obviously never driven a truck OR been to NYC says “just go find someplace to park” HAHAHAHA.
WE have a load picking up before 6pm 100 miles away. At first we thought we had all kinds of time but now we are panicking. Sitting in a New Jersey truck stop all weekend is not in the plan. The broker asks how much we would charge to sit and make the delivery on Monday and I tell him. $5000. That is what I am losing if I can’t take my load to Phoenix. It turns out it is Greek Orthodox Good Friday so that mystery is explained. At just before 3pm, we get a message to deliver the load in New Jersey. Back across the GW bridge. Only 25 miles but it takes about 2 hours. Get there and this place does not have a loading dock and the 2700 pound pallets of expensive tile we are carrying are on custom made pallets that a pallet jack cannot lift. They have to get a long chain and drag each one to the back of the trailer.
If you can do basic math you can see we are not making our 6pm pickup. Anne is constantly talking to the next broker and he is talking to the shipper. They agree to stay late on a Friday to get us loaded. We finally get to the next load at 7:15pm and they quickly load us and we are off to Phoenix.
Just outside of Flagstaff the dreaded Stop Engine light goes off. We are losing coolant but can’t find a leak. We top it off And pretty much coast the 180 miles downhill to Phoenix. We made it. I thought I knew what was broken but I was wrong. It was a stupid little custom built, Volvo only hose. If we had found the leak it would have saved us a bunch of time and money later.
We then took a couple of days off to play with friends and a new baby.
The broken part was this.
A $25 part that we could only get at Volvo. We finally broke down in New Mexico and got towed to El Paso. It took me less than 45 seconds to replace it.
Anne & Craigs Great Adventure 