In a Motel Again

Mike goes home every 3rd weekend (or as close to the weekend as they can get him home). This was his weekend to be home. They were late getting him there, so he wasn’t able to drop me off at the motel until Monday.

The motel I’m at is called King Oscar, located in Pacific, Washington (just southeast of Seattle). My friend Jenni lives in Seattle with her husband and 1.3 kids (I’m estimating the .3), so I thought maybe while I was stuck here for a few days, I’d see if we could get together one evening and do something. Unfortunately, Jenni’s father-in-law is ill and hospitalized in another state, so they are not around right now.

I say “unfortunately,” not because it means they aren’t here to hang out with. I say “unfortunately” because it is unfortunate that her father-in-law is so ill. I don’t mind being stuck in a motel for a few days, by comparison to what they are facing.

And this motel is way better than the La Quinta (yeah, I know that “the La” is redundant). First off, I don’t have a roommate. Also, though the TV is smaller, it has more channels. Also, there is wi-fi in the room, not a 2 foot Ethernet cable. Add to that the fact that the Ethernet at La Quinta was only 10 Mbs, and the wi-fi here is 54… well, you see that I’m much happier here.

I’ll be here till Thursday, possibly till Friday.

Quick recap of the past few days:

We took the load from Battle Mountain back to Sacramento, then we ran down to Santa Clara and picked up a load destined for San Diego. There was no way we could make it to San Diego in the available time we had left between us and make our delivery on time. Well, that’s not 100% accurate. We had enough hours, but because Werner has a policy against letting new drivers drive between the hours of Midnight and 6:00 am, we were constrained.

So we told them we couldn’t do it, and requested a swap (the way everybody else seems to do to us). Dispatch never got back to us, though.

While we were waiting for dispatch to give us instructions, I got a call from my mother that my grandmother had been given 48 hours to live. Bad news. I spent a part of our down-time writing a post for my family blog. Later that night, while driving towards San Diego, I got another call from my mom. My grandmother had passed. The funeral plans had already been set in motion for Monday (she passed the evening of Thursday the 11th).

We were unable to make our delivery on time in San Diego, and the consignee could not accept it late. So we had to drop the trailer in a trailer drop yard on the Mexican border until Tuesday (fortunately, we didn’t have to wait; somebody else would be delivering it). We then went down by Sea World where we picked up a load headed to Phoenix. Made the drive there; picked up another load, this one headed up to West Valley City, UT (next door to my home).

I got behind the wheel in Flagstaff and drove north. Despite the fact that Lake Powell is one of the most popular vacation spots for Utahns, I had personally never seen it before. Not until later that day, as I drove across the bridge just south of the Glenn Canyon Dam. I proceeded to roll north.

Just south of Richfield I saw a deer standing on the opposite side of the road. I started applying the brakes just in case it decided to jump out in front of me. Suddenly, two other deer jumped up into the road from my side. Almost panicking, I applied hard (not too hard, though, as I didn’t want to jackknife the truck). All three deer spooked suddenly. The poor deer I had originally seen tripped over his own feet and almost face-planted in the blacktop. I blew my horn at them and they eventually cleared off the road, allowing me to continue on my way.

We weren’t planning on getting into W. Valley until around 1:00 am – I was supposed to stop in Nephi near midnight and trade places with Mike, who would drive the rest of the way while I got some sleep. However, we had made pretty good time, and I was able to finish the drive to W. Valley. We made it by 11:28. Our next load was already there, ready for us to pick it up. Mike wanted to wait a while, however, get some sleep. We had plenty of time to make it up to Lacey, Washington early. But since it was going to a consignee who is adamant that deliveries not be made more than 1 hour early, we really needed to take our time.

I could have gone home. I could have slept in my own bed, seen my little girl and my wife… but Mike wanted to leave by 6 am, and it just didn’t seem practical to go home for such a short time, so late at night…

We didn’t leave until 7:30. I was a little miffed.

However, as we were passing through Boise on our way to Lacey, and a lot of my family were already up there prepping for my grandmother’s funeral, we were able to stop for a few hours. I had dinner with my mother, and several cousins that I hadn’t seen in a long time, and was even able to swing by the mortuary to pay my respects in person.

And then it was off to Oregon.

The fog along the Columbia River was dense and scary as I started driving in the morning, but it cleared up as the sun rose and started burning it off.

And now I’m in the motel waiting for Thursday/Friday.