Out w/ TE… Days 13 & 14 – The end is near…

…in more ways than one.  If I ever had thoughts of teaming they would have been destroyed by this trip.  Curtis is a very different person than I, and after two weeks it’s becoming more difficult to share this little cab with each passing day.  Fortunately we have word of the trip’s end…

Monday, 10/23:

We both survived the night, and Curtis is back to driving mornings. We left out around 9:30 this morning with the weather clear but quite a bit colder than yesterday; there’s ice in the puddles. The trip was fairly uneventful as we passed from IA through MO and into AR.  The roads were a good bit rougher than usual and I did get a good bouncing in the back until I took over in Cherokee Pass, MO. 

We stopped for fuel at the “St. Louis East” OC in Edwardsville, IL in mid-afternoon before heading on into AR.  We were going to just find a place for the night and drop the trailer at the customer in the morning, but Val couldn’t find a motel that had both a vacancy and a place to park the rig.  So we ended up dropping the trailer off at the receiver and bobtailing back to the motel w/ a room.

 

Tuesday, 10/24:

Val bobtailed us to pick up an empty trailer at last night’s drop location, then Curtis took us to nearby Conway, AR to pick up our next load.  This one’s headed for the Atlanta OC for a drop relay.

While at our lunch stop in N. Little Rock, AR Val instructed us to call Mary back at the Charlotte OC.  Mary’s our #1 contact for all administrative issues, and I suspect is the one who keeps things in order there.  Anyway she told me that Val will drop us off on Thursday (WooHoo!) and our TE trip will be over.  I’ll have a few days off before my SQT, which is scheduled for the following Tuesday.  After that I get a truck and off I go on my own.  I was very happy to hear the news; it was the kind of lift I needed right about now.  I can put up with anything for two more days! We stopped by the West Memphis OC (which is actually in AR) for another break and for me to take over driving.  I took us as far as St. Clair, AL before we stopped for the night.