Tuesday, December 22, 2009

The End Is Not Just Near, It's Here!!

We are minutes away from the end of our UPS run. Hooray!!

We were originally to do 23,747 miles, which began on November 27th. Two days ago, they changed our route. We were supposed to do Phoenix, AZ to Hodgkins, IL to Rockford, IL and then back to Phoenix, AZ to end our trip. They revised that trip to be Phoenix, AZ to Hodgkins, IL to Oak Grove, WI to Louisville, KY and then back to Phoenix, AZ. That added 410 miles to our trip, which is fine because more miles means more money, but now our grand total for the UPS run will be 24,157 miles.

As we were driving the leg from Wisconsin to Louisville, I was thinking, This year has been really weird. Every location we went to, our trailer was ready. We didn't get behind at all. We had lots of lead time on many of the legs due to everything going smoothly. I might even say this year was easy. But this change-up to Louisville....I have a feeling they're not even going to have a trailer for us.

We got to Louisville, where it was snowing, checked in at the UPS yard and parked in our designated spot. I looked around and saw many other contracted drivers there (like us, people who didn't actually work for UPS), all lined up waiting for their trailers and trip information.

It wasn't ten minutes later that Ed found out that we didn't have a trailer to take back to Phoenix, which means we'd be bob-tailing (driving without a trailer) the entire way. Woo-Hoo!! I was so excited. That meant no check calls, no schedule, no nothing. Just a leisurely drive back home. So that's what we did; we sadly said goodbye to the snow in Louisville (wish I could have stayed to enjoy it) and headed out to Phoenix, 1,717 miles away.

Ed said it was the longest trip he'd ever bob-tailed and also mentioned that he didn't really feel like he was "doing anything" because he didn't have a trailer, not even an empty one, to deliver anywhere. I felt free as the wind and unencumbered.

We are now home and ready to begin some last minute shopping, then we'll move on to the last minute wrapping, and then we'll have two days of rest before the big Christmas Day event at my brother's house. I'm SO looking forward to it!! (I have my fingers crossed that my sister-in-law is making her amazing lasagna....pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease)

One more year of UPS done to perfection, and in the words of Ed, "We didn't have to chain up once!"

Which, for all you non-truckers, means that he didn't have to put any snow chains on the tires. At all. All season. He's verrrry happy about that. I might even tell him it's his Christmas present. What?? Aren't people supposed to be happy when they get stuff they like??


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
1 YEAR AGO:
Keeping The Mountain On The Right Side Of The Fence
2 YEARS AGO:
Divine Intervention Comes A Little Too Late
3 YEARS AGO:
General Delivery
4 YEARS AGO:
Frumpy To Nicole

4 comments:

Leigh Hutchens Burch said...

Did you wave to me again when you came through Louisville?

I went to Bloomington, Indiana this weekend for Christmas with my grandma, and my husband drove. I'll admit I got a little peek-ier than usual with the semis. I was thinking how cool it would be if I spotted you on the interstate, though I knew it was unlikely.

Merry Christmas to you and Edster!

june in florida said...

Merry Christmas to you both, hope you get your lasagna.

Gil said...

Glad to hear that you had a good run and are home safely for Christmas! My wife is making lobster newburg for Christmas Eve, recipe from one of her childhood friends. For Christmas we are having Lasagna Neapolitan/Sicilian and then the meat from the gravy! Recipe my wife wrote down while cooking with my mother and grandmother. Merry Christmas and Happy Healthy New Year to all of you!

Jeni said...

No chains, all year, sounds like a damned good present to me and I'm sure ALL the old truckers I knew in my waitressing days would surely agree with that too.
My son is now on hiatus -meaning his CDL is dead in the water for a year from that little deal with the law back in March called a DUI. He had been running for a contractor with Fedex. The Saturday of the big snowfall -a week ago tomorrow now -I talked online to his former boss's wife who told me that Fedex had canceled all their runs that Saturday and that one of their teams was stuck on I-81 in southwestern VA and had been stuck there, in the snow, for over two hours then. Actually makes me feel kind of good that he's not on the roads over the winter months but then I worry what the heck is he going to do now for employment anyway? Oh well, nothing I can do about that as it is all a problem of his own doing and he'll have to keep trying to undo the consequences too for a long, long time I fear.
Peace, Merry Christmas and God Jul -hope you got that great lasagne!