A good run of bad luck....

OK, yesterday and today were NOT our best days on the road.  We're all still getting along fine, but we had a number of mishaps that certainly convinced me no to bother wasting money on a lottery ticket.

And it all began about half way into Mike-just-Mike's drive shift....

Now, Mike-just-Mike and i are pretty equal as drivers.  We both drive pretty well, and we both struggle a bit with grinding the gears.  He started out better than me, but i have caught up with him.  He is, however, a little directionally challenged. Fabrice/Mike, for example, had to explain to him that if you are looking at an atlas, north is always up, west is always to the left, and so on.  And he was soaking this up as if it were completely new information.  Not that there's anything wrong with not knowing how to read an atlas -- i imagine that's somewhat common.  But for a driver to not be very clear on it is a different story, in my view.  And that's where we ran into  trouble.  You see, on at least one other occasion, MJM missed an interstate exit and we went about 60 miles out of our way, including having to pay an unnecessary $10 toll.  Fabrice/Mike paid the toll, but he wasn't at all happy about it (btw, F/M has a sense of humor, but we don't see much of it.  He's pretty much all business and also fairly shy -- a quiet combination).

Back to yesterday. We made a delivery in Santa Rosa, California.  For those who don't know the geography of West California, it is just north of Petaluma, north of the Bay Area.  Think Marin County, if that helps.  We then needed to head south with our empty trailer to Gilroy for another load of garlic bound for the east coast.  Gilroy is south of the Bay Area.  It's a fairly straight, easy  shot if you take I-880 through Oakland, which is on the EAST side of the Bay.

Well, we went south alright, but instead of bearing toward Oakland, we stayed on highway 101, which led us where?  You guessed it, downtown San Francisco!

Now, F/M is asleep in the top bunk, and MJM and I are both hoping desperately that he doesn't wake up because he'll be pissed.  Not only did it require an unauthorized $15 toll going over the Golden Gate Bridge (which MJM very quietly paid), but it caused MJM to be so stressed that he proceeded to grind the gears with almost every shift.  And being in downtown SF traffic, that's a LOT of shifting.  We were both SURE that F/M would wake up with all the grinding going on, and the starts and stops.  He usually wakes up when we even slow down, inquiring of us with a sleepy Haitian-French accent: "Where ah we? What's going ahn?  Why we stopping?"

Well, this time he didn't wake up at all (praise jeebus), and we plodded through the Rice-a-Roni city until we reconnected with 101 south.  Traffic was still heavy, however, and we were still on the wrong side of the bay.  All told, it cost us a good couple of hours extra time, but we were happy F/M stayed in dreamland.

Ah, but we're not done.  When we got to our pick up point in Gilroy (at about 9pm) we find that the gates are closed and locked.   At THAT point, we wake up F/M to tell him the gates are locked.  Well, he's picked up countless loads there at all times of the day/night and the gates have NEVER been locked, so he's really pissed because we have to make a delivery in Cleveland, OH at 6 am on Monday, which is a lot of miles.  So we spend about an hour trying to raise someone on the phone and trying to decide if we should try to scale the barbed wire fence, and if we have to scale the fence, that it should be MJM because he's the smallest (surprisingly, it did not come up that it should be him because his error made us late in the first place, and F/M never did ask why it took so long to get from Santa Rosa to Gilroy.  Oh well.  Sleeping dogs and all....).

A forklift operator finally realizes we are at the gate and comes over to let us in.  We pick up the load and head about four blocks away to a KFC, because we are all starving and we all love KFC.  Well, the KFC is closed.   Sigh.  So we settle for Jack in the Box, which was definitely less than satisfactory.

STILL not done.   It's F/M's turn to drive so he heads up I-5 to connect with I-80, which takes us to Cleveland.   Somewhere, i'm not sure where, at a weigh station we get pulled in for a random inspection.  They find a hose underneath the engine that "might" leak.  It's not leaking, mind you, but it MIGHT leak.  So we have to get it repaired.  As in, now.  So we wait at the weight station for six hours for the mechanic to show up and fix the problem while we are out of service.  If you don't think F/M is pissed now, you're wrong.  He's hot, because we are seriously behind right now and he's with a truck full of student drivers who are -- by CR England policy -- restricted to driving 5 mph UNDER the speed limit.  No way he's making up time with us!

And finally later today, we get... a... flat... tire.

Well, the upshot of all of this is that it's currently midnight, F/M is driving like a grumpy bat out of hell and we are hurtling along at about 80 mph to make up for lost time.  I'm in the upper bunk trying to do this blog and the drive is so bumpy that it's taking me twice as long as usual to write this because of all the typos i keep making with the truck bouncing so badly.  Do not hold me responsible for typos tonight....

Overall, I'M in a pretty good mood.  Just a bunch of adventures to write about :-)

We all had Taco Bell for dinner, so probably will all be getting gas....  At least we'll be asleep.  Except F/M.  He's having a bad day.

Stay safe....  Remember to do a thorough pre-trip inspection, making sure everything is properly mounted and secured, with no visible leaks....

KWA