November 20, 1989, 2009

FIRST 5 YEARS: (Monday-Laredo, Texas)
Woke up again in Laredo and called dispatch!!! Was informed not to get rid of room as not many loads coming over border today. This is getting FRUSTRATING. The town is starting to look like a parking lot for our tractors. Did same as other days...Ate lunch at the Chinese restaurant, talked with the waiter(as much as I could), went to Wal-Mart, got munchies for rest of day, went to motel, checked swimming pool for known drivers and then watched TV for rest of day/night.

A Trucker's Tale: (Kissing and driving don't mix...)
This tale is from me as I was the trucker involved. I and another one of our company's reefer (refrigerated trailer) unit drivers had just finished delivering our loads to the Wal-Mart warehouse in Loveland, Colorado. We both got deadheaded(sent "empty") to Holcomb, Kansas to the slaughter house for meat loads. I loved this deadhead as it is many easy going "paid" miles off the main interstates. The other driver hadn't been to this meat plant before so I said just to follow me. We took off down I-25 to I-70 east. Just past Limon, Colorado we took Hwy 287 south; we are off the main routes now. I always stopped at Hugo, Colorado for a big cold drink and a logbook break. We stopped and then headed out again. We followed Hwy 287 past Kit Carson(Colorado) to Eads(Colorado) where we caught Hwy 96 to Sheridan Lake, Colorado. At Sheridan Lake, we took Hwy 285 south to Hwy 50 east. We took this route around Lamar, Colorado just to bypass the state weigh station. We continued into Kansas where we went through the towns of Coolidge and Syracuse. The speed limit on these two lane roads is 65 miles/hour. Well, we had been out of Syracuse for awhile and I was running "front door"(first one of two drivers running along together). I saw in the road ahead a tractor trailer with it flashers blinking. I told the driver behind me that I didn't like to see this. We got to the rig and found that the accident had just happened. The road was shut down!!! No "person" was seriously injured!!! What happened? There are many details for this tale!!! A man going west bound had hit 5 full grown cows that were on the road. The truck he hit them with was sitting on two of them(one cow was lightly moaning), two were laying along the road(one of them was moaning) and one was walking along the fence(it fall over a few minutes later from bleeding to death). This was not OPEN RANGE and the cows were to be behind fencing. The sheriff or deputy got there and shot the two moaning cows. We all pushed the pickup truck off the two cows it was sitting on, pushed the pickup off the road and pulled the cows to the side of the road. This opened the road and traffic started moving again. The cause??? The man that had hit the cows had just, that day, finished restoring the mid 60's pickup truck and was taking his wife for a ride in it. He claimed to have been doing the speed limit when he went and kissed his wife. When he looked back at the road, it was too late. He killed 5 cows, totaled out a beautifully restored "uninsured"(hadn't insured it yet) pickup truck and stopped traffic for a good hour all for a kiss......The pickup truck had been finished being totally restored and destroyed the same day . At least he and his wife were wearing their seat belts. After all this excitement, we went onto Holcomb, Kansas where we had to wait for our loads...