Homeward, this time for sure! (Part 754878 in a series)

Greetings my friends.  I managed to make it to my drop in California with only a couple of hitches, namely the flat tire hitch and the burned-out low beam headlight hitch, unfortunately noticed by the member of the Arizona Highway Patrol.  So, once those were fixed, I made my way to my stopping point, amazingly enough right across from the drop point.  I settled in and waited for the morning.

I was bright and early for my delivery time, and to my surprise, all I had to do was drop the full trailer at the site.  Okay, no problem there, but there were no empty trailers from our company, so I had to wait until they found one for me to pick up.  Which they did.  In San Diego.

Off to San Diego I went, moving incredibly well over the mountains thanks to having no weight on my back end (and no trailer).  I got to the pickup point, got the trailer, and waited for the load that would, mercifully and hopefully, take me toward home.

No such luck.  I got a pickup in Brawley, California, heading to Denver.  I sighed heavily, called in for my mandatory talk regarding the specific load I had to pick up, and called my driver manager to notify him that I would need to buy a new load lock (one was still in the trailer I dropped back in Calexico), and to ask when it would be possible to head towards home.  He did some finagling, and amazingly enough, I get to have a 34-hour reset of my hours of service (which was necessary no matter what load I received as I had nowhere near enough hours to get anything moving), and then I pick up a load here, heading to Fort Worth.

Which is near Dallas.

Which is near home.

I have my fingers and toes crossed that, after delivering this load, I can finally bring the truck back and take some well-deserved home time.  For now, though, I relax, make my trip plan for the load (picks up on Wednesday and delivers Monday, plenty of time to run).  I may call the receiver and see if I can deliver early, if I'm in the area early.  I just pray I don't get repowered.  I may tell the one that tries to repower me that this is my home load, and unless they're giving me a load directly to Dallas, to go piss up a rope (although I'll put it in a nicer way).

I'll let you know how things go.