New CDL Here, Doing SAIA Dock-to-Driver

Well, that was a ****show! What started out as a normal night and a short-ish run turned into a real marathon! I dispatched at 10pm last night for a 3-part run, Tucson to Bowie, AZ (AZ/NM border)

Then Bowie to Phoenix

Then Phoenix back to Tucson

It’s like 470 miles total, so thought it would be an easy night. That all changed when I ended up about a mile behind a tragic wreck where a trucker plowed into an overpass pillar and caught fire, which shut down I-10 west for an indefinite period of time, looking like several days of not longer while they repair the bridge. Sad to say, the guy didn’t make it.

I ended up completely stopped, stuck there for 5 hours straight while they assessed the situation. Eventually they started to let us through, but we had to U-turn on the interstate and head back east on I-10 as it was the only way out.

I ended up detouring the 191N and 80W rural hwy through Safford, Globe, Miami AZ etc to make my way back to PHX for my second set before returning back to Tucson. Had to use my 16-hour exemption to finish out the run. Finally got back around 1pm, 15 hours after my initial gate time, totally exhausted.

Tonight I’m on at 0030 for a super short run, down to Douglas and back to meet an El Paso driver. Only 210 miles RT, but after last night I’m just gonna be ok with that. With I-10 west shut down, they’re routing all westbound traffic down through Douglas, so traffic is gonna be a pain heading back especially.

Sad day for our brother trucker. I’ll pour one out for him when I get back at ~ 5am tomorrow.