Was I Complaining about, No Miles?

One thing in life for sure -- things are always changing.  For the past couple of months the total number of miles I have driven in my truck would be measured with two-digits.  Not anymore.

I left FL on Thursday, a week ago, and drove the 1100 miles up to southern IL -- in one day.  Friday was the 20th celebration of my 40th B-day.  The weekend was with my son practicing driving a truck with a big trailer hanging off the back.

Monday was getting equipment inspected and up to snuff.  Tuesday was a day I have been planning for since October 2011; my Veteran Owned business certification.  I would have thought this to be a pretty simple process; check my DD-214 (discharge papers) and some of my official business documents like my Motor Carrier letter of Authority, bank statements, DBA listing with the State.  Easy peasy.  Not so.

Apparently the Veterans Administration takes their endorsement quite seriously.  I went into great detail about my history going back 40 years during the interview process.  I spent about three hours with my interviewer and think it went pretty well.  I should get the determination in a couple of weeks.

Wednesday, Nathan and I drove 450 miles to Lincoln, NE and picked up a new (to me) flatbed trailer -- AND 450 miles back.  It was midnight when we got back.  But Nathan was along to help with the drive.  I meant to get some pix of my new rig but it has been non-stop.  But I will, because I think this set-up is the 'cat's meow' for what we do.  I will address that in more detail when I get the pix.

No rest Thursday.  After dropping the trailer at Lombardo Trailer for service and a check-up, Nathan and I headed for the coast of North Carolina -- 950 miles away.  We had booked a job to tow back a 36' houseboat to Lake Carlyle near here.  That went NOTHING like planned.

We arrived in Swansboro, NC about 10 am today (Friday).  This is a very old boat and the trailer had been sitting a long time.  I was told the boat was 10' wide.  It was 10'4".  The 4" difference resulted in me having the wrong oversize permits for our trip thru four states.  Plus it was 14' high, only 6" more than legal but still a problem.  Wrong permits.

But I tried anyway.  We got the loose items secured.  Hung red flags and our over-size signs.  Adjusted the hitch, hooked up and pulled her out of the weeds.  Our first stop, 10 miles later, revealed the three tires on the passenger side to be so dry rotted I was surprised we made it that far.  I'm still not discouraged; I have two spares - on wheels -- and I'll buy a third.  That is until the mechanic at the tire shop said the lug nuts were so rusted he would probably break them off in removing the tires.  The final straw was when he said it would be Monday or Tuesday before he could get it done because of the amount of labor involved.  I quit.  I towed it back to the shipper and said I was sorry.  Those tires were unsafe and we weren't hanging out til Tuesday -- maybe.

When bad things happen to you, it is rarely just one thing going wrong.  It is an accumulation of single items that add up to a disaster.  This was a bad from the start and kept getting worse.  I envisioned one of two things happening.  Either a cop was going to notice our oversize boat and pull us over to check paperwork (now we are in trouble for wrong permits) or a tire was gonna blow and I'm on the side of the road -- or worse -- in a REAL pickle.  Too many bad things happened here already to continue.  We're done.  Take the bullet now and move on.  So we are heading back to IL now, empty.

Next week the VA is sponsoring a 3-day conference in Detroit designed to help vets do business with the federal government.  I will leave here Monday afternoon so I can get there by noon Tuesday for the first seminar.  I am really looking forward to that.

But right now I'm rolling the seat back for a nap.  My turn to drive in an hour or so.  I love my internet connection thru my phone with my laptop -- when I have 3G, anyway.

(BTW Trinity -- no calls accepted from "Unknown" numbers.  Sorry.  :-)