First Load

Helga needs a lot of love. Love requires Walmart. We dropped another load of cash on the Walton family, then began to bling out our new beast. Our plans were to go In Service at 2pm, which would give us plenty of time to catch up on laundry and finish packing the truck.

At about Noon, Hoss received a call from dispatch, asking us to pick up a load in Cleveland and deliver it in Alabama. NICE load. Big money. Unfortunately, Helga was a jumble of boxes and bags at that point, and I had two loads of laundry going. We couldn't guarantee the 2pm pickup, so we lost the load. Mindi was a bit disappointed, but completely understood. We still can't figure out how dispatch thought we were In Service, but it worked out in the end, as Helga was ready a short time later and we sat on the Toledo board waiting for a load.

The next offer was a dud - the deadhead to loaded miles ratio was too high for it to be very profitable. We decided to wait for another. And another came, this time to Coffeyville, Kansas, but it was cancelled by the shipper just as we got underway. We moved to a Walmart south of Toledo and spent our first night in ol' Helga.

The bunk is somewhere between a twin and a full sized mattress, and I was worried that we'd be too crowded. The rear wall is padded, though, so I have a nice snuggly space between it and my Hossman. It's pretty darned comfy. Helga has a sleeper heater that runs on the diesel in the tank, so we don't have to idle to keep warm - and that little bugger kept us plenty warm.