Come along for the Ride!

I am so glad you are here. Stay with us as we travel everywhere. I hope you will enjoy the ride.

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Boston



This is a map of downtown Boston. We recently hauled a dangerous hazmat load into the city. Hazardous loads are not allowed to be in any part of what you see on this map at any time unless it is being delivered there. And then you cannot be there between the hours of 6am - 8pm. You can only deliver during the nighttime hours. 
Our load was scheduled for a confirmed 8am!
You cannot under any circumstance be on any bridge except for one and absolutely CANNOT ENTER either of the two tunnels there, with the product that we were carrying.
I cannot give you many details of our load other than it was a very dangerous hazmat going to a gov't building. 
After trying unsuccessfully to get help with our routing by any bridge, city, fedex, or gov't officials, or by asking others drivers,  we took it upon ourselves to just go in using our own intelligence.
So we crossed the one allowed bridge, around the city, and drove full circle around our destination without seeing any loading docks. And now we were headed to a choice of prohibited bridge or a tunnel. So I did the sensible thing and pulled over to the curb and put my flashers on, I am FedEx, right next to a fire hydrant and thought about crying.
Pops called our contact. He got his car and came to us and drove in front of us to the loading docks that we didn't see because they were on a street that was blocked off with cement barriers, for construction. So I had to back around a curve, between the cement barriers around another delivery truck and into the dock that was between a Cadillac Escalade and a giant dumpster.but I did it and that was actually the easiest part of the whole morning so far.
Then while we were getting unloaded, the window washers came and climbed the side of the building to work. Their ropes that they dangled from hung down in front of our truck.
Then a group of women came off the dock and proceeded to stand near the back of our open truck smoking cigarettes. I tried to get their attention but they couldn't hear me so Pops walked over and asked them if they wanted to go boom boom and pointed to our placards. I wish you could have seen the looks on their faces as they went quickly away yacking in their boston accents.
Then it was time to go and the ropes were still hanging in front of me. I was worried about catching their ropes with the truck and pulling them down. So the security officer saw me and held the ropes clear of the truck until I wiggled my way back out of the dock and the barriers.
We were escorted by a federal employee out of the city and could not get away fast enough. 
Ugh! My absolute least favorite city!

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