Packers, grilling and a few heirlooms

Updated May 29, 2012

I learned today more about my aunt’s and uncle’s antique collection. Learned by receiving a tour while visiting them.

Diane and I woke up this morning in a retail area in a Milwaukee, Wisc. suburb. We arrived there over the weekend and spent the night waiting to deliver the freight we had on board.

Green Bay Packers fans are everywhere in these parts. The delivery was routine but I used the opportunity to get the warehouse worker’s opinion about what happened to the Packers in the playoffs. I’m a Packers fan but not so much so that I live and breathe Packers like some do. It is easier to listen to those folks than to put time into doing own research and opinion forming. In that spirit I chatted with our delivery contact.

We then returned to the retail area to wait for freight. Two offers were received which we accepted but we rolled on neither one. Freight comes different to us at Landstar than at our former carrier. In some cases, saying yes to a load only means that a price has been agreed to that will then be bid by the agent.

At that level, all sorts of weird things happen with loads. In some cases, the shipper is price shopping. The inquiry is made but the shipper has no intention of shipping anything. They just run the process to see how much it might cost to ship something. In other cases, shipper plans change as the load gets changed in size or quantity or rescheduled or postponed. Sometimes the load goes to someone else because of a lower price or the shipper has a more-favored carrier. Whatever the reasons, we ended up hauling no freight today.

We have relatives nearby. When the end of the business day came, we remained in service but went to their house to visit. On the back porch on a perfect summer day, we enjoyed a nice visit and meal cooked on the grill.

We have seen most of the antiques before but the tour was cool. Many of them came from my grandparents house and work. They trigger childhood memories and stories. We did not know when we woke up this morning that today would be a family day but that’s what it turned out to be.

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We took evening showers in the house and then went to sleep in the truck. Our retired relatives would keep us here for a week if they could and suggested several times day trips we could take together. We had to keep reminding them that we were in service and might get dispatched any minute.

They will take us out for breakfast tomorrow but that is when we expect the phone to start ringing again. We’ll be taking the truck with us to the restaurant so we can roll immediately if necessary.