After dropping a loaded trailer near Baltimore, we picked up an empty trailer from the lot. Low and behold, after we pulled away and had traveled down the interstate a number of exits we discovered that the trailer had bad brakes.

It was a sloppy cold rainy day combined with heavy morning traffic in the city.

We inched our way to a yard for repair only to be told it would take days to get us into a bay. We were sent to another location, on the edge of the Baltimore harbor.  The joys of trucking.

I lived in Baltimore in my young teen years, so it was fun for me to travel through and recognize road names that were my old stomping grounds. Yet, despite the joy of recalled memories, I wouldn’t want to repeat that horrific trip in very unsafe conditions (with basically no brakes, but we were told by dispatch to keep moving)! I do believe our arms and fingers ached for days from that tense drive.

The yard where the repair shop sat contained shipping containers and trailer parts (axles and frames),  literally hundreds of containers. Shipping containers are lifted from the boats and stacked using giant forklifts. Some of these containers are stacked as tall as six high.

I was in awe that day. The photo I took doesn’t begin to depict the incredible height of the containers!

Despite the rain, the grit (it was a very dirty yard), and our six-hour delay, it was an interesting day.

This is one part of trucking that I enjoy – the opportunity to see how businesses operate and where things are made.