Never a Good Sign

Getting on the road this morning was a joy...

As a rule, you usually want to check your cargo in the morning before getting underway, just to make sure:
1. You actually HAVE cargo to haul, in case the local hoodlums decided to relieve you of all that pesky video wall truss or R310 modules that were taking up space in the truck...
2. That all that truss and the video cubes are all snug and secure, not rattling about loose in the back of the truck, awaiting the opportunity to become a projectile aimed at your head, or worse, someone else's head...

So... Everything was A-Ok this AM, but after some Heroic Measures to avoid crushing some idjit in a Mini Cooper with Entitlement issues (He felt he was entitled to the entire freeway, not just his lane...) I heard and felt some shifting and bumping that were out of character for this particular load.

I stopped at a Choke & Puke in Elkton MD to cast an eye on the cargo, again...


Nothing initially looked out of place...
Nine 10' pieces of truss, 4 truss ladders and 6 cases of video mods.

Uh oh...

A slack strap...You never want to see that.
And it's all the way up in front of the truck. This particular strap is supposed to be holding the 6 cases of video modules in place at the front of the truck.
At the moment, it isn't doing anything at all...

To rectify the situation, I had to unstrap the truss, pull it out and away from the video module cases, then crawl across the top of yon aluminum truss to reach the strap what was playing hooky and re-rig so it was doing it's job, and do it in a way that it wouldn't come loose again.

25 minutes later I was back on the road- dripping from working in the microwave oven cargo area, shins and knees bruised and bleeding from crawling back and forth across the top of the truss 4 times to get things tightened up...

It was fortunate I did since I got flagged at the next weigh station in Maryland...

The inspector did a full equipment check, including looking at the cargo and how it was dogged down, then went through my paperwork with a fine tooth comb...
The only complaint?
In my log book I noted I spent the night in Newark MD, instead of Newark DE...
(But the to/from line at the bottom of the HOS log had the correct state, so I guess he felt it was an honest brain fart, not some shenanigans on my part to spoof my driver's log.)

The pillow beckons- Gotta be on the road early... Hope to be back in Jax by noon.

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE