When you ______, you make an ___ out of _ and __.

What a difference two weeks can make.

Last time I took I40 through Arkansas, the trees were still almost winter-dead. Just that faint glaze of color (mostly red) that says the buds are starting to swell.

Now the trees are definitely alive. An occasional burst of white punctuates a vista that seems to still be deciding what color spring will be. Looks like green is winning out as usual, but the other colors are still making their claims. We'll see how it comes out.

Had to run the air conditioner today. Last week I needed a jacket and hat still. The times they are a'changing.

I brought 45,000 pounds of something-or-other into Arkansas. It almost got stopped before I left Georgia.

Scaling a load costs money. The people who have truck scales charge you to use them. As a general rule, expect to spend $9, plus another dollar each time you have to try again. My company reimburses me when the load is heavy enough, but if your bank account's thin it's still scary.

The load started out in North Carolina somewhere. Before I got it, it had passed weigh stations in three states. Obviously it was all right on that score.

Obviously. But overweight fines are scarier than scale tickets. So after a bit of dithering, I went to a truck stop and scaled the load.

The drive wheels were about 400 pounds over. With the fuel tanks only half full.

This, I thought, was bad. I'd looked the trailer over before I took it, and I'd taken a quick glance at the wheel position. Looked like the tandems were all the way forward already. And if the previous driver hadn't scaled the load, then the wheels probably would be all the way forward.*

But what the heck. I went back and looked again.

And lo! The wheels were almost all the way back. I had three holes** to play with! I was saved!

I still didn't have enough leeway to fuel. But I could get to the customer, if I was careful. I could live with that.

Just goes to show you--oh. I already put that in the title.

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*The further back the wheels, the more weight on the trailer and the less on the trucks drive wheels. And the longer the wheelbase. And the harder to get the rig around corners...

**The holes the locking pins mate with. Moving the locking pins one hole will (as a rough rule of thumb) move about 250 pounds from the trailer wheels to the tractor's drive wheels.