Last summer, my marketing counterpart, Chelsea, filled you in on our 
ride-along experience. While most of her story is true, I would like to clear my name on some of the events that took place! While it is very much true that she had a longer, tougher, and more strenuous day at 7 months pregnant...I too had a strenuous day. Was my day labor intensive? No! But it was stressful in other ways. Hear me out.
Day 1
Like Chelsea said, we did go over her "condition" with Donnie, our Mr. Blade® teammate, before the trip. Donnie assured us it would be no problem and advised Chelsea to do the first leg of the site visits. We all know how that went. 😨 When she (and her blistered swollen feet) got back, she was filthy, hot, hungry, and grumpy (but who could blame her). I thought CRAP, if her day was "the easy day," tomorrow will be awful.
Day 2 - My Turn
Our first stop was a tiny quarry just a few miles from our hotel. I don’t even think we were outside of Nashville city limits, it was that close. We got there and everyone knew Donnie (Mr. Blade® ). We said our hellos/introductions, went through the safety training, and the plant supervisor told us to only check on one belt that day. We made our way up the conveyor catwalk, Donnie walked me through the steps he takes to inspect and tension belt cleaners. He needed to change out the blade on one cleaner so we climbed down and made our way to the Mr. Blade van. He measured and cut the blade while I observed. Next, we (he) carried the blade back up, installed it, and we were done at this site.
It was HOT, and I too already had blisters. Safety boots have never been my friend! While we were packing up the van, a weather alert came across my phone. I told Donnie what the weather looked like and we both decided to try and get to the next plant before this weather hit. Did I mention I HATE storms (even more than I hate spring...check out that blog 
)?!
This part of the trip is where the stress started. I began to panic (only in my head), but I wasn't going to let Donnie know that I am a scaredy cat and was freaking out. We only needed to make it 15 miles down the road to the next site. The sky let loose - pouring down rain, thunder, and lightning! We pulled up on-site and checked the radar. Donnie looked at me and said, "I know you wanted to gain experience with this ride-along, but it’s not going to let up anytime soon and we can’t walk conveyors in this weather." He offered to drive me around the site and point out what he would do at this location. It was still very educational but you can only see so much from the front seat through rain-covered windows. I felt terrible. The weather was horrible. We drove back to the hotel in the pouring down rain. I knew Chelsea was not going to be happy with me (more envious - she isn't that mean)! You should have seen her face when I walked into the lobby a mere hour+ after we had finished breakfast (more on that below...keep reading).
Going With The Flow
Here’s where things turned around....we couldn't let a good ol' summer storm ruin all plans. Donnie went into planning/rearranging mode. He decided to change up his route for the entire week and hit the Nashville area again in a few days. This required him to head in a different direction - 6 hours away. This didn’t work with our travel plans. Back to the hotel, I went and down the road, Donnie went. It amazed me that he didn’t let the weather ruin his whole day and work schedule, he just moved some routes around and BAM he was off!
You know the saying If looks could kill...well, I would have dropped dead strolling back into the hotel. Mind you, I was still dirty and hot with blisters on my heels. I just didn't spend 8+ hours walking up and down conveyors in the Tennessee heat. I FELT HORRIBLE! But, I made up for it. Just like Donnie and his ability to adapt and keep moving, I told her we could get home a day earlier, making her a little less angry with me (kind of). We were on the road to our next adventure.
We needed to view the Kentucky Motor Speedway and scope out the area where we would be hosting a customer event in the near future. Instead of making a separate trip back that way, I called my contact at the speedway and asked him if we could meet that day instead. He made it work and we arrived by 2:00 pm. We completed the tour, asked the questions we needed answered, and were on our way home - a whole day early. So, while some might have seen me as the villain in her blog post, I believe I may have, in fact, come out as the hero!
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