Thursday, January 25, 2007

Long Day's Journey From Night Into Night

DATELINE: VANDALIA, OH

Miles Today: 580

Greetings once more from the road. Today was a long day and I want to get up and moving early again in the morning, so I'll keep this short.

Today I drove from Beaverdam, OH, to Paw Paw, MI; Made my delivery there; Drove over to Portage, MI to swap my empty trailer for a full one; Drove back here to Vandalia, just north of Dayton. That took up exactly all of my 14-hour window to get my 11 hours of driving in, and I used up 10-1/2 of those hours. 'Twas nice to drive in the old home state, especially through the lake-effect snow squalls over on the west side. And 'twas strange passing within 1 mile of my house twice, when I used the intersection between I-94 and US-23.

I'm dropping that trailer I just picked up here (this is one of USA Truck's terminals) and will spend the night before grabbing another trailer in the morning to haul to Gordonsville, VA.

I have to say today was probably my best day on the road (well, except for having to start and end it in Ohio). Two stops at customers that included backing maneuvers, and I completed both successfully (albeit slowly with a few extra pull-ups to straighten out). But I'm learning A LOT about backing and docking now.

A quick musing: One of the greatest (funniest) things I've seen on the road is a business along I-75 somewhere around mile 120 in Ohio. The business has a big sign out front and a banner on the building proclaiming, "For Sale or Lease". The name of the business: "Endless Endeavors".

Well, gotta go now. Thanks for your readership, and keep on truckin' (and commentin').

1 comment:

Nancy R. said...

So near and yet so far... I'm glad things went well despite having to sully your tires on Ohio pavement. Have a nice easy trip to Virginny!