Back to "Normal"

DATELINE: I-76 in NE OHIO, 7:10 a.m.

Miles Yesterday: 409

And you know what I mean when I say "normal" as it refers to my trucking career: glitchful. Let's start back while I was composing my last update. While doing so, I had been working on setting my truck's idling system. As you recall from an earlier posting, that's the system that cycles the engine off and on throughout down time in order to maintain the engine's and cab's temperatures. I had been having trouble getting it to set the previous couple of nights, but had always managed to. Wednesday night I never could get it to set and stay on, so I finally gave up and called in to USA for help. To sum up, I wound up spending the night at a hotel that was luckily right next to the truck stop where I was parked. I would have to wait 'til I could get to one of USA's terminals to get the system checked out. However, since it was such a bitterly cold night, and the truck was not running at all through the night, you can probably guess what I found when I reported back to duty yesterday morning.

Yep, the batteries were dead. Again, to make the long story short, it took another 4+ hours of calling Breakdown, waiting for a jump start, the jump start not working, getting my tractor towed to a garage to "thaw it out" and started there. And I spent much of that time exposed to the cold--zero or below with much colder wind chills. Brrrr! I had a 1/2 bottle of Dr. Pepper in my cab overnight, and it was frozen solid by morning. So getting into the truck was no escape from the cold, except from the wind.

Anyway, once fixed, I had to return to the truck stop to fuel up (the truck and myself), hook my trailer back up (they couldn't tow both the tractor and trailer), and hit the road to make my scheduled delivery. I had to traverse northern Indiana and Ohio to reach my destination. I would have had to take a US highway (smaller highway that passes through town after town with stoplights and lowered speed limits, etc.), which would have taken quite a while. However, since I was behind schedule with the load, my dispatcher approved using the IN and OH turnpikes, so that sped me up quite a bit. It still took about 7 hours (with a couple of stops) to get there, though. But despite missing one turn and having to retrace a couple steps, I made it to the customer, dropped the trailer, and hooked up a new empty one.

I had expected to be able to just head to our Vandalia, OH terminal for service, but dispatch, of course, has other ideas. They despise the idea of these trucks running around empty, not under or headed to a load, so they promptly assigned me another pickup. In northwestern PA, NOT in the direction of Vandalia. With my hours for the day running low (in fact, they were gone because of the time I spent resolving the breakdown, but I was willing to drive to the terminal), I could not make the pickup (scheduled for 10:30 a.m.) without having to spend the night in the truck. I replied back that I had to get to a terminal for service that night, because I couldn't sleep in the truck due to the idling issue. To show where we drivers and our safety rate, the response was, "It's almost 200 miles to Vandalia. You need to get the load & then head to Bethel." (Bethel, PA is the site of another USA terminal.) Too tired to fight it out, I headed east. I noticed a rest area on the map along the highway I needed to take, so I headed for it, hoping 1. that there would be an open spot for me to park, and 2. that I could get the idle to engage.

At the rest area, both of my hopes were fulfilled, sort of. There was a parking spot, but the idling system had another idea. Instead of not running at all, it decided to run continuously without shutting off. I figured that was acceptable--at least the cab would stay warm, even if it was burning the company's money in the form of extra fuel. But at least I'm still on the job, heading to the assigned pickup.

So here I am, waiting to finish my 10-hour break. I woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep, since I've gotten used to waking early. Lucky for you, I decided to take the open time to fill y'all in on my lastest travails. I hope ya'll feel my pain. ;-) Today I'm going to go pick up that load and drive to Bethel (200+ miles east of Pittsburgh). It'll be my first time there. I hear it's off the beaten path, up some country roads and through a small town or two, so I hope I can find it without any problems. I'm bumping into my 70-hour-in-8-days limit again, what with 4 straight long days (and 5 of the last 7), so I'll have some free time to blog and catch up with some other work. Now it's time to start preparing for they day's journey, so I'll wrap up this posting here.

Thanks once again for reading my rants, and do please keep those comments coming. And, as ever, keep on truckin'.