Go East, Young(?!) Man

DATELINE: BETHEL, PA, 10:45 p.m. EDT

Miles Today: 297
Miles Yesterday: 483

I guess I owe y'all another 2 days of updates, huh? Yesterday was another long day, and I was too tired at its conclusion to correspond. Sorry 'bout dat. But let me tell you about it.

My day started in Vandalia, OH when I awoke to my watch alarm at 5:30 a.m. It re-started 25 minutes later when I re-awoke to knocking on my cab door. It was one of the guys from the terminal's shop coming to see about me getting my truck in for its service appointment a few minutes early. Early! Can you believe that? Well, I got right up and pulled the truck over to the shop door and turned over my keys to them. I grabbed a book and headed to the drivers lounge to wait for the shop to finish up the service. That was at 6:00 a.m. They finally finished with it at 12:45 p.m. After nearly seven hours of being awake, it was time to start my work day.

When I got back in my truck I sent in a "back to work" message to dispatch and pulled around to the fuel island at the terminal to fill 'er up. Once I was done with that, I pulled back around into the parking lot and received my next assignment: Pick up a loaded trailer there at the terminal and take it to an auto plant somewhere in Ohio for delivery the next day. (Curious coincidence: the new trailer had the same product and was from the same shipper as the trailer I had brought to Vandalia.) So I located the trailer, backed under it, hooked up the air and electrical lines, and cranked up the landing gear. I got back into the cab to find my destination in my atlas, when I found another message from dispatch: Never mind this load, we have another "hot" one that has to go right away. Well, I wasn't too happy about having to un-do the hookup, but the new load would give me more miles and send me to another new state for my trucking career: New Jersey. To the city of Eilzabeth for an 11:00 a.m. delivery.

I did drop the original trailer, found the one for the new assignment, and hooked up to it. After a few minutes to plot my trip, I was underway. That was at 2:15 p.m., so I knew I'd be driving 'til well after nightfall. The total trip was about 575 miles, and I knew I'd have to take a 10-hour break somewhere in there. Fortunately, USA's terminal in Bethel, PA is along the route I needed to take, so I planned to take my break there. I calculated it would be about an 8-hour drive, and I was spot-on. Add the 1/2-hour dinner break I took in Somerset, PA, and I arrived in Bethel at 11:15 p.m. Bethel is a small terminal (in terms of the parking lot), and just about all of the parking spots were full (mostly with trailers only). I did find an open one, though, and managed to back into it, though it was slow going because of the darkness (the lot ain't lighted at all back in the area I was in). But I made it into the spot, got myself ready for bed, and hit the hay, succumbing to the long day's fatigue.

I couldn't get back to work this morning 'til 9:15 because of the DOT's 10-hour break rule, so I knew I wasn't going to make it to my delivery on time; my destination was about 120 miles away yet. But no biggie. I arrived there at noon and checked in. They directed me to go around the back of the building to back into their middle dock. Now, this is an older area, and the loading docks were designed and built long before the advent of the 53-foot trailer, I'm sure. There wasn't much room between the dock door and a dropoff to a stream. (Little wonder most drivers hate coming to the northeast--it's ALL older.) First I had to wait for another truck delivering to the business in the adjoining building to get out of my way as I came around the back of the building. When I finally got my chance to prove my skills, I can only say that I'm glad I didn't come here on one of my first assignments, when I didn't really know what I was doing when it came to this kind of docking (line up at about a 90-degree angle to the dock, and back around the corner--there for sure wasn't enough room to line up in front of the dock and back straight in). With the very short space, there would be no room for pulling forward to correct any misalignment. So it came down to getting set up in exactly the right spot and making the turn perfectly. Well, it took me about 5 tries to get the exact spot/turn combo just right, but I did it. Then it was time to wait. It took them about 2 hours to unload the trailer. I did have a good view of the NJ Turnpike toll booth and Newark airport landing pattern from my vantage point in the cab as I waited out the unloading. I also finished a book I was reading and listened to some more of the audio book I've been listening to on my drives, so it's not like I was just sitting there doing nothing.

After he unload was done, I headed a bit south on the turnpike to a service plaza to grab some lunch ('twas now about 3:15 p.m.) and await my next load assignment. That came quickly: head back north up the turnpike just a tad to Kearny, NJ, and grab a load there at 5:00. After a quick Whopper w/ cheese, no pickles, extra onion--yum!--at the service plaza, I drove up to Kearny and arrived just a bit early (4:15-ish) at the shipper. They were loading up a trailer for me to take and weren't quite done yet. So I had another wait. They finally had it ready for me at about 5:45, but I had a little work to do. They wanted me to pull the loaded trailer out of the dock and back the empty one I brought along into the same dock! You can work out that sequence of events, but it included 3 sets of unhooking and hooking the trailers. Oy.

That done, it was time to hit the road. I checked the routing suggested by USA, and instead of just heading straight south along the coast, it suggested starting by going west along the route I had just come in from this morning. I had been concerned about where I'd find a spot to spend the night, since I would be stopping so late, but that western swing allowed me to stop back here at Bethel. However, all of the normal parking spots were already full when I got here at 9:30, so I just parked along the driveway across from the shop. It's nice and wide, (and somebody else was parked here last night), so I figured no one would mind at all. Beat backing into a dark, narrow spot between two trailers, anyway.

So here I am, all caught up with my goings on. Tomorrow my goal is to make it to the Spartanburg, SC terminal, which is right around 600 miles away by my calculations. From there it's another 500 or so miles to this load's destination in the Florida panhandle. They haven't given me a delivery time yet, but the delivery date is Saturday, so I'm looking at another couple of long, busy days. I'd better get to bed now so I can get adequate rest for them, so it's time for me to sign off. Thanks for checking in yet again, and keep on truckin'.