Home and Away Again

DATELINE: VANDALIA, OH, 1:22 p.m. EDT

Miles Today: 196
Miles Friday: 376
Miles Thursday: 459

Pardon my silence these last couple of days. Thanks to a pickup and delivery in Michigan, I got to spend a couple of nights at my "home truck stop", so I had the chance to have dinner with my wife and daughter. By the time I got back to my truck each night, it was too late (and I was too tired) to do any blogging. But hey, I was thinking of ya'. Here's what I've been up to.

As you recall from my last post, Wednesday evening, I was in Pennsylvania on my way to deliver a load in Grand Rapids, MI on Friday. Thursday's task was to drive as far as I could with the few work hours I had available from my 70-in-8-days allotment. Fortunately, that was just enough for me to get to Dexter, MI, location of my afore-mentioned home truck stop. The missus picked me up on the way home from work, and we stopped by home to pick up our younger daughter (her sister was still finishing up the year at college) and head to one of my favorite places to eat, Qdoba Mexican Grill. I feel the need to eat there whenever I get home. After a scrumdiddlyumptious burrito (the Chicken Fajita Classica with queso, habanero AND corn salsas, and quacamole--YUM!), it was back to the truck and to bed. I had to get up early the next morning to make my delivery on time.

Friday morning I was up and on the road at 4:00. My delivery appointment in Grand Rapids was for 8:00 a.m., and I wanted to leave myself plenty of time to allow for traffic jams, since it's now road construction season and I'd be hitting G.R. at the morning rush hour. However, the drive went without delay and I arrived at 6:45. Early is generally good, but at this site nobody was in to work yet. Apparently this is a smaller company that is not on an around-the-clock schedule. Or even an early-start schedule. So I had to wait 'til someone showed up in their receiving department, which was just before 8:00. Oh well, that gave me a chance to do some reading.

Once someone showed up and I checked in, got my docking assignment, and backed into the loading dock, it only took another 45 minutes for them to unload my trailer, and I was once again on my way. This time to a truck stop not very far away to wait for my next assignment. Which came rather quickly: Head to Muskegon, MI and pick up a load headed for somewhere in Ohio for a Monday delivery. I plotted my route on a map, copied down the directions dispatch provided in the load assignment message, and hit the road. It was only about a 45-minute drive from G.R. to Muskegon. However, as is often the case with the directions the company provides, they had an error. They had me turning right off the highway exit, instead of left, which was the proper direction. After a couple miles, when I came to a sign saying "No Through Trucks", I called the shipper to clarify the directions. They pointed out the error of my (USA's) ways, and I found the location a few minutes later. Once I found the right door to go in there to check in, they told me which dock to back into. That was pretty quick, and then I waited. It took a bit longer than usual to load there, then I had to drive onto their scale to weigh the truck. Well, they had put just a bit too much product on, so I had to pull off the scale, let a guy pull off a pallet with his fork lift, pull around back onto the scale again...yada, yada...then they had another discrepancy they had to sort out...yada, yada...all in all, the stop at that site took over 2 hours. But I had just enough work hours left for the day to make it back to Dexter.

This time Mrs. Reluctant Trucker picked me up and we went home to make some dinner there. I decided I wanted quesadillas, so we stopped at a store and picked up some avacados and bell peppers. I make a mean guacamole, hence the avacados. And I make fajita quesadillas, with sauteed peppers and onions inside with the cheese. 'Twas another tasty dinner. Then I had to tend to some end-of-the month bills and get them off into the mail. Then it was once again back to the truck for bed.

The load I picked up in Muskegon is not due for delivery 'til Monday, so instead of having me sit for the entire weekend, my dispatcher had me bring it here to the Vandalia terminal so I could drop it and grab another load bound elsewhere and rack up some more paying miles. I have no problems with that. I got up early and got here by 10:00, ready to get moving with my next assignment. It took a while for that next assignment to come in, but my next load is bound for a small town in northwest Missouri, due for delivery on Tuesday morning. That's only 600-some miles away, so I can relax for the rest of today, then make the drive in two easy chunks tomorrow and Monday.

And now you're up-to-date with my goings-on. I 'spect I'll spend the rest of the day refining my online poker skills, working on my supplemental income. ;-) Thanks yet again for your interest in my daily doings. I do hope I'm not boring you to tears. If so (or even not), let me know via insightful comments. And do keep on truckin'.