Take 2

DATELINE: VANDALIA, OH, 1:36 p.m. EDT

I really have some catching up to do today, so prepare yourself to slog through a lot of my drivel today. For the record, I did compose an update on Sunday morning (2 days ago), but my connection went bye-bye and I lost the brilliant piece of literature that I had slaved over for over an hour. So I will have to attempt to recapture my literary brilliance of Sunday. I haven't been blogging otherwise because I have had some very long days that have left me too exhausted to be able to think straight.

Friday, 4/13: 306 miles
Saturday, 4/14: 667 miles
Sunday, 4/15: 600 miles*
Monday, 4/16: 600 miles*
* I record miles per calendar day. These overnight shifts spanned midnight, so some miles reported for one day were part of my shift that started the previous day.

Friday
I was up and on the road at 4:00 a.m. for the trek from Jackson, MS to Hammond, LA for my 7:00 a.m. delivery appointment. The drive down went fine, save for a bad set of directions that had me turn the wrong way off the highway at first. I soon corrected that and arrived at the receiver about 1/2 hour early. I checked in, had my dock assignment at the appointed hour, and the rest of the delivery went as usual--meaning I had a bit of a wait. Not too bad this time; I was in and out of there in right around 2 hours. From there I boogied to a nearby truck stop for a snack and to await my next assignment. Half an hour later I had that assignment: Bop down to the Port of New Orleans and pick up a load from one of the docks there at 11:00, then haul it to Lawton, OK to deliver it at 3:00 the next afternoon.

I had no trouble on I-55 south and most of I-10 east on my way to the Big Easy. Then Friday the 13th reared its ugly head in the form of a 3-hour traffic jam as I approached the city. This was not like your usual rush-hour slow traffic; this was literal stop-and-go. There were periods where I set my parking brakes and sat motionless for minutes at a time. Oy!

Eventually I got out of that and reached the shipper 3 hours late. Once I found the right docks, got checked in and given my dock assignment, that pickup went fairly quickly, and I was on my way. However, it was now rush hour and I had to slog my way through that slow traffic. What with the earlier jam and this rush-hour slowdown, I could not get very far before my 14-hour driving window expired. I did get about 100 miles west of town, but that would still leave over 600 miles for Saturday's drive to Lawton, which I calculated would take all of my allotted 11 hours for that day. But that was Saturday's concern; Friday night's was the severe weather that was pummelling the region just west of where I was. Would it hit my location and interrupt my sleep, which I needed badly? I was totally wiped out once I parked for the night because of the traffic jam stress plus the fact that, though I had it supposedly fixed, my air conditioner did not cool my cab very much. It was a warm, brightly sunny day in southern LA, and I was wearing jeans. So I was not comfy at all. In addition, I had a bad night's sleep because of the heat in the truck--I spent all night sweating. I couldn't leave the windows open because of the threat of rain, and though the truck (and AC) was cycling on-and-off to maintain a comfy cab environment, it didn't do the trick.

Saturday
As it turned out, I don't think we had any rain where I was. When I got up at 3:30, the parking lot was still dry. So I got myself ready and hit the road. I did pass through some rain--some very heavy for a few minutes--as I headed north through LA, the remnants of the previous night's storms. But nothing severe. So the traffic slowups turned out to be a good thing after all, keeping me out of the line of fire of the nasty weather. But I did still have a L-O-N-G drive to make. Fortunately, the 3:00 p.m. delivery time was not do-or-die. Dispatch told me I had 'til 11:30 p.m. I wouldn't need that long.

I arrived at about 4:30. I had been to this locale before at the end of my first tour of duty back in January, so I knew the routine there. That made things less stressful. The unloading went very quickly, and I was out of there in under an hour, with just enough driving time to get to a place to spend the night. That turned out to be a rest area along the highway (one of the OK turnpikes in this case), 20 miles south of Lawton. I wasn't really tired when I got there, but once I had checked my e-mail (a lot of it 'cuz I hadn't checked it the previous day) and got a quick dinner (they have McDonald'ses at the turnpike rest areas), the fatigue hit me, so I went to bed.

Sunday
As I was driving away after Saturday's delivery, my next assignment came in: Pick up a loaded trailer from the same place I to which I had just delivered. I would have turned right back around to get it except:
1. I was out of driving time, and
2. The pickup was for 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, so the trailer probably wasn't even ready yet.
That late pickup time gave me the chance to sleep in and blog an update for you, but I told you about that snafu up top. I had also planned to take some time to head south to Wichita Falls, TX to fuel up at a network fuel stop there. However, I calculated that I could reach USA's West Memphis, AR terminal from Lawton in about 10-1/2 hours, so I preserved my driving time for that. (The Wichita Falls detour would have taken an hour of my driving time, making it unlikely I could have legally reached West Memphis.) Since I did have that late pickup, I would have had difficulty finding a place to park for the night at a rest area or truck stop once I used up my allotted hours. Hence the decision to make for West Memphis. By the way, this load is headed for an auto plant in Detroit, so the West Memphis route was a bit out of the way, not the most direct route. But the delivery is not 'til Thursday, so I had plenty of time to get there. I arrived at West Memphis at about 12:30 a.m. after a nice, uneventful drive.

Monday (Yesterday)
I awoke to another bright, sunny day (yesterday had been one, too) at around 9:30. It was so nice I decided to take the time to get some exercise by walking about 1-1/4 miles up the road for an early, cheap lunch at the local Taco Bell. That (and the walk back) accomplished, I fueled up and got the truck washed at the terminal and hit the road at about 11:30 a.m. My goal for this day was to make it to the terminal in Vandalia, OH, a trip that takes about 10 hours of driving. That plan would also use up all of the time I had remaining of my 70 hours, and I could then take a 34-hour break at Vandalia. I also made plans to get my truck in the shop at Vandalia for its routine maintenance during my 34-hour break.

All went as planned, so here I am now, resting up after a long, busy week. My dispatcher had me drop that Detroit-bound load here, so I won't be heading home tomorrow. (I had thought about spending a night--Wednesday night--at the truck stop near home before delivering in Detroit, but those plans have gone up in smoke now.) Once my truck's maintenance and my 34-hour break are complete, I'll get a new assignment from dispatch, so I don't yet know where I'll be headed next. 'Twoulda' been nice to get home briefly, but perhaps the next assignment will be in MI anyway. Here's hoping.

So now you've done it again, you've wasted several minutes of your valuable day reading this banal composition. Thank you for sticking with it all the way through, though. Please submit your own questions and comments and, even though the Department of Transportation vows to find a new line of work whenever they hear me say it, Keep on Truckin'. (With apologies to Click and Clack.)