Another Southern Sojourn

DATELINE: FORT CHISWELL, VA, THURSDAY, 8/3/07, 9:15 p.m. EDT

Miles Today: 461

Let me start by answering reader jim's question: "Does anyone ever have two drivers in a truck, so you can keep on delivery schedules?"

Yes, Jim, that's what's known in the biz as team driving. Many teams are on the road, even a lot of husband and wife teams. When I was driving with my trainer last November, that's what we were doing, although I didn't get paid as one (both drivers in a team get paid for the truck's total miles, though not the full per-mile amount that solo drivers earn). Sometimes it sounds like it'd be fun to be part of a team--you'd have someone to talk to and share meals and experiences with. But several factors fill the downside: You have to try to sleep while the truck is moving, often over very bumpy roads; you have no privacy; you have very little down time to relax while the truck is just sitting still. Besides, I'm not a gregarious person and I like time to myself, so my preference is to remain a solo driver. Dispatch (usually) does take a driver's hours into account when scheduling loads, so a solo driver doesn't get assignments that require round-the-clock driving to make deliveries on time. Now back to today's story.

I woke up at 4:30 this morning to send in my "back to work" message to trigger dispatch to find and assign me a load, which I expected would take a while. I was going to go back to sleep 'til the assignment came in, but wasn't tired enough. So I hauled down the laptop and did some web surfing. Eventually I tired of that and decided to try the sleep thing again. This was around 6:30 and, naturally, right after I had shut off the light and settled into my bunk, my Qualcomm box beeped, announcing the arrival of my next assignment message. My mission: pick up a load in York, PA at 11:00 and haul it to a small town in southeastern AL, to deliver it on Saturday morning.

Since York was about 1-1/2 hours from where I was (King of Prussia, PA), I had a little time to kill before I would need to set off. I went into the service plaza and breakfasted at its McDonald's, did some reading in the truck, then decided to get going early anyway. So at 8:00 I was rolling westard. I arrived at 9:30 and went inside the shipper to check in. To my delight, they assigned me a dock right away. This was an inside dock, which meant backing the trailer in through a door to the loading platform inside the warehouse. I always hate that because I'm backing in from bright sunshine into a dark building, making it very difficult to see just where the end of the trailer is in relationship to the loading platform. But, since I'm getting better at this sort of thing, I did it fairly easily. The guy on the dock even told me, as I was chocking the trailer wheels, that I was a good driver. OK, a little boost to my ego. That never hurts. (I guess he didn't see my first attempt at lining up with the door, when I went too far and had to circle around to approach and make my setup again.)

The load went about as usual--around an hour in duration--and I was on my way by 11:00. From that point on my goal for the day was just to get as many miles down the road as I could, since the trip would be over 800 miles. My route is a familiar one: south along I-81, I-77, and I-85 before branching off onto smaller highways in Alabama towards my destination. By the time mid-afternoon (3:45-ish) rolled around, I was getting a bit hungry, and a bit fatigued. I pulled into a truck stop with a Wendy's for a late lunch. After eating, I was really feeling the fatigue, so I allowed myself an hour-long nap--better that than driving the way I was feeling. I woke up still a bit tired, but rested enough to continue on.

I managed another couple hours of driving before the sun started getting lower, as was my fuel gague. The Flying J here (see DATELINE, above) is on USA's fuel network list, so I had made it my destination as I headed south. I decided against stopping for fuel at our Roanoke terminal, because that would have been at least a 1/2-hour delay to get there and back en route. Besides, I easily had enough fuel to get here, and I wanted to arrive before the parking spaces would fill up.

So here I am, telling you all about it. My mandatory 10-hour break will be over at 6:00 in the morning, and I want to get rolling right then. So I'll be getting up at 5:00 to fit in a shower and shave, as well as breakfast, before hitting the road. Since it's now just after 10:00, it's time to wrap up this report and hit the sack. Good thing I'm tired. Thanks for checking up on me, and be sure to keep on truckin'.