About Face

DATELINE: JARRELL, TX, 7:45 p.m. CDT

Miles Today: 455

Today turned into another of those in which I do a bit of waiting around, then have to use my whole 14-hour limit to get in my work day. Here's how it went.

I got up at 4:30 to shower and shave before breakfasting on a bowl of cereal in my truck. Then I started my workday at 5:15 with my pre-trip inspection of my truck and hit the road by 5:30. As I had figured, it did take me 3 hours to get to my delivery, including a fuel stop just a few miles before that in Laredo. So when I arrived at the company I got in the line of trucks waiting to get in the gate.

When I checked in at the gate, the guard directed me to park over in a side lot to wait for an opening at the dock. 90 minutes later he finally came over and sent me to a dock for unloading. Since most of my load had been taken off at yesterday's delivery, today's unloading didn't take long, and I was soon heading back to the local Flying J (where I had made the fuel stop on the way down) to park and wait for my next assignment.

One thing that's changed in that area since my stop back in February/March is a brand-spankin' new TA right across the street from the Flying J. The TA has a Burger King, Subway, and Taco Bell (along with their usual sit-down restaurant) in their food court, better choices than those at Flying J': their restaurant, Pepperoni's Pizza, and Magic Dragon Chinese. I was in the mood for pseudo-Mexican, so I ambled across the street for some Taco Bell.

Back to my truck after lunch, my assignment hadn't come in yet, so I had time to head into the Flying J to use their Scan-n-Go kiosk to send in the paperwork for the load I had just delivered. (That's how I get paid, letting USA know I've completed a load.) That took a while 'cuz Scan-n-Gos are slow scanners, like small copiers with the light bar that travels across below the glass platform, and I had 12 pages to scan in, one at a time.

Back in my truck again, still no assignment yet. I was just about to send in a message asking for an ETA for the load assignment when my Fleet Manager called, He said that the assignment had been sent, but that the message wasn't getting to my Qualcomm box. (That has happened before.) Anyway, I was to pick up a loaded trailer at USA's yard in Laredo, only a couple miles from where I had made this morning's delivery.

I hadn't been to that yard before, but I figured I could find it. I wound up following another USA truck that had passed me while I was slowly trawling the area and seemed to be headed in the proper direction. That turned out to be a correct assumption, and he led me right to it. There it was just a matter of parking my empty trailer, finding the one I had been assigned, hooking it up to my truck, and heading back out. Which I did.

This new load is headed to Detroit, due for delivery on Monday. HURRAY! Maybe I'll get to stop by home for a night. Wait a minute...I wonder if I have enough of my 70-hours-in-8-days limit left to make it all the way back. Hmmmm. I couldn't pull out my log and add up my hours 'til I stopped for the night. (Well, I could have pulled into a rest area or truck stop to do that, but I wanted to drive as much as I could in the few hours I had left for the day, not waste time crunching numbers. So I let the matter ride 'til my workday ended.) It turns out that as I sit here now, I only have 20 work hours left for the next 3 days. By my calculations I should be able to get to the West Memphis, AR terminal tomorrow, then to Vandalia on Sunday, using up all of those hours. That will leave me none to get the load to its destination on Monday. :-( Drat. Guess I'll be sitting out another 34-hour break in Vandalia on Monday.

Anyway, I've stopped at a small truck stop in this town between Austin and Wacko--er, Waco. I pulled in just at 7:15, exactly 14 hours since I started my workday this morning. I'm surprisingly not completely worn out as I had expected to be, since I'd been "head tired" all morning. Must've been because I didn't get any caffeine 'til lunch today, and I've been guzzling it all afternoon. But I am pleasantly tired, and expect I will fall asleep pretty quickly once I finish this up, check my e-mail, and sign off. So now I'll get started on that process.

Thanks again for checking up on me. Do drop me a line, and keep on truckin'.