Expect the Unexpected

DATELINE: BIRMINGHAM, AL, 10:00 p.m. CDT

Miles Today: 455

Today certainly didn't turn out the way I had planned. First of all, it was raining all day long (who ever would plan that?). Second, I lost a lot of time having to get a drive tire on my truck replaced. Here's that story.

I slept in a bit this morning and didn't get on the road 'til 8:00. All was going well ('cept for the rain as mentioned above) as I made my way through the Bluegrass State. That was until I came across a weigh station 90 miles from the Tennessee border. I dutifully pulled in line, up the ramp, and across the scales. Suddenly their indicator lights started flashing red, which meant I was to pull to the side and bring all my paperwork inside. I have a heavy load, but I knew I wasn't overweight on any of the axles because I had gotten my truck weighed at a truck stop yesterday and everything was legal. As I was grabbing my paperwork, a state police car pulled up to my truck and the trooper had me hop in the back seat so he could conduct the review there instead of inside the building.

He checked out all of my paperwork--the load's bills of lading, truck and trailer registrations, my driver's license and medical card--and found it all to be in order. Then we got out and he performed a walk-around inspection of my truck and trailer--my first DOT inspection! Everything there was fine except for the one tire--it had a spot where the tread was too shallow, less than the minimum 2/32 of an inch. Fortunately he didn't put my truck out-of-service for that, but he put that violation on the report for me to send in to my company. (No fine is involved, but I wouldn't have had to pay it if there was, it'd be a company expense.)

The inspection episode took between 30 and 45 minutes, eating into the mileage I was expecting to make today. Afterwards, I sent in a message to USA via Qualcomm to let them know about the inspection and tire violation. (They have a "Macro" message--a programmed "form" message for drivers to fill in the blanks for the info they need--to report DOT inspections.) A little while later a response came back, so I pulled into a rest area to read it.

Maintenance had put my truck out-of-service until I could get the tire replaced and gave the the name and phone number of the nearest tire fix-it place for me to go for that. However, I called the number so I could get directions and only got a voice mail message that sounded like a personal phone instead of a business. I wound up taking over a half-hour trying to reach them by phone, then contacting USA's Maintenance department to get either a correct phone number or directions from them. We wound up deciding that I'd continue on my way south and I'd stop at one of the TA truck stops around Nashville to get the tire replaced. (Just about all of the TAs have truck service shops.)

Two hours later (at 2:00 p.m. CDT--I crossed the time zone boundary today) I reached the first one along my route, this one in Franklin, TN. Long story short, I wasn't back on the road 'til 4:30. The actual work only took about 30 minutes; what took most of the rest of the time was getting approval for the work from USA through a computer system called "e-Shop" that's supposed to be easier than the shop calling in for a purchase order (PO) number. Like all such process improvement systems, it's only easier for the company; not for the shop that'll be doing the work or the driver waiting for the work to get done so s/he can get back on the road.

Anyway, once that was done, I managed 3 more hours of driving through the rain before darkness fell completely and I was getting tired. I've stopped for the night at a Flying J here in "Birmingum". I had expected to get a few more miles down the road today, at least into Mississippi, but the multiple delays left me no choice (well, no preferable choice) but to stop here before parking spaces became scarce. As it was, few were left here when I arrived.

So now it's time to wrap this up once more and hit the sack. I want to get up and rolling as I complete my requisite 10-hour break at 5:30 in the morning so I'll get to tomorrow's destination--the closest truck stop to Thursday morning's delivery site--while it's still fairly early. Thanks for looking in once more, and keep on truckin'.