More Catching Up

DATELINE: OKLAHOMA CITY, OK, 3:00 p.m. CDT

Once again I have a lot of catching up to do here. My apologies for my latest silence, but I've had a very busy--and tiring--few days. (Fortunately, that means I'm getting lots of miles, which means a larger paycheck.) Here's what's been up.

TUESDAY, 546 Miles
As you recall, I was on my way across southern PA, headed for a delivery in Robbinsville, NJ. I got up early enough to reach that delivery on time. That was a drop-and-hook delivery, so I was done there fairly quickly. Then I waited on a side street within the business park there for my next assignment. That came in about 30 minutes later: head up to Kearney, NJ (across the river from Manhattan) and pick up a load there.

The drive to Kearny took a little over an hour. The pickup was another D&H and didn't take much time, either. What was going to take some time was the drive with this load: it was headed for Ardmore, OK, a trip of over 1500 miles. With delivery set for early Friday morning, I had about 66 hours to get there. So off I went.

With the hours I had left to drive that day, I made it to the VA border along I-81. (Aside: That's an interesting stretch of highway along 81; you can visit 4 states in less than 40 miles: Start in PA if you're headed southbound, then cross about 12 miles of MD, then 25-ish miles of WV, then you reach VA. Are there any other such stretches of highway in the country that encroach on 4 states in such a short distance?) Actually, I crossed into VA, then doubled back to the WV welcome center rest area when I found lot at the Flying J in Winchester, VA a complete zoo with nowhere to park. I nabbed the last open spot at the welcome center.

Before bedding down for the night, I hauled out my laptop to compose the day's update for this blog, but I could not get a connection via my Verizon card. (Well, I did actually get a connection, but it was tenuous at best; not stable enough to do any blogging.) Hence the lack of an update for that day.

WEDNESDAY, 659 Miles
Drive, drive, drive. All the way down the western side of VA along I-81 and into TN before picking up I-40 for the directly west portion of my journey. Instead of 4 states in less than 40 miles, today was 2 states in 650+ miles (if we discount the teensy bit of WV I started in), and I only made it about halfway through the second. I reached Fairview, TN, just a bit west of Nashville, and stopped for the night at the Flying J there. I'm sure I could have gotten a good online connection there, but I was plumb tuckered out when I finished my drive. So I just hit the sack.

THURSDAY, 617 Miles
My Fleet Manager had asked me to stop by our Van Buren, AR terminal (also the company's HQ) on this trip for a 30-day, post-orientation review. (Obviously he was just a little tardy in scheduling that; it's been 9-1/2 months since I had orientation.) I got up at 3:00 that morning and was rolling by 3:45 so I could make it to Van Buren (about a 9-hour drive away) while he was still there. (And so I could get to the delivery on time the next morning.)

I did the "terminal hop", stopping at the West Memphis, AR facility for fuel and a bite to eat before crossing the great state of AR to get to Van Buren. The review was 1-1/2 hours of:
- Some waiting (naturally)
- Jotting some notes on a form about how well my fleet manager's doing for me
- Getting a quick tour of a couple of departments in the building, and
- Getting an explanation of how the load coordinators assign loads to drivers.
Such excitement! Afterwards I grabbed a quick bite there and hit the road once more.

I made it as far as a truck stop in Seminole, OK before my available hours for the day ran out. To my dismay, when I tried to blog for you, I could not get an online connection at all.

TODAY (FRIDAY), 385 Miles
I got up this morning at 2:15 and hit the road at 2:30. I had about 150 miles to go to get to my 6:00 delivery appointment, so I knew I had to get going early. (And yes, in case you were wondering, I did get my full 10-hour break in; I have all week.) I made god time and reached the customer by 5:15. This once more was a drop-and-hook delivery, which was a little slower than usual because I had to back my loaded trailer into a fairly tight spot. So it took me 30 minutes at that site instead of 15. Afterwards I retreated to a truck stop back at the highway exit where I had left the interstate (I-35) to get to the delivery. There I waited over 2 hours before my next assignment came in.

This assignment took me back to familiar ground: Pick up a load in Lawton, OK (at a site I've been to 2 or 3 times before) and take it to the Vandalia, OH terminal. I had to take a "back road" to get from Ardmore to Lawton (or at least the interstates that pass by them), but US 70 was a pretty good, fast route. The pickup was once more a drop-and-hook, which disappointed me greatly. I had just picked up a gleaming, must-have-recently-been-brand-spanking-new empty trailer at this morning's delivery, and was hoping to hang onto it for a while. That's the way it seems to go; pick up one of the newer trailers as an empty, then have to swap it for an older, beat-up one at the next pickup. Sheesh! But I digress.

After making that pickup, I headed up to OK City, which is on my route back to Vandalia (I-44 east to St. Louis, then I-70 east to Vandalia). I stopped at the Flying J here to fuel up my truck, then also decided just to spend the night here. I have no deadline to get to Vandalia, because this load doesn't actually deliver until Wednesday morning. Also, the drive to Vandalia is just going to use up my 70-hours-in-8-days limit in just 7 days, so when I get there (which I will do on Sunday, my 7th day on this tour of duty) I'll have to sit out a 34-hour restart anyway. But I hope I can get another week like that; I need the paying miles.

So now you're once again caught up with me. I apologize again for the missing days, and I will do my best to post daily updates. But, unfortunately, that's not always possible. Thanks for following along, please drop me a line, and keep on truckin'.