Warning! A Long Read

DATELINE: BREEZEWOOD, PA, 6:45 p.m. EDT

Egad! I've let a few days go by without bringing you any word about my happenstances! How did that happen? Well, lemme tell you. Wednesday night I parked at a Service Plaza along the Ohio Turnpike and could not get a good online connection. Thursday was a complicated evening, and I'll fill you in on that below. Friday through Sunday nights I was at home, busy catching up with home stuff that piles up while I'm on the road. Anyway, here's a recap of what you've missed.

WEDNESDAY, 473 Miles
I started this day dark and early, hitting the road at 3:30 to head down the back roads to the small West Virginia town to make my pickup. I tell ya', that would be a great scenic drive during daylight and in a cool little sports car, but in a big rig it's a bit of a taxing drive. Narrow, 2-lane, twisting, turning, state highways with steep grades; I'm thankful I was pulling an empty trailer instead of a heavy load (that would come later). I found my way to the town, Parsons, all right, but couldn't find the company. It's a major, national brand that you'd all recognize if I mentioned it, but I won't here. All I had for an address was "Highway 219, Parsons, WV." I figured they'd have a huge, can't-possibly-miss-it sign to mark their location. Well, after passing all the way through town and not seeing the company, I pulled to the side of the road and called for directions. It turns out that the company is in a large plant that I had seen before reaching the town, a plant with huge signs displaying the name of another national brand that you'd easily recognize (and no sign for the brand I was looking for). OK, all I needed to do was find a place to turn around and head back.

That, it turns out, was much easier said than done. On these narrow 2-lane highways, there usually is no place to turn around, and I wound up driving for an hour (and crossing into Maryland) before I managed it. (I did come across a place much earlier, but another truck was parked in the middle of the space, not leaving me enough room to make the necessary maneuver. Drat!) So after the 2-hour detour, I finally reached the shipper. The pickup was an easy drop-and-hook, and soon I was back on the twisty roads.

This time I did have a very heavy load, so I was driving very carefully 'til I made it back to the multi-lane, limited-access US highways and interstates. The rest of the day was all hum-drum interstate driving 'til I neared my daily hours limit and pulled into the OH Pike Service Plaza for the night.

THURSDAY, 235 Miles
This turned out to be a fairly short work day, but I didn't know 'til late when I'd be done. My delivery was scheduled for 6:00 p.m. in Livonia, MI, so the drive from my starting point just east of Cleveland wasn't tremendously long. I got started just before noon, figuring to make the delivery early, then find out if I'd get another load before heading home on Friday. Along the way I discovered a problem with my truck that I'd need to get repaired (nothing major, but necessary). So in consulting with the Breakdown Department, we decided that after making the delivery I'd head to the TA in Dexter to get the work done.

I arrived at the delivery customer at about 4:00, but guess what. Yup, at that site they don't do any receiving/unloading 'til 6:00. So I had to park and wait a couple hours. (Actually only 1-1/2 hours; check-in started at 5:30, and they assigned dock doors then.) They finally started unloading my trailer at about 6:30, and they finished about 25 minutes later. Then I was on my way to Dexter for the repair work.

The check-in process and the work took all of about 30 minutes, then I was back in the truck, parking in the TA's lot and heading inside to the Popeye's Chicken for some long-overdue dinner. I still had several hours left that I could work that night, so I was also waiting to see if Dispatch would assign me another load, perhaps something I could pick up and haul down to the Vandalia terminal before heading back home for my weekend off. I stayed up waiting for several hours, then gave up as my 14-hour work window started closing.

FRIDAY, 40 Miles
I managed to sleep in good and late (8:30-ish) Friday morning, then sent a message to Dispatch to see if they had anything for me to do. The reply, "Nope, see you Monday." Awwriiight! I still had to drive to the lot in Romulus where I park my truck during my home time, and since my ride from there (Mrs. R.T.) wouldn't be available 'til early afternoon, I just relaxed in my truck and had breakfast and lunch before making the drive.

One reason I wanted to be home for this weekend is this is the time of year when the fruit on the Concord Grape vine we have in our back yard ripens. I've made jelly from them the last 2 years and I wanted to do that--and take a stab at making grape pies, too--this weekend. Boy were those grapes ready! So after getting home Friday afternoon, I picked a lot of bunches (though still a small percentage of those on the vine) and made 2 pies, one with a double crust, the other with a crumb topping. EEEEE-YUMMMMM! By the way, we still have A LOT of grapes left on the vine; if you'd like some (they're really good for just eating raw, too), just contact me or Mrs. R.T. and we'll let you come and pick some for yourself. But act fast before they get too old or the birds get 'em.

SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Weekend stuff; nothing terribly interesting, except maybe the Oktoberfest party our church held out at the school Saturday evening. 'Twas a good time for all. And I turned the rest of the grapes I had picked into juice for making jelly later.

TODAY, 396 Miles
Mrs. R.T. drove me back to my truck early this morning, arriving there a little after 5:30. I immediately sent in my "Back to work" message, then waited for my next load assignment. That didn't come in 'til nearly 3 hours later: Pick up a load in Romulus (at a place from which I've picked up loads twice before, and only about 2 miles from where I was parked) at 9:00 a.m., then take the load to Robbinsville, NJ for a Tuesday morning (10:30) delivery. This is a run I've made once before--same pickup and delivery--so I know where I'm going with this one. Should be a piece of cake. Robbinsville is down by Philadelphia and Trenton, so I won't be dealing with the NYC traffic overload.

The pickup was quick and easy, and the driving was mostly easy (some heavy rain early on, and slowdowns at a couple of construction sites, but otherwise OK). Reader hrr asked me once if I had ever stopped at the big truck stop here (a TA) in Breezewood. I hadn't at the time, though I had driven past it a few times. Since her asking, I have stopped here for fuel on a couple occasions (it's on USA's fuel network list), though I hadn't stopped for the night nor parked long enough to check the place out. Today I had to fuel up here again, and by then it was getting on into the evening (5:30). I had a few more hours available to drive today, but I decided to call it a day and park for the night. I let my curiosity about this place win me over. I still have around 200 miles to go to get to the delivery tomorrow, but since the appointment's not 'til 10:30, I'll just get up early and drive the miles then.

So that ought to be enough to catch you up on my trucking activities. Though this has already been a long post, let me take some time to answer the following query from reader hrr: "I know that big rigs like yours are manual transmission. Did you know how to drive one before, or was that part of your truck driving school curriculum? Assuming you didn't before, how long did it take you to get comfortable using the clutch on something that big?"

Well, hrr, for one thing, there are automatic transmissions for big rigs now, though my truck is a manual. In fact, USA is adding some to its fleet. (Another USA driver was at my pickup site this morning, and he has an automatic. He hates it, says it's prone to rolling backwards on hills. I've heard various concerns and complaints about automatics, how they're not as powerful, responsive, or fuel-efficient as manuals.) And no, I didn't know how to drive a "stick" before (though I had driven one on one occasion 20+ years ago, and that was on a car, not a 10-speed truck). So that was the thing I had the most trouble with early on. It's hard to believe just how S--L--O--W--L--Y you have to release the clutch so you don't stall the engine. I don't think the size of the vehicle was a factor in how long it took to get used to using a clutch, just the fact that I had to get used to clutching and shifting at all. I also have to say that I don't think my truck (an International model 9400i) has the best clutch/shift mechanism, either. Sometimes, especially with heavy loads, it's hard to get the shift lever out of one gear and into the next. In training and testing I've driven other trucks (Freightliners) and their transmissions shifted much more easily. Plus, my clutch is a partiularly "heavy" one.

Well, that's enough for today (whew!). My apologies for the many missing days' worth of updates. But thanks for continuing to check up on me, and keep on truckin'.