New England Swing

DATELINE: BETHEL, PA, 7:00 p.m. EST

Drat! I've fallen behind in my blogging again. My mind has been preoccupied with other concerns these past few days, and I haven't felt the motivation to take the time to describe my work days for y'all. My profuse apologies for that, and I'll catch y'all up today.

SATURDAY, Vandalia, OH to Bloomsburg, PA, 483 Miles
Just another long drive, staying ahead of the winter storm. I did manage that, as I finished my work day before anything started falling from the sky. The sky was grey and gloomy the whole day, foretelling what was to come, but stayed dry for my whole trip.

I stopped at the TA in Bloomsburg, where I had spent a night once before, a few months back, a couple hours shy of my allotted 11 driving hours. Had I gone the full 11 hours, I probably would have been somewhere in New York state, in an area with little in the way of places to park a truck for the night. Besides, NY has a no-idling law (or for no more than 5 minutes at a time), and with the weather as cold as it was, that would have been a problem. (Trucks need to idle to run the heater to keep the cab warm, don'tcha' know.) With still plenty of time to get to my final destination, stopping early wasn't an issue. (Also, 'twas the 4:00 hour, and nightfall comes early in the east this time of year. It's always better to park when it's plenty light out for visibility.)

SUNDAY, Bloomsburg, PA to Willington, CT, 278 Miles
I awoke to snow on the ground, but less than I had expected or feared. Probably only 3 or 4 inches, max. I consulted weather sources online and found that the area I was headed for was due for slightly warmer temperatures and rain, rather than snow. But I was also concerned about my remaining work hours--just 7-3/4--in my 70-hour limit.

I was sure I had just enough to make the delivery (and a place to park afterwards) if the roads were clear and I didn't encounter any delays. I could stay in Bloomsburg and sit out a 34-hour restart, then hit the road around 2:00 Monday morning with a fresh 70. If I did that I would be just a tad late to the delivery. I checked with dispatch if my delivery had a window or if it was a set appointment. To my dismay, it was a set appointment, so I had to do what I could to get there on time (safely, of course).

By the time I settled on a course of action--hitting the road--it had become mid-to-late-morning and the roads had cleared a bit more. So driving wasn't hazardous at all--wet, with some snowy spots, but no trouble for a big rig. The only problem was how hilly the route was. Since I had a very heavy load, I lost quite a bit of time chugging slowly up a lot of steep hills. And I couldn't just "let 'er fly" on the other sides to make up time because of the wet conditions; I had to keep 'er under control.

I knew from my truck stop guide that there are few truck stops in Massachusetts, so I opted to halt for the night at a TA in Willington, CT, just a few miles short of the MA border. There I encountered my only trouble with the snow: they hadn't plowed the parking lot yet, and I nearly bogged down in it when attempting to back into a parking spot. (Another truck just ahead of me was bogged down, its driver working on digging out around his tires.) So I retreated from that area of the lot and found another spot I could drive forward into.

After parking, I headed into the building for a rare (for me on the road, anyway) afternoon/evening shower. I had been all set to take one first thing in the morning in Bloomsburg, but their showers were closed. Since it had been 4 days since I last shaved, I was ready to get cleaned up and smooth-cheeked.

MONDAY, Willington, CT to Willington, CT, 179 Miles
I was up early in order to fuel up my truck and get to my delivery in time for my 7:30 appointment. Since I had roughly 100 miles to go (just a bit less, as it turned out), I gave myself 2 hours to get there 30 minutes early. So I got up at 4:30 in order to get rolling at 5:00.

The drive to the delivery went fine, though some more steep hills and slow traffic, and I arrived as planned. This was a live unload, and a bit of a slow one, so I was at the site for about 2 hours or so. I had about 15 minutes left of my 70 hours, so I needed to find a place to spend the rest of the day--and night--quickly. In my atlas I saw several rest areas along the Massachusetts Turnpike (I-90), so I headed that-a-way after completing the delivery.

Unfortunately, the rest areas/service plazas had VERY small parking areas for trucks, and they were all full. I headed south back down I-84 from whence I had come that morning to see what was available at the Pilot Travel Center along that way. Plenty of parking was available. However, they had a big sign up telling about the no-idling law in MA. So the die was cast: I would just head back to the Willington TA, where I knew I would find plenty of services (Burger King, Dunkin Donuts) and could idle to my heart's content.

That whole search for a resting place took 2 hours. Once there I sent in a message to my Fleet Manager, asking if they were going to pre-plan a pickup for me for the next day so I could make my own plans ahead of time. He replied that they were going to, but first they had to assign loads to the other drivers who were still rolling that day. I spent the rest of the day (from noon-on) in my truck, but no load assignment ever came.

TODAY, Willington, CT to Bethel, PA, 283 Miles
First things first: HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Mrs. R.T., 29 (for the XXth time) and still looking great!

I had expected to be wrenched from dreamland sometime in the middle of the night by my Qualcomm box beeping with the assignment message, but mercifully that didn't happen. I woke up at 6:00 this morning to shower up and be ready for the day's assignment. Once back from the shower (and breakfast at Dunkin Donuts), the assignment still hadn't arrived, so I sent in a message asking for the assignment's ETA. My Fleet Manager replied that I was #1 on the board, so it shouldn't be long. But it still took nearly another hour (maybe more, I wasn't keeping precise track) before the assignment came in.

This was another interesting assignment: Pick up a load at the Port of Newark, NJ, then take it to St. Louis, MO, delivery on Thursday. The pickup was 147 miles away (according to the load message) at 1:00 p.m. Since it was now after 8:30, I needed to plan my route quickly and get rolling ASAP. I also needed to fuel up again.

Yada, yada, long story short, my route took me through the Bronx (a first for me), and because of heavy traffic there and on the NJ Turnpike, I arrived just after 1:00. But nobody seemed to care about that. I checked in, got my assigned dock door, prepped the trailer (opened the doors, slid the rear tandems to the back as requested at that site), and backed to the dock.

This load went quickly, and I was rolling an hour after I arrived. Since this is another very heavy load, I needed to swing through a truck stop to weigh my truck to make sure none of the axles carried too much weight. That proved to be much easier said--or typed--than done.

First I had to drive almost all of the way across NJ to reach a truck stop with scales along I-78 (the route I needed to take). It's a narrow state, so it took an hour or less. I first pulled off at exit 12 to hit the Pilot there. Alas, their scales were out of order, so I negotiated the traffic in the lot there to get back on the highway. At exit 7 are another Pilot and a TA, so I opted to patronize the TA. HEAVY traffic in its lot--it was only the 3:00 hour; why were so many trucks stopping already? Parking so I could go inside to get the scale printout took a while, then once I got inside there was a long and VERY slow line at the fuel desk. Yada, yada, another long story short, weighing, re-weighing, fighting through lot traffic and parking and waiting in line twice, all took almost an hour and a half. So that left me just enough time to make it to our Bethel terminal within the hours I had available to work today. Since I didn't take a 34-hour restart, I'm picking up hours that I used 9 days ago that are rolling off the 8-day window.

A few minutes ago I got a call from the evening dispatcher at USA. I'm now supposed to swap this load with another driver tomorrow at noon at the TA in Breezewood, PA. That new load is headed for Green Bay, WI. I don't know the delivery details yet, but I'm assuming it will still allow me to get home as scheduled on Friday.

And that's that. You're back in step with me. Thanks for waiting out my silent period there; I assure it wasn't any mishaps in the snow that kept me of the webwaves. Drop me a comment, and keep on truckin'.