One Day to Go

DATELINE: SEYMOUR, IN, 6:15 p.m. EST

Miles Today: 350

OK, so today wasn't a long work day by usual trucking standards, but I sure got tired by the last hour. Must be the whole 2 weeks I've been out on the road weighing down on me. Anyway, I just need to make 2 stops tomorrow to get rid of the load in my trailer, then it's home for the holidays! Woo-hoo! Can't wait.

My first stopoff tomorrow is a 9:15 a.m. appointment, and the site is just across the highway from the TA where I'm parked tonight. It's literally 1/4 mile away, if that far. So that'll start off the day quickly. However, it will be a live unload since they only get a portion of what's on there. (Meaning I can't just drop the trailer and go.) So I don't know how long that part's going to take. Hopefully not too long.

After that delivery's done, I haul the rest of the load to another Distribution Center ("DC") for the same company, this one in Coldwater, MI. I'm pretty sure that one'll be a drop-and-hook since I've dropped other loads there a couple of times before. So that one ought to be nice 'n quick so I can hit the road for home base. I sure am looking forward to ~10 days at home (I'll head back to the truck on Jan. 2).

This may be my last update to this blog for the year, and if so, have nothing but the happiest of holidays--all of 'em. Thanks for following along as I related my trials, tribulations, and some happy moments this year. The best part of keeping this blog going is getting comments and questions from you all, so please keep 'em coming. All my best to you for the coming year, and keep on truckin'.

Some Excitement

DATELINE: OAK GROVE, MO, 2:00 a.m. CST

Wow, it's been a long day. But the trucking part was not why it was so long. (Well, it is why it started so early.) So let me get that out of the way quickly and move on to the good stuff.

I got up by 4:30 this (well, yesterday now) morning so I could roll at 4:45, when my break hit the 10-hour mark. Yada, yada, drove across the state, drop-and-hook delivery, drove to a nearby Flying J to wait for my next gig, got it after a little more than an hour. Next up: a pickup Monday morning back over just north of St. Louis.

Well now, that gives me lots of free time this weekend. (With this economy and at this time of year, freight has really slowed down, hence my long waits for assignments and free days on the weekends.) So first up I headed over to the Petro truck stop in this town. It's at a well-commercialized exit, so there are plenty of choices for dining. So I spent most of my free time this afternoon in the theater watching the movies they were showing. I caught the tail end of "Flight Plan" with Jodie Foster, then "The Bucket List" (Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman), and "21" with Kevin Spacey. I highly recommend "The Bucket List" if you haven't seen it yet; a good flick and terrific performances by a couple of our best actors.

"21" ended just a bit before 7:00 (CST) toni--er, last night--and that gave me just enough time to get back to my truck, fire up my laptop, and enter a tournament on PokerStars. This tourney, which they hold nightly at 8:00 EST, is becoming one of my favorites (when I don't have to get up real early the next morning). It's a regular No-Limit Texas Hold 'Em event with a 50-cent entry fee. Well, allow me to spare you all the details and tell you that I finally had my first big breakthrough in one of these multi-table tournaments.

Tonight the event had 2804 entrants and paid prizes to the top 549 finishers. I managed to play a mostly conservative game (I've decided the poker gods will not allow me to play aggressive poker--successfully, at least) and finally avoided getting unlucky, as is usually my downfall. I even got lucky and caught a couple of game-saving river cards (the last one turned over in a hand) to stay alive or win pots when I wasn't all-in. Anywho, long (and I mean L-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-N-G, just over 7 hours before I crashed and burned) story short, I raked in a 4th place finish! That turned my 50-cent entry into a $56.09 bump to my poker bankroll! Yaaaa-hooooo! That more than tripled the balance. I'd been treading water with that lately, unable to create a new high-water mark for a while. But this gives me encouragement.

Anyway, that's my day in a nutshell. I've been up for over 22 hours now, so I'd best be getting on to sleep. Well, as soon as the "Poker Success High" cools off a bit. At least I don't have to keep to any set schedule tomorr--er, today--since all I gotta do is cross back to the east side of the state to a truck stop closer to Monday's pickup site. That'll probably be back to Wentzville, from whence I started today's doings. (Oh, and the load I'll be picking up will be bound for 2 stops on Tuesday, in Seymour, IN and Coldwater, MI, after which I go home for the holidays!!!!! My regular 3 days of hometime--since I'll have been out here for 3 weeks--plus my week of paid vacation for the year. I can't wait!!!!)

Thanks for checking in today. Let me hear from you now and then, and keep on truckin'.

OH -> IN -> IL -> MO

DATELINE: WENTZVILLE, MO, 8:30 p.m. CST

Miles Today: 487

Another short report tonight, as it's been a long day after too short a night of sleep, and I gotta' get up and rolling early tomorrow. So right to it.

Up this morning in Vandalia, OH a little after 6:00 EST and on the road by 6:45. Got to my delivery just to the southwest of Indianapolis by 9:45. Thankfully, the weather was warm enough down where I was that we just had rain (quite heavy for a while) instead of the ice and show reported up to the north. So driving was not treacherous at all. It was a fairly quick live unload, and my next assignment came in fairly quickly afterwards.

My next pickup was in Lebanon, IN, just northwest of Indy. That one was a drop-and-hook, but took an hour nonetheless. And now I'm on my way with the load to it's destination in Harrisonville, MO, which is a tad south of Kansas City. Delivery time is set for 9:00 a.m., so I gotta get up and boogie-ing as soon as I've had 10 hours of break tonight.

Let's see, I parked here (the TA in this town, a little bit west of St. Louis) at 6:45 p.m., so I'll be rolling at 4:45. (Both times CST.) I still have over 200 miles to go, so we'll see if I make it on time or not. This one's gonna' be a drop and hook, so I don't think it'll be too terrible if I'm a few minutes behind schedule. Besides, this was one of those runs with little "wiggle room" in the schedule, most of which was eaten up by rush-hour traffic on the bypass around St. Louis.

OK, I've had my dinner (Popeye's Chicken), brushed my teeth, Facebooked, talked with Mrs. R.T. on the phone, and blogged, so I guess it's time to hit the sack. Thanks for your interest today. Keep them comments and questions coming, and keep on truckin'.

What? Ohio Again?

DATELINE: VANDALIA, OH, 9:45 p.m. EST

Sorry for missing last night, gang. 'Twas one of those nights lacking blogger motivation. But I did get to deliver that load in the Columbus area a day early and picked up another assignment. After delivering the load and getting my next assignment, I spent the night at the Pilot in Hebron, OH, just east of Columbus.

I picked up the load I'm currently working this morning in Willow Island, WV. I got up at 4:30 this morning to make the 2-hour drive to Willow Island by the 7:00 pickup time. Pickup was a drop-and-hook, but it still took an hour to complete. I have a 10:00 a.m. delivery appointment tomorrow in Plainfield, IN, which is by Indianapolis, so I opted to stop at our terminal here in Vandalia for the night. It's only 1-1/2 to 2 hours from here to the delivery, so I'll get up in time to get rolling at about 7:00. That ought to get me there fashionably early.

I got here to the terminal around noon, so I've been working on my lack of poker skills most of the afternoon. It's definitely a grind when you're not a "card magnet". But so far I'm marginally ahead for the day. I'm currently trying desperately to hang on into the money in a tournament...getting close but running short on chips. It doesn't help being card-dead, too.

So that's the story for today and yesterday. Thanks for looking in on my journeys, and keep on truckin'.

Economical Prose

DATELINE: MT. AIRY, NC, 8:30 p.m. EST

Miles Today: 400 on the nose

Sorry gang, too tired tonight for a wordy update. Just the basics, if you please.

- Delivery in Maxton, NC
- 2-hour wait for next assignment
- Pickup in Fayetteville, NC, bound for Lockbourne, OH (just south of C-bus), delivery due on Thursday
- The par-for-the-course "anomalies" at delivery and pickup to make things "interesting" (including the welt and probable future discoloration on the back of my right index finger)
- Waiting to hear back from my 2 queries if I can deliver early, since I can get there on Wednesday
- Lotsa' weather variations today, from dense fog in the morning to mostly clear and warm in the early afternoon to colder and rainy shortly thereafter.
- S----L----O----W 'net connection tonight, exacerbating my physical and emotional fatigue. I wanna get done (with this and other pressing online tasks) so I can get to bed!

So that's that. Thanks for perusing my quickie tonight, and keep on truckin'.

To the South

DATELINE: KENLY, NC, 9:30 p.m. EST

Miles Today: 491

Gonna keep this short tonight, 'cuz I'm a bit tired after a longish day. Not too bad a day though, mostly drivin'. But my pickup this morning had a couple of anomalies.

First of all, I arrived at the company and went to their Shipping & Receiving door. However, the guy there told me that pickups are handled at their other facility about a mile away. He said that I was the 3rd or 4th driver who showed up there this morning for a pickup. He and I both don't know why our pickup assignments can't have the right address on them. So I cruised on over to the proper facility.

I checked in there and was assigned a dock door right away. So I drove around the back of the building where my door was and...another trailer was already in the door. (Just the trailer, no cab.) So I had to circle back to the office and ask for a new door assignment. No biggie, but I'm just waiting for any pickup or delivery to be completely anomaly-free. But once docked, loading went mucho pronto. So all in all it wasn't bad at all.

Once underway south (this load is going to Maxton, NC), the drive went just fine, though long and tedious (as always). Just the normal stops for weighing the truck, fuel, and leg-stretching. I stopped for the night at a TA here in Kenly. It's at the Truck Stop Road exit off of I-95, and there are 3 truck stops at this exit. A Flying J across the highway, and the TA and a Wilco Hess across the street. I've stopped here a few times before on my way past, though not always overnight. (This TA used to be an approved fuel stop.)

So I have a bit more than 100 miles to go tomorrow morning to reach my delivery. That appointment's at 9:30, so I'll probably get rolling sometime during the 6:00 hour. Which means I need to get to bed shortly. I am currently fighting my way through another Texas Hold 'Em tournament, getting close to the "bubble" (the point at which the remaining players make the money). My stack is getting short and the dealer's not giving me very good cards, so I may be done with that very soon.

Anyway, thanks for checking up on me today. I look forward to your comments and questions, so keep on truckin'.

Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me

DATELINE: HARRISBURG, PA, 11:00 p.m. EST

Well, I'm just winding up a full day off from driving, so it's time to bring you up to speed with my latest trucking exploits. I hope I can keep this report civil, because it's been one he** of a frustrating week, and though today was a day off, the frustrations continued. Since I had the whole day free, I spent most of it online trying to grow my poker bankroll. And as always happens when I have the whole day to do that, it was a complete and utter disaster. I have no idea what I've ever done to offend the Poker gods that they would treat me so badly. But you're not here to read about me complaining about my Poker misfortunes, you're here to read about me complaining about my trucking misfortunes. So I'll get right to that.

Let's see, where did I leave off? Oh yes, I was in Walcott, IA after a long day that started off with a 4-hour wait at a pickup in Louisville, KY. That was on Wednesday. Thursday started off much better, even though I did have to get up early (4:30 a.m.) to get to my Des Moines delivery by 8:00. Which I did, arriving at 7:45. Lo and behold I checked in, docked, got unloaded, and was out of there in just over 30 minutes! That's how my stops all should be. Afterwards I drove over to the Pilot a mile up the highway to fuel up and wait for my next load assignment.

Can you guess where this is going? Yup, I waited. And waited. And waited. An waited some more. It was a slow day for loads in Iowa, and I didn't get my assignment for nigh on 7 hours! I think that's a new record for futility. Anyway, the pickup was at 6:00 that evening in Waterloo, about 120 miles away. Naturally, my 14-hour window for that day would end at 6:45, but I figured I'd get there a few minutes early (which I did), get loaded in an hour or so, and bop over to one of the truck stops in town for the night.

Can you guess where this is going? Yup, loading my trailer there took over 4 hours! So it was after 10:00 p.m. by the time I got out of there. Fortunately, I did find a spot at the second truck stop I pulled into and hit the sack.

Friday morning I woke up to 2-degree weather. Brrrr! I wasn't ready for that! But at least it was bright and sunny. My load was bound for York, PA, a 900-plus-mile trip, so Friday was all about cranking out the miles. I managed 597 of 'em and finished up at a Service Plaza along the Ohio turnpike, just west of Cleveland.

Yesterday I had to crank out a bunch more miles to get to my York delivery by 2:00 p.m. And I made it there about 15 minutes ahead of schedule. I'd delivered to that site once before, a drop-and-hook. But this time I was scheduled for a live unload. Can you guess where this is going this time? Yup. I don't know what it is, but all of a sudden Shipping and Receiving departments are having a hard time being prompt in their work. This time it took 'em over 3 hours to unload my trailer. Gee, short by comparison to other recent stops. But they're still supposed to get us drivers in and out within 2 hours.

Oh well. When they were finally done I drove over and parked at a nearby diner with truck parking. There I waited over an hour and a half for my next load. Lo and behold, more waiting was built into the assignment. The pickup wasn't (isn't) 'til tomorrow (Monday) morning at 10:00. Hence my free day today. The pickup's in Reading, PA and I'll be taking it to southern NC for a Tuesday morning delivery. That's just over 500 miles, so I'm hoping for a quick load so I can get on my way quickly. But we'll just see about that, eh?

So that catches you up with me. It's time for me to hit the sack, so thanks for dropping by. Please drop some questions and comments by, too, and keep on truckin'.

Filler: The Sequel

DATELINE: HARRISBURG, PA 9:15 p.m. EST

Just another quick note tonight to let you know I'm too tired for a full recap of events of the last 3 days. I delivered a load this afternoon and now have nothing 'til a pickup Monday morning, so I'll have ample time tomorrow (Sunday) to write up a good report for y'all (unless I get too tied up at the poker tables). Thanks for lookin' in, sorry I don't have more for you tonight. But keep on truckin'.

Filler

DATELINE: AMHERST, OH, 10:00 p.m. EST

Sorry, not a real update tonight. I'm on my way to York, PA tomorrow (after being as far west as Des Moines, IA and spending last night in Waterloo, IA) with no spare time in my schedule. Yesterday and today have both been long and tiring, and I need to get to bed. Perhaps tomorrow I'll have time to fill in the story. Check back to find out. But thanks for checking today, and keep on truckin'.

Waitin' In the Dock All The Day (Seemingly)

DATELINE: WALCOTT, IA, 8:00 p.m CST

Miles Today: 463

Ya' know how yesterday I wrote that my pickup this morning would probably be a drop-and-hook and I'd quickly be on my way to Iowa? Yeah, right! So much for me predicting the future! Turns out that this time my pickup at that place was a live load. And because of the type of load it is, they needed to wait for an inspector to OK it before they could put it in my trailer.

Notice the word "wait" in that last sentence? I use that a lot lately, don't I? Well, this time I was at that site for 4 *&%**%ing hours, eating up valuable driving time (and potential free time at this end). By the time I was cleared to leave, I had only 9 hours of time left to drive before my 14-hour window for the day would expire. So I'm about 100 miles short of where I should have reached today. Therefore I'll have to get up and drive an extra 2 hours early in the morning to get to the Des Moines delivery on time.

On the other hand, the driving was clear all the way and I had just enough time today to get to one of my favorite truck stops, the Iowa 80 TA, a.k.a. "The World's Largest Truck Stop", here in Walcott. They gots a Taco Bell in their food court, so dinner was cheap tonight. (Other options: Pizza Hut Express, DQ, & Wendy's, along with their regular restaurant.) Whenever you get the chance to travel out this way (I-80 about 25 miles east of the IA/IL border), stop in for a look-see.

Well, like I mentioned, I'll have to arise early in the mornin' and today was a long one, so it's time to wrap this report up and set off for the land o' nod. Thanks for pointing your browser this way today. Keep them cards 'n letters--er, comments and questions--coming, and keep on truckin'.

Short, Strange Trips

DATELINE: BROOKS, KY, 6:50 p.m. EST

Well then, today was "interesting". I'd say "unique", but as you regular readers know, many things happening to my detriment in one day (well, two, since it all started yesterday) is nothing new or unique. So I'd best get right to my tale.

I didn't post anything here on Sunday 'cuz it was my off day and I had nothing substantial to write about, 'cept for a slight increase in my online poker bankroll. That was disappointing 'cuz when I have a day off, I'd like to make a substantial increase to the bankroll. But I guess I'm not allowed that kind of success. Just gotta' keep grinding it out.

Yesterday morning I got up and headed to my pickup in Seymour, IN, arriving at 6:30 for what I'd been told was a 7:00 pickup time. Naturally, when I got there, the sign on the door said shipping hours started at 7:30. Grrrr! More good info from Dispatch. So I had to wait an hour for the place to open up. But once they did, loading up went pretty quickly and I was soon on my way to the load's destination in Sidney, OH.

As I made my way north along I-65 in IN, it began to rain. And with the temperature below freezing, that made for some tricky conditions. I didn't have any troubles handling my truck, but others (cars and pickups--what we big rig pro's call "4-wheelers") did, and I had to slog through a multi-mile backup caused by a small pickup that had flipped in the median. So that put me behind schedule a bit, and I arrived at the delivery about 45 minutes late.

But nobody was concerned about that, and the delivery was a quick drop-and-hook, after which I boogied on over to our Vandalia, OH terminal. Then I had another wait. This time it took nearly 3 hours for my next assignment to come in. The pickup was 80-ish miles away in Loveland, OH (just north of Cincy) at 10:00 p.m. Now, nobody in Dispatch appears able to compute "time math" keeping drivers' hours of service (HOS) rules in mind. There was no way I could make that pickup time either within my 14 hours from the time I started work for the day (which would have ended at 7:30 p.m.) or by counting a 10-hour break from the time I finished my delivery (1:00 p.m.) before heading over there. So everybody seemed cool with me going over for the pickup after I completed my break, as long as I could make the delivery in Louisville, KY by 6:00 this morning. So I hit the sack for a few short hours of nappage before starting an overnight shift.

Because of my need to follow the DOT HOS regulations, I headed out from Vandalia at 11:30 p.m. and didn't arrive at the shipper 'til 12:30 a.m. and found the place all closed up and dark. What nobody had bothered to think of, or think to tell me, was that the shipper closed at midnight. So I wound up camping out on the street in front the place 'til they opened at 8:00. (At least I got some unexpected sleep!) All the while my 14-hour clock was ticking. By the time I was loaded and rolling towards Louisville, it was 9:00 and I had but 4-1/2 hours left to work for that shift.

Fortunately, Loo-ville is only a 2-hour drive from the Cincinnati area, so I had plenty of time to get there. But en route the heavens opened up and I had to drive through some heavy rains. I'm quite glad the weather had turned a bit warmer--in the 50s--so I had no ice concerns this time. That would be bad in the hills on I-71 in KY. But the company to which I delivered the load was small and had a quite small area for maneuvering my truck into the dock. Which was exacerbated by other vehicles--trucks in the other 2 docks, employee cars along the periphery. But I finagled my beast in there. While they were unloading the trailer, I surveyed the situation some more and concluded that, with no room to turn my truck around in the lot, I'd have to back out into the street when it came time to leave. Always a joy.

But all went well and I had just enough time left to head over to the Pilot here in Brooks, just south of the big city. Just when I got here and into a parking space, my next assignment came in. Tomorrow morning I'm heading back into town to pick up a load bound for Des Moines, IA. (I've picked up a load at that place once before, so I'm pretty sure it's going to be a quick drop-and-hook pickup.) I've yet to check the weather forecast for that route, but I hope it's free of winter storm watches and warnings.

Oh, more about today's joys. I needed to handle some paperwork for a real estate deal with some partners from my previous life. So with my free (or rather, "available"--there was nothing free about it) time this afternoon I had to call one of the partners to give him the fax number for this Pilot; wait for then pay for the fax ($14); find a Notary Public, which I determined to be at a UPS Store somewhat in the vicinity; call for a taxi, then wait over an hour for it; ride on over to the UPS Store; sign the document, get it notarized, and send it overnight to another one of the partners ($27 + change); and take the taxi back (round trip + tip: $65). Oy veh! Unpleasant but necessary to close out the whole shebang by the end of the year.

Well, I've come to the end of my sorry tale. Hopefully things will go smoothly tomorrow for a change--a quick pickup and then just drive, drive, drive. The pickup's at 7:00, so I'll be getting up around 5:15 to hit the shower before hitting the road. So it's soon off to bed for me.

Thanks for looking in today. I do love to see comments and questions from my readers, so send 'em early and send 'em often. (You know, pretend you're voting in Chicago. Or pretend I'm the Illinois Governor and you want the President-Elect's Senate seat.) And, as always, keep in truckin'.

The Return

DATELINE: MEMPHIS, IN, 6:15 p.m. EST

TA DA! I'm back! Many humblest apologies for my disappearance from the blog waves these last few weeks. The major factors that kept me silent were:
1. USA's been keeping me busy, with long days and tight schedules that left me little spare free time to compose daily updates for y'all. I've had to limit most of my nightly breaks to 10 hours in order to keep the delivery and pickup schedules. So with the long days, I've needed to spend most of that break time sleeping.
2. The whole grind of the job and other pressures of life have been getting to me lately, and when I have had some spare time, I haven't been in the proper frame of mind to write these reports. (And here's a secret: I'm very slow at writing them. It takes me a long time to form up these word things just the way I want them to be.)

Anyway, I am back now after a long, hard truckin' week. I had the good fortune to have a couple extra days at home for Thanksgiving because the yard where I park my truck during home time was closed over the weekend. It reopened at midnight Sunday night, so Mrs. R.T. drove me back there then. I had been sitting on a load over the weekend that was due at 5:00 Monday morning in Findlay, OH, so after getting things squared away in the truck, I headed out. (Did I mention that I had had a long, busy day on Sunday and was therefore pulling an all-nighter? That made for a fun work day.) The delivery went fine (a drop-and-hook)...you know what, I'm getting tired again, so I don't feel I can sustain a blow-by-blow account of my work week. Suffice to say that it's been all run-run-run, and I'm still working on correcting the sleep deficit with which I started out the week. But here's a summary.

Monday: 351 miles, Romulus, MI to Findlay (delivery), Columbus (pickup), and Lima (another delivery), OH. Parked for the night in Beaverdam, OH.

Tuesday: 565 miles. Picked up a load at our Vandalia, OH terminal and started the long trek to its Uxbridge, MA destination. Stopped for the night in Bloomsburg, PA.

Wednesday: 594 miles. Delivery in Uxbridge, pickup in Townsend, MA, destination: West Jefferson, OH. Stopped for the night in Newburg, NY.

Thursday: 586 miles. Finished the long drive to West Jefferson and delivered the load. Parked in London, OH.

Friday: 453 miles. Pickup in Marion, OH, drive to and deliver in Glasgow, KY. Park in Smith's Grove. KY.

Today: Dropped my empty trailer at another company in Glasgow, bobtailed to Clarksville, IN to pick up another empty trailer. Because my hours are running short, I need a 34-hour break. So my next pickup is Monday morning in Seymour, IN and I'm at a Pilot in here in Memphis (IN, not TN) for the weekend. Whew! Do I ever need that break!

Well, it's 7:30 now, and I'm definitely feeling very tired. I'm set on the rise-very-early-get-to-bed-early schedule these days, so that's to be expected. So I'll wrap this up now. Begging your pardon once more for my lengthy absence from this blog. I hope to do better at keeping a near-daily update schedule here. Send me your best thoughts that I can manage it.

Thanks for continuing to check up on my during my blog break. Let me hear from you, and keep on truckin'.

North Out of FLA

DATELINE: SPARTANBURG, SC, 8:30 p.m. EST

Miles Today: 601

Whew! What a long day, and it's not quite done yet. Y'see, I'm at our terminal here in S'burg and taking advantage of the laundry room, doing a load. So I have another hour yet before the dryer finishes up. Therefore I have some time to blog away for y'all. Hopefully I can stay awake that long, so I'd better get right to my story. But first a recap of yesterday.

Not much to tell about my Sunday. I slept in 'til seven-ish, grabbed a quick shower (but was too lazy to shave), hopped in my truck (well, after toweling off and getting dressed again) and hit the road. My mission for the day was to get close to the site of my Monday morning pickup in Freeport, FL. However, there aren't any truck stops very nearby, so I stopped in Marianna, about 75 miles away. That was good enough. When I arrived there at 2:00 p.m. (actually 1:00, since I crossed back into the Central Time Zone), I was inexplicably very worn out. I thought I had had enough sleep that night, and felt good when I got up, but for some reason I just wore down through the "short" (330 miles) drive.

But I didn't go right to bed then. 'Twas time for some food, so I answered the siren song of the "Mexican Grill" sign at the strip mall right next to the Pilot where I was parked. It didn't live up to expectations. Oh well. After that I did a little shopping for some things I needed at the Dollar Tree and Wal-Mart in the shopping center. THEN I returned to my truck and hit the sack. And I hit it hard. I was still snoozing soundly when Mrs. R.T. called me around 8:45 p.m. as she is wont to do. After that confab, I pulled down the ol' laptop for a quick update to my Facebook page and chatted some w/ my niece who happened to be online at the time. But then I couldn't get back to sleep. 'Twas well after midnight when I finally did, and I needed to get up at 4:30. So that made for a day of fatigue fighting today.

I got my work day started at 5:00 this morning by pulling around to the fuel island and filling up the tanks. Then I set off for Freeport. Well, I won't go into the story of the incorrect directions, save to say it took an extra hour to get there. Which wasn't good because my available hours situation for the next couple of days leave me just enough to make it to the delivery in New Jersey Wednesday morning on time. So I don't have any wiggle room in there for backtracking and driving extra miles. But I recovered easily enough, made the pickup, and headed north.

Naturally this load doesn't afford me any time to pull over for a quick rest, nor to stop early for the night, so I soldiered on through my fatigue and made it all the way here to Spartanburg with only 15 minutes left of my available driving hours for the day. Tomorrow I need to get as far as I can as well, which I estimate will be somewhere around Harrisburg, PA. That will leave me with just a couple (or 3) hours to drive early on Wednesday morning to reach the Flanders, NJ delivery.

So that's the encapsulated version of my last 2 work days. If I'm not too tired tomorrow night I'll write you up a report on the day's drive. Thanks for following along. Drop me a line or two, and keep on truckin'.

Runnin' and Runnin'

DATELINE: TAMPA, FL, 5:30 p.m. EST

Whew! Finally some time to breathe and blog. Sorry for missing the last 3 days, but USA's been keeping me running and, with delays at shippers and deliveries, I've just had time at night after parking to grab dinner and pop open the laptop for a quick update on Facebook. (News Flash: I now have a Facebook page. Those of you who know my true identity and have Facebook accounts can look me up.) I've been too tired each night to compose reports for this blog, so I've just dropped in quick updates via Facebook's "What are you doing right now?" feature to let people know where I get to each night. (Tip: If you go looking for a new Reluctant Trucker posting and don't find one on any given day, you can check Facebook for that info. Those of you not yet on Facebook, go ahead and sign up, then add me as a friend.) Anyway, I have some time now, though I'm tired again, so here's a quick catch-up of my last few days. Let me emphasize: This will be a QUICK update; I'm too tired to go into lengthy details tonight. But I'll let you know where I've been and where I'm going next.

Wednesday was a long day, though not by on-duty measure. I woke up early--before 6:00--though not intentionally. My delivery wasn't 'til 11:00 a.m. only 30 miles away, so I would have liked to have slept later. Oh well. But I made the delivery (traffic jam en route), then my next pickup was from the same company. That load was bound for delivery the next day in Batesville, AR (northeast of Little Rock), so I made it to Prescott, AR for the night.

Thursday morning I was up in time to get rolling as my break reached the 10-hour mark. The drive to and delivery in Batesville went fine, then I was off to Stuttgart, AR for another pickup. I arrived by the scheduled time for that pickup, but the shipper was busy and slow, so it took over 3 hours before I was done there and on my way. That load's destination was Harahan, LA (a southwest 'burb of N'awlins), due for delivery Friday morning at 11:00. So Thursday I just had enough available time remaining to get to a TA in Tallulah, LA.

Friday: Up again to roll at my break's 10-hour mark (5:30 a.m.). Arrived at the delivery just as a thunderstorm deluge let loose, so I had to open up my trailer doors in the rain. Slow unloading process; almost 2 hours from arrival to departure. But I had my next pickup location before I left: I was to pick up a load from another driver at a rest area along I-10 by Bay Saint Louis, MS. I've stopped at that rest area a couple times in the past on my way by, so I knew it. (There's a MS Welcome Center there, as well as the place to catch tours of the nearby Stennis Space Center. So it's rememberable.) It took me a bit over an hour to get there, but the other driver was already there waiting for me and the swap (my empty for his loaded trailer) went right quick. That load's destination was a company in Tampa, FL, so I hit the road eastward. I gave in to fatigue just a tad short (by 90 minutes) of my workday's 14-hour mark, and halted for the night at the FL Welcome Center/Rest Area outside of Pensacola.

This morning I got up at 3:45 a.m. (CST) so I could roll at 4:00. The load's original delivery time was set for 11:00, but it would have been mathematically impossible to cover the distance and fit in my 10-hour break from the time I picked it up. Another case of the company asking me to do the impossible. Not much I could do about it, so I just let Dispatch know my ETA for the delivery (2:00 p.m.) and hit the road. 'Twas a long drive (8-1/4 hours), but it and the delivery went relatively OK. So after leaving there I headed over to the TA in this town. My next pickup is back up in the FL panhandle (in the town of Freeport) Monday morning, so I could stay here for the night, then drive the 350 miles towards Freeport tomorrow. A bonus: This TA is one of the few on USA's fuel network since the change to nearly exclusively Pilots, so I could fill up my truck's tanks and earn a shower credit. PLUS I'll earn enough bonus points that I'll have enough of them to buy a shower when I don't have a shower credit available. (I've had that just-short balance for months now.) So I've earned 2 showers with 1 fuel purchase, and I'll be able to stay at TAs a couple times now and get cleaned up in the morning before starting my day. Cool!

And that gets you caught up with me. I apologize again for the 3 nights without reporting, but I gotta' sleep when I can. Thanks for your patience--both in waiting for a new report and for slogging through my drivel. ;-) And be sure to keep on truckin'.

Unexpected (and Unwelcome) Change in Plans

DATELINE: HUTCHINS, TX, 5:00 p.m. CST

No doubt the astute readers of this blog are confused about the dateline at the top of this report. It's supposed to read, "VAN BUREN, AR", because, as you all know, I'm scheduled for a training class today through Thursday. You regular readers also recall that Dispatch has had trouble getting me home on time lately. Well, they've performed equally admirably in getting me to Van Buren. That is to say, they didn't. Apparently their lone priority for company trucks is to make sure they're pulling loads (or on their way to pick one up). NOT getting drivers where they're supposed to be, even if it's for a scheduled training course so the driver can become an even greater asset to the company. Anyway, here's my story since I left off in West Memphis on Sunday.

After I completed blogging, I treated myself to dinner at the Mexican restaurant down the street from the terminal. When I got back to my truck, I had a message from Dispatch that my current load (the one with the troublesome trailer) had been set up for me to drop it there in West Memphis so I could get another assignment. Just a bit later the next gig came in: grab a loaded trailer from the West Memphis lot and take it to its 8:30 a.m. delivery in Garland, TX. Now, this was after 7:00 p.m. It's about an 8-hour drive from West Memphis to the Dallas area (Garland is a northeast 'burb of Dallas), so that meant I'd have to get rolling by midnight. Fortunately, it also allowed me to grab 3 hours of shut-eye, much-needed since I'd been up all day. (Well, I did have a couple of short naps that afternoon.)

So my alarm woke me at 11:00, I hooked up the new trailer, stopped by the nearby Pilot to weigh the truck, and headed west. By the time I reached the Texas border at Texarkana, I was feeling the fatigue, so I pulled into the Texas Welcome Center/Rest Area there and--wonder of wonders--found an open parking spot. (Usually hard to come by at 4:45 a.m.) I parked, sat back in my driver's seat, and grabbed a quick power nap of about 20-25 minutes. It's amazing how well those work. I then completed the drive to the delivery a few minutes before my appointment time. It was familiar territory, because the company is on the same street--just a block down--from another where I've delivered loads twice before.

I had just a brief wait for my assigned dock to open up. (That is, for the truck there before me to finish up and leave.) After that, the delivery went quickly for a live unload. Then I pulled over to the other side of their lot to await my next assignment. And wait. And wait. After an hour I sent in a message asking where I stood on "the board" of drivers waiting for assignments. The response: I was #57. Oy! That meant I had a bit of a wait yet. The problem was that as I sat there, my 14-hour clock for that shift was ticking away. By the time it got down to 30 minutes remaining with no assignment, the writing was on the wall. It was time to find a place to park for the "night". So I headed out and drove to the Love's in Rockwall, about 30 minutes away, just east of Dallas. By this time it was around 1:00 p.m.

Once parked at the Love's, I grabbed a Guacamole Bacon Burger (my latest favorite) from their Carl's Jr. outlet and returned to my truck. Lo and behold, my next assignment was waiting for me. It was for a pickup over by Fort Worth--at 3:30 p.m. Apparently the Load Coordinators and my Fleet Manager don't look at drivers' available hours, either, (or read the message I had sent them earlier about my time running out) because they assigned me the load even though it was designated as a "hot" one that needed to be picked up on time. I messaged in that I was on my MANDATORY 10-hour break and that I couldn't pick up the load in time. (By the way, the load was bound for CT, so I'd be able to haul it to and drop it in Van Buren when I got there for my class. It would have been an ideal solution.) My FM called to discuss the situation, and even asked if I could somehow make the pickup and then finish my break. This is my 3rd FM since I started with USA, and as far as I'm concerned he's not doing a very good job for me. He has the poorest track record for getting me home on time, and now he was suggesting I violate the DOT hours-of-service regulations. If he'd done his job well to begin with, he never would have assigned me the load. But somehow I appeared to be the bad guy because I couldn't make a pickup assigned to me. (Pardon me while I vent there.) Anyway, the down side to the whole affair was that if I couldn't make that pickup, then they didn't have any other loads they could find to get me to Van Buren and they'd have to cancel my training.

Now remember, the training class was for me to learn how to become a trainer in the company's Apprenticeship Driver Training program and, therefore, earn more money. Which I really need. So, needless to say, I was not in my "happy place" when a replacement assignment came in, which included a midnight pickup this morning just north of Fort Worth and delivery back in Garland at 11:00 tomorrow morning. That's right, a whole credited 53 miles there, and 53 more back. For the whole day. Oh, and did I mention that this new assignment was to pick up a loaded trailer from an intermodal transfer site? That is, I'd be picking up a trailer that had travelled to the site by rail car. So I couldn't take my empty trailer there. On the way I'd have to drop it at the drop yard we use in Dallas. So let me fill you in on how that whole trip went. It makes Homer's little "Odyssey" story seem trivial.

- At first, things started out OK, as I managed a couple hours of sleep before having to get started. But once underway, as I drove west towards "Big D", a thunderstorm rolled in. I mean a deluge of near-biblical proportions. So that slowed the driving down in order to be able to see. And it, naturally, was at its heaviest when I got to the drop yard and had to get out and unhook the trailer. I was worried going over there that I'd be slogging through mud (it's a dirt lot) to unhook, but it turned out that I was wading through a lake instead. So besides my pants getting wet from the downpour (I did have a semi-water-resistant jacket with hood, so my upper body stayed dry), my feet got soaked, too.
- Then, heading west on I-30, I got delayed in a jam when they closed the freeway, apparently due to flooding in an underpass area. But I found my way around that easily enough. (Good thing I've been in the area a few times and know the basic highway layout between Dallas and FW.)
- Next up was some difficulty finding the right road near the pickup because the provided directions gave the wrong exit number off of the highway. But, again due to my familiarity with the area, I worked that out, too.
- As I headed down the last road to the pickup, I asked, "so what's next?" It didn't take long to find out. As I neared the entrance to the pickup site, railroad warning lights came on and the gates came down across the road. Had it done so 5 to 10 seconds later and I would have made it across. So I had to wait for a lengthy train. BUT, to top it off, as the end of the train finally crossed the road, it stopped! This was a 4-lane divided road I was on (2 lanes on either side of a grass median), and the train had actually cleared my side but stopped while still completely blocking the other. So, of course, the gates stayed down and I had nowhere to go. For about 45 minutes.

Well, it's been another long day and fatigue is setting in again, so I'll just get on with it and stop dwelling on the "challenges" I faced last night. The rest of the pickup went OK, and the rain even let up. Because of the hour of the night (now around 2:00 a.m. this morning), I knew I'd never find a place to park at the nearby Pilot. But the road near it (the service road alongside I-35W) has a nice, wide shoulder and a lot of trucks park there. So I did, too, just for a short, 4-hour nap. I got up at 6:30 when parking places would be clearing out at truck stops. However, instead of just parking at that Pilot, I needed to get to one on our fuel network so I could get some cash, too. (We can get up to $160/week as a cash advance when we fuel up. Also, that Fort Worth Pilot used to be on our network, but isn't anymore. Curious--and inconvenient.) The nearest one is a Pilot in Weatherford, about 20 miles west of FW, so I headed over there. Besides fueling up, I took the opportunity to grab a shower and shave, since I was in need of those, too.

Once all cleaned and fueled up, I headed back east. With my delivery tomorrow in Garland, I want to be closer and not have to deal with rush-hour traffic between the two cities. So instead of staying in Weatherford (which was tempting), I opted for the Love's over here in Hutchins, just south of Dallas. (I've stayed here a few times before, largely because of the pull of their Carl's Jr.) I got here around 9:00 and headed right in for a Steak 'n Egg Burrito. Always something I look forward to on my sojourns into Texas. Since then I've mostly been at the online poker tables, having a reasonably good day at them. (Again, playing tournaments exclusively.) I increased my bankroll by over 12%, so it's now at $30.44, almost back up to its all-time high. My big score was a multi-table Texas Hold 'Em tournament with a $1.10 buy-in, in which I cashed for $3.85! That was for 201st place out of 3843 entrants. Of course, coming down the stretch of that one, once I made the money I went completely card-dead, so I couldn't come up with an even bigger score. Oh well, it's progress anyway, because I'd been mostly unable to make it to the money at all in the multi-table tourneys.

So now I think I've caught you up with my misadventures and I need to start working on catching up with all the sleep I've missed the last couple of days. Thanks for dropping by. Please send me some comments and questions--it does brighten my day when I see a number other than zero in the number of comments for a given posting. And keep on truckin'.

Weekend Woes

DATELINE: WEST MEMPHIS, AR, 5:00 p.m. CST

Whoops! Sorry for neglecting you for a couple days there, gang. I have some unexpected free time now, so I'll get right to bringing you up to speed on my adventures.

I returned to work on Friday morning. (Many thanks to Mrs. R.T. for the early morning ride back to my truck.) After getting back at about 6:15 a.m. and sending in my "back to work" message, I had to wait about 90 minutes before my first assignment of this tour of duty came across. But the job was one I've done a couple times before: Pick up a load in Warren, MI and haul it down to Dry Ridge, KY, a 300-ish mile trip.

That run went just fine, and I still had 4 hours available to work for the day when I completed it at 4:30 p.m. I got my next assignment promptly; next up was a pickup in Louisville, KY at 7:00. So I just headed right over there and found the place. (It's always fun looking for new places after dark. But the directions to the company in the assignment were good, and finding it wasn't a problem.)

The pickup was a drop-and-hook and went quickly, but I had some concern about the trailer I was picking up. It's an older one, so there's always an increased chance of some problems with it. But since the pickup was at night, and my hours were running short, I couldn't give it a good once-over. But I hooked it up and headed off to find a place to park for the night, which turned out to be the Pilot in Lebanon Junction, KY, just a little ways south of Louisville. By the time I got there, I was too tired from the long day to pull out the laptop and write up an update for y'all, so I just grabbed some dinner and went to bed.

The load is (was, but I'll get to that in a minute) destined for a Monday morning delivery in the Fort Worth, TX area, so I had the whole weekend to make the drive. I planned to drive to our West Memphis, AR terminal on Saturday and the Dallas-Fort Worth area on Sunday. That would split the trip into two roughly equal portions. However, 15 miles after getting started on Saturday I came across a weigh station in KY. This load is one of those "special" ones for which I get paid an extra 3 cents per mile, so I have some placards on the trailer indicating such. Now, the Vehicle Enforcement Officers at weigh stations are required to inspect a certain number of trucks hauling these "special" loads, so while passing over the scales I got the indicator to pull over for an inspection. (An extra $.03 per mile doesn't really cover the lost time and aggravation of an inspection.)

Long story short, the Officer found a couple of substandard tires (tread depth too shallow) on the trailer and wrote me up for the violation. There's no fine involved for me, but I'd need to get the tires replaced soon. In consultation with USA's Roadside Assistance department, we eventually decided that I'd just make my way to West Memphis and get the work done there. So I completed the drive as planned, arrived at 3:00 p.m., and checked in at the shop. Of course, being understaffed and overworked, and set to close at 5:00, the shop wouldn't be able to get to my trailer that day, but they did have me unhook from the trailer so they could pull it into the shop and have it ready to get to work on it first thing this morning. At least DOT-violation fixes do get some priority at the terminals.

So I spent most of the rest of the afternoon in the drivers' lounge in one of the nice, soft, leather recliners watching college football on the big-screen TV. How nice it was to catch the surprising score of Michigan's win for the Little Brown Jug. Way to (finally!) go Blue! I have a nephew at the U of Minnesota--I'll have to get his e-mail address and rub it in a bit. (Or my sister, his mom, who often reads this drivel and also went to Michigan, can pass the "nyah-nyah-nyah, nyah-nyah-nyah" on to him.)

This morning I, naturally, woke up way early--before 5:00. The shop wouldn't open 'til 6:30, and it'd probably be at least a couple hours after that 'til they had the trailer fixed. So I killed some time trying to sleep, then eventually gave up, heated some beef stew for breakfast, attempted to take a shower here at the terminal, but the one open shower room was a mess, so I drove on over to the Pilot a mile down the road and got cleaned up there. Once back here at the terminal it was just more time to kill 'til about noon when I checked on the trailer in the shop. Verdict: they replaced a few tires but found a leaking brake valve. Of course, they don't have a replacement valve on hand, and they can't get one 'til tomorrow (Monday). So they can't get the trailer done 'til at least noon.

I relayed that news to Dispatch so they could make alternate plans for me. Remember, I need to be at our Van Buren, AR terminal (and HQ) on Tuesday for the training class, so I can't possibly stay with the load, deliver it when the trailer's fixed, and get to Van Buren on time. However, I've been waiting all afternoon and still haven't gotten word one from Dispatch since their message to "stand by...I'll check" after I let them know about the trailer. I really hate when these situations come up on the weekend, since the Dispatch staff on duty doesn't seem to have the authority to make major changes like my situation requires. I guess I'll be waiting 'til my Fleet Manager gets in Monday morning.

Anyway, here I sit in limbo, with extra time to fill you in on my goings-on. I should be taking advantage of this time to work on growing my poker experiment bankroll, but for some reason I'm not in the right frame of mind for that. Probably because of lasting fatigue (I never get enough sleep when I'm at home--too much to do and not enough time to do it) and distraction from the stress of wondering what's next. Oh well. Check back tomorrow to find out what they finally decide for me to do.

Thanks for reading today's story, and keep on truckin'.

Election Special

DATELINE: HOME, Noon EST

Hi, gang. Sorry for the silence the last few days, so I'd better get y'all caught up. I don't have a lot of time now, so I'll keep this short.

I'm at home now--got here on Tuesday. As you recall from my last posting on Saturday, I was on a load bound for delivery at 2 stops around Chicago on Monday. Saturday I had spent the night in Ottawa Lake, MI, so on Sunday morning I drove over to a TA in Gary, IN. That took all of 4 hours, so I spent the rest of the day: 1. Watching some NFL (I don't know why I ever bother paying any attention to the Lions), and 2. Playing some more poker tournaments. OK, I'll spare you the details of the latter for a change, but it was a successful pursuit.

Monday morning I made the 2 deliveries, then waited for my next assignment. I expected maybe a pickup nearby that I would drop off somewhere on my way home. It took a while, but the assignment came in a little after noon. The pickup was in Henry, IL, 120 miles away...MOSTLY WEST! Or the opposite direction from home. And the load was to deliver in Findlay, OH Tuesday morning. I checked with my Fleet Manager if I was going to drop the load off somewhere so I could get home on time (which was by that point unlikely, since I wouldn't be able to make it all the way within hours of service regulations), but he confirmed that the load was mine all the way through delivery. Grrr! Yet another instance of them not getting me home on my requested date. And this time I needed to get home so I could vote on Tuesday.

Anyway, I drove over to Henry, made the pickup (which was a live load, but nice and quick), and headed back east. It became apparent that I wouldn't get to Findlay that day, and I was getting quite tired (the stress from the "disappointment" of not getting home on time AGAIN may have had something to do with that), so I stopped at the westernmost service plaza along the Indiana Turnpike for the night. That was at 6:15 p.m., and after having some dinner and walking around the parking lot for a little while to work off the dinner, I just went right to bed.

After my 10-hour break, I got back underway to go deliver the load. Five hours later I reached Findlay and the delivery. An hour later I was done there and on on my way home. Which I reached in time to go cast my votes. (Well, there's another story there, but I don't have the time to go into that.)

So I've had a couple of good days at home now--PERFECT weather the whole time and the proper election results--and head back to my truck and the road tomorrow (Friday) morning. I expect I'll be heading west because I need to be in Van Buren, AR on Tuesday for my trainer training. Thanks for continuing to check back during the days I didn't get reports out for you, and keep on truckin'.

Busy Day, Lazy Weekend

DATELINE: OTTAWA LAKE, MI, 7:00 p.m. EDT


Oops! Missed a couple days again, didn't I? Sorry, faithful readers. Sometimes I'm just too tired when I finish a work day (Thursday) or when I finally get disgusted with my poker results (last night). I'm getting pretty tired now, too, but I finally had a good day adding to my poker bankroll, so I'm in a good enough mood to blog up. So here's what I've been up to the last 3 days.

THURSDAY, 246 Miles
Busy, busy day, with a good bit of waiting around. I started out with an hour-long drive to my first(!) delivery in York, PA. It was a drop-and-hook (D&H) delivery, I arrived an hour early (6:00 a.m.), and it went nice 'n quickly. Except it had no "Hook" part. The company didn't have any empty trailers for me to take with me after docking the loaded one I brought in. But that turned out not to be a problem 'cuz my next pickup, on the other side of York, was a pre-loaded trailer.

So that was a quick hook-up, then I was on my way to its destinations. Yes, plural. The load was bound for 2 stops, with both deliveries scheduled that same day. The first was set for 11:00 a.m. in New Castle, DE, the second in Bellmawr, NJ at 1:00 p.m. Since it is late, I'll skip the detailed version of events, but the first delivery went fine (once I found the place--more not-quite-detailed-enough directions), but I had a long wait at the second. That one took 3-1/2 hours or so.

After completing the 2nd delivery, I bopped on over to a service plaza along the NJ Turnpike. I was down to less than 2 hours left on my 14-hour clock for the day, but Dispatch did send me another assignment. It was for a pickup in Mt. Laurel, NJ, right near where I was. I was concerned that if I went over to make the pickup, I'd wind up having to break the 14-hour reg. But Dispatch told me I'd be pickup a pre-loaded trailer, so it wouldn't take long. So off I went.

I got there with about 45 minutes left on that ticking clock. But when I went in to check in and gave the clerk there my load number, he claimed it was a bad one. So I hopped back in my truck to see if I could get a proper load number from Dispatch. Well, that clock was ticking, and I needed to get to a place to park for the night before my workday hit that 14-hour mark, so I just left. Dispatch could figure out the load number problem overnight and I'd pick up the load in the morning. (The load delivers to 2 sites in the Chicago area on Monday, so a late pickup was not a problem. Getting a slap-on-the-wrist phone call from Compliance about hours of service violations would be a problem.)

I wound up at a TA in Paulsboro, NJ, 20-ish miles away. (Not a lot of truck stops in that area.) As I mentioned up top, I was just too tired from the long day and the stress about getting parked within the proper time frame. (Did I mention the TA parking lot was quite jammed, and I had to circle it a couple of times before I spotted an opening?) So I grabbed a quick bite for dinner and went straight to bed.

FRIDAY, 258 Miles
Yesterday I got up after my 10-hour break and headed back to the shipper. This time we got the right load ID (a different, apparently more on-top-of-things clerk was on duty) and I grabbed my assigned load. (Another D&H.) Since I don't have to deliver the load 'til Monday, and it's less than an 800-mile trip, I have plenty of time to make my way to northern IL. So I'm just taking shorter drives this weekend.

Yesterday I stopped at the TA in Breezewood, PA. Because I'd started up so early, it was just noon when I got there. So I used my copious free time to work on rebuilding my poker bankroll. Alas, as is the norm on the days when I have oodles of time to do so, the cards have a totally different idea. I scrapped and scraped my way through 11 double-or-nothing (DoN) SNGs, ($1.10 entry for each, $1 into the prize pool, $.10 for the entry fee) but wound up cashing in only 5 of 'em. That dropped my balance by $2.10. Grrrrrr! Disgusted, tired, and hungry after those several hours of poker stress, I logged off, went in search of dinner (a Quizno's down the street), then went to bed.

TODAY, 364 Miles
I wanted to get to bed relatively early last night because I plotted that my next stop would be here in southern MI, just 30 miles down US-23 from my house. (Going all the way up to the Ann Arbor area would be just a bit too far out-of-route.) If I'd arrive early enough, Mrs. R.T. would have enough free time in her busy day to c'mon down and meet me for lunch. So I got up at 2:30 this morning and hit the road by 3:00.

I got here--a Pilot Travel Center--at 10:00 after just a couple stops en route, one to grab some grub, the other to grab a shower. The Mrs. arrived a few minutes later, and we got to spend a little quality time together over breakfast at the McDonald's here. It's always a plus when my route and schedule allow see my better half and/or whatever part of my family is available (and willing).

After Mrs. R.T. headed back home, I hopped back in my truck to see about righting the poker wrongs that had befallen me lately. And I finally did (for the most part) get the proper distribution of friendly cards. (Aside: I have a CD of the greatest hits of the Alan Parsons Project. One of their tunes is, "The Turn of a Friendly Card" and includes in the chorus the line, "But the game never ends when your whole world depends on the turn of a friendly card." For some reason I like that song.) I played another 10 DoN SNGs, and this time I cashed in 8 of 'em. That's more the type of result I expect in the DoNs, and it grew my meager bankroll by $5, so I am much happier tonight.

Tomorrow I'll mosey on over to the Gary, IN area for my base camp for Monday morning's assault on my two deliveries. After that, I expect Dispatch'll try to find me a load to haul into or towards MI, since that's the day I'm scheduled to start another bout of home time. Or maybe they'll just let me dead head (run with an empty trailer) my way home. (Yeah, right!) Gotta' get home so I can vote on Tuesday and watch the election results through the night. I'll also have all day Wednesday free before heading back to the truck on Thursday. I'm looking forward to that.

In other news, I got word that I'm scheduled to start training to be a trainer soon. The class will be the 11th - 13th at our Van Buren, AR HQ, so I'm looking forward to that, too. Although I do rather like (and probably prefer) being a solo driver, I can sure use the extra income from being a trainer (to the tune of an extra $45 a day I have a student with me, on top of being paid my regular rate for all the miles of our dispatched miles).

The level of trainer I'm going to be is for our "Driver Apprenticeship Program", in which I get a new driver fresh out of orientation. I'll have each one for probably a couple of weeks before s/he goes on to the next level of training, which is basically being a team driver with another trainer. In the Apprenticeship Program I'll let the student do most of the driving (and docking, etc.), but I'll do some here and there to ease the burden and demonstrate techniques, etc. But neither of us will be in the bunk sleeping while the other's driving. It's called "right-seat training", so we'll stop every night just as I do as a solo driver. I'll miss the solitude of my own sleeper berth, but $omething make$ me want to $tep up to do thi$ training $tuff.

Well, it's been a L-O-N-G day now, and the land o' nod is a-calling. I expect to make full use of the extra hour of sleep afforded by tonight's time change. Thanks for checking up on me today. Please let me hear from you via comments and questions, and keep right on a-truckin'.

White Time in PA

DATELINE: CARLISLE, PA, 9:20 p.m. EDT

Miles Today: 374

Kind of a short day today, as I got to sleep in 'til 7:00 this morning and finished up at about 5:30 p.m. But I got to drive through my first snowstorm of the season as I plowed my way across western PA. Ironically (or merely coincidentally) enough, the snowfall didn't start 'til just after I had passed the exit to Yukon, PA. So I should have expected the winter weather. But it didn't impede my progress any, and I made it here (the Pilot in Carlisle) without incident.

As far as my load situation went, the pickup was a live load just outside of Columbus, OH, and took a bit longer than usual, almost 2 hours. But since I had a fairly short drive to make, it wasn't a big deal. You may recall from yesterday's post that this load's scheduled delivery date was Friday morning. However, I got word from my Fleet Manager shortly after picking up the load that he had moved the delivery up to tomorrow morning. So I don't have to sit around for a day. That's good for racking up paying miles, but it does lead to one concern.

I'm scheduled to return home on Monday for my next stretch of home time. Monday will be my 8th day since I started back up after my 34-hour restart last weekend. And I burned u p a lot of hours the first 2 days back (12-1/4 and 12 hours, respectively). I do have the 70-work-hours-in-8-days regulation to contend with, so I'm going to have to make sure Dispatch dispatches me properly over the next few days to make sure I can get home within that regulation. I'll send 'em a note after I make the delivery tomorrow.

After arriving here, I got back to online poker after a couple days off and found I still have to scratch and claw my way into the money in the tournaments I'm playing. (Just the Double or Nothing Sit-n-Go variety tonight.) I played 5 of 'em and cashed in 3 (going lose, win, lose, win, win), so I finally wound up ahead--by a whole 50 cents. Tough way to make a living. But because of that time at the tables, the evening has crept by, and I need to get myself to bed right quick. Seems I'll need to get up at 4:00 tomorrow to clean up and fuel up my truck before heading down the road to my delivery. That's set for 7:00 a.m., and I figure I'm about an hour away. With the cold weather and potentially slick roads, that'll leave plenty of time to make my way over there good and safely.

So for now, time to wrap up. Thanks for today's peek at my offering here. Please let me hear from you, and keep on truckin'.

Long Day for an Early Drop

DATELINE: HEBRON, OH, 6:50 p.m. EDT

Miles Today: 622

Whew! Another long day of movin' on down the highway. And that's just about all I did, but with a bonus at the end. I got up at 4:30 in West Memphis, AR, hit the road at 4:45, and just drove up here to Columbus, OH. I did stop for about 30 minutes for brunch at a McDonald's around the midway point in southern KY, and 15 minutes for a fuel stop in northern KY, but except for quick rest stops, I just kept 'er rollin'.

The aforementioned bonus was that I could make the delivery today instead of waiting 'til the scheduled time tomorrow morning. About the time I turned north at Nashville, I realized that I'd probably be able to make it all the way within my hours for the day. I've delivered to the company a couple times before (the last time was just a couple weeks ago), so I knew it'd be a drop-and-hook delivery. Therefore, it wouldn't be a big deal to drop off the trailer there whenever I could get there. And I got confirmation from Dispatch, so the die was cast.

I got there with 30 minutes of driving time left, so after dropping the loaded trailer and hooking up an empty, I had just enough time left to zip over here to the Pilot in Hebron, 16 miles east of C-bus. I got myself a free dinner (a Chicken Pizziola sandwich from the Subway outlet here) with my Pilot driver payback points, and shortly after returning to my truck my next assignment came in.

Tomorrow morning I'll be picking up a load in Obetz, OH, just south of C-bus, then heading east with it to York, PA. Pickup's at 9:00, but delivery isn't scheduled 'til Friday morning, even though it's only a 380-mile trip. So either I'll have another free day waiting to make the delivery (the assignment instructions say not to deliver 'til the appointment time) or Dispatch will have me drop the load somewhere after I pick it up. I won't know about that 'til after I make the pickup and get a chance to check with my Fleet Manager after he starts his work day (which should be about the time I'm making the pickup).

Anyway, as I typed up top, it's been a long day and I'm feeling it now. Time to head inside to brush my teeth, then hustle back here to get wrapped up under my covers. (You know, it's COLD up here!) Good thing my truck's heater works pretty well. Thanks for your interest today, and keep on truckin'.

Trekking Back East

DATELINE: WEST MEMPHIS, AR, 7:15 p.m. CDT

Miles Today: 587

Hmmm, I drove a full 11 hours today, so why isn't my mileage total above 600 miles for the day? Oh yea, I know. It's 'cuz I had to drive through the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex during the morning rush hour, that's why. What a pain in the asterisk. Oh well. But that was after I had already made my delivery and subsequent assignment's pickup, so I'd better fill you in on those.

I got myself out of bed at 2:00 this morning to shower and shave before starting my work day. By 3:00 I was rolling out of the truck stop parking lot, heading for Garland, TX. I arrived at the delivery site at 3:45 for my 4:00 appointment, only to see a sign at the driveway stating that Receiving hours started at 5:00. Fortunately, nobody there seemed to care, as the guard let me right in and the lone guy working in the Receiving Department took care of me right away. This turned out to be a drop-and-hook delivery (which I had suspected from the start, because I'd delivered there once before--on my first delivery in Texas as a solo trucker), with the slight difference being that I would open the trailer's doors and back it to a dock door before dropping it, instead of in a spot in the lot with the doors closed.

That went good 'n quickly, and I was done within 30 minutes. And my next assignment came in promptly, too. (Actually, as I was pulling up to the guard shack on my way out.) My next pickup was in Haslet, TX, which is just on the north side of Fort Worth. The drive over there was before rush hour (between 4:30 and 5:45), so I didn't have any traffic tie-ups just yet. But boy, that's a long drive between the two. I have to keep reminding myself that Dallas and FW are not neighboring cities like Minneapolis and St. Paul. They're at least 30 miles apart, or like driving from Ann Arbor to Detroit. But boy, during rush hour the jams can be aggravating. Anyway, back to the pickup.

'Twas another D&H, so that went quickly, too. This load (and, therefore, so am I) is bound for Columbus, OH, so I'm following the all-too-familiar route back east. By good fortune the D-FW traffic didn't hold me up too much, and I was able to hoof it all the way back here to our West Memphis terminal just within my allotted 11 driving hours for the day. And with the delivery, pickup, rest, and meal stops along the way, I made it with 30 minutes to spare in my 14-hour work window, too. So it was a full, long day.

I rewarded myself by dropping in drivers' lounge and sitting through the last half of "The Hulk", which somebody had playing on the TV in there. Then I moseyed over to the Mexican restaurant down the street and had some real food for a change. Pretty tasty fare at a reasonable cost, too. And now I'm back here at my blogging station, finally feeling REALLY tired. So I'm gonna' hit the sack right quick. I'm not even gonna' sit up to catch any of what could be this year's final World Series game. I'll find out tomorrow if the Phil's have clinched the crown or if the Series is heading back to Tampa.

Thanks for lending me your eyeballs for a few minutes. Please do send me your questions and comments, and keep on truckin'.

Poker Boom (Not the Good Kind)

DATELINE: ANNA, TX, 6:15 p.m. CDT

Miles Yesterday: 299

Not much to write about today as far as trucking goes. Yesterday I just made my way down here from Joplin, MO, a 5-1/2 hour drive. I'm at a Love's truck stop along US-75, about 35 miles north of where I deliver my load tomorrow morning. (Morning? Did he say, "morning"? The delivery's at 4:00 a.m.! That's still the middle of the night!) So I've just been a-sitting here, mostly playing poker, since I arrived in the early afternoon. I need to hit the sack early tonight so I can get up about 2:00 for a shower and shave before rolling out. So I had to call and end to the poker in order to write up this report for y'all and get to bed.

As far as the poker goes, it just astounds me that on the occasions I have all day to play, I don't experience the same success that I do when I can just play for a little while. Mostly lately I've been playing those double-or-nothing sit-n-go tournaments, and "winning" (staying alive into the top 5) a rather high percentage of them. That helped me build up my poker bankroll to an all-time high, a whopping $30.59! (Remember, I'm trying to build the bankroll up from nothing, so I still have to play at very low stakes. Therefore it's taking a while to grow.) So I was expecting with all my free time this weekend to build it up substantially. However, the bottom dropped out. Especially yesterday, when the deck found every way it could to beat me, no matter how much the odds were in my favor on the given hands when it dealt the final blow. All told, the damage was about 35% of my bankroll. Now I'm going to have to grind my way to build it back up. As you can imagine, I am a bit frustrated by all that. (Understatement alert!)

Anyway, enough of my griping. Time for bed. Thanks for taking a look in today. Drop me a line, and keep on truckin'.

Two Days and an Essay (A Must Read, If I Say So Myself)

DATELINE: JOPLIN, MO, 8:45 p.m. CDT

Miles Today: 502
Miles Yesterday: 370

Sorry for not blogging last night, gang, but I had a bit of a dodgy connection where I stopped for the night. It kept disconnecting and, when it was connected, was very slow. So after a longish day, I decided not to fight it any longer (after a couple of SNG poker tourneys--I cashed in both of 'em) and went to bed. So here's my 2-day story.

Yesterday I was up and rolling by 6:00 to cover the 100 miles to my 9:00 delivery appointment. Traffic was light and the going was easy, so I arrived at about 7:45. I had to wait just a little bit for a dock assignment, then after docking I had a whopping great wait. All told I was there for over 2-1/2 hours. But my next assignment came in pretty quickly afterwards.

Next up was a drive over to Arcadia, WI, a little ways south of Eau Claire, roughly another 100-mile trip. That drive went quickly and smoothly, as did the pickup. This load is taking me to the Lone Star State, back to the city of Garland. (You remember, a northeast Dallas suburb.) Unfortunately, delivery is scheduled for Monday morning (at 4:00 no less), so I have ample time to wing my way down there. But rather than take my time, I'm working on getting down there tomorrow so I can fit in another 34-hour break before starting back up to make the delivery. I'm heading for a Love's truck stop in the town of Anna, TX, about 35 miles north of "Big D". It's on our fuel network so I'll be able to fill my truck's tanks and earn a shower credit, which I can use to get clean and presentable before heading to that delivery. But I'm ahead of myself again. Back to finishing up yesterday and recounting today's trip.

After making that pickup in Arcadia, I be-bopped my way west into MN in order to head south on I-35. I was retracing a route I hadn't taken since my first week as a solo driver on this job, back just before New Year's Eve of 2006. That was the last (and only) time I'd trucked along I-90, on that occasion eastward in the middle of a rainy night. This time it was during the daylight hours, so I could see what I'd missed that time. Nothing much exciting--it's mostly open farm space--but there is a large wind farm near the Rochester area. Lots of windmills, that is. Anyway, I stopped for the night at the Love's in Albert Lea, MN, which is also on our fuel network. It's right across the street from a TA that I've stayed at once or twice before the Love's was added to the network. (BTW, Albert Lea is right at the junction of I-35 and I-90.)

This morning I used my shower credit from fueling up when I arrived last night before setting out. My goal for today was to reach Joplin, MO, about a 500-mile jaunt. As you can tell from the "Dateline:" above, I made it. 'Twas gloomy and rainy most of the day, with a few rays of sunshine through some breaks in the cloud cover. But I made good time and completed the trip in only 8-1/2 hours of driving. I'm not taking I-35 all the way down, which you might expect if you looked on a highway map. After all, it does connect Minneapolis/St. Paul with Dallas. (In fact, it runs from Duluth to Laredo.) However, it does swing a little bit out of the way to the west to pick up Wichita and Oklahoma City. So instead, between Kansas City, MO and the Dallas area I'm taking mostly US highways to shorten the mileage for the trip. Tonight I'm parked at a Pilot here in Joplin. It's also on the fuel network, so I'll "diesel up" before starting out in the morning. (I have a couple of Pilot shower credits already, so I can use one of them tomorrow.) And that's the story of my last couple of work days. And now on to an interesting tidbit.

Ya' know, my most reliable source of income since starting this job (well, other than from driving) is just finding money on the ground. Just about any day if I do much walking around at truck stops, terminals, or wherever, I find at least one penny lying around. Today when I stopped at a Pilot in Des Moines for a restroom break, when I got out of my truck I found a dime just below my driver's door. And tonight on my way into the building here I found a penny in the parking lot. Last week in Ontario I found a Canadian dime at a highway service plaza. A couple weeks ago in Texas, when I stopped for a quick break at a Love's I found a quarter right below my driver's door again. On one happy occasion I found a $5 bill by my trailer when I was walking around it doing my pre-trip inspection. (I guess it literally pays to do those, eh?) Maybe I oughta' be keeping track of these sums so I can report them on my income tax returns. Right! Sure! And now for something completely different.

With the election just a week-and-a-half away, I hope you don't mind if I stray a bit into a political essay. I just feel that with all the negative advertising going on, I want to throw in something to think about.

One side has been throwing out a lot of rhetoric accusing the other of being "socialist". That's one of those buzzwords they like to use to scare their non-thinking followers into voting for them. (Disclaimer: I'm not accusing all Republican voters of being "non-thinking", nor do I claim the Democrats have no non-thinking followers. And don't anybody accuse me of claiming that. However, we all know that in this real world, some voters on each side do not spend a great deal of time researching or critically thinking about the positions they hold on various issues. So they just glom onto the "facts" they hear on talk radio or from the candidates themselves and take them as gospel. Please, people, take everything with a grain of salt and actually THINK for yourself before spouting the campaign rhetoric you're hearing.) I'm certainly no "socialist", and readily advocate capitalism as the way to go, as I'm sure Barack Obama and the Democratic Party do. However, what's so wrong with the country having some social programs to supply basic needs for the good of all? Let me recount a story for you. A while back, sometime in my teens I think it was, I heard a minister (I don't remember who, or where, or the circumstances of the service) tell this story in a sermon.

A man had died and God was showing him the afterlife options. Their first stop was Hell, where they found all the denizens sitting at a huge table in a great banquet hall. The table was filled with huge amounts of all sorts of gourmet foods, plenty for everyone. The man was amazed that those condemned to Hell could have such bounty before them. Then he noticed that everyone there was miserable, wailing in anger and starvation, because affixed to each one's hand was a long spoon--longer than his arms so he could not get the food into his mouth. Thus each would spend eternity in hunger, tormented by what he could not have.

Then God took the man up to Heaven, where he found a similar scene: a great banquet hall with a huge table filled with food. All the population of Heaven was seated there, with the same too-long spoons affixed to their hands. However, everyone at this table was happy, smiling, and laughing, totally joyous. That's because each person there was using his spoon to feed his neighbor.

Anybody besides me see a parallel to capitalism versus socialism? Again, let me reiterate that I DO NOT ADVOCATE THAT THIS COUNTRY BECOME A SOCIALIST STATE. Everyone should have the right to run a business on his own without government intervention, save for regulations that protect the public and consumers of his (or her--I'm just using the masculine in this essay for compositional ease) products. And I do not regard living under a Republican administration as "Hell". And yes, I know that this is all a very simplistic view of the whole issue. But in complex times, sometimes it helps to step back and strip away all the complexity to see things in their simplest forms. Do you remember hearing somewhere, "'Tis better to give than to receive"?

All in all, IMHO the best path for the USA is a blending of capitalism with some social government programs. This isn't the proper forum to go into details, or any more depth, but I hope I did stimulate some thought in my readership--both of you ;-) If you found my little essay food for thought, please pass along the link to anyone else you think may find it helpful as the election nears.

Thanks all for checking up on me today. I hope you didn't mind my foray into the political arena. Please post some comments (and/or questions), and keep on truckin'.

Among the Cheeseheads

DATELINE: COLOMA, WI, 5:45 p.m. CDT

Miles Today: 557

Whew! Long day (OK, I have had longer), but I'm whipped. Just plain tired. Ready for bed. But I gotta tell y'all about it first. So here goes.

I got to sleep in all the way 'til 5:30 this morning before hitting the road at 6:00 for my 7:00 pickup. Boy, I hate going to places for the first time in the dark, and it was still plenty dark when I approached the company to which I was headed in Bellevue, OH. First, I almost missed the turn onto the street they're on because the intersection was not well lighted, and the street sign was on the far side and totally in the dark. But I was anticipating it and was going slow enough that I could make the turn before I passed by.

Next, the sign in front of the company itself was not lighted. (Never mind that my directions said the company was on the right side of the street, while it actually was on the left.) But I saw the sign and kept an eye on it as I crept up to it 'til there was enough ambient light on it for me to read it. So I could swing into the driveway before passing the point of no return. (Or the "point of needing to back up some".)

The pickup itself was a quick drop-and-hook, so I was in and out of there in under 30 minutes. Then the rest of the day was all about drive, drive, drive. (Oh, and a combination fuel/shower stop in South Bend, IN as well as various rest stops and grub grabs.) My total driving time was 10-1/2 hours today, and that brought me to a small truck stop here along I-39. I have about another 100 or so miles to get to my delivery by 9:00 tomorrow morning, so I plan to get rolling at about 6:00. But first, lots of quality time with my pillow. (Sleep, that is, for those of you with dirty minds!)

Thanks for checking in today. Check back tomorrow to find out where I'll be headed next. Send me your comments and questions (more than just pointing out my typos, please!), and keep on truckin'.

Trekking Westward

DATELINE: AMHERST, OH, 10:15 p.m. EDT

Miles Today: 372

A relatively short day--only 7-1/2 hours of driving--but the job still kept me occupied for over 12 hours. That's 'cuz I had some waiting time at my pickup this morning (2 hours); almost 1/2 an hour fighting with my trailer's tandems to get them to slide after getting loaded at the pickup; and most of an hour cleaning out my trailer after my delivery then waiting for my next assignment. But I'm ahead of myself again. Here are the salient portions of my day in chronological order.

I woke up about 3:30 this morning, a bit earlier than my planned 4:00 rousing. I tried to grab that last 20 minutes of sleep, but it didn't happen. So I sent in my "back to work" message (since I was coming off my 34-hour restart) and went in to shower and shave. Once all celaned up 30 minutes later, I returned to my truck to find my assignment for the day still hadn't come in. But that wait was short as the message came in at 4:45.

My mission: pick up a load at a company in Carlisle, PA (where I was anyway--the city, not the company) at 4:30. Hmmm. Another case of Dispatch asking me to travel back in time to make an appointment. Anyway, I was to take the load to Cuyahoga Falls, OH, about 300 miles away. And the delivery time on the assignment was 7:00 a.m. today. Again they assume I can do the impossible. (I know I'm good, but they're taking it to a bit of an extreme, don't you think?) But I set out to do the best that I could anyway.

The drive over to the pickup only took 15 minutes. Checking in and getting docked took another 15, then I had to wait. Apparently the dock crew was off doing something else. But, finally, 2 hours after I arrived, I was loaded and ready to go. Except I had to slide the trailer's tandems back forward (the shipper requires that the tandems be slid all the way back for loading). Of course I hadn't had any troubles sliding 'em when I picked up the trailer empty on Sunday, and again before docking this morning. But once I had that load in there, the brakes wouldn't hold enough for the trailer body to slide on its rails over the tandem axles. To shorten the story, I finally found some wheel chocks over by the dock doors and carried them over to where I was rasslin' with the beast. They did the job, and I was finally on my way. (By the way, I keep looking for chocks at the stores in the truck stops, but they don't carry 'em. Where in the world can I obtain one or two to carry with me for just such contingencies? Maybe I'd better resort to searching online, eh?)

My first stop after picking up the load was back at the Carlisle Pilot to fuel up, then 'twas "westward ho" along I-76 towards Cuyahoga Falls (which is by Akron). Six hours and a couple of rest stops (one including grabbing lunch to go) later, I arrived at my destination. Small hangup there: they only had one dock door and there was an empty trailer sitting in it. They'd been waiting all day for someone to move it, but that hadn't happened yet. So I accepted their invitation to move it for them. Of course, that meant unhooking my trailer, hooking up to the rogue one and moving it, unhooking from it and be-bopping back to where I'd dropped my trailer, hooking it back up, and then backing into the dock. But that was better than however long I may have had to wait for someone to come move it. Who knows? I'd probably still be waiting. Anyway, the unloading there was quick.

However, they left quite a bit of debris in the trailer when they were done. The shipper had nailed 2-by-4s onto the trailer floor to hold the racks that carried their product (glass) in place. The delivery customer yanked them up to get the racks out, but left the wood in the trailer. As well as quite a few nails still sticking up from the floor. So I had to pull over to a dumpster in their yard, toss the 2x4s, and yank the nails (with a crowbar I keep in my truck) and toss them. By the time I finished with that, my next assignment was in.

I have a pickup tomorrow morning in Bellevue, OH, which is kinda' halfway between Toledo and Cleveland, but south of the Turnpike. The instructions with the assignment mentioned that the trailer must be swept out before arriving at te pickup, because it's a load of food products. So it was finally time for me to find a pushbroom to call my very own. Fortunately, there is a Pilot just off the Turnpike on my route to tomorrow's shipper, and I stopped there in search of a broom. Hallelujah! The had some for sale! So I nabbed one.

After picking up my new prize, I headed to the "Middle Ridge" Service Plaza here along the OH 'pike. I have roughly 30 more miles to go along the 'pike, then a few more south to get to the pickup, which is scheduled for 7:00 a.m. So I plan to get up between 5:00 and 5:30 and get rolling at 6:00. That should get me to the pickup fashionably early. Once I have the load on board, my destination is Abbotsford, WI. That's up in the middle of that state, roughly halfway between Green Bay and St. Paul, MN, or maybe 30 miles west of Wausau. I haven't been to the upper midwest (other than MI) for quite a while now, so this trip will be a nice diversion from the parts of the country I've seen a lot lately. Delivery is due at 9:00 Thursday morning, and it's purportedly a 570-mile trip, so I should have ample time to get there. Then again, I do have to go either through or around Chicago, so all bets are off. ;-)

I can tell by the ol' clock in the corner of the laptop screen that it's time to wrap this up and hit the sack. Thanks for your eyes (and, hopefully, engaged brain, too) today. Drop me a line or two, and keep on truckin'.