Northeast Through the Midwest

DATELINE: HARBORCREEK, PA, 6:15 p.m. EST

Miles Today: 502

Just another dull, dreary day of drive, drive, drive. The dreary part was that most of the day I was crossing Ohio, from southwest to northeast. Jeepers!

I started out this morning by getting up at 4:30, then hitting the shower before hitting the road at 5:15. I had gone to bed early last night, 6:30 or 7:00, so I got a much-needed good night's sleep for once. I actually woke up a few minutes before my alarm sounded at 4:30.

By 6:00 I was in Kentucky (I had started in Indiana, remember?), following I-71 along the state's northern edge from Louisville before crossing into Ohio at Cincinnati. Then came the interminable part, across the Buckeye state--mostly I-71 before taking I-271 over to I-90 and out to Pennsylvania. The highlight of the crossing was stopping for lunch at a Hardee's in a Love's truck stop. I indulged in a Jalapeno Burger and fries--tasty!

I stopped for the night just as my available work hours for today were running out. I reached the place I had set as my goal for today's drive, the TA here, just 10-ish miles from the NY state line. This place has, along with its in-house restaurant, a Subway and Pizza Hut Express. But I heated up a heat-n-eat entree--Beef Pot Roast--in my truck and had that instead of patronizing the establishments inside. Gotta save money where I can.

So that's about all there was for today. I think I'll be hitting the sack soon so I can get rolling early again in the morning. I still have quite a ways to go--something on the order of 350 miles--to my delivery, which fortunately isn't scheduled 'til 3:00 tomorrow afternoon. So it'll be a long day before I even get there.

This will be a first for me; this customer will unload everything from my trailer, then put another load on that I'll take to the final stop on this run. Every other multiple-stop run I've had so far has involved partial loads for each stop. So the unload/load process this time around may take longer than usual. We'll just see how that goes.

Once that's done I have to finish wrestling with my dilemma and decide which route to take to the final stop, which is in Crawford, OH on Friday. As you recall, NY state has no-idling laws (meaning I can't run the engine to keep my cab warm), so my first inclination is to hightail it south on I-81 to refuge in PA, which should take about 3 hours, about all the time I'll have left for the day. On the other hand, that route is a bit longer and may well make it impossible for me to get to the final on time (the deadline is 2:00 p.m. Friday). So what to do? What to do? Tune in tomorrow to find out.

Thanks for stopping by today. Your comments and questions are always welcome--encouraged, even--and as always, keep on truckin'.