Can't Come Up With a Good Title for Today's Report

DATELINE: JESSUP, MD, 9:00 p.m. EDT

Miles Today: 420
Miles Yesterday: 377

Well, yesterday turned into one of "those" days, and I just wasn't of a mind (or energy level) to log on an re-hash it when I stopped for the night. Today was better, so I'll get right to re-hashing my past two work days.

Things started fine yesterday, as I was up on time and ready to go. I was rolling at around 5:45 a.m. to make the trek from New Haven, CT to Cape Cod. As I neared Providence, RI, I noted a sign advising truckers that the Pawtucket Bridge along I-95 had a weight limit of 23 tons. My truck with its 43,000+ load was most of 40 tons. I knew that at some point around Providence I wanted to get off of 95 onto I-195 to head towards the Cape, but I had no idea whether that'd be before or after I would come to the Pawtucket Bridge. So I had to take the alternate route north and around the city. That wound up adding nearly an hour to my drive--making it a total of 3:15--but that just meant I arrived at my delivery right on time instead of early. So no big deal.

The delivery was to a U.S. military reservation, so after snaking through the off-set barricades up to the gate, they had me park just inside the gate to wait for an escort. The procedure was that when I arrived I called the guy who would handle the unloading, and he told me he'd be out to the gate to get me in about 20 minutes. Well, it actually wound up being an hour before he showed up to escort me and another USA Truck driver (who had arrived just a few minutes after I had) back to the site where they'd unload our trailers.

In order not to give away military secrets about what was in our loads or where and how they unloaded them, I'll skip forward to let you know that my whole stay at the camp was about 3-1/4 hours, just a bit longer than we like. When I left I then boogied on down to a rest area (about a 30-minute boogie) to wait for my next assignment.

Lately I'd been getting assignments pretty quickly after sending in my "empty call" messages. However, yesterday it took an hour and a half of waiting at that rest area before the assignment came in. I was to head back into CT to a company in a small town (Montville) and drop my empty trailer there, then bobtail a little ways to another small town (Versailles) and pick up an empty trailer from a company there.

Step one went fine, although I had to negotiate some narrow, twisting roads on the last stretch to get to the company, then maneuver in a fairly small lot at the company to park the trailer. But nothing too stressful or terribly difficult. By the way, on my way back past Providence, with an empty trailer my truck was below the 23-ton limit for the Pawtucket Bridge, so I took the route I had intended to begin with. TO my dismay I discovered that the bridge is farther north on I-95 than the junction with I-195, so I wouldn't have gone over it anyway. Therefore my morning detour was unnecessary. Oh well, better safe than sorry.

Step two was another matter. When I arrived at that company and told them that I was there to pick up an empty, they let me know that they didn't have any. All of the USA Truck trailers on their lot were either already pre-loaded or designated for a load. Figures. So I had to communicate back to Dispatch to give them that info and have them find me another empty trailer to use for my next pickup.

While I was awaiting word about an empty, they sent me my next pickup assignment anyway: I was to pick up a load in Clayton, NJ (southern part of the state, east of Philly) at 7:00 Thursday morning. I knew right away that I'd never be able to get there by 7:00, what with my time for yesterday running low, a 250-mile-plus drive to Clayton, and a requisite 10-hour break to fit in. But that's just par for the course these days. The load is bound for Humble, TX, just north of Houston, with delivery on Tuesday, so there's ample time in that run to be a little late for the pickup.

Anyway, after 30 minutes or so and no news about an empty to pick up yet, and my driving window shrinking, I decided to get started on the drive towards Clayton, expecting that dispatch would find me an empty somewhere along the route. (I rather expected that would be somewhere in Jersey, since we do a LOT of business in the Newark area.) I halted for the night at yet another highway Service Plaza, this one just a bit farther east on I-95 than the one at which I had spent the previous night. (That made me 3-for-3: 3 days on the road on this tour of duty, 3 nights at highway Service Plazas. Good thing I grabbed a shower on Tuesday when I stopped at that Flying J for fuel and a nap.)

After stopping, I finally got word about where to get an empty: from a Lowe's Distribution Center in Bloomfield, CT. Well now, that certainly isn't on my way; Bloomfield's about 50-ish miles north of New Haven. But what's a guy to do? Gotta go get it, so now there was absolutely NO way I'd be able to make the next pickup on time. Just gotta make sure Dispatch'll pay me for those extra empty miles. By the way, the message telling me to go to Lowe's didn't include directions to the site, so I replied back with a message saying, "Directions?" Needless to say, by the time I hit the sack I hadn't gotten any directions yet.

This morning when I woke up, the first thing I did was send in another message asking for directions to the Bloomfield Lowe's DC. Then I went inside the Plaza to freshen up and grab a bite from their McDonald's. Back in the truck, I finally got the directions...to a Home Goods DC instead of Lowe's, but also in Bloomfield. Fine. Whatever. So at 5:15 a.m. I was back on the road.

Yada, yada...the rest of the day was just driving, except for the quick trailer pickup in Bloomfield and loading in Clayton, which was also very quick--in and out in under 45 minutes. I hit some traffic slowdowns, but nothing major. I used up well over half of my 11 allotted driving hours for the day just getting to the Clayton pickup, so I wasn't destined to get tremendously far on my journey south and west. By the way, my Fleet Manager let me know that I won't be taking this load all the way to Humble. With delivery not 'til Tuesday, that wouldn't be enough miles per day. So instead, I'll be dropping it in Nashville, TN when I can get there, which will likely be Saturday morning.

So this evening I made it to the TA (no Popeye's Chicken, unfortunately) here in Jessup, which is just south of Baltimore. You may recall a few months ago when I wrote about my trekking back up and down the eastern seaboard along I-95, and I spent consecutive nights at this very same TA. So I'm on familiar ground here. The weather is a little warmer this time around. In fact, I want to point out to everyone back home that the Forsythias are blooming in New Jersey now. Any at home yellowing up yet?

And by the way, I realized that today was another 5-state day for me: CT, NY, NJ, DE, and MD. (Tuesday was, too: OH, PA, NJ, NY, and CT.) I could have pushed on into VA today, but the route I intend to take has no truck stops along it around the point I'd need to stop. So I pulled in here with a little time to spare.

OK, now it's time to get to bed. I want to get an early start in the morning again so I can roll into a truck stop tomorrow afternoon some 600 miles down the road (don't know just where yet) before they get filled up. Thanks for taking a look at today's report. Send me your comments and questions so I can keep up with y'all, too, and keep on truckin'.