Terminal Hopping

DATELINE: VANDALIA, OH, 7:15 p.m. EDT

Miles Yesterday: 241
Miles Today: 542

Guess I gotta catch up with 2 days' worth of action, eh? Sorry for not reporting yesterday, but when I finished up for the day, I was just bushed and went right to bed. So I have to do double duty today. I'd better get right to it.

Yesterday, since I didn't have to get rolling 'til after 10:00, I had my alarm set to get me out of bed at 8:00. However, I woke up at 5:30 and could not get back to sleep. Eventually I gave up the attempt and tried my hand at some poker online. I had played a bit the night before with lousy results--the poker gods were having fun at my expense, not giving me anything decent unless they gave someone else something just a bit better--and the trend continued in the morning. Fortunately, I was playing for very low stakes, and my total loss for the two sessions wouldn't even buy a cup of coffee these days. Which is fine 'cuz I don't even drink coffee and won't miss the cup I wouldn't have had anyway. But back to the real job.

As you recall, my assignment was to pick up a load at 1:00 in Avenel, NJ, about 100 miles from where I was in the New Haven, CT area. The assignment mentioned that I couldn't arrive more than 30 minutes early, so I hit the road around 10:30. Of course, I ran into traffic jams going through New York City (my route, I-95, goes through Brooklyn) and made it to the pickup 15 minutes late. No biggie. What also wasn't a biggie was the company's dock area. Let's just say that by the time I eventually got my truck straight in the dock, only 6 feet of space remained between my truck's grille and the fence in front of it. It took a good while and number of attempts finding that sweet spot in making the backing turn where the trailer's wheels could pivot and then roll back, getting the trailer straight and into place at the door at the same time.

Then, of course, the loading was slow. I didn't get out of there 'til after 4:00. You regular readers know that I don't like to drive late into the night because the truck stops and rest areas fill up, making it next to impossible to find a place to park. So that set my course for the rest of the day: drive to our terminal in Bethel, PA and spend the night there.

With northern NJ rush-hour traffic, it took me about 3 hours to get to Bethel. Once there, as I mentioned above, I just crashed. As in hit the sack, not ran into another truck or something. ;-)

I got up this morning at 4:45 so I could get rolling just as I completed my 10-hour break at 5:15. Once underway, I settled in for the long trek across PA and OH, not to mention the 10-ish miles of WV between the two. With this load headed for the Chicago area, I'm taking the "southern route", I-76 and I-70, instead of the more direct northern route of I-80 because USA won't cover the tolls on the OH turnpike ($30.50). Therefore, because I have a "special" load this time, I had to take a couple of detours around tunnels along the PA turnpike. Now, PA has some nice big signs letting drivers know where to exit the pike before reaching the tunnels. However, they have no signs telling drivers with "special" loads which way to go once off the turnpike. So we have to guess if we haven't looked at a map beforehand. On my first detour, I guessed wrong and wound up finding my way to I-81, which I took down into MD to grab I-70 there before it went north to join I-76 at Breezewood, PA. (I wanted to stop in Breezewood for fuel and a shower at the TA there, anyway.) So that added an hour to my route--or put me an hour behind schedule, however you want to look at it.

The next tunnel detour, a little ways after my Breezewood stop, took me along US-30 for a good ways, maybe 30-40 miles. I want to go back over that stretch someday in a car, because there are some interesting things along it, including the Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville. I also don't want to do it in a heavily-loaded big rig because it has quite a few STEEP stretches, and I found myself struggling along at 15 MPH in 6th gear (out of 10) a number of times. That put me even further behind schedule.

Anyway, once around the tunnels and back on the turnpike, life was simpler, despite rainy weather. I made good time then and made it all the way to our Vandalia, OH terminal just within my 11 allotted driving hours. So by now I've fueled up--the truck and myself--and just about completed this report for y'all. I hadn't eaten anything except a couple of Mallo Cups since my Breezewood break (where I walked down to a nearby Hardee's for a breakfast sandwich combo), so I was getting quite hungry when I got here. And by now I'm getting tired once more. I'll be getting up early again tomorrow to finish up my run to Blue Island, IL, where I'll drop this load at our drop yard there, then get my next assignment. Since I'm due home on Monday, I don't expect I'll be going very far with the next load. (Better not be, anyway.)

So that's my story for the past 2 days, and I'm sticking to it. Thanks for taking an interest in my trucking phase, and keep on truckin' yourself.