DATELINE: TEMPLE, GA, 11:00 p.m. EDT
Miles Yesterday: 475
Miles Today: 408
So, my laptop power setup in the truck decided to work tonight (it dodn't last night), so I'd better take advantage of that and write up a report. Other than the computer cooperation, it hasn't been a real happy day. But let's go back to yesterday.
I started out in Kingdom City, MO (a little bit east of Columbia), then had to truck on down to the town of Belle to pick up a load to haul to Searcy, AR. That meant all back roads (US highways for the most part, no interstates) through central MO and northern AR, 300-350 miles of 'em. True, some parts were limited-access and divided, but the majority of the route was 2-lane, twisty, hilly, and stop-and-go through cities and towns. With a heavy load for most of the trip, it called for constant concentration. But I managed it fine.
As you recall from my last report, my Qualcomm box--my tool for communicating with HQ--is on the fritz. So after making my pickup yesterday morning I called in to the Maintenance Department and set up a service appointment at the West Memphis terminal, figuring Dispatch'd let me run over there after making my delivery. Well, after dropping the load at the delivery site, I called in (since I couldn't use Qualcomm) to let Dispatch know the load was complete. Naturally, they had another assignment for me.
I had a pickup to make in Stuttgart, AR, which was 60-ish miles pretty much straight south of where I was in Searcy. From there it'd be a 2-hour jaunt over to West Memphis (which would be on the way since the load is going to the Atlanta, GA area), so I had just enough time to go make the pickup (a drop-and-hook) and get to the terminal. That is, of course, if all went smoothly.
You've been reading this blog for how long now? How often do things go smoothly for me on this job? Of course they didn't on this pickup. I got there easily (well, except for a 6-mile detour because of a road closure on yet another AR back road), then found that the trailer I was supposed to pick up wasn't there for me. I called the company's Shipping Department and found out that the trailer was loaded, it just hadn't been hauled over to the trailer yard yet. She'd get someone to bring it over.
Meanwhile, the clock was ticking. My 14-hour driving window for the day would expire at 8:30, and with the 2-hours needed to trek to West Memphis, I'd need to get rolling by 6:30. I had arrived at 6:00. So, naturally, 6:30 came and went with no target trailer. It didn't show 'til nearly 7:30. I was contemplating fudging my log book entries and just heading to West Memphis. My truck's service appointment was for 6:30 this morning, and if I wanted to be there on time, I'd have to get there illegally one way or another. Otherwise, if I took my required 10-hour break en route, I couldn't get there on time this morning. (The math: 7:30 p.m. + 2-hour drive + 10-hour break > 6:30 a.m.) But I decided to stay legal and hope the shop would still gladly take my truck right in, even though I'd be late. I stopped at a small truck stop about halfway along the trip to WM, right at 8:30.
How long you been reading this blog now? Did you expect the shop to gladly take my truck in late? HAH! I got to WM about 7:45, I checked in and left 'em my key, then went into the terminal building to grab a shower. I gave the shop a couple hours, but they showed no signs of getting near my truck, so I caved to the pressure from Dispatch to stay on the load and retrieved my key. I REALLY don't want to be out here, on the road, without benefit of a functioning Qualcomm box, but I do need the paid miles, especially after the early part of this week. It's going to be a pain having to call in at all deliveries and pickups, especially on the weekend with skeleton crews manning the phones back at the office. But hopefully they'll route me through a terminal soon so I can get my truck issues addressed properly. (Besides the Qualcomm, my truck is WAY overdue for regular service.)
Anyway, that was all very stressful about the service issues. And, of course, my fridge/cooler has decided to stop cooling today, too. So that has added to my joy. But I made it to the Flying J in this town today, 40-ish miles west of Atlanta. I deliver my load at 8:00 tomorrow (Saturday) morning, so I'll get up to shower and shave before hitting the road around 6:30. If you do that math (based on the dateline time up top), you'll see it's time now for me to get to bed. Thanks for taking a peek today, and keep on truckin'.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Kingdom City, AR
DATELINE: KINGDOM CITY, MO, 9:45 p.m. CDT
Back to work as of last night (after a long wait siting on a load over the Memorial Day holiday). My delivery was scheduled for 10:00 p.m., so I got rolling at 8:00 from Hebron, IN. I got to the customer about 9:15 or so, then waited a few minutes in a line of trucks to get into the site. The wait wasn't long, and I made the delivery--a drop-and-hook--fairly quickly. While I was hooking up my new empty trailer (after backing the loaded one into a dock door and dropping it there), my next assignment came in: Pick up a load in Naperville, IL at 11:00 the next morning.
It was just about 10:00 p.m. when the assignment came in, so I'd have to find a place to park for a 10-hour break before getting that next load. Of course, there aren't any truck stops right in the Chicagoland area; one has to boogie a few miles down any of several highways to get to one. (There are the Oases along the I-294 tollway, but their truck parking lots are very small, and at that time of night they'd be overstuffed. So I didn't even bother trying them.) I chose to head west on I-80, and found refuge at a TA in Morris, IL. That was at 11:00, so with a 10-hour break I'd get back on the road at 9:00; plenty of time to get to the pickup just early enough.
So I went to bed right about midnight last night, then inexplicably woke up around 5:15 this morning. For some unknown reason I just can't seem to get a good, long, uninterrupted stretch of sleep these days. Anyway, after semi-dozing/semi-waking for a half hour or so, I just got up. I had plenty of time to kill before I could start working (that 10-hour break is mandatory), and I was getting pretty hungry (I'd been eating a bit less the last couple of days), so I caved and treated myself to a real breakfast at the IHOP across the street. A steak omelet and side of pancakes filled me up just right, enough to hold me for a good while. After breakfast, I filled my remaining downtime with a shower and some light reading before it was time to get to work.
The drive to my pickup took an hour. Yada yada, check-in, dock, live load, all told took a couple hours before I could get underway to my delivery. By the way, that load was due for delivery at 8:00 tonight in Fulton, MO. So I had about 7-1/2 hours to make the alleged 350-mile trip. Fortunately, after that big breakfast, I didn't need to stop en route for a meal, though I did at one point munch on a couple of Pop-Tarts from my in-truck larder.
A curious thing happened on the way. I stopped at a rest area and, while stopped, retrieved a couple of messages from my Qualcomm box. I was typing in a reply to one when the thing went blank. That's nothing new--it normally shuts itself off after the truck's been shut off for a while. But this time the truck hadn't been off for nearly long enough. I started the engine and the box came back to life as normal, but all the messages in the buffer had disappeared (it keeps about the last 40 or 50 that the driver can scroll through). Hmmm. But I finished my reply, hit SEND, and thought nothing more of it as I got back on the road.
I reached my delivery 30 minutes early, despite slow, heavy rush-hour traffic around St. Louis. This was another drop-and-hook delivery, so it didn't take long again. (The longest part was selecting among the 5 or 6 empty USA trailers there to choose the least bad one. They were all older and beat up.) However, in attempting to compose and send in my "Arrived at Final Stop" message via Qualcomm, I discovered that my box didn't have the macro messages available. (We hit the "Create Message" key, then type in the number of the macro we want to use, and the message form appears on the screen.) When I typed in the "11" for the Arrived macro, the thing just beeped at me, which it does for any error. Hmmm. Not good. So I decided that, it being after 8:00 already, I'd just head to the Petro truck stop back at the exit where I got off the highway to head to Fulton.
So now I'm here. Once I parked (the place was mostly full, but I found a spot!), I called in to Dispatch to let them know that I had completed the delivery and to report my futzed-up Qualcomm. I was expecting them to direct me to a terminal for repairs, but instead they gave me my next assignment over the phone. I'll be picking up a load in Belle, MO, kinda' southeast from here, in the morning, but originally the pickup time was 10:30 tonight. Now, that would assuredly have put me beyond my 14 hour driving window for today (I started work at 9:00 a.m., so 11:00 p.m. woulda' been it), so I talked them into letting me take my 10 and go get the load in the morning. Delivery is at 4:00 p.m. that afternoon in Searcy, AR, so I'll still have plenty of time to get there on time if I get the day started right after completing my 10 hours of break. Which will be at 6:30 a.m.
And that's where things stand right now. Thanks for your loyal readership, drop me a line or two, and keep on truckin'.
Back to work as of last night (after a long wait siting on a load over the Memorial Day holiday). My delivery was scheduled for 10:00 p.m., so I got rolling at 8:00 from Hebron, IN. I got to the customer about 9:15 or so, then waited a few minutes in a line of trucks to get into the site. The wait wasn't long, and I made the delivery--a drop-and-hook--fairly quickly. While I was hooking up my new empty trailer (after backing the loaded one into a dock door and dropping it there), my next assignment came in: Pick up a load in Naperville, IL at 11:00 the next morning.
It was just about 10:00 p.m. when the assignment came in, so I'd have to find a place to park for a 10-hour break before getting that next load. Of course, there aren't any truck stops right in the Chicagoland area; one has to boogie a few miles down any of several highways to get to one. (There are the Oases along the I-294 tollway, but their truck parking lots are very small, and at that time of night they'd be overstuffed. So I didn't even bother trying them.) I chose to head west on I-80, and found refuge at a TA in Morris, IL. That was at 11:00, so with a 10-hour break I'd get back on the road at 9:00; plenty of time to get to the pickup just early enough.
So I went to bed right about midnight last night, then inexplicably woke up around 5:15 this morning. For some unknown reason I just can't seem to get a good, long, uninterrupted stretch of sleep these days. Anyway, after semi-dozing/semi-waking for a half hour or so, I just got up. I had plenty of time to kill before I could start working (that 10-hour break is mandatory), and I was getting pretty hungry (I'd been eating a bit less the last couple of days), so I caved and treated myself to a real breakfast at the IHOP across the street. A steak omelet and side of pancakes filled me up just right, enough to hold me for a good while. After breakfast, I filled my remaining downtime with a shower and some light reading before it was time to get to work.
The drive to my pickup took an hour. Yada yada, check-in, dock, live load, all told took a couple hours before I could get underway to my delivery. By the way, that load was due for delivery at 8:00 tonight in Fulton, MO. So I had about 7-1/2 hours to make the alleged 350-mile trip. Fortunately, after that big breakfast, I didn't need to stop en route for a meal, though I did at one point munch on a couple of Pop-Tarts from my in-truck larder.
A curious thing happened on the way. I stopped at a rest area and, while stopped, retrieved a couple of messages from my Qualcomm box. I was typing in a reply to one when the thing went blank. That's nothing new--it normally shuts itself off after the truck's been shut off for a while. But this time the truck hadn't been off for nearly long enough. I started the engine and the box came back to life as normal, but all the messages in the buffer had disappeared (it keeps about the last 40 or 50 that the driver can scroll through). Hmmm. But I finished my reply, hit SEND, and thought nothing more of it as I got back on the road.
I reached my delivery 30 minutes early, despite slow, heavy rush-hour traffic around St. Louis. This was another drop-and-hook delivery, so it didn't take long again. (The longest part was selecting among the 5 or 6 empty USA trailers there to choose the least bad one. They were all older and beat up.) However, in attempting to compose and send in my "Arrived at Final Stop" message via Qualcomm, I discovered that my box didn't have the macro messages available. (We hit the "Create Message" key, then type in the number of the macro we want to use, and the message form appears on the screen.) When I typed in the "11" for the Arrived macro, the thing just beeped at me, which it does for any error. Hmmm. Not good. So I decided that, it being after 8:00 already, I'd just head to the Petro truck stop back at the exit where I got off the highway to head to Fulton.
So now I'm here. Once I parked (the place was mostly full, but I found a spot!), I called in to Dispatch to let them know that I had completed the delivery and to report my futzed-up Qualcomm. I was expecting them to direct me to a terminal for repairs, but instead they gave me my next assignment over the phone. I'll be picking up a load in Belle, MO, kinda' southeast from here, in the morning, but originally the pickup time was 10:30 tonight. Now, that would assuredly have put me beyond my 14 hour driving window for today (I started work at 9:00 a.m., so 11:00 p.m. woulda' been it), so I talked them into letting me take my 10 and go get the load in the morning. Delivery is at 4:00 p.m. that afternoon in Searcy, AR, so I'll still have plenty of time to get there on time if I get the day started right after completing my 10 hours of break. Which will be at 6:30 a.m.
And that's where things stand right now. Thanks for your loyal readership, drop me a line or two, and keep on truckin'.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Hebron, IN
DATELINE: HEBRON, IN, 7:30 p.m. CDT
OK, I guess I've put y'all off long enough. Time to catch up.
A popular definition of "insanity" is, "continuing to do the same thing, but expecting different results". Well, what is it when you do get different results from doing the same thing? That's what I'm trying to figure out with my laptop's power configuration. As regular readers know, I have a power inverter so I can plug the laptop's AC plug into my truck's 12-volt power outlets (like car cigarette lighters). It used to work perfectly for over a year, then the original transformer that came with the laptop went bad (the wire broke) and I had to replace that. Since then the whole setup--replacement transformer and various inverters--has been finicky about moving current from the outlet to the laptop. I still haven't figured out a specific set of circumstances--truck engine off or on, laptop battery fully charged or depleted, Mars or Venus rising, moon in the 7th house, whatever--that works consistently. Hence my difficulty in signing on daily to write up a report of my trucking activities for you. But right now the thing's working (engine off, so the air conditioner's not running and it's steamy hot in here with the sun beating down), so I'll take advantage of that to blog away.
When last I wrote, I was on my way to the Charlestown, WV area for a delivery. Friday morning on the way there I took I-68 along the MD panhandle and northeast WV for the first time, and I tell ya' I'd just as soon not go that way anymore if I don't have to, at least while driving a loaded big rig. That route has some long, steep grades, and going westbound the majority of the grades were uphill. That meant long, slow climbs with the engine working hard. Never fun. In a car, though, I'm sure it'd be a terrific, scenic drive.
Anyway, it took me 7 hours to make the drive, and I arrived at my destination right on time. I won't go into the whole story, but the delivery took a couple hours, with some time spent waiting while the facility shuffled some rail cars around, blocking the road we (a couple other trucks arrived about the same time as I did) needed to take to get over to the building where our loads were headed. Once past the choo-choo shuffle, they only had 1 dock, but I got to go first since I had arrived first.
Afterwards, I retreated to a nearby TA (no Popeye's Chicken there) to fuel up and wait for my next assignment. That took about an hour, and the assignment was to make a beer run. That's right, my next pickup was at the Anheuser Busch brewery in Columbus, OH. It was set for a 2:00 a.m. pickup, but I wasn't gonna be able to get there by then, what with the 150-mile distance plus my need for a 10-hour break somewhere along the way. But I provided Dispatch with my ETA and set out up my favorite road, US-35 through WV.
I stopped for the night at a Pilot in Circleville, OH, about 30 miles south of C-bus, just as I finished up my allotted driving hours for the day. 10 hours later I was up and rolling to the brewery. Yada yada, I get there, then they inform me that I need bracing devices for the load (load lock bars or straps), so I had to head to another Pilot across town for those. I waited over an hour on hold with USA to get the purchase approved, never actually got through, then decided I needed to just get 'em and go serve the customer (then submit the receipt for reimbursement). I drove back, made the pickup ('twas a live load, so it took about an hour), and headed to the delivery.
That load was for a distributor in Versailles (down there pronounced, "Ver-SAILS"), OH, and due for delivery that morning. Now, I had to drive 150 miles to get to the pickup, and the drive to the delivery was less than 90 miles. Go figure. Anyway, I got there about 11:45 a.m., and found out that I was lucky for not having stopped en route. They closed at noon on Saturday. Whew! Just in time! That unloading went quickly, though, and I headed back through the back country to I-75.
Once back on 75, I stopped at a rest area to read my next assignment message, which had come in on my trek from the delivery. My next pickup was that afternoon in Marengo, IN. That's in the southern end of the state, 40-ish miles west of Louisville, KY. I had just enough hours to get there and make the pickup and, thankfully, there's a Pilot at the exit off of I-64 that I'd need to take to get to Marengo. So there was a place right there to stop for the night as my work hours expired. That pickup was an easy drop-and-hook, then it was off to the Pilot and a good night's sleep (again, the laptop setup failed to appease me).
This load (yes, I still have it) is due for delivery at 10:00 p.m. tomorrow (Tuesday) night in Woodridge, IL, on the western side of Chicagoland. So I had about 76 hours to take it 350-ish miles. Hmmm. Not good. I did check with Dispatch, expecting they'd have me drop it at our Blue Island, IL drop yard and get another load to get some more miles over the holiday. But, no, it's my load 'til delivery. Must be because of the holiday. So on Sunday I just got up when I was ready and drove north. I headed for the Flying J here 'cuz it's a nice facility to spend a couple days. There's also a Pilot with a McDonald's across the street, and a Burger King next to that, so I have some culinary choices.
I arrived here early in the afternoon and, lo and behold, my laptop setup provided power! So I've played A LOT of Poker, working on my bankroll experiment. As is usually the case when I have lots of time to devote to that endeavor, and could really make big gains, the cards just won't be my friends, and it's been a struggle just to come out even or a little bit ahead. But that's the joy (right!) of Poker.
So I'm sitting out another 34-hour (plus) break 'til it's time to go delivery this load. Dispatch has confirmed that I have a set delivery appointment, so I can't head over in the morning and get it done with. I have to wait and make the late-night delivery, then who knows what. I don't know how many late-night pickups are available, so I may have a late-night struggle to find a place to park and wait for my next gig. But that's the joy (right!) of this job.
Now, in answer to reader nancy r's queries, "How about when you're carrying a hazardous load? Are there any special precautions you have to take? Are hazardous items loaded any differently? Or do they just pack 'em in and you drive away? I'm glad you get paid extra for carrying these loads, but is there any extra attention paid to safety?"
"And when you have to drive a long distance from a delivery to your next pickup - so you have an empty trailer, or no trailer - do you get paid for that? If so, how much, and who pays?"
With Hazmat loads, we do have some regulations to follow. We have to put placards on each of the 4 sides of the trailer (the shipper provides them) to identify the load as hazardous. We have to verify that the shipping paperwork includes the correct Hazmat classification code and emergency contact info. And we have to stop at RR crossings before proceeding across the tracks. As for how they're loaded, that's up to the shippers, and they know what they're doing with them.
And regarding driving empty miles ("deadheading") to pickups, all those miles are paid. When we get an assignment, we get paid for all of the miles, those to the pickup, no matter the distance, and those with the load. (Of course, we get paid for the miles that Rand McNally says it is from site to site, not the total of miles we actually drive.)
So that's what I've been up to this holiday weekend. I hope yours went a bit better than mine has. At least I did get the day off, too, but since I'm away from home, I'd much rather be driving some paid miles than sitting stock still and NOT getting paid. Thanks for dropping by, and keep on truckin'.
OK, I guess I've put y'all off long enough. Time to catch up.
A popular definition of "insanity" is, "continuing to do the same thing, but expecting different results". Well, what is it when you do get different results from doing the same thing? That's what I'm trying to figure out with my laptop's power configuration. As regular readers know, I have a power inverter so I can plug the laptop's AC plug into my truck's 12-volt power outlets (like car cigarette lighters). It used to work perfectly for over a year, then the original transformer that came with the laptop went bad (the wire broke) and I had to replace that. Since then the whole setup--replacement transformer and various inverters--has been finicky about moving current from the outlet to the laptop. I still haven't figured out a specific set of circumstances--truck engine off or on, laptop battery fully charged or depleted, Mars or Venus rising, moon in the 7th house, whatever--that works consistently. Hence my difficulty in signing on daily to write up a report of my trucking activities for you. But right now the thing's working (engine off, so the air conditioner's not running and it's steamy hot in here with the sun beating down), so I'll take advantage of that to blog away.
When last I wrote, I was on my way to the Charlestown, WV area for a delivery. Friday morning on the way there I took I-68 along the MD panhandle and northeast WV for the first time, and I tell ya' I'd just as soon not go that way anymore if I don't have to, at least while driving a loaded big rig. That route has some long, steep grades, and going westbound the majority of the grades were uphill. That meant long, slow climbs with the engine working hard. Never fun. In a car, though, I'm sure it'd be a terrific, scenic drive.
Anyway, it took me 7 hours to make the drive, and I arrived at my destination right on time. I won't go into the whole story, but the delivery took a couple hours, with some time spent waiting while the facility shuffled some rail cars around, blocking the road we (a couple other trucks arrived about the same time as I did) needed to take to get over to the building where our loads were headed. Once past the choo-choo shuffle, they only had 1 dock, but I got to go first since I had arrived first.
Afterwards, I retreated to a nearby TA (no Popeye's Chicken there) to fuel up and wait for my next assignment. That took about an hour, and the assignment was to make a beer run. That's right, my next pickup was at the Anheuser Busch brewery in Columbus, OH. It was set for a 2:00 a.m. pickup, but I wasn't gonna be able to get there by then, what with the 150-mile distance plus my need for a 10-hour break somewhere along the way. But I provided Dispatch with my ETA and set out up my favorite road, US-35 through WV.
I stopped for the night at a Pilot in Circleville, OH, about 30 miles south of C-bus, just as I finished up my allotted driving hours for the day. 10 hours later I was up and rolling to the brewery. Yada yada, I get there, then they inform me that I need bracing devices for the load (load lock bars or straps), so I had to head to another Pilot across town for those. I waited over an hour on hold with USA to get the purchase approved, never actually got through, then decided I needed to just get 'em and go serve the customer (then submit the receipt for reimbursement). I drove back, made the pickup ('twas a live load, so it took about an hour), and headed to the delivery.
That load was for a distributor in Versailles (down there pronounced, "Ver-SAILS"), OH, and due for delivery that morning. Now, I had to drive 150 miles to get to the pickup, and the drive to the delivery was less than 90 miles. Go figure. Anyway, I got there about 11:45 a.m., and found out that I was lucky for not having stopped en route. They closed at noon on Saturday. Whew! Just in time! That unloading went quickly, though, and I headed back through the back country to I-75.
Once back on 75, I stopped at a rest area to read my next assignment message, which had come in on my trek from the delivery. My next pickup was that afternoon in Marengo, IN. That's in the southern end of the state, 40-ish miles west of Louisville, KY. I had just enough hours to get there and make the pickup and, thankfully, there's a Pilot at the exit off of I-64 that I'd need to take to get to Marengo. So there was a place right there to stop for the night as my work hours expired. That pickup was an easy drop-and-hook, then it was off to the Pilot and a good night's sleep (again, the laptop setup failed to appease me).
This load (yes, I still have it) is due for delivery at 10:00 p.m. tomorrow (Tuesday) night in Woodridge, IL, on the western side of Chicagoland. So I had about 76 hours to take it 350-ish miles. Hmmm. Not good. I did check with Dispatch, expecting they'd have me drop it at our Blue Island, IL drop yard and get another load to get some more miles over the holiday. But, no, it's my load 'til delivery. Must be because of the holiday. So on Sunday I just got up when I was ready and drove north. I headed for the Flying J here 'cuz it's a nice facility to spend a couple days. There's also a Pilot with a McDonald's across the street, and a Burger King next to that, so I have some culinary choices.
I arrived here early in the afternoon and, lo and behold, my laptop setup provided power! So I've played A LOT of Poker, working on my bankroll experiment. As is usually the case when I have lots of time to devote to that endeavor, and could really make big gains, the cards just won't be my friends, and it's been a struggle just to come out even or a little bit ahead. But that's the joy (right!) of Poker.
So I'm sitting out another 34-hour (plus) break 'til it's time to go delivery this load. Dispatch has confirmed that I have a set delivery appointment, so I can't head over in the morning and get it done with. I have to wait and make the late-night delivery, then who knows what. I don't know how many late-night pickups are available, so I may have a late-night struggle to find a place to park and wait for my next gig. But that's the joy (right!) of this job.
Now, in answer to reader nancy r's queries, "How about when you're carrying a hazardous load? Are there any special precautions you have to take? Are hazardous items loaded any differently? Or do they just pack 'em in and you drive away? I'm glad you get paid extra for carrying these loads, but is there any extra attention paid to safety?"
"And when you have to drive a long distance from a delivery to your next pickup - so you have an empty trailer, or no trailer - do you get paid for that? If so, how much, and who pays?"
With Hazmat loads, we do have some regulations to follow. We have to put placards on each of the 4 sides of the trailer (the shipper provides them) to identify the load as hazardous. We have to verify that the shipping paperwork includes the correct Hazmat classification code and emergency contact info. And we have to stop at RR crossings before proceeding across the tracks. As for how they're loaded, that's up to the shippers, and they know what they're doing with them.
And regarding driving empty miles ("deadheading") to pickups, all those miles are paid. When we get an assignment, we get paid for all of the miles, those to the pickup, no matter the distance, and those with the load. (Of course, we get paid for the miles that Rand McNally says it is from site to site, not the total of miles we actually drive.)
So that's what I've been up to this holiday weekend. I hope yours went a bit better than mine has. At least I did get the day off, too, but since I'm away from home, I'd much rather be driving some paid miles than sitting stock still and NOT getting paid. Thanks for dropping by, and keep on truckin'.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Carlisle, PA
DATELINE: CARLISLE, PA, 10:00 p.m. EDT
Miles Today: 390-something
Nothing much out of the ordinary today, which makes the whole day out of the ordinary. I was up early (5:00 a.m.) and on my way to my delivery by 5:30, and reached the company at about 7:15. It was a live unload, so it took a little more than an hour, but not unreasonably long. Then I had about an hour wait for my next assignment.
The next pickup was at 1:00 p.m. in Clifton, NJ, fairly near where I had started out the day. So I boogied on over there, making a quick stop for a bite to eat en route. I also hit a lot of traffic slowdowns on the way, so it took most of 3 hours to go the 90 miles. But I got there about right on time.
That company has a fairly tight lot...at least the gates into the lot are a bit tricky to get lined up to and through. But I negotiated the space and got in there and docked. The loading took, again, just a bit more than an hour, and I was back on my way with just about 4-1/2 hours left available to drive.
I made it here to the Flying J in Carlisle. I've been here a number of times before, so it's familiar territory. (I've stopped here for fuel many more times than I've stayed the night, though.) I was hoping to get a bit farther, such as Hagerstown, MD, another 60-ish miles down the road, but slow traffic did not permit me to get that far within my allotted hours. Oh well, I just have another 300-ish miles to go tomorrow to get to my delivery just west of Charlestown, WV by 1:00 p.m. So I'll need to get rolling early (but not mega-early) in the morning. So I'll need to wrap this up and get to bed quite soon.
But first let me answer reader dennis the accompanist's queries: "Every so often, I see pieces of a big tire along a freeway--I'm guessing these were some truck tire that shredded. Has this ever happened to you? Any idea what causes it? And why do some trailers seem to have 36 wheels on them? (or some large number, anyway...)"
Those tire shreds are (for the most part) from blown truck tires. I haven't had any shred on my on the highway, but one time at a pickup I wound up with two flat trailer tires (on the same side of the same axle), so I had to drive to a tire shop a few miles away, but not on the highway. On that drive, the flats did shred themselves apart real good, so there wasn't much rubber left by the time I got to the shop.
Regarding trailers with lots of tires (or more correctly, extra axles), they're there to distribute the load's weight. All states have weight restrictions per axle, so if a load is extra-heavy, the extra axles are necessary to keep any of them from carrying too much weight.
And now it's bed time. Thanks for looking in today, and keep on truckin'.
Miles Today: 390-something
Nothing much out of the ordinary today, which makes the whole day out of the ordinary. I was up early (5:00 a.m.) and on my way to my delivery by 5:30, and reached the company at about 7:15. It was a live unload, so it took a little more than an hour, but not unreasonably long. Then I had about an hour wait for my next assignment.
The next pickup was at 1:00 p.m. in Clifton, NJ, fairly near where I had started out the day. So I boogied on over there, making a quick stop for a bite to eat en route. I also hit a lot of traffic slowdowns on the way, so it took most of 3 hours to go the 90 miles. But I got there about right on time.
That company has a fairly tight lot...at least the gates into the lot are a bit tricky to get lined up to and through. But I negotiated the space and got in there and docked. The loading took, again, just a bit more than an hour, and I was back on my way with just about 4-1/2 hours left available to drive.
I made it here to the Flying J in Carlisle. I've been here a number of times before, so it's familiar territory. (I've stopped here for fuel many more times than I've stayed the night, though.) I was hoping to get a bit farther, such as Hagerstown, MD, another 60-ish miles down the road, but slow traffic did not permit me to get that far within my allotted hours. Oh well, I just have another 300-ish miles to go tomorrow to get to my delivery just west of Charlestown, WV by 1:00 p.m. So I'll need to get rolling early (but not mega-early) in the morning. So I'll need to wrap this up and get to bed quite soon.
But first let me answer reader dennis the accompanist's queries: "Every so often, I see pieces of a big tire along a freeway--I'm guessing these were some truck tire that shredded. Has this ever happened to you? Any idea what causes it? And why do some trailers seem to have 36 wheels on them? (or some large number, anyway...)"
Those tire shreds are (for the most part) from blown truck tires. I haven't had any shred on my on the highway, but one time at a pickup I wound up with two flat trailer tires (on the same side of the same axle), so I had to drive to a tire shop a few miles away, but not on the highway. On that drive, the flats did shred themselves apart real good, so there wasn't much rubber left by the time I got to the shop.
Regarding trailers with lots of tires (or more correctly, extra axles), they're there to distribute the load's weight. All states have weight restrictions per axle, so if a load is extra-heavy, the extra axles are necessary to keep any of them from carrying too much weight.
And now it's bed time. Thanks for looking in today, and keep on truckin'.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Northern NJ Turnpike
DATELINE: VINCE LOMBARDI SERVICE PLAZA, NEW JERSEY TURNPIKE, 7:30 p.m. EDT
Miles Today: 392
Well, another couple of days to catch up on, so I'll get right to it.
Yesterday I woke up in the morning still not knowing the disposition of my load. I was in the midst of a 34-hour break to reset my 70-hour counter, so I couldn't take the load toward its destination. After sending in a couple messages to Dispatch to ferret out an answer (and a goodly time lapse in between), I finally got an answer. Another truck was on its way with an estimated time of arrival (ETA) of 1900, or 7:00 p.m. So I had some time to haul my laptop inside the Flying J and set up camp at one of the booths they have in front of the drivers' lounge.
I played a couple of sit-n-go (SNG) poker tournaments, and won one and took second in the other. Woo-hoo! Total gain of $4.80. For those of you tracking my poker bankroll experiment (http://ZipToChips.blogspot.com/), it's now up to $19.08, growing slowly because of my laptop power issues and resultant lack of playing opportunities. Of the last 7 SNGs I've played, I've won 3, taken 2nd place twice, and finished 4th and 5th in the other 2. I think I've discovered a successful strategy. Keep an eye on ZipToChips for the ongoing story.
During my day off I also hiked down the road and across the freeway to the Pilot truck stop (Elton John's "Take Me to the Pilot" always comes to mind for some reason when I'm headed for that chain) because I wanted to splurge on a hot fudge sundae at their DQ outlet. Which I did. But I also browsed their convenience store and decided to buy yet another, larger power inverter to see if that would solve my laptop issue.
Once back in my truck after the hike back from Pilot, I plugged everything in, and it worked! The laptop displayed the "On AC Power" icon and the battery was recharging! Woo-hoo again! Then a while later, the truck's engine cycled on to maintain the cab's climate, which interrupts the power supply to the outlets, and the laptop reverted to battery power. Drat! I shut the laptop down, unplugged everything, re-plugged 'em, turned it back on, and it was still running on the battery. Sheesh! Such inconsistency really burns my biscuits. I can't figure out the exact set of circumstances that gets everything to work correctly. But I'll keep working on it as I have time.
I also treated myself to a Carne Asada Sirloin Steak Salad in the FJ restaurant because I had $7 in coupons from last month's fuel purchases. Ehh, coulda' been better. Not top-grade sirloin, apparently. But at least it was a salad, and with salsa for the dressing instead of something oil-based, for once I had a somewhat healthy meal. ;-) But back to my load's story.
By 7:00 I was back in my truck, waiting for the other truck to come make the pickup. And what I've come to expect occurred. By 9:30, with no pickup yet made, I sent in a message inquiring about the other truck. Dispatch informed me that it was 100 miles out. So that left me a couple more hours to wait. I used that time to grab a slab of pepperoni pizza from the FJ pizza stand (fresh and tasty this time, but making up for the healthy lunch), and do some reading (another poker strategy book, of course) in my cab. 11:30 came and went, and the other truck didn't show 'til after 12:30.
The other truck was manned by a trainer and his student, a team that could make it to the delivery in Illinois on time. The trainer, of course, was in too much of a hurry to actually back his empty trailer in a parking spot (there was an empty one right next to where I was parked), instead dropping it in front of the row of trucks alongside. So after swapping, I had to do the parking maneuver, which I was hoping to avoid because FJ lots--this one included--are typically very tight, and it was quite dark. Thankfully, the empty spot next to mine made things MUCH easier, so I didn't have to swear at the turn of events too heavily.
So I didn't get to bed 'til after 1:00 a.m. I had planned to get up at 4:00 to get back to work good 'n early, but the relay delay put the kibosh on that. Amazingly, as tired as I was, it still took me quite a while to fall asleep. Probably from the built-up stress from my wait.
This morning I woke up before 6:30, sent in my "back to work" message to trigger Dispatch to assign me a new load, and went back to sleep. An hour later, the new assignment came in: Pick up a load in Richmond (just over 20 miles away) at 9:00 a.m., for a Thursday morning delivery in Bethany, CT. OK, easy enough.
I got to the pickup site 15 minutes early. First glitch: Dispatch hadn't included a load number in the assignment message, and this company needed it to find the right paperwork. So I returned to my truck and sent in the appropriate message. 30+ minutes later, I got a reply with a "try this" number. Naturally, it was the wrong number, so this time the Shipping Department guy called someone in the know and got the right number. He also told me that they had 4 loads scheduled for USA Truck today, so he had some angst about what would happen if the other drivers showed up without proper load numbers when he wasn't there.
Anyway, we got my data worked out, and he directed me to their dock for loading. Second glitch: The company had my pickup appointment for 1:30 p.m., so they weren't quite ready for me. So I had another lengthy sit in my truck while: a) they found someone to handle the load, b) that guy got the load together in the warehouse, and c) he put the product on my trailer. All in all, I was at that company for over 2-1/2 hours.
Truck stops are non-existent between mid-New Jersey and where I'm headed in CT, so I knew that I'd be spending tonight at a Service Plaza along either the NJ Turnpike or I-95 in CT. Because of the delay getting underway from the shipper, I calculated that the small truck parking areas at the CT Plazas would likely be full by the time I'd get there, so I set my sights on the Vince Lombardi Service Plaza at the northern end of the NJ Pike, which has a HUGE lot. I don't know the exact number, but it's gotta' be several hundred truck spaces. But, lo and behold, by the time I got here at 6:30, the darn place was full! The saving grace was it was dinner time, so I figured that many of the trucks here were just stopped for some grub, and would leave again. After 15 or so minutes slowly circling the lot, I found a space that had been abandoned. AWWWRIGHT! Of course, it's WAY at the back of the lot, and almost directly beneath the Turnpike bridge, so I'll be listening to the sounds of vehicles rolling across it all night. But at least I found a place here and didn't have to continue down the road with faint hopes of finding refuge.
I am a little bummed about having to stop here, because had I continued into CT, I would have made today a 6-state day (VA, MD, DE, NJ, NY, CT)! I don't think I've had one of those yet. But a definite parking place takes priority, I think. And this joint has a decent place for me to plug in and charge up the ol' laptop and blog for y'all.
So now you're caught up with my exciting exploits once again. Hey! I haven't seen any comments or questions from my fan base in a while. I do like it when we have a 2-way street going here, so please let me hear from you. But thanks for checking up on me, and keep on truckin'.
Miles Today: 392
Well, another couple of days to catch up on, so I'll get right to it.
Yesterday I woke up in the morning still not knowing the disposition of my load. I was in the midst of a 34-hour break to reset my 70-hour counter, so I couldn't take the load toward its destination. After sending in a couple messages to Dispatch to ferret out an answer (and a goodly time lapse in between), I finally got an answer. Another truck was on its way with an estimated time of arrival (ETA) of 1900, or 7:00 p.m. So I had some time to haul my laptop inside the Flying J and set up camp at one of the booths they have in front of the drivers' lounge.
I played a couple of sit-n-go (SNG) poker tournaments, and won one and took second in the other. Woo-hoo! Total gain of $4.80. For those of you tracking my poker bankroll experiment (http://ZipToChips.blogspot.com/), it's now up to $19.08, growing slowly because of my laptop power issues and resultant lack of playing opportunities. Of the last 7 SNGs I've played, I've won 3, taken 2nd place twice, and finished 4th and 5th in the other 2. I think I've discovered a successful strategy. Keep an eye on ZipToChips for the ongoing story.
During my day off I also hiked down the road and across the freeway to the Pilot truck stop (Elton John's "Take Me to the Pilot" always comes to mind for some reason when I'm headed for that chain) because I wanted to splurge on a hot fudge sundae at their DQ outlet. Which I did. But I also browsed their convenience store and decided to buy yet another, larger power inverter to see if that would solve my laptop issue.
Once back in my truck after the hike back from Pilot, I plugged everything in, and it worked! The laptop displayed the "On AC Power" icon and the battery was recharging! Woo-hoo again! Then a while later, the truck's engine cycled on to maintain the cab's climate, which interrupts the power supply to the outlets, and the laptop reverted to battery power. Drat! I shut the laptop down, unplugged everything, re-plugged 'em, turned it back on, and it was still running on the battery. Sheesh! Such inconsistency really burns my biscuits. I can't figure out the exact set of circumstances that gets everything to work correctly. But I'll keep working on it as I have time.
I also treated myself to a Carne Asada Sirloin Steak Salad in the FJ restaurant because I had $7 in coupons from last month's fuel purchases. Ehh, coulda' been better. Not top-grade sirloin, apparently. But at least it was a salad, and with salsa for the dressing instead of something oil-based, for once I had a somewhat healthy meal. ;-) But back to my load's story.
By 7:00 I was back in my truck, waiting for the other truck to come make the pickup. And what I've come to expect occurred. By 9:30, with no pickup yet made, I sent in a message inquiring about the other truck. Dispatch informed me that it was 100 miles out. So that left me a couple more hours to wait. I used that time to grab a slab of pepperoni pizza from the FJ pizza stand (fresh and tasty this time, but making up for the healthy lunch), and do some reading (another poker strategy book, of course) in my cab. 11:30 came and went, and the other truck didn't show 'til after 12:30.
The other truck was manned by a trainer and his student, a team that could make it to the delivery in Illinois on time. The trainer, of course, was in too much of a hurry to actually back his empty trailer in a parking spot (there was an empty one right next to where I was parked), instead dropping it in front of the row of trucks alongside. So after swapping, I had to do the parking maneuver, which I was hoping to avoid because FJ lots--this one included--are typically very tight, and it was quite dark. Thankfully, the empty spot next to mine made things MUCH easier, so I didn't have to swear at the turn of events too heavily.
So I didn't get to bed 'til after 1:00 a.m. I had planned to get up at 4:00 to get back to work good 'n early, but the relay delay put the kibosh on that. Amazingly, as tired as I was, it still took me quite a while to fall asleep. Probably from the built-up stress from my wait.
This morning I woke up before 6:30, sent in my "back to work" message to trigger Dispatch to assign me a new load, and went back to sleep. An hour later, the new assignment came in: Pick up a load in Richmond (just over 20 miles away) at 9:00 a.m., for a Thursday morning delivery in Bethany, CT. OK, easy enough.
I got to the pickup site 15 minutes early. First glitch: Dispatch hadn't included a load number in the assignment message, and this company needed it to find the right paperwork. So I returned to my truck and sent in the appropriate message. 30+ minutes later, I got a reply with a "try this" number. Naturally, it was the wrong number, so this time the Shipping Department guy called someone in the know and got the right number. He also told me that they had 4 loads scheduled for USA Truck today, so he had some angst about what would happen if the other drivers showed up without proper load numbers when he wasn't there.
Anyway, we got my data worked out, and he directed me to their dock for loading. Second glitch: The company had my pickup appointment for 1:30 p.m., so they weren't quite ready for me. So I had another lengthy sit in my truck while: a) they found someone to handle the load, b) that guy got the load together in the warehouse, and c) he put the product on my trailer. All in all, I was at that company for over 2-1/2 hours.
Truck stops are non-existent between mid-New Jersey and where I'm headed in CT, so I knew that I'd be spending tonight at a Service Plaza along either the NJ Turnpike or I-95 in CT. Because of the delay getting underway from the shipper, I calculated that the small truck parking areas at the CT Plazas would likely be full by the time I'd get there, so I set my sights on the Vince Lombardi Service Plaza at the northern end of the NJ Pike, which has a HUGE lot. I don't know the exact number, but it's gotta' be several hundred truck spaces. But, lo and behold, by the time I got here at 6:30, the darn place was full! The saving grace was it was dinner time, so I figured that many of the trucks here were just stopped for some grub, and would leave again. After 15 or so minutes slowly circling the lot, I found a space that had been abandoned. AWWWRIGHT! Of course, it's WAY at the back of the lot, and almost directly beneath the Turnpike bridge, so I'll be listening to the sounds of vehicles rolling across it all night. But at least I found a place here and didn't have to continue down the road with faint hopes of finding refuge.
I am a little bummed about having to stop here, because had I continued into CT, I would have made today a 6-state day (VA, MD, DE, NJ, NY, CT)! I don't think I've had one of those yet. But a definite parking place takes priority, I think. And this joint has a decent place for me to plug in and charge up the ol' laptop and blog for y'all.
So now you're caught up with my exciting exploits once again. Hey! I haven't seen any comments or questions from my fan base in a while. I do like it when we have a 2-way street going here, so please let me hear from you. But thanks for checking up on me, and keep on truckin'.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Carmel Church, VA
DATELINE: CARMEL CHURCH, VA, 7:45 p.m. EDT
Miles Today: 112
Miles Yesterday: Umm, I forget. I'm inside and didn't bring my mileage log in with me. But it was 400-something.
More typical shenanigans going on; more reasons why I love this job---NOT! As you recall from my last posting, I was in the midst of a near-400-mile jaunt from my most recent delivery in the middle of PA to a pickup in southeast VA. So yesterday morning I arose at 4:00 and set out 15 minutes later. I had plenty of time to make a fuel and shower stop en route, and I still arrived at the pickup about 30 minutes ahead of schedule. I've been to that site 3 times previously, so I know the routine there. I duly dropped my empty trailer in their empties yard, then bobtailed over to their Transportation Office. When I checked in there and gave my pickup number, the lady did her checking, then informed me that the order had not been made up (pulled from stock and loaded into a trailer). And they had no definite plans to do so yet. In other words, they had nothing for me to pick up. Imagine my joy.
The icing on the cake was the spot where I parked my cab when I went inside turned out to be soft, uneven dirt, and I got stuck and couldn't back out. More joy. After a few minutes of digging and further escape attempts, another trucker noticed my plight and came to my aid and pulled me out with his rig. Then I bobtailed back to the empties yard to reclaim the trailer I had dropped off and send a message in to dispatch about the no-show load.
Three hours later I finally had a new assignment: Pick up a load of beer from the Anheuser Busch brewery in Williamsburg, VA, about 70 miles from where I was in Franklin. That brewery is right next to the Busch Gardens theme park, and I think I remember going there (the brewery for a tour, not the theme park--quite a disappointment) on a family vacation when I was a young-un. (Any of my family members reading this, let me know if I remember that incorrectly, or verify that I'm not yet losing my marbles.) But I definitely hadn't been to the truck entrance before, so it wasn't totally familiar.
The pickup there was a drop-and-hook, but with their scaling procedures (weigh the whole truck empty, park the empty trailer and unhook, go back and weigh the cab, then pick up the loaded trailer and weigh the new cab-trailer combo), the effort took an hour. By that time, my 14-hour driving window for the day was growing short--I was down to 2-1/2 hours. With a stop at a Pilot for a certified weight and very slow traffic most of the way along westbound I-64 towards Richmond, then some more slow traffic on northbound I-95, I only made it to the Petro truck stop in Ruther Glen, VA. That load is bound for northeast Ohio, due for delivery this morning at 7:30. Obviously I wasn't going to make that on time, so Dispatch got to work finding another driver to assign to a relay.
I was rather tired after the long day on a short night of sleep, so after dining at the Wendy's next door, I returned to my truck and hit the sack, with no news yet about a load swap. At about 11:30 I was awakened by a knocking on my door. The swap driver had arrived, and I still hadn't been alerted by Dispatch. Figures. But that was OK...it turns out the other driver had just been completing a 34-hour restart at the Flying J just across the highway from where I was. (This exit--#104 on I-95--has 3 truck stops: the Petro and a Pilot on the eastern side, in the town of Ruther Glen, and the Flying J on the western side, in Carmel Church.) So he took my loaded trailer and I hooked up to his empty. THEN the message from Dispatch came in that the other driver was on his way. Typical.
I couldn't get back to sleep then, so went inside for a little while. When I came back to my truck, I had a new assignment message. Now, I had been expecting to complete my own 34-hour restart because I was just about out of hours--only 3-3/4 left for all of Monday and Tuesday. But the pickup was in West Point, VA, just east of Richmond and only about an hour's drive away. So I figured I'd go make the pickup, get the load started on its way (it's going to Chicagoland), and find out if Dispatch wanted me to sit on the load through my restart or set up another relay. (The assignment didn't come with a delivery date.)
The pickup time was noon today, so I slept in a while--though not as late as I would have liked--and get started at 10:00. I was wrong on my estimated drive time--it actually took about 90 minutes. But I was still a little early. I checked in, swept out my empty trailer (paper mills have drivers do that--they like put loads of rolled paper into clean trailers for some reason), and parked it in their lot. Then I went searching for the loaded trailer they assigned me. It was a small lot, and it didn't take long for me to determine it wasn't there. (Flashback--my no-show load yesterday was at a paper mill.) I checked back at the shipping office at the gate, and the guy there radioed a yard driver to check the status of the trailer. He recognized the number as one he had put in a dock yesterday, so he drove over there and retrieved it. Whew! I did have a load this time.
When all was said and done at that site, I had just enough time to make it back here to dear old exit 104. This time I'm at the FJ because a) they have places I can plug in and use my laptop, and b) I have FJ shower credits, and since I'll be here for 34 hours, I'll need 'em. So now I'm completely out of my 70 available work hours for the 8 days since I came off of home time, with one of those days left. So I will be here for a 34-hour break. No word yet from Dispatch about a load relay or swap when I came inside to write this up. I have to wrap this up now and get back to my truck to check for any developments.
Thanks for your interest in my trucking plights. Send me some comments or questions (feel free to commiserate with my fortunes), and keep on truckin'.
Miles Today: 112
Miles Yesterday: Umm, I forget. I'm inside and didn't bring my mileage log in with me. But it was 400-something.
More typical shenanigans going on; more reasons why I love this job---NOT! As you recall from my last posting, I was in the midst of a near-400-mile jaunt from my most recent delivery in the middle of PA to a pickup in southeast VA. So yesterday morning I arose at 4:00 and set out 15 minutes later. I had plenty of time to make a fuel and shower stop en route, and I still arrived at the pickup about 30 minutes ahead of schedule. I've been to that site 3 times previously, so I know the routine there. I duly dropped my empty trailer in their empties yard, then bobtailed over to their Transportation Office. When I checked in there and gave my pickup number, the lady did her checking, then informed me that the order had not been made up (pulled from stock and loaded into a trailer). And they had no definite plans to do so yet. In other words, they had nothing for me to pick up. Imagine my joy.
The icing on the cake was the spot where I parked my cab when I went inside turned out to be soft, uneven dirt, and I got stuck and couldn't back out. More joy. After a few minutes of digging and further escape attempts, another trucker noticed my plight and came to my aid and pulled me out with his rig. Then I bobtailed back to the empties yard to reclaim the trailer I had dropped off and send a message in to dispatch about the no-show load.
Three hours later I finally had a new assignment: Pick up a load of beer from the Anheuser Busch brewery in Williamsburg, VA, about 70 miles from where I was in Franklin. That brewery is right next to the Busch Gardens theme park, and I think I remember going there (the brewery for a tour, not the theme park--quite a disappointment) on a family vacation when I was a young-un. (Any of my family members reading this, let me know if I remember that incorrectly, or verify that I'm not yet losing my marbles.) But I definitely hadn't been to the truck entrance before, so it wasn't totally familiar.
The pickup there was a drop-and-hook, but with their scaling procedures (weigh the whole truck empty, park the empty trailer and unhook, go back and weigh the cab, then pick up the loaded trailer and weigh the new cab-trailer combo), the effort took an hour. By that time, my 14-hour driving window for the day was growing short--I was down to 2-1/2 hours. With a stop at a Pilot for a certified weight and very slow traffic most of the way along westbound I-64 towards Richmond, then some more slow traffic on northbound I-95, I only made it to the Petro truck stop in Ruther Glen, VA. That load is bound for northeast Ohio, due for delivery this morning at 7:30. Obviously I wasn't going to make that on time, so Dispatch got to work finding another driver to assign to a relay.
I was rather tired after the long day on a short night of sleep, so after dining at the Wendy's next door, I returned to my truck and hit the sack, with no news yet about a load swap. At about 11:30 I was awakened by a knocking on my door. The swap driver had arrived, and I still hadn't been alerted by Dispatch. Figures. But that was OK...it turns out the other driver had just been completing a 34-hour restart at the Flying J just across the highway from where I was. (This exit--#104 on I-95--has 3 truck stops: the Petro and a Pilot on the eastern side, in the town of Ruther Glen, and the Flying J on the western side, in Carmel Church.) So he took my loaded trailer and I hooked up to his empty. THEN the message from Dispatch came in that the other driver was on his way. Typical.
I couldn't get back to sleep then, so went inside for a little while. When I came back to my truck, I had a new assignment message. Now, I had been expecting to complete my own 34-hour restart because I was just about out of hours--only 3-3/4 left for all of Monday and Tuesday. But the pickup was in West Point, VA, just east of Richmond and only about an hour's drive away. So I figured I'd go make the pickup, get the load started on its way (it's going to Chicagoland), and find out if Dispatch wanted me to sit on the load through my restart or set up another relay. (The assignment didn't come with a delivery date.)
The pickup time was noon today, so I slept in a while--though not as late as I would have liked--and get started at 10:00. I was wrong on my estimated drive time--it actually took about 90 minutes. But I was still a little early. I checked in, swept out my empty trailer (paper mills have drivers do that--they like put loads of rolled paper into clean trailers for some reason), and parked it in their lot. Then I went searching for the loaded trailer they assigned me. It was a small lot, and it didn't take long for me to determine it wasn't there. (Flashback--my no-show load yesterday was at a paper mill.) I checked back at the shipping office at the gate, and the guy there radioed a yard driver to check the status of the trailer. He recognized the number as one he had put in a dock yesterday, so he drove over there and retrieved it. Whew! I did have a load this time.
When all was said and done at that site, I had just enough time to make it back here to dear old exit 104. This time I'm at the FJ because a) they have places I can plug in and use my laptop, and b) I have FJ shower credits, and since I'll be here for 34 hours, I'll need 'em. So now I'm completely out of my 70 available work hours for the 8 days since I came off of home time, with one of those days left. So I will be here for a 34-hour break. No word yet from Dispatch about a load relay or swap when I came inside to write this up. I have to wrap this up now and get back to my truck to check for any developments.
Thanks for your interest in my trucking plights. Send me some comments or questions (feel free to commiserate with my fortunes), and keep on truckin'.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Hagerstown, MD
DATELINE: HAGERSTOWN, MD, 8:50 p.m. EDT
Miles Today: 522
Miles Yesterday: 573
Just a quick update tonight 'cuz I gotta' get up early (4:00 a.m.) tomorrow to run down to my next pickup. But here's the nutshell version of the last 2 days.
Yesterday I drove from Oak Grove, MO to Vandalia, OH. I couldn't write an update for y'all there 'cuz there's not a good place to plug in and blog at that terminal.
This morning I got rolling at 7:00 and headed for my delivery in Woodland, PA, around a 400-mile drive. I got there at 2:30, made the drop-and-hook delivery, and got my next assignment almost immediately. I had the chance to plot out my route to the next pickup even before I left.
The next pickup is 10:00 tomorrow (Sunday) morning in Franklin, VA, at a company at which I've made pickups 3 times before now, so I know where I'm goin'. But it's almost 400 miles from today's delivery: are loads so hard to find on weekends that they need to send me that far to find one? Anyway, I made it to a Pilot here in Hagerstown for the night. I could have driven another 1-1/2 hours or so, but truck stops and rest areas are few and far between along my route from here to where I would have run out of available hours. So I'll be up early tomorrow to complete the drive south.
After picking up the load tomorrow, I get to haul it up to Connecticut for a Monday morning delivery. I think I'll have just enough hours (of my 70-in-8-days) to complete the mission, but it's going to be r-e-a-l close. USA certainly is keeping me busy these days. But that's good for the ol' paycheck. On the other hand, my truck is due for maintenance, but I've been too busy to get that taken care of. (I've tried to get appointments at terminals a couple times, but no appointments were available when I was passing through.)
It's time to head to bed. Thanks for dropping by today, and keep on truckin'.
Miles Today: 522
Miles Yesterday: 573
Just a quick update tonight 'cuz I gotta' get up early (4:00 a.m.) tomorrow to run down to my next pickup. But here's the nutshell version of the last 2 days.
Yesterday I drove from Oak Grove, MO to Vandalia, OH. I couldn't write an update for y'all there 'cuz there's not a good place to plug in and blog at that terminal.
This morning I got rolling at 7:00 and headed for my delivery in Woodland, PA, around a 400-mile drive. I got there at 2:30, made the drop-and-hook delivery, and got my next assignment almost immediately. I had the chance to plot out my route to the next pickup even before I left.
The next pickup is 10:00 tomorrow (Sunday) morning in Franklin, VA, at a company at which I've made pickups 3 times before now, so I know where I'm goin'. But it's almost 400 miles from today's delivery: are loads so hard to find on weekends that they need to send me that far to find one? Anyway, I made it to a Pilot here in Hagerstown for the night. I could have driven another 1-1/2 hours or so, but truck stops and rest areas are few and far between along my route from here to where I would have run out of available hours. So I'll be up early tomorrow to complete the drive south.
After picking up the load tomorrow, I get to haul it up to Connecticut for a Monday morning delivery. I think I'll have just enough hours (of my 70-in-8-days) to complete the mission, but it's going to be r-e-a-l close. USA certainly is keeping me busy these days. But that's good for the ol' paycheck. On the other hand, my truck is due for maintenance, but I've been too busy to get that taken care of. (I've tried to get appointments at terminals a couple times, but no appointments were available when I was passing through.)
It's time to head to bed. Thanks for dropping by today, and keep on truckin'.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Oak Grove, MO
DATELINE: OAK GROVE, MO, 10:00 p.m. CDT
Miles Today: 611
Miles Yesterday: 621
Miles Tuesday: 554
Oy, do I have some catchin' up to do. My apologies for my long absence from these reports, but:
a) I was home for a few days with too much to do to do any blogging, and
b) I've had some long, tiring days since returning to the road.
Here's my story.
I got home on Friday, fairly early in the evening (or even late afternoon) for a change, instead of deep into the evening. So I even had time to mow my lawn while the sun still shone. Then on Saturday, with gorgeous weather, I spent most of the day working in my yard, pulling weeds, spreading oodles of bags of mulch, turning the soil (and yanking the weeds from) a 12'x4' planting bed, and planting potatoes and onions in that bed. MUCH more physical labor than I'm used to these days, that's for sure. No wonder my hamstrings are still sore today.
But you're not here to read about my time off the road; you want narratives about my truckin', right? (Besides, it's late after yet another long day behind the wheel, and I need to keep this short if possible so I can get to bed.) Suffice to say that I also had Sunday and Monday at home, and Mrs. R.T. drove me back to my truck (well, I actually drove) early Tuesday morning.
After a couple hours back, I finally got my pickup assignment. My pickup was in Muskegon, MI that afternoon, with delivery set for this morning in Garden City, KS. I hit the road right away to cross the state to get my load. That pickup went fine, and I then headed down the west coast to make my way around Lake Michigan. By looking at my atlas, I saw that I had a few options for my route to Garden City, which is in the southwest part of the state. I had been thinking lately that it'd been a while since I'd been to the "World's Largest Truck Stop" in Walcott, IA, and I also had a chance to add a new state to my "trucked in" list. So I set my course for Walcott, which I could reach within my allotted hours for the day.
I did reach Walcott as the sun was setting on Tuesday, and went right to bed. I had been up late Monday night getting everything ready for my return to my truck, and I was up early Tuesday morning, so by the time I stopped in Walcott, I was definitely dead tired. So no blogging that night.
Yesterday (Wednesday) I got up and rolling just as my break reached the required 10 hours. My route was straight west along I-80 all the way across IA and into NE (the new state on my list). Then south just past Kearney on US-183 into KS, down to I-70. Once on I-70 and heading west some more, I came across a new truck stop in the town of Ellis, KS just as I was reaching 11 hours of driving for the day. It was a smaller place with no good place for me to plug in and blog; besides, it had been another long day and I still had some residual fatigue. So I couldn't write up a report for you.
This morning I hit the road at 5:45--again just as soon as I had been on break for 10 hours--so I could get to my delivery in Garden City by my 9:00 appointment. Mission accomplished. The delivery went quickly, and I retreated to a nearby truck stop to wait for my next assignment. Which came in quite quickly. Dispatch assigned me a pickup in Spring Hill, KS, all the way back east across the state, just southwest of Kansas City. Over 300 miles away. So I got rolling right away.
The pickup time was quoted as 20:00, or 8:00 p.m., which would be beyond my 14-hour window for the day, but I was assured I could make the pickup early. I've picked up a load from that site once before--my only other previous pickup in KS--so I knew it would be a drop-and-hook. I also remembered the place as having really tight lots for dropping the empty trailers, so I dreaded that aspect.
The drive back eastward across the state was lengthy, along US-400 and I-35, and took nearly 8 hours, including stops for lunch and fuel. But I got to the pickup at 6:00, and with check-in procedures, squeezing my empty trailer into a spot in the lot and unhooking it, getting my paperwork, finding the new trailer and hooking it up, and other various and sundry procedures, I finished up there just after 7:00. That left just enough time to run over here to Oak Grove.
So I'm parked for the night at a nice big Petro Stopping Place. I figured it was time to bring y'all back up to speed, so despite yet another long day, I'm "taking one for the team" and staying up to compose this report for ya'. I'm looking at another couple of long days coming up, 'cuz my new load is bound for north-central PA (I forget the name of the town I'm headed for), with delivery at 11:00 p.m. Saturday night. (Oy! I hate those late night deliveries. Gonna be tough to find a place to park afterwards.) I'm going to shoot for our Vandalia, OH terminal tomorrow; my atlas says it's about 600 miles.
Time to wrap this up; I think I've covered everything essential over the week since last I posted an update here. Thanks for checking in, please send me some comments and questions, and keep on truckin'.
Miles Today: 611
Miles Yesterday: 621
Miles Tuesday: 554
Oy, do I have some catchin' up to do. My apologies for my long absence from these reports, but:
a) I was home for a few days with too much to do to do any blogging, and
b) I've had some long, tiring days since returning to the road.
Here's my story.
I got home on Friday, fairly early in the evening (or even late afternoon) for a change, instead of deep into the evening. So I even had time to mow my lawn while the sun still shone. Then on Saturday, with gorgeous weather, I spent most of the day working in my yard, pulling weeds, spreading oodles of bags of mulch, turning the soil (and yanking the weeds from) a 12'x4' planting bed, and planting potatoes and onions in that bed. MUCH more physical labor than I'm used to these days, that's for sure. No wonder my hamstrings are still sore today.
But you're not here to read about my time off the road; you want narratives about my truckin', right? (Besides, it's late after yet another long day behind the wheel, and I need to keep this short if possible so I can get to bed.) Suffice to say that I also had Sunday and Monday at home, and Mrs. R.T. drove me back to my truck (well, I actually drove) early Tuesday morning.
After a couple hours back, I finally got my pickup assignment. My pickup was in Muskegon, MI that afternoon, with delivery set for this morning in Garden City, KS. I hit the road right away to cross the state to get my load. That pickup went fine, and I then headed down the west coast to make my way around Lake Michigan. By looking at my atlas, I saw that I had a few options for my route to Garden City, which is in the southwest part of the state. I had been thinking lately that it'd been a while since I'd been to the "World's Largest Truck Stop" in Walcott, IA, and I also had a chance to add a new state to my "trucked in" list. So I set my course for Walcott, which I could reach within my allotted hours for the day.
I did reach Walcott as the sun was setting on Tuesday, and went right to bed. I had been up late Monday night getting everything ready for my return to my truck, and I was up early Tuesday morning, so by the time I stopped in Walcott, I was definitely dead tired. So no blogging that night.
Yesterday (Wednesday) I got up and rolling just as my break reached the required 10 hours. My route was straight west along I-80 all the way across IA and into NE (the new state on my list). Then south just past Kearney on US-183 into KS, down to I-70. Once on I-70 and heading west some more, I came across a new truck stop in the town of Ellis, KS just as I was reaching 11 hours of driving for the day. It was a smaller place with no good place for me to plug in and blog; besides, it had been another long day and I still had some residual fatigue. So I couldn't write up a report for you.
This morning I hit the road at 5:45--again just as soon as I had been on break for 10 hours--so I could get to my delivery in Garden City by my 9:00 appointment. Mission accomplished. The delivery went quickly, and I retreated to a nearby truck stop to wait for my next assignment. Which came in quite quickly. Dispatch assigned me a pickup in Spring Hill, KS, all the way back east across the state, just southwest of Kansas City. Over 300 miles away. So I got rolling right away.
The pickup time was quoted as 20:00, or 8:00 p.m., which would be beyond my 14-hour window for the day, but I was assured I could make the pickup early. I've picked up a load from that site once before--my only other previous pickup in KS--so I knew it would be a drop-and-hook. I also remembered the place as having really tight lots for dropping the empty trailers, so I dreaded that aspect.
The drive back eastward across the state was lengthy, along US-400 and I-35, and took nearly 8 hours, including stops for lunch and fuel. But I got to the pickup at 6:00, and with check-in procedures, squeezing my empty trailer into a spot in the lot and unhooking it, getting my paperwork, finding the new trailer and hooking it up, and other various and sundry procedures, I finished up there just after 7:00. That left just enough time to run over here to Oak Grove.
So I'm parked for the night at a nice big Petro Stopping Place. I figured it was time to bring y'all back up to speed, so despite yet another long day, I'm "taking one for the team" and staying up to compose this report for ya'. I'm looking at another couple of long days coming up, 'cuz my new load is bound for north-central PA (I forget the name of the town I'm headed for), with delivery at 11:00 p.m. Saturday night. (Oy! I hate those late night deliveries. Gonna be tough to find a place to park afterwards.) I'm going to shoot for our Vandalia, OH terminal tomorrow; my atlas says it's about 600 miles.
Time to wrap this up; I think I've covered everything essential over the week since last I posted an update here. Thanks for checking in, please send me some comments and questions, and keep on truckin'.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Walton, KY
DATELINE: WALTON, KY, 8:00 p.m. EDT
Finally! An easy day with no "challenges". Just a 45-minute drive to my pickup in Novi, MI, a mostly easy drive down I-275 and I-75 (only "mostly" because of some rush hour traffic volume), an easy drop-and-hook delivery in Dry Ridge, KY at a site to which I've been before, and retreat to the Flying J here for the night. I even had enough time between pickup and delivery time to take my time on the drive down, including time for an hour-long nap when fatigue reared its ugly head.
I started my work day at 6:45 a.m., and finished up by 5:00 p.m. So it was an easy day for a change. My next pickup will be tomorrow (Friday) morning at the same company where I just delivered my load today. That'll be at 7:00, then I deliver it in Detroit in the afternoon. The scheduled delivery time is 5:00 p.m., but I'm going to get there as quick as I can, probably early afternoon, 'cuz my next bout of home time is this weekend, and it'll start after I complete this next load and get back to the yard where I park my truck.
So no drama to captivate you today, and hopefully I'll have none tomorrow, either. Thanks for taking the time to check in today, and keep on truckin'.
Finally! An easy day with no "challenges". Just a 45-minute drive to my pickup in Novi, MI, a mostly easy drive down I-275 and I-75 (only "mostly" because of some rush hour traffic volume), an easy drop-and-hook delivery in Dry Ridge, KY at a site to which I've been before, and retreat to the Flying J here for the night. I even had enough time between pickup and delivery time to take my time on the drive down, including time for an hour-long nap when fatigue reared its ugly head.
I started my work day at 6:45 a.m., and finished up by 5:00 p.m. So it was an easy day for a change. My next pickup will be tomorrow (Friday) morning at the same company where I just delivered my load today. That'll be at 7:00, then I deliver it in Detroit in the afternoon. The scheduled delivery time is 5:00 p.m., but I'm going to get there as quick as I can, probably early afternoon, 'cuz my next bout of home time is this weekend, and it'll start after I complete this next load and get back to the yard where I park my truck.
So no drama to captivate you today, and hopefully I'll have none tomorrow, either. Thanks for taking the time to check in today, and keep on truckin'.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Pittsfield Township, MI
DATELINE: HOME (Temporarily), 8:00 p.m. EDT
Miles Today: 126
Well today was certainly unique. Not in that it involved a LOT of sitting and waiting around, but WHY I had to do a lot of sitting and waiting around.
First, I got up at 6:00 and went inside to go stand and look at a wall. When I came back to my truck, I found a flat steer tire. So I had to call the Breakdown Department so they could get someone out to replace it. That took about 3 hours.
Finally rolling, I got up the entrance ramp and a few hundred yards down the turnpike, just getting up to speed, when I heard and felt a loud BANG. I immediately pulled over to the shoulder to investigate. Nothing was obviously wrong, except I found a hunk of metal sitting on top of the catwalk behind my cab. I called in to Breakdown again, waited on hold for a goodly while, then got talked into just continuing on because my truck would roll.
So I did continue on to my delivery in Livonia, MI. Once I got there and backed into the dock, I had a chance to climb under my truck (I didn't really want to on the shoulder of the OH turnpike) and take a good look. Based on the shape of the hunk of metal I had found on the catwalk, I looked at the brake drums on the drive axles. Yup, one was gone. And when it broke and flew off it slashed the tire on that wheel. So more repairing was in order.
I called in to Breakdown AGAIN while my trailer was being unloaded and was put on hold. And eventually got cut off. So I called back in and got put back on hold. The unloading went fairly quickly, though, and I had to leave before Breakdown came on the line. Since we generally get sent to TAs for repairs when one is nearby, I anticipated the same and just drove over to the one in Dexter. Once there I called in to Breakdown yet again. This time, my period on hold was not very long, and I got the OK to put the TA shop on the case.
Yada yada, 4-1/2 hours later my truck was all better. I was down to only 2-1/2 hours left in my 14-hour window for the day, so it was likely I wouldn't get an assignment to pick up a load today. I was right on that count...my next pickup will be tomorrow (Thursday) morning at 8:00 in Novi, MI. I'll then take that load to Dry Ridge, KY for a 5:00 p.m. delivery. Check back tomorrow to see what happens after that.
Thanks for looking in today. Send me some comments and questions, bitte, and keep on truckin'.
Miles Today: 126
Well today was certainly unique. Not in that it involved a LOT of sitting and waiting around, but WHY I had to do a lot of sitting and waiting around.
First, I got up at 6:00 and went inside to go stand and look at a wall. When I came back to my truck, I found a flat steer tire. So I had to call the Breakdown Department so they could get someone out to replace it. That took about 3 hours.
Finally rolling, I got up the entrance ramp and a few hundred yards down the turnpike, just getting up to speed, when I heard and felt a loud BANG. I immediately pulled over to the shoulder to investigate. Nothing was obviously wrong, except I found a hunk of metal sitting on top of the catwalk behind my cab. I called in to Breakdown again, waited on hold for a goodly while, then got talked into just continuing on because my truck would roll.
So I did continue on to my delivery in Livonia, MI. Once I got there and backed into the dock, I had a chance to climb under my truck (I didn't really want to on the shoulder of the OH turnpike) and take a good look. Based on the shape of the hunk of metal I had found on the catwalk, I looked at the brake drums on the drive axles. Yup, one was gone. And when it broke and flew off it slashed the tire on that wheel. So more repairing was in order.
I called in to Breakdown AGAIN while my trailer was being unloaded and was put on hold. And eventually got cut off. So I called back in and got put back on hold. The unloading went fairly quickly, though, and I had to leave before Breakdown came on the line. Since we generally get sent to TAs for repairs when one is nearby, I anticipated the same and just drove over to the one in Dexter. Once there I called in to Breakdown yet again. This time, my period on hold was not very long, and I got the OK to put the TA shop on the case.
Yada yada, 4-1/2 hours later my truck was all better. I was down to only 2-1/2 hours left in my 14-hour window for the day, so it was likely I wouldn't get an assignment to pick up a load today. I was right on that count...my next pickup will be tomorrow (Thursday) morning at 8:00 in Novi, MI. I'll then take that load to Dry Ridge, KY for a 5:00 p.m. delivery. Check back tomorrow to see what happens after that.
Thanks for looking in today. Send me some comments and questions, bitte, and keep on truckin'.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Erie Island, OH
DATELINE: ERIE ISLAND SERVICE PLAZA, OH TURNPIKE, 9:00 p.m. EDT
I've had a busy 2-1/2 days since last I reported for you. Well, parts of those 2-1/2 days have been busy, anyway. The busy-ness didn't start 'til 6:00 on Sunday night.
That's when I left lovely Spiceland for my deliveries in Urbana and Springfield, OH. My first appointment was for 8:00 p.m., and I duly made the trek and arrived about 15 minutes early. The place was a warehouse used by the plant where the balance of my load was going in my second stop of the night. Anyway, when I arrived, their gate was closed! Another truck was parked on the shoulder of the road across the street from the gate, so I found places to make a couple turn-arounds and pulled in behind. Then I sat and waited. And sat and waited. And sat and waited some more. Turns out the place doesn't even open 'til 10:00 on Sunday nights. My guess is whoever data-entered the load assignment saw "10:00 p.m." and translated that to 20:00 military time (instead of the correct 22:00), which is the format the times are listed in the assignments. Sigh. Just another example of how we drivers have to suffer for others' mistakes.
So at 10:00 the opened the gate and we (there were by then 3 of us waiting to get in) got to enter the lot, then wait another few minutes 'til they opened up the driver check-in desk. All in all, I invested a lot of time at that place just for them to take 3--count 'em, t-h-r-e-e--pallets off the back of my trailer. After backing into my assigned door, by the time I climbed out, walked to the back to shove a chock under a trailer tire, and walked back over to the check-in desk (at this place, drivers are required to wait inside while their trailers are unloaded), they guy was done with the 3 pallets from my load. So I just grabbed the paperwork and prepared to head to stop #2.
The drive over to the next stop was good 'n quick, 20 minutes maybe. This delivery was a drop-and-hook, so at least I didn't have to do any waiting while a dock crew pulled the goods off the trailer. But after parking and dropping my loaded trailer and finding an empty to take with me, I did have to wait some for my next assignment. I decided to wait there instead of heading to our Vandalia terminal to wait 'cuz there was a possibility I could get assigned a load from that facility (the guard at the gate had mentioned when I checked in that they had a couple of pre-loaded USA trailers waiting to get taken away), and it was a large facility so I wasn't in anybody's way just waiting around there. But after a 30 or 45-minute wait, my next assignment wasn't a pickup at that site.
Dispatch assigned me to head up to Detroit to grab a load from another driver who, due to documentation problems, couldn't go into Canada. That's right, it was time to head back into the land of the Maple Leaf. That's way I didn't submit an update for y'all yesterday; my Verizon plan for my laptop's wireless internet card isn't international.
The other driver was at the customs clearance company at the foot of the Ambassador bridge, and had already cleared the load. All I had to do was get there, swap trailers with her, and head across the border. It was already about midnight by the time I got rolling from Springfield, and with a fuel stop en route, I didn't get to the swap 'til about 4:00 a.m., and didn't get back underway 'til about 4:45. The load was due for delivery at 8:00 a.m. in Milton, ON, 200 or so miles along highway 401. I wasn't going to be able to reach the delivery either on time or before my 14-hour window for that shift expired, so I let Dispatch know and gave them my ETA after I could take the mandated 10-hour break.
Now, did I mention that I had been awake since about 7:30 Sunday morning? I had planned to nap during the afternoon before heading out to the evening deliveries, but that just didn't work out. So by the time I was across the bridge and rolling across southern Ontario, I was getting a mite tired. I called it a night when I reached the Pilot Travel Center in Tilbury at 6:00, just as dawn was taking hold. I had to grab a quick bite before bedding down 'cuz I was at least as hungry as I was tired. But once prone in my bunk, I had a fitful day's sleep.
It didn't help that around 9:00 my Fleet Manager woke me up with a few messages asking about my status with the load. Apparently, such word doesn't get passed around back at the home office. After that intrusion, I couldn't get back to sleep, so I pulled down my laptop and worked on numbing myself back to weariness with a number of games of Freecell. That eventually worked, and I did doze back off. But, again, my sleep was fitful.
Since I had stopped at 6:00, I could get back to work at 4:00 p.m. to go make the delivery. From Tilbury I still had about 3 more hours to drive to get to Milton.
Yada, yada, I can see this post is stretching out already, so I'll cut to: I made the delivery--'twas another drop-and-hook, and after dropping the loaded trailer, I discovered they didn't have any empty USA trailers in their lot. So I bobtailed over to a nearby truck stop, a "Fifth Wheel" (a Canadian chain) conveniently located off the same highway exit in Milton, to wait for my next assignment. I had let Dispatch know that I was trailer-less, so they'd have to find me either a place to pick up an empty, or a pre-loaded pickup that would let me make the pickup without leaving an empty in its place. That could complicate things.
Anyway, I parked at the Fifth Wheel and walked down the block to a McDonald's since I was once again hungry. Of course, after eating my sandwich at McD's, I walked out to find that the rain had moved in. Not a heavy downpour, but a pretty good rain with some wind. Nice. I hadn't worn a jacket since the weather had been nice 'n warm. I just had a long sleeve denim shirt over a T-shirt along with jeans and my work boots, so I got a little damp on the walk back. No load assignment had come in yet, so I settled in for a nap while the Load Coordinators worked on finding me something to do. This was now around 10:00 p.m.
Because of my long day's journey from Sunday into Monday morning, I had felt a bit "off" since waking up in Tilbury, so I was totally worn out as I hit the sack in Milton. Round about 1:00 I was awakened by an assignment message coming in. It was to pick up a load--a live load, not a pre-loaded trailer--in Buffalo, NY at 8:00 Tuesday morning. Of course, I still didn't have a trailer, so after a few messages back and forth, we decided that I'd go back over to the place to which I'd delivered that evening and see if they'd emptied any USA trailers yet. (I had seen a few loaded ones sitting around when I was there, including one or two already in dock doors.) BUT we also decided that I'd complete a 10-hour break first. Doing so meant I couldn't make the Buffalo pickup on time, but I'd only be an our or two late.
I got rolling again at 7:00 this morning and made the 5-minute drive back over to that company. The guard at the gate told me that he was sure they didn't have any empties for me, but he let me drive through their empties row to make sure. Lo and behold, I found one! Someone had slipped on in and hadn't updated the guard's list yet. Hallelujah! So I hooked it up to my truck and started shuffling off to Buffalo, which was only 80 or so miles away. (By the way, I grabbed that empty just in time. As I was leaving the site with it, another USA Truck truck was pulling in. He'd have to deal with the lack of empties this time.)
Man, it's getting late now and I'm tired yet again. Let me sum up today by saying I had another long wait at the Buffalo pickup (I was "Buffaloed in New York") due to missing info in the load assignment--my Fleet Manager had to contact the customer to get the proper load number. This load is due for a 9:00 a.m. delivery Wednesday morning in Livonia, MI, so I headed west all afternoon. I stopped here (see "Dateline" above), about 30 miles east of Toledo 'cuz it was reaching that time of the evening when trucker parking spaces start getting more difficult to find. I'll get up and rolling between 6:30 and 7:00 in the morning, giving me time for a fuel stop en route to the delivery.
I thing k that gets you caught up with what I've been up to lately. Thanks for stopping by. Please drop me some questions and comments, and keep on truckin'.
I've had a busy 2-1/2 days since last I reported for you. Well, parts of those 2-1/2 days have been busy, anyway. The busy-ness didn't start 'til 6:00 on Sunday night.
That's when I left lovely Spiceland for my deliveries in Urbana and Springfield, OH. My first appointment was for 8:00 p.m., and I duly made the trek and arrived about 15 minutes early. The place was a warehouse used by the plant where the balance of my load was going in my second stop of the night. Anyway, when I arrived, their gate was closed! Another truck was parked on the shoulder of the road across the street from the gate, so I found places to make a couple turn-arounds and pulled in behind. Then I sat and waited. And sat and waited. And sat and waited some more. Turns out the place doesn't even open 'til 10:00 on Sunday nights. My guess is whoever data-entered the load assignment saw "10:00 p.m." and translated that to 20:00 military time (instead of the correct 22:00), which is the format the times are listed in the assignments. Sigh. Just another example of how we drivers have to suffer for others' mistakes.
So at 10:00 the opened the gate and we (there were by then 3 of us waiting to get in) got to enter the lot, then wait another few minutes 'til they opened up the driver check-in desk. All in all, I invested a lot of time at that place just for them to take 3--count 'em, t-h-r-e-e--pallets off the back of my trailer. After backing into my assigned door, by the time I climbed out, walked to the back to shove a chock under a trailer tire, and walked back over to the check-in desk (at this place, drivers are required to wait inside while their trailers are unloaded), they guy was done with the 3 pallets from my load. So I just grabbed the paperwork and prepared to head to stop #2.
The drive over to the next stop was good 'n quick, 20 minutes maybe. This delivery was a drop-and-hook, so at least I didn't have to do any waiting while a dock crew pulled the goods off the trailer. But after parking and dropping my loaded trailer and finding an empty to take with me, I did have to wait some for my next assignment. I decided to wait there instead of heading to our Vandalia terminal to wait 'cuz there was a possibility I could get assigned a load from that facility (the guard at the gate had mentioned when I checked in that they had a couple of pre-loaded USA trailers waiting to get taken away), and it was a large facility so I wasn't in anybody's way just waiting around there. But after a 30 or 45-minute wait, my next assignment wasn't a pickup at that site.
Dispatch assigned me to head up to Detroit to grab a load from another driver who, due to documentation problems, couldn't go into Canada. That's right, it was time to head back into the land of the Maple Leaf. That's way I didn't submit an update for y'all yesterday; my Verizon plan for my laptop's wireless internet card isn't international.
The other driver was at the customs clearance company at the foot of the Ambassador bridge, and had already cleared the load. All I had to do was get there, swap trailers with her, and head across the border. It was already about midnight by the time I got rolling from Springfield, and with a fuel stop en route, I didn't get to the swap 'til about 4:00 a.m., and didn't get back underway 'til about 4:45. The load was due for delivery at 8:00 a.m. in Milton, ON, 200 or so miles along highway 401. I wasn't going to be able to reach the delivery either on time or before my 14-hour window for that shift expired, so I let Dispatch know and gave them my ETA after I could take the mandated 10-hour break.
Now, did I mention that I had been awake since about 7:30 Sunday morning? I had planned to nap during the afternoon before heading out to the evening deliveries, but that just didn't work out. So by the time I was across the bridge and rolling across southern Ontario, I was getting a mite tired. I called it a night when I reached the Pilot Travel Center in Tilbury at 6:00, just as dawn was taking hold. I had to grab a quick bite before bedding down 'cuz I was at least as hungry as I was tired. But once prone in my bunk, I had a fitful day's sleep.
It didn't help that around 9:00 my Fleet Manager woke me up with a few messages asking about my status with the load. Apparently, such word doesn't get passed around back at the home office. After that intrusion, I couldn't get back to sleep, so I pulled down my laptop and worked on numbing myself back to weariness with a number of games of Freecell. That eventually worked, and I did doze back off. But, again, my sleep was fitful.
Since I had stopped at 6:00, I could get back to work at 4:00 p.m. to go make the delivery. From Tilbury I still had about 3 more hours to drive to get to Milton.
Yada, yada, I can see this post is stretching out already, so I'll cut to: I made the delivery--'twas another drop-and-hook, and after dropping the loaded trailer, I discovered they didn't have any empty USA trailers in their lot. So I bobtailed over to a nearby truck stop, a "Fifth Wheel" (a Canadian chain) conveniently located off the same highway exit in Milton, to wait for my next assignment. I had let Dispatch know that I was trailer-less, so they'd have to find me either a place to pick up an empty, or a pre-loaded pickup that would let me make the pickup without leaving an empty in its place. That could complicate things.
Anyway, I parked at the Fifth Wheel and walked down the block to a McDonald's since I was once again hungry. Of course, after eating my sandwich at McD's, I walked out to find that the rain had moved in. Not a heavy downpour, but a pretty good rain with some wind. Nice. I hadn't worn a jacket since the weather had been nice 'n warm. I just had a long sleeve denim shirt over a T-shirt along with jeans and my work boots, so I got a little damp on the walk back. No load assignment had come in yet, so I settled in for a nap while the Load Coordinators worked on finding me something to do. This was now around 10:00 p.m.
Because of my long day's journey from Sunday into Monday morning, I had felt a bit "off" since waking up in Tilbury, so I was totally worn out as I hit the sack in Milton. Round about 1:00 I was awakened by an assignment message coming in. It was to pick up a load--a live load, not a pre-loaded trailer--in Buffalo, NY at 8:00 Tuesday morning. Of course, I still didn't have a trailer, so after a few messages back and forth, we decided that I'd go back over to the place to which I'd delivered that evening and see if they'd emptied any USA trailers yet. (I had seen a few loaded ones sitting around when I was there, including one or two already in dock doors.) BUT we also decided that I'd complete a 10-hour break first. Doing so meant I couldn't make the Buffalo pickup on time, but I'd only be an our or two late.
I got rolling again at 7:00 this morning and made the 5-minute drive back over to that company. The guard at the gate told me that he was sure they didn't have any empties for me, but he let me drive through their empties row to make sure. Lo and behold, I found one! Someone had slipped on in and hadn't updated the guard's list yet. Hallelujah! So I hooked it up to my truck and started shuffling off to Buffalo, which was only 80 or so miles away. (By the way, I grabbed that empty just in time. As I was leaving the site with it, another USA Truck truck was pulling in. He'd have to deal with the lack of empties this time.)
Man, it's getting late now and I'm tired yet again. Let me sum up today by saying I had another long wait at the Buffalo pickup (I was "Buffaloed in New York") due to missing info in the load assignment--my Fleet Manager had to contact the customer to get the proper load number. This load is due for a 9:00 a.m. delivery Wednesday morning in Livonia, MI, so I headed west all afternoon. I stopped here (see "Dateline" above), about 30 miles east of Toledo 'cuz it was reaching that time of the evening when trucker parking spaces start getting more difficult to find. I'll get up and rolling between 6:30 and 7:00 in the morning, giving me time for a fuel stop en route to the delivery.
I thing k that gets you caught up with what I've been up to lately. Thanks for stopping by. Please drop me some questions and comments, and keep on truckin'.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Reprieve
DATELINE: SPICELAND, IN, 9:00 a.m. EDT
I decided to give it a shot this morning and brought my laptop inside to the drivers' lounge and plugged it in. Lo and behold, this time the power connected and I can recharge. Hurray! So I have a few minutes to bring y'all up to date while the battery recovers full power. Well, I have plenty of time, actually, because my deliveries (2 stops) aren't 'till 8:00 and 9:00 tonight, less than 100 miles away, in Urbana and Springfield, OH. But how (and why) did I get here?
In my last report, I was poised (again, 100 miles away) for an early Thursday morning delivery in Dallas. That went fine, as I arrived about 30 minutes early, dropped my loaded trailer as instructed, and found me a nice, newish empty to take with me. I took my time after hooking up the empty before leaving the site to give Dispatch a chance to get my next assignment to me while I completed the trip's paperwork. Since it was a large facility with a large lot, I wasn't in anybody's way just staying there a while. Besides, at 4:00 a.m., there wasn't much traffic to be in the way of.
Anyway, I was done with the delivery by 4:00, and by 4:15 I had my next assignment. It was to pick up a load in semi-nearby Fort Worth...at 9:00 a.m. Dispatch confirmed that the pickup was a set assignment time, so I couldn't boogie over there early. So I had some time to kill.
I first headed to the Love's just southeast of Dallas to get me a Steak and Egg Burrito at the Carl's Jr. there. Always a favorite.
It'd been a couple of days since I'd had a shower, so next I headed over to Fort Worth, to a Pilot just a few miles from my next pickup site. That Pilot is in USA's fuel network, so by fueling up there (and swiping my Pilot rewards program card at the pump) I earned a shower credit that I used right away. Afterwards, I had to kill another half hour or so before heading over to make my pickup, so I spent it working on puzzles in Games Magazine.
The pickup went fine, and now I'm waiting to head out to deliver that load I picked up in Fort Worth. It's going to two facilities of the same company, in the aforementioned Urbana and Springfield, OH. Again the deliveries are set appointments, so I can't run over there whenever I please, and I have to wait 'til this evening to get rolling. Looks like tonight'll be one of those overnight shifts I disdain so much. Then again, I don't know how many loads are available on Sunday nights, so maybe I'll get to retreat to the Vandalia terminal after delivering the load. We'll see.
On the way here to Spiceland (I guess we now know where the Spice Girls came from) I spent nights in Checotah, OK (hometown of one-time American Idol champ and country music superstar Carrie Underwood) and Pacific, MO. My available hours were low for each of last couple of days, hence the shorter trips those days.
Oh, I should mention an interesting encounter. As I was driving along I-70 through Indianapolis yesterday, I noticed a motorcade coming up an entrance ramp to my right. It included 3 large tour buses and several SUVs and state police cruisers with lights a-flashin'. It pulled onto the road alongside me, and someone in one of the SUVs stuck out a hand to signal me to back off. So I let them pull ahead of me and followed them for a few miles before they pulled onto another highway. I had no clue who might have been in the motorcade 'til later that day, after parking here, I caught some news on CNN on one of the TVs. It turns out Barack Obama was in Indy and other points in the Hoosier state yesterday. So it's a good thing I was driving safely, or you'd-a seen me on the news.
Now let me respond to reader mrr's query: "You occasionally mention 'paperwork' in your reports. Question: What do you do with all the papers? Do you collect a bunch, then send them in to HQ? Or do you drop them off when you hit one of USA's terminals? Or do you just keep them all in your log for your records?"
After each trip, or load, I need to turn in a copy of the bill of lading, or BOL, so the company can bill the shipper and get paid (and they can pay me). I also send in my completed log pages (one for each day) and receipts and reimbursement form for expenses I paid, such as scale tickets and turnpike tolls. Sending them in is now an electronic process, via scan/fax stations at our terminals and most of the truck stop chains. (Back in the olden days when I started, I had to put the papers into an envelope--pre-printed, provided by the company--and mail 'em in or drop them in drop boxes at the terminals.) The scans go to a third company that processes the trip data for many companies, so I also need to fill out and include a cover sheet for each scan to identify it as USA Truck data and the specific load. I then keep the papers for each trip 'til I get a message from USA that the scan has been processed and accepted. At that point I just keep the scan receipt and drop the other papers into shred boxes at a terminal. So that's my paperwork story.
And now you're back in step with me. Thanks for checking in, and keep on truckin'.
By the way, I may have a lead on my laptop power problem. It's seeming that, in order for the thing to draw power through the cord, the batter has to be run all the way down. That was the case this morning when I plugged in. Weird, huh?
I decided to give it a shot this morning and brought my laptop inside to the drivers' lounge and plugged it in. Lo and behold, this time the power connected and I can recharge. Hurray! So I have a few minutes to bring y'all up to date while the battery recovers full power. Well, I have plenty of time, actually, because my deliveries (2 stops) aren't 'till 8:00 and 9:00 tonight, less than 100 miles away, in Urbana and Springfield, OH. But how (and why) did I get here?
In my last report, I was poised (again, 100 miles away) for an early Thursday morning delivery in Dallas. That went fine, as I arrived about 30 minutes early, dropped my loaded trailer as instructed, and found me a nice, newish empty to take with me. I took my time after hooking up the empty before leaving the site to give Dispatch a chance to get my next assignment to me while I completed the trip's paperwork. Since it was a large facility with a large lot, I wasn't in anybody's way just staying there a while. Besides, at 4:00 a.m., there wasn't much traffic to be in the way of.
Anyway, I was done with the delivery by 4:00, and by 4:15 I had my next assignment. It was to pick up a load in semi-nearby Fort Worth...at 9:00 a.m. Dispatch confirmed that the pickup was a set assignment time, so I couldn't boogie over there early. So I had some time to kill.
I first headed to the Love's just southeast of Dallas to get me a Steak and Egg Burrito at the Carl's Jr. there. Always a favorite.
It'd been a couple of days since I'd had a shower, so next I headed over to Fort Worth, to a Pilot just a few miles from my next pickup site. That Pilot is in USA's fuel network, so by fueling up there (and swiping my Pilot rewards program card at the pump) I earned a shower credit that I used right away. Afterwards, I had to kill another half hour or so before heading over to make my pickup, so I spent it working on puzzles in Games Magazine.
The pickup went fine, and now I'm waiting to head out to deliver that load I picked up in Fort Worth. It's going to two facilities of the same company, in the aforementioned Urbana and Springfield, OH. Again the deliveries are set appointments, so I can't run over there whenever I please, and I have to wait 'til this evening to get rolling. Looks like tonight'll be one of those overnight shifts I disdain so much. Then again, I don't know how many loads are available on Sunday nights, so maybe I'll get to retreat to the Vandalia terminal after delivering the load. We'll see.
On the way here to Spiceland (I guess we now know where the Spice Girls came from) I spent nights in Checotah, OK (hometown of one-time American Idol champ and country music superstar Carrie Underwood) and Pacific, MO. My available hours were low for each of last couple of days, hence the shorter trips those days.
Oh, I should mention an interesting encounter. As I was driving along I-70 through Indianapolis yesterday, I noticed a motorcade coming up an entrance ramp to my right. It included 3 large tour buses and several SUVs and state police cruisers with lights a-flashin'. It pulled onto the road alongside me, and someone in one of the SUVs stuck out a hand to signal me to back off. So I let them pull ahead of me and followed them for a few miles before they pulled onto another highway. I had no clue who might have been in the motorcade 'til later that day, after parking here, I caught some news on CNN on one of the TVs. It turns out Barack Obama was in Indy and other points in the Hoosier state yesterday. So it's a good thing I was driving safely, or you'd-a seen me on the news.
Now let me respond to reader mrr's query: "You occasionally mention 'paperwork' in your reports. Question: What do you do with all the papers? Do you collect a bunch, then send them in to HQ? Or do you drop them off when you hit one of USA's terminals? Or do you just keep them all in your log for your records?"
After each trip, or load, I need to turn in a copy of the bill of lading, or BOL, so the company can bill the shipper and get paid (and they can pay me). I also send in my completed log pages (one for each day) and receipts and reimbursement form for expenses I paid, such as scale tickets and turnpike tolls. Sending them in is now an electronic process, via scan/fax stations at our terminals and most of the truck stop chains. (Back in the olden days when I started, I had to put the papers into an envelope--pre-printed, provided by the company--and mail 'em in or drop them in drop boxes at the terminals.) The scans go to a third company that processes the trip data for many companies, so I also need to fill out and include a cover sheet for each scan to identify it as USA Truck data and the specific load. I then keep the papers for each trip 'til I get a message from USA that the scan has been processed and accepted. At that point I just keep the scan receipt and drop the other papers into shred boxes at a terminal. So that's my paperwork story.
And now you're back in step with me. Thanks for checking in, and keep on truckin'.
By the way, I may have a lead on my laptop power problem. It's seeming that, in order for the thing to draw power through the cord, the batter has to be run all the way down. That was the case this morning when I plugged in. Weird, huh?
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Offline for a While
DATELINE: SPICELAND, IN, 7:00 p.m.EDT
Just a quickie today 'cuz I'm on a pay-as-you-go (20 cents/minute) internet kisok at the Flying J here. My laptop now doesn't even draw power when plugged into an AC outlet inside. So I gotta get it checked out when I get home next weekend. So for now you know why I'm not updating this blog regularly. Here's hoping I can figure out what to do with myself the next few days during my downtime without my laptop and what I can do on it available. Thanks for your patience, but keep checking back for when I get back online. And keep on truckin'.
Just a quickie today 'cuz I'm on a pay-as-you-go (20 cents/minute) internet kisok at the Flying J here. My laptop now doesn't even draw power when plugged into an AC outlet inside. So I gotta get it checked out when I get home next weekend. So for now you know why I'm not updating this blog regularly. Here's hoping I can figure out what to do with myself the next few days during my downtime without my laptop and what I can do on it available. Thanks for your patience, but keep checking back for when I get back online. And keep on truckin'.
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