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'.