On the Road Once More

DATELINE: BEAVERDAM, OH, 10:15 p.m. EDT

Miles Today: 336

Just a quick update tonight 'cuz I'm running on battery power (well, my laptop is; I'm running on caffeine).

Well, my first day back from home time and the ridiculosity starts already. Ya' know, what'd be nice would be if I could just be able to make pickups and deliveries, and just drive in between. But no, there's all sorts of other "stuff" that comes up--and FAR, FAR too regularly--that really makes this job stressful and unenjoyable. Here's today's tale.

Mrs. R.T. returned me to my truck at 6:30 this morning, and within an hour I had my first assignment for this tour of duty. Not that a pickup in Sarnia, ON was ridiculous. Nor is a delivery of that load to Smyrna, TN (outside of Nashville) tomorrow morning. (Though the lack of "wiggle room" in the schedule was a bit "iffy".) No, what was ridiculous today was the 3-hour wait at customs in Detroit.

Now, I know you're thinking that the line coming off of the Ambassador Bridge was just that backed up, but that wasn't the case (though that did take about 45 minutes). Instead, when I was at the customs booth, the officer there apparently found a problem with the load's paperwork (I think some record in a computer database hadn't gotten updated properly). So he directed me to pull around to the "exam" area, back into a dock, and see the nice people inside.

I did as instructed, and wound up sitting in a concrete block drivers' waiting room for 3 hours while the Customs/Border Patrol agents did a search of my truck. That included opening the sealed trailer an hauling out all of the load (racks of auto parts this time). Meanwhile, I couldn't leave the waiting room nor use my cell phone. At least I had plenty of company in there. But it was still a long, dull wait.

I was hoping that this time out on the road would be relatively simple, because the last tour was chock full of what I used to call "challenges" in these pages. But no, we start out with this customs &*%$@# that put me way behind schedule and unable to make it to my delivery on time (within DOT hours of service regulations, anyway).

I've stopped for tonight at the Flying J here along I-75, and I'm waiting to hear from Dispatch whether they'll arrange for a relay to get my load to its destination on time, or if I'll just keep it and deliver late (by about 3 hours). I can pretty much guarantee that I won't hear anything 'til I finally fall asleep. But, since I can say that with such confidence, despite heavy fatigue, I won't be able to fall asleep out of concern that a message will wake me up right away. How's that for a Catch-22?

Anyway, I am quite tired now and am gonna try to get to sleep. Thanks for getting back on board with me after my "vacation". Drop me a line, and keep on truckin'.