Hours Overage

DATELINE: KINGSTON SPRINGS, TN, 4:45 p.m. CDT

Miles Yesterday: 416
Miles Today: 211

Pardon me for not blogging last night, but I figured with a short work day coming up today (because I was closing in on my 70-hours-in-8-days limit), I figured I'd just take time today to give y'all a good report. So, first of all, yesterday's action.

Not much to talk about on the trucking front. I just made the leisurely drive from the TA in Prescott, AR to the Flying J in Fairview, TN (just a bit west of Nashville). Just the normal rest and/or grub stops in North Little Rock, AR, West Memphis, AR, and Jackson, TN, but nothing non-routine. I slept in and didn't hit the road 'till 7:00, and I reached Fairview before 4:00. Then I decided it was time to get back to the poker tables.

I wish I hadn't. It was one of those nights when the cards, the poker gods, or fate--or probably all of the above--conspired to pummel my attempts at all turns. I played 8 sit-n-go (SNG) tournaments and 1 multi-table freeroll tourney (all no-limit Texas Hold 'Em) and only managed to cash in 1 of 'em--a 3rd place in a SNG. I'll spare you the details of all the ways I was getting beat, but I was not a happy camper. But this isn't my poker blog (which I haven't updated in quite some time now), so let's move on from that topic.

Except to say that because of my ire from such an amazing string of bad beats and card deadness, I was a bit too riled up to get to sleep at a reasonable hour. So I woke up early this morning (4:35-ish) on a short night's sleep. So by now I'm getting a wee bit weary. But I'll push on and finish this report for you.

I got up early 'cuz I had another couple hours to drive to reach my delivery. I didn't get any closer yesterday because Russellville, KY, the town to which I was headed, is in the middle of nowhere in terms of interstate highways, and no truck stops are anywhere nearby. So I had to truck in from a distance. Anyway, I hit the road at 5:30 and got to the delivery 2 hours later, just as I had figured.

That was still an hour early, so I had to wait a little while for them to call me to an open dock for unloading. (Darn! Not a drop-and-hook.) But the wait was just 30 minutes. Checking in at their scale house (the load was bulk scrap aluminum, so they weigh the trucks on the way in--full--and out--empty--to determine the load's weight), driving back to the dock, checking in back there, and docking, took most of another half-hour. Unloading was quick (another 30-ish minutes), then I had to sweep out the trailer to get rid of the scrap scraps that had fallen out of their bundles.

Before doing the sweeping, I sent in my "empty call" message to trigger my next assignment, and it came in before I even hit the scale house on the way out. After checking out there, I pulled into the company's waiting truck lot to check out my assignment and plan my route to the pickup. The pickup was in LaVergne, TN, just south of Nashville, and about 70 miles away. By the way, by the time I had completed the delivery, I was down to less than 2 hours left of my 70 to work. So Dispatch was cutting it close for me.

I arrived at the address given to me 90 minutes later. It was a place I had made a pickup before, but it wasn't the company it was supposed to be. This place is a "3rd-party warehouse", but I was supposed to pick up from a national brand-name company. I checked in there, anyway, guessing the big company used this one's warehousing services. Nope. My Fleet Manager was slow responding to my inquiry into the matter (and eventually responded with the same address, anyway), so I hauled down my laptop and went online to find the right address. Which I did, and found it to be the other way down the same road. Sheesh! Short on hours and I gotta waste time going to the wrong place.

That pickup turned out to be a drop-and-hook, and, because of my short-timer status, I was assigned to drop the load at a drop yard we use in Nashville. (Why the truck that picked it up there couldn't make the pickup at the original company, I'll never know. They--it was a team truck--were waiting at the drop yard when I got there. Another example of "corporate intelligence", I guess.) SO I made the short jaunt over there, dropped the load, then waited a bit for my next job. I had to have something, 'cuz I sure wasn't going to stay at that yard.

About 30-to-45 minutes later, I did get my next assignment. They had another load waiting at that yard, due for delivery in Waverly, TN tomorrow morning. That's only about 60 miles from Nashville, So I'll be able to knock that one out early, get another assignment, and roll some miles tomorrow when I get 12-1/2 hours back to work (the amount I worked last Tuesday).

Well, it's now only 10-3/4 hours, because I had to go beyond my limit to satisfy Dispatch's demands on me today. I had 4-1/4 hours available when I started out, and wound up having to work 6 to get it all done. (I think the Load Coordinators see a distance, assume a 50 MPH average, and calculate allotted times. However, most of my driving today was on a US Highway--US 431 to be exact--which winds through small towns and keeps the average MPH well below 50. Hence my hours overrun. Grrrr! I'd better not get a call from the Safety Department "reminding" me about the hours-of-service regulations.

But, anyway, after grabbing my new load, I've boogied on over to a Petro truck stop in this fine town for the night. It's just about 5 miles up I-40 from last night's Flying J, so I'm basically in the same area from whence I started the day. Tomorrow's delivery is set for 8:00 a.m., so I'll get up in plenty of time to get there 30-to-60 minutes early, as is my preference. I have about an hour to drive to get there (maybe less, but it is mostly along another US highway), so I'll get to sleep in just a little bit later than usual. Which'll be good 'cuz of last night's lack of sleep.

So that covers the last 2 days. Thanks for checking in today. Send in your cards and letters--or, at least your comments and questions--and keep on truckin'.