Full Recap

DATELINE: CHITTENANGO SERVICE PLAZA, NY STATE THRUWAY, 6:00 p.m. EDT

Miles Today: 504

Ho hum, another night, another NY Thruway Service Plaza. The 3rd in 4 nights. Actually, this is the same one where I parked on Saturday for my break before heading to my early Sunday morning pickup. Since I mentioned that, I might as well start there and bring you up-to-date on my travels and travails.

Saturday night/Sunday morning I got up at 12:30 in order to get rolling at 1:00. My 2:00 a.m. pickup was in Baldwinsville, NY, just to the northeast of Syracuse. I got there right on time, checked in at the guard shack, parked and unhooked my empty trailer in a heavy downpour, and headed to their drivers' lounge to wait for them to get my loaded trailer ready. (Why it wasn't at my scheduled pickup time is a mystery to me.) They have a computer monitor in the lounge that displays the outbound orders and associated trailer numbers that are ready to go, so I just had to wait for my order number to appear on the list. Well, I waited in there for 3 hours, watching the late-night/early morning dreck on the TV in the lounge, which only received the local stations--no cable or satellite hookup. I finally gave in walked back to my truck for a nap before I'd check the list again. (There were a bunch of other trucks parked in the waiting area, too, and at least those other drivers were smart enough from the get-go to know they'd have a lengthy wait and didn't bother with the monitor watch.)

Long-enough story short, about 8:45 a.m. my load appeared on the monitor, just after I had seen one of the company's yard jockeys (or, more correctly, "spotters") pulling a USA trailer from a dock and take it to the trailer staging lot. Yep, that one was the one for me. So I hooked it up, checked out, and headed west.

I was very close my 70-hour limit, so I couldn't go very far before I'd have to stop for a 34-hour break to reset my 70-hour counter. I wound up making it to the Rochester, NY area, to the Seneca Service Plaza along the Thruway. (I had stopped at a Petro truck stop on the way to fuel up and earn--and use--a shower credit, so I was good 'n clean for my break.) Now, Rochester is very near where my brother and his wife (and one son, daughter-in-law, and 3 grandkids) live in Canandaigua. So I called them and made arrangements for my bro' to pick me up and take me over to his house for dinner and a short visit. A good time was had by all (I think), as I got to meet the grandkids for the first time. After just a few too-short hours I had to make them take me back to my truck so I could hit the sack.

On Sunday afternoon, before my bro' could make it over to pick me up, I finally had a chance to return to the virtual felt and play some online poker. I've resorted to almost exclusively playing 9-person sit-n-go ("SNG") tournaments, and I've had some pretty good success at it. "Success" to me in those--and any tournament--is finishing in the money (in the top 3 in these SNGs), not necessarily winning. (Although winning is always the "Nuts"!) But once the tourney's down to the top 3, it pretty much comes down to who catches the right cards at the right times, so winning can be a crapshoot. (There are strategic moves you can--and should--make, but if you have 3 equally proficient players, nobody has a real edge unless s/he comes into 3-way play with a huge chip lead.) Anyway, this isn't my poker blog, and I'm getting too much into that discussion. I just want to brag that, despite my 2-month layoff from the game, in the 4 SNGs I played on Sunday, I won 2, took 3rd once, and bombed out early in the other.

On Monday I woke up earlier than I wanted to (remember, I was in the midst of my 34-hour break, and could have slept in as long as possible) and wasn't feeling like I could get back to sleep. That was around 6:30. So I heated up some grub for breakfast and started my day. I spent the rest of the morning hours slogging through e-mail that had been piling up during my offline period. In the afternoon I entered 7 more SNGs, but this time with lesser success. I only "monied" 4 of the 7, with 2 seconds, 2 thirds, and no wins. It was one of those days when the poker gods were just toying with me, giving my opponents miracle river cards to knock me out when I got my chips in with the lead, when I even got goods cards to begin with. And that didn't happen very often, either. (Look up "card-dead" in the poker dictionary, and you'll see my picture.) But I eked out a whole 60-cent profit for the session, and all-in-all I think I made correct decisions for the most part, so all was not lost.

After poker, I needed to nap for a bit before I'd have to get back to work. My break would be complete right around 10:00 p.m., and I'd have to hit the road right then to get to Clarksburg, WV for a 6:00 a.m. delivery. So I did nap, albeit far less than I really needed. But I was up and rolling right on schedule.

The overnight drive actually felt like it went fairly quickly for an 8-hour slog. I was listening and singing along to some of my favorite music CDs that I have along with me, so that kept my mind off the tedium. The drive was just 2 highways--I-90 west and I-79 south--and I tell ya', these days I-79 is just one construction zone after another. 'Twas hard to make good time, and some of those c-zones felt mighty narrow, especially in the dark of night. But the fun part was getting to the customer within Clarksburg.

Now, the town is obviously an old one, and my route in (and out afterwards) was along narrow, winding streets. It's always "fun" to turn a big rig from one two-lane road around a 90-degree corner onto another two-laner, either right or left. Or to drive along narrow winding roads with telephone poles right along the curbs. Such assignments ought to come with hazardous duty pay. But I managed without any damage to life, limb, or property, and the delivery went just fine.

Afterwards, my next assignment was a pickup at another site in Clarksburg. But this one was in an industrial park just off the highway, not into town. (Between delivery & getting the pickup assignment I had retreated to a rest area just a couple miles from the Clarksburg exit off of I-79.) The load I was picking up was headed just about right back to where I had just come from, Rome, NY. (Rome is right by Marcy, where I had delivered a load on Saturday.) So it would be back up I-79 and east on I-90. However, I only had an hour left on my current shift, so I only got as far as Mt. Morris, PA (where I wrote yesterday's update) before stopping for the night.

My Rome delivery was scheduled for 1:00 p.m. today, and at around 400 miles would be about 8 hours of driving, give or take. I originally wanted to get up at 1:00 a.m. to start driving and deliver early, but when my alarm sounded then, I just couldn't make myself get moving. I did have the luxury of a little bit of extra time in that load's schedule, so I allowed myself the extra time to sleep 'til 2:50. By hitting the road at 3:00, that still left me 10 hours for the 8-ish-hour trip. And I even had time to stop en route at a Pilot for a shower and shave. So with the pit stop, a fuel stop, construction zones, a traffic jam around Buffalo, and a missed turn due to incomplete directions (and the resulting backtracking), I still managed to arrive only 13 minutes behind schedule. Close enough. 'Twas a drop-and-hook, so it went quickly.

The company to which I delivered today is in an industrial park in Rome, so there was room for me to park along the street while I waited for my next assignment to come along. And wait I did. It took over an hour before I got word of where I'd be going next. And by that time my 14-hour clock for today's shift was down to 2 hours. Fortunately, the pickup was at another company in the same industrial park, probably within a mile away. So I zipped right over. (Interesting aside: The main street in that industrial park is named Ellsworth Road, same name as the major road that the street on which my house sits turns off of.)

Loading at the pickup, thankfully, went lickety-split, and I was rolling again by 4:00. (My 14-hour window for the shift would end at 5:00.) That left me just enough time to get back to the Thruway from town and 13 miles west to this Service Plaza. So here I be. My load is headed to Goddard, KS, just west of Wichita. However, its delivery date is Monday, the same day when I'm due home next. So the plan is for me to drop it at our Vandalia terminal, which I should be able to reach tomorrow with a good tail wind. I've taken advantage of that by scheduling a maintenance appointment at the terminal for my truck for Friday morning (they didn't have any appointments available Thursday evening).

It's about time; I'm only 16,000 miles overdue for its first maintenance because Dispatch has kept me running everywhere except past a terminal with a shop. In fact, the Maintenance Department had set me up for an appointment at the Van Buren, AR terminal over a month ago when I was in that area. I was supposed to bop over to the terminal after making a delivery about 50 miles east of there. But before I could leave that delivery, Dispatch had assigned me another pickup in the other direction. (That story leads to a rant about my Fleet Manager and Dispatch not being able to figure out how to get me home on time--for my wedding anniversary, no less--but I don't want to delve into that now.) So my truck's finally gonna get the attention it deserves. Not that I'm having any problems with it, but reg'lar maint will help keep problems from cropping up.

OK, now you're all caught up. I'm still running a couple quarts (OK, maybe a couple gallons) low on sleep, so it's time to log off and hit the sack. I won't have to get up and rolling early tomorrow, so I can work on refilling my sleep reserves. Thanks for being patient with my low blog output these last few days. Submit some questions and/or comments so I'll have some material to riff on next time. And, as ever, keep on truckin'.