10/18/07

I'm not gonna lie to you. The thought of being without my phone for a month was more than a little intriguing to me. I had half a mind just to blow it off and drive straight to the consignee in Ohio last night. Just in case something serious may happen though, I drove to Taylor and found it on the floor of my car.

I managed to catch a nice refreshing nap just south of Columbus before finishing the run off this morning. After that, the last part of the drive was a tedious one. I've been trying to think of a decent way to describe the drive across Portsmouth on US-52, but all I seem to come up with is that it sucked ass. Posted speeds of 35mph, actual speeds closer to 10mph, rain, red lights every 200 feet, half-blind drivers in their gigantic 1965 Cadillacs... Yeah, it sucked ass.

I got to the customer a little ahead of the 11am appointment and worked my way into the dock. It was situated in a weird spot relative to the building and the street, so I had to redo my setup once. No biggie. After that I was immediately assigned to my next load. I was to head north and get loaded for a run to Virginia.

The drive up through the hills on skinny little state highways was tough to put my finger on. Any time, while driving an 18-wheeler, you feel compelled to shout "Wheee!" it has to be at least a little fun. That's what I was thinking half the time. Any time you see the yellow advisory signs saying "10mph" for a curve, it's going to be a long day. That's what I was thinking the other half of the time. The dispatch from Ironton to Nashport was for 162 miles, but I made it in 140. That 140 miles did take all of three hours though. Anyhow, the shipper worked quickly and I made my way to the interstate. Normally I look forward to getting off the interstate. This 45,000 pound load is going to make for a long day in the hills tomorrow though, so I was glad to get away from the skinny roads today. I set up at the Love's a little way down I-70, so I'll have a pretty long day of work to make it to the customer on time tomorrow. It's a drop/hook, so I'm sure CFI could have given me more time if they wanted to, but you know how that goes. As long as I'm running, I'm not going to complain.

They stuck my $52.50 for drops on the run to Michigan on the current paycheck, rather than the one that just ended. That will work okay though, because the miles started off on the slow side. With that extra pay and the $20.50 in northeast pay for this run, I'll get a little boost in the early going on this check. My miles are somewhere in the mid-1200's once I get rid of this one, so four days intp the pay period I won't be in terrible shape.

I would like to sit and watch some baseball tonight, but the day/night/day scheduling routine for the last few days has left me feeling pretty sluggish. I have to cover eight hours of driving by 12:45 tomorrow afternoon, so I had better try and get some sleep pretty soon. Cheers.