10/23/07

I even saw the lights of the Goodyear blimp, and it read "Big Joe's a pimp."...

That's right boys and girls, two kick-ass days in a row. If this keeps up I might actually have to say I have a good job.

I got beeped shortly after waking up, then got unassigned thirty seconds later. Then about twenty minutes after that the real assignment came in. I got to deadhead 184 miles to a little town I refer to as Paris on the Hudson - Jersey City. In all honesty, Jersey City is a pretty shitty place to drive a big truck. I'm a little crazy though. I get a kick out of New Jersey. It's kind of like a truck driving video game, only you lose your job if you hit anything.

The directions to the customer were confusing and ambiguous, which is par for the course in Jersey. You drive along, heading east, and you need to go south. So there should be a ramp on the right, right? Nah, turn left, go across and make another left, then a u-turn back in the direction you were originally going, then a big sweeping ramp to the right and a quick left. It's pretty cool.

There is more than one way to skin a cat, or so they say. When the cat-skinning is the drive from the New York Thruway to Jersey City, there are about a hundred ways. I don't know which one is the best, or even which ones are completely legal, but I made it in 191 miles without getting arrested so I guess I did okay. The docks at the customer were pretty damn tight. I was hoping to draw the one on the far right, as that would give me the easiest angle... and that's the one I got. Beauty. Was I loaded quickly? You bet. Heavy or light? Oh, 6,000 pounds should make for a pretty nice run through the hills.

No traffic rolling in to Jersey City, no traffic rolling out of Jersey City. Hell, even the toll booths in Delaware were moving through pretty smoothly. That never happens. Must be my day I guess. By the time I got through Baltimore without hitting any traffic, I assumed my luck was about to run out so I pulled into a rest area and called it a day. I don't imagine the nighttime traffic around DC would have been too bad, but finding a place to park in northern Virginia may have been a challenge tonight, so I decided not to push my luck. I was enjoying the ride so much that I drove right past the Petro where I planned to get my trailer light fixed, so it was probably just as well that I got off the road before it got completely dark. It's the clearance light on the front left corner at the top of the trailer. Most likely that's not the kind of thing that would get me pulled over, but why take the chance?

That would have been a good enough day for me, but on the way down I also got a pre-plan to pick up another load in North Carolina tomorrow and run it up to Illinois. That will basically use all of my available hours for the next two days, so it's nice to see some thinking ahead coming from the folks in Joplin for a change.

I did encounter one minor annoyance along the way, but it's really more amusing than aggravating. I pulled into the Pilot in Perryville for some fuel and food. There was one spot open at the fuel island... behind a JB Hunt truck. Maybe someone can help me here. Why in the hell does it take twice as long for those guys to leave the fuel island, compared with the drivers from any other company? I used to think that it was just a few isolated incidents, but I swear now that the damn JB drivers hang out for twenty minutes every time they get done fueling. Maybe they're looking for Senator Craig in the men's room. I don't know.

Anyhow, I think I'll watch a movie now and then get cracking bright and early tomorrow. It looks like I'll hit the beltway at the start of the morning rush, so here's hoping the good luck streak continues.