11/8/07

Seriously man, today was like a collection of bullshit trucker stories rolled into one. Most days out here involve eight or nine hours of absolutely nothing happening, with an interesting moment or two that define the day. I'm not sure anything that went on today was all that interesting, but when taken collectively it was something else.

Let's start with the beginning, which is usually a decent place to start. I got up and ready to roll at 12:45am. I pulled out of the lot, hit the radio, and got "XM NON" on the display. That happened last fall and I had to do without my XM until I went through Joplin six months later. Apparently the receiver dome gets disconnected somehow and the radio thinks I don't have XM. I'm not a big fan of Joplin, but I might have to head down there soon and get this thing fixed if I can't find a way to do it myself while I'm home. Having no XM means way too much time alone with my thoughts and that's never a good thing.

So I was rolling up I-295 and feeling pretty decent. The prescribed route called for me to take 295 to County Something to County Something Else and catch US-206 northbound. I've had more than my share of bad luck with those New Jersey county roads. They're not always clearly marked and rarely involve a simple 'go down there and take a right.' Thus, I chose to follow 295 all the way around to 206 and just run it the whole way. It was maybe four or five miles longer, but it would be simpler, right? Wrong.

First of all, I was looking for exit 78 off I-295. There went the 50's, then the 60's, then 295 ends and welcome to Pennsylvania? What the hell happened to exit 78? Yeah, I'm retarded. It was exit 7-B, not 78... off of I-95, not 295... in Pennsylvania, not New Jersey. Luckily for me, I saw the sign for 206 right after I got into Pennsylvania so I didn't have time to try another route and screw myself up.

Next, there was construction as soon as I got on 206. It's a winding two lane road that was reduced to one lane. Those wily little pranksters didn't stop there, though. They coned off what was left of the road to accomodate bi-directional traffic. I won't bother with any hyperbole regarding how incredibly tight it was, but on a few turns I saw cones wobbling in my rearview mirror. As nearly as I could tell, I didn't knock any over. That's apparently more than I can say for the people who went before me. Quite a few cones were laying on their sides along the way. Then, above the county road that I was originally considering, the construction ended. Nice. Woulda, coulda, shoulda, I guess.

I got to go right through Princeton on 206, so that was pretty cool. It reminded me a lot of Ann Arbor. It was a lot smaller and a little nicer, but there were more similarities than differences. The most glaring difference to me was the fact that, at 1:45am, Princeton was a ghost town. I don't know if the students are out on a quarterly break or something, but Ann Arbor is a much livelier place at that time of night.

Rolling along, the route went from a 35mph suburban street to a 55mph highway and back a few times. I caught the litle roundabout by Frelinghuysen Avenue. That's probably a bitch during the day, but there was no traffic at that time. I don't know if that street rings a bell for anyone else, but it had me picturing Tony Soprano buying up real estate. What it didn't conjure up for me was the next image that I saw. Deer in the headlights! Shit! I would like to think I would have been able to stop in time, but I really can't say for sure. Fortunately for me and him, the deer scampered off when I got within a few yards so I didn't have to find out.

Then I got to I-80. I needed to go east, so of course I went west. I don't know why, but 'west' was stuck in my head at the time. No big deal, we'll just take the next numbered route and double back. Okay cool, here's NJ-183 south. If I go south, I'll have to run into I-80, right? Well, sort of. I was almost back where I needed to be when I saw a rather unpleasant number right in front of me. 13'4". Shit. So I took the ramp to the right of the bridge, which happened to be Us-206 north, the road I was on for most of the drive. Again it paid off being out in the middle of the night as I was able to flip in and out of a grocery store parking lot and get on 206 southbound, back toward I-80. Then, JCT-183 was the next thing I saw. You've got to be kidding me. It was okay though, the roads merged on the south side of the low bridge so I got back to the freeway in one piece.

On to the customer... There was a door that said "receiving" but of course that was the wrong door. The guy there directed me to a different door and said he would meet me down there. I stood and froze my nuts off for maybe four or five minutes, but that might as well be four or five hours when it's 25 degrees outside. Then I backed into the dock and kicked back. My light was still red when the guy came out to my truck and asked me to come inside. I'm not here to ask questions. I just do as I'm told, so in we went. One of the pallets was crushed and there were bags of sugar spilling out the sides. Sweet. I asked what I needed to do and he said he just wanted to show me because he would have to note it on the bills. Fine with me. I sent a message to CFI and got a reply instructing me to call the safety department in the morning for a claim number.

Then I was empty a short time later and needed to find somewhere to park. There was a neighboring business with a drop lot. It had a few empty slots, so I took one and hopped in bed. I heard the yard dog prowling around a few minutes later. I expected him to kick me out sonce I had no business being there, but he never did. He just picked his trailer and went about his business. So I managed to get a few hours of sleep.

The communications system woke me up around 8am with my next assignment. I was heading to Pennsylvania to grab a load bound for Columbus, Ohio. The pickup was scheduled for 1pm but, on account of my 14 hours running out at 2:45pm, I headed straight there. I've used truckmiles.com for non-interstate routes quite a bit of the time since I started this job last summer. They've never given me a bad route, until today. I was rolling westbound on NJ-57 and the next turn was to be County 519 south to I-78. County 519 had a 10'6" bridge right off of NJ-57 so I couldn't go that way. And lest the highway heroes out there start with their shit about using routing software, no, it wasn't listed as a low clearance location in the atlas either. So I had to stay on 57. That ran into US-22, which ran into some Pennsylvania highway, which ran into I-78, so no harm no foul.

At the customer, I asked where would be the best place to clean the sugar out of my trailer. They told me to go ahead and back in the dock and come inside to clean it out. Holy shit, that was a lot of sugar! They had garbage cans by each dock, but I wound up using four of them. I didn't fill them up or anything, but the sugar was pretty damn heavy so I tried to spread it around. I wouldn't feel too cool about leaving them with a hundred pound garbage can to dump at the end of the day. Then I headed out to the truck and waited, and waited, and waited. They actually started loading me right away, but it took until 2:30pm for them to have me on my way. Out of time, out of luck. I originally thought I had been at the place in New Jersey for eight hours, but I was just looking at it wrong. I wasn't even close. I drove out of there anyway and just found the nearest truck stop type place to take my break. I have to be in Columbus by 2pm, so I'll take off early in the morning and give myself a couple hours of wiggle room.