Saturday, December 1, 2007

12/1/07

Wanna play a game? Try to guess which lane has the big truck that just passed me:



Trick question. One guy passed and was right in front of me (maybe fifteen yards ahead), while another was passing him in the left lane, so there were big trucks in both lanes. Do you see them now? That was the good part of the day. At that point, it was about twelve degrees outside and the snow was just that powdery blowing stuff, making visibility the only issue. Even that wouldn't have been bad but the roads had not been plowed, so the less traveled left lane kicked up a hell of a smokescreen whenever someone went by.

About five minutes after I snapped that shot, I guess an angel must have whispered in my ear. Traffic was moving along anywhere between 45mph and 60mph when I got the sudden feeling that something wasn't right. I have no idea where the feeling came from, as traffic was moving along and I could see nothing wrong, but it was a pretty strong feeling. So I started slowing down... way down. Then I spotted the traffic at a dead stop right in front of me. (Maybe I should think about getting another CB in here.) I managed to stop in time, as did the first two people behind me. Others behind them started skidding off the road. The cause for the stoppage was a string of accidents on both sides of the road ahead. The most gruesome thing I saw was what looked like a trio of firemen trying to retrieve the body of a truck driver from his burned-out cab on the westbound side. Why in the hell do these trucks always burn to the ground, by the way? I'm not gonna lie to you - it's pretty damn disconcerting. According to news reports (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel linked below) there was only one fatality and it was on my side, so I guess they were pulling something else from the wreckage on the westbound side.

"The worst car accident appeared to have occurred in Dane County near DeForest, where a 37-year-old Madison man died after his Jeep rear-ended a semitrailer truck that had slowed for other semis that had slid off the freeway."

So, the freeway was closed for around an hour. Good times, good times.

After that, things got progressively worse. The temperature started to rise, so the snow started to pack as it got more wet. Then the freezing rain kicked in. Then more accidents, a few of them again looking pretty damn wicked. I managed to plug along, but it was tough sledding (pun intended) to say the least. Above 40mph, it was tough to maintain traction. The roads were bumpy and it was windy as hell. The performance of the Wisconsin highway department was an absolute disgrace. It's understood that someone who loses control on a slick road was going too fast, by default. I have no disagreement there. That being said, a halfway competent effort to tend to the roads could have saved at least one life today. I honestly believe that.

Once I crossed into Illinois the roads had been plowed and salted, leaving them clean and wet in some spots, dry in others. Furthermore, they were in the process of replowing and resalting to prepare for the overnight precipitation. This storm started early in the morning. The fact that Wisconsin had done nothing by this evening is unacceptable. It was eerily reminiscent of the worst road situation I encountered last winter. On that day, Missouri was a steady scene of carnage and disaster. Then, across the bridge, Illinois' roads were clean and dry. Something is very wrong there.

The rest of the drive was a slow but steady affair. The freezing rain gradually became rain. The traffic got progressively lighter, at least for a while. Closer to Chicago there was plenty of slower traffic that refused to keep right. Until that time I hadn't decided which route to take. Since most of those douchebags were heading down the bypass, I stayed on I-90. Back to the speed limit. Beauty.

Indiana - no issues.

Michigan - no issues... almost. The last part of the drive, from Grand Rapids to Cedar Springs, was on a fucking hockey rink. Cars, unable to see what was ahead of me, kept passing me. Then they kept spinning out. So I kept slowing down to keep my distance from them. So more cars kept passing, and spinning out, and I kept slowing... I made it to the customer in something loosely resembling eleven hours, so that's good enough for me. Then came time to drop the trailer...

You know the deal. Snow, then rain = ice sheet. I got into the customer's unplowed lot (they're not open on weekends, remember?) without any major issues. Too bad I don't have my skates with me. I set up carefully, not making any sudden changes in direction, and backed my trailer to a spot on the yard. No worries there. I released the fifth wheel and the connections. So far, so good. I put the truck in gear. And I went nowhere. I got out, pulled out my crowbar, chipped away as much ice as possible, and tried again. And I went nowhere. Just about the time I was out of bright ideas, I remembered a bit of advice I got from a Canadian tow truck driver last winter - "Quit being such a pussy. Start it in third gear and give it hell." Well, his advice got me out of the ice in Canada at the time. It also got me out from under that trailer tonight. It's a little scary gunning it in third gear when you're used to inching out and making sure the trailer sits steadily on the ground. Visions of my truck flying forward and the trailer crashing down were in my head at the time. As it went though, gunning it in third gear on the ice caused me to inch forward more slowly than I would have in low gear on dry pavement.

There are a few CFI trailers here, but they're all locked in the docks. (This place is closed on weekends, remember?) So, sans empty, I had to call and talk to someone in Joplin. This is becoming far too common for my liking. I can usually go a month or two without talking to those people. Lately I have to call about every load. She put me on the board with no empty. I'm not going to highlight for home now, instead rolling the dice that I'll get bobtailed to Taylor to board there. I only need ten minutes to run home and grab my mail. Unless there's a load to pick up that won't require me to drop an empty, bobtailing to the yard seems like the most logical thing. The other less desirable option is that they could sit me here for a day until this place opens at 7am Monday. We may have a fight on our hands if that happens.

This was one of those days that leaves me thinking it over after all is said and done. For a restless mind like my own, this is usually not a good thing. Anyhow, I turned sixteen and got my driver's license on September 10th, 1992. A couple of months later I was learning at the winter driving school of hard knocks. Now I guess this would be my sixteenth winter in this stuff and my second in a big truck. I have to imagine that, through so many years of trial and error (with plenty of error), I've developed a pretty sound feel for how to handle the nasty roads and how not to panic when things don't go perfectly. That would be a good thing, I think. I also tend to just drive along in whatever weather comes my way, when most drivers would shut down for the day. Maybe that's a bad thing. I don't know. I can say without a doubt that I would be sleeping in Wisconsin right now if I hadn't spun so many cars in my day and subsequently learned how to keep them under control. It was a pretty rough scene up there today, and my ass end got loose more than a few times, but I simply didn't give a shit. I don't know man. I don't know.

Friday, November 30, 2007

11/30/07

Good day today lads. I didn't set an alarm for this morning, so I slept kinda sorta okay for a few hours before I had to get up and use the facilities. Then it was eastbound and down, loaded up and trucking. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was a perfect fit for today's drive. I finished up the last disc just as I parked for the night. I had gotten away from the audio books for a while, staying more with the talk and news on XM. Without my XM functioning, it seems like a good time to get myself cultured a little better. Further still, I had time for a nice long nap this afternoon while staying within the 14 hour limit. Nice.

As I was rolling along, watching the miles tick away, it occurred to me that I had no idea where I would end up tonight. I knew I had time for nine hours of driving, plus an inspection and a fuel stop, but I had no clue where that would leave me. One of these days I might start that trip planning stuff. Nah, probably not. I kinda like to fly by the seat of my pants. Anyhow, it worked out perfectly for me. There's a rest area just before the Twin Cities, exactly nine hours from where I started, and it had a spot open for me. Weekends are definitely my favorite times. I have no illusion that I would have found a parking spot here mid-week, but tonight it worked out nicely.

It was definitely a welcome sign to see that I was gradually approaching civilization as the day wore on. At some point during the day, my phone beeped and told me that I had three voicemail messages. My phone never rang today. Freaking North Dakota. As it stands now, even my internet connection is back to normal. Technology is a beautiful thing as long as you're not in the wilderness.

The practical route from here would seem to take me down and around Chicago on I-80, but I've had better luck in recent months running straight through on I-90 and across the Skyway. I guess my mood tomorrow evening will dictate the route. I imagine it's six of one, half dozen of the other.

I get a report on site traffic to the blog every now and then. As of today, it looks like Jim over at OTR Journal is providing more referrals than any other site, passing up the message boards within the last few days. Good lookin' out my brother.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

11/29/07

Well, at least I got out of Montana. After crossing that state twice in the last week, I have to wonder why General Custer even bothered.

The first half of the day was a pretty snowy affair. Aside from the mountain passes though, the roads weren't bad. The passes got a little slick, but nothing like some of the ones I saw last winter. So far, so good. In reality this truck handles the snow ten times better than any car I've ever driven. The only catch is that the extra weight can turn momentum against you if you're not careful. No troubles today.

I had planned to cover at least six hundred miles, which I did. That leaves me somewhere in the neighborhood of twelve hundred miles from my destination. According to the PC Miler application that I get to use with my wifi access here at Flying J, the trip should be around eighteen and a half more hours. With the hours I pick up at midnight, I can drive nine hours tomorrow. Then I pick up eleven more on Saturday. So... if all goes well, I can knock out the rest of this run in two shifts and get rid of this load on Saturday night. If all goes well.

I haven't decided yet whether or not to request a day off at home once I make my drop. I'd like to take a look at the open enrollment package that we are supposed to receive from ConWay before the deadline passes. If they're going to raise my premiums much, I'm inclined to think I'll just drop the health insurance altogether. I can buy an independent catastrophic loss plan for a pretty cheap price to cover major emergencies, but the premiums that I pay now are basically just providing care for someone else. For most of the crap people get with their health insurance, I have no use. I don't trust doctors. If they were any good, they would heal people the first time. Then they would be out of business. Something about an apparent conflict of interest just doesn't sit right with me, so I stay away from them.

Anyhow, more of the AM radio today. I had the basic choice between the evangelists reminding me of what a piece of shit I am or the country music making my ears bleed. What a selection! There was a brief discussion of the Israeli situation that I found interesting, but otherwise just a long day of boredom. I think I'll burn a few audio books onto CD's to get me through tomorrow.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

11/28/07

You know who I hate? Well obviously I hate Illinois Nazis, but you know who else I hate? Yard dogs. Not all yard dogs, but the ones who drop my trailer about six inches from the one on my left. I really hate those guys. I had to crawl under a JB Hunt trailer, on wet ground, only to find out that there was no possible way for me to raise the landing gear even enough to scoot the trailer out a little bit. So I released the fifth wheel, pulled out from under my trailer, backed under the JB Hunt trailer, raised the gear an inch or two, moved that trailer over to the left, backed it in, and dropped it with the gear still up a little bit. Whoever gets that one will probably face something similar to what I faced this morning, but I think I have the gear in a position that he'll be able to scoot it out once he backs under it. Pain in my ass. And thus began another glamorous day in the life of this here truck driver...

At some point last night I had received my instructions, telling me which trailer to pick up and where to take it. Just like the first time I picked up at that customer, I was heading to Cedar Springs, Michigan. Beauty. So, after checking it over, I pulled the trailer to the guard shack to pick up my paperwork. "Sorry sir, there's a problem with your paperwork. They'll have to straighten it out in the morning." Since it was 3am locally, I sent a message telling CFI to call and get it straightened out. Then I went back to bed.

Apparently my fleet manager starts work before 5am (Missouri time) because he replied within a few minutes. First he asked what was the problem with the paperwork. How in the hell would I know? That's why I sent the message telling them to handle it. A few seconds later he sent a message saying that I need to send in my loaded call so I can be dispatched. You know... nobody would suggest that CFI is staffed by a bunch of Mensa candidates. I think that much is obvious. My fleet manager, however, has always seemed like a fairly competent individual. The flap last week in Hazleton, followed up by this nugget of brilliance, makes me wonder. I calmly replied that no, I can't send in my loaded call because no, I don't have any paperwork. Then I went back to bed again.

After a few hours the security guard woke me up and said they had my paperwork ready. I sent in my loaded call at that time. Then, true to form, I got a reply telling me that the CSR's in Joplin were working with the customer to get my paperwork ready. Didn't I just send in the information from my paperwork? Wouldn't that suggest that it had already been handled? Priceless. Anyhow, they finally dispatched me and I was on my way. I got an ETA of 4am Sunday, when I know the customer won't be open, but whatever. It's not worth arguing. It's a drop/hook so I'll just go to sleep in their yard once I make the switch. The first time they sent me to this place, I was dispatched for 7:30am on Memorial Day. The way my hours fell, I had to wait until midnight on Memorial Day and then drive seven and a half hours nonstop to make it on time - only to find that they were closed and I could have gotten there later if I wanted to. This run looks like it will shake out in a similar way. My 70 hours will be gone sometime Friday. Then I'll be in the old 'wait for midnight' mode until I run the last couple of days and make the drop.

Without my XM, I've had the misfortune of trying to bounce around the local AM stations and find something worth hearing. No luck there really, but I did hear some weather forecasts that left me feeling rather fortunate. Apparently Washington is due for more snow tonight and Idaho is expected to get hit pretty hard. I made it across the mountains today on mostly clean and dry roads. I stopped in Missoula to call it a night. Since I only pick up two hours on Friday, I was looking at a total of around twenty-six hours over the first three days of this run. I'm not a big fan of eleven hour days, so I decided to space the time out a little. That way I don't wind up sitting for twenty hours, a couple of days from now.

To prove just how shallow and one-dimensional I am - all is forgiven vis a vis CFI and the shitty month that I had. My paycheck will be for 6,351 miles plus northeast and holiday pay. Good enough. These long runs bore the living hell out of me, but they served as CPR for a rather lifeless pay period so I won't complain.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

11/27/07

It looks like I made a good call by getting to North Bend yesterday. Apparently it got pretty nasty up on Snoqualmie Pass last night and they had to shut it down for a while. Everything was cool when I came across but I guess that didn't last. Later today I heard on the radio that chains were still required for CMV's up there. Even a blind squirrel... I suppose.

My trip was pretty easy this morning. Tiger Summit was the hill that I remembered from before, but it was below the snow line so it was just rainy and slow. No biggie. I got to the customer a couple of hours early, but they unloaded me quickly anyway. I had to drop the trailer in the dock, then wait over by the office and go back for the trailer once it was empty. Again, no biggie.

Once I was empty I had to implement my 'don't ask, don't tell' policy. I saw a spot where it looked like nobody was parking. If I asked them whether or not I could park there, they would most likely say no. So I didn't ask. I just pulled aside and put my feet up for a few hours. Then I got my beep and headed south...

A whopping fifteen miles south, that is. This is one of those "to be determined" loads. I headed down here and dropped my empty this afternoon, but they're supposed to let me know where I'm going by tomorrow morning. Stop me if you've heard this one before, but another day wasted is not what I was looking for. The last time I picked up at this place, I got a nice long run to Michigan, so I'm hoping for something like that. I don't really care where it goes, but that 2,000 mile type thing would do wonders for my paycheck right now. About the only other thing I'm hoping for is that the snow in the mountains gets cleaned up before I have to head out of town.

I walked over to the Full Belly Deli and grabbed some lunch. I spotted the two cute girls inside as I was parking my bobtail, but I actually went in because I was hungry, believe it or not. They make a hell of a grilled Italian panini sandwich. Pepperoni, salami, mozzarella, Provolone, pesto, mmm... good stuff. So now I'm stuffed and I'm not sure what the bathroom situation looks like at this place. That might be an issue in a few hours. Anyhow, I'm scheduled to roll at 6am (my time) so we'll see how it goes.

Monday, November 26, 2007

11/26/07

Well, North Bend it is. I got here around 3pm local time and the place was already pretty damn full. I got into a spot, no thanks to the lazy bastards who just park wherever they feel like it and block the lanes for the rest of us.

The drive was another uneventful affair today. I did learn a couple of things - (1) Ricola soothes my throat better than Hall's and (2) they appear to have some issues with crystal meth in the Pacific Northwest (judging by all of the billboards). I had loaded a bunch of comedy CD's onto my USB flash drive so, combining that with my FM transmitter, I had several hours of entertainment to fill the void left by my XM radio. The weather ranged from a low of twelve degrees to a high of thirty-eight, depending mainly on the elevation in a given place. Some of the higher spots had icy patches here and there, but nothing to get excited about.

My Sprint internet service here is terribly slow again, so I sprung for the $4.79 one-day deal from T/A. My inbox has been piling up on me for a few days and I have some time to kill, so what the hell? At least it works for a change. I tried three or four different wifi hotspots over the last two days and none of them were even usable. I guess, in hindsight, that kept me from wasting time but it was still disappointing.

I have to go about thirty miles or so to make this delivery tomorrow. It's mostly on a state highway (18) that I believe I traveled once before. As I recall it, there was at least one pretty steep hill and the forecast tonight looks pretty shitty so I'll leave myself plenty of time for tomorrow. The appointment is 9am, which is noon for me, so I can still have a pretty relaxing morning. I guess now I'll get cracking on all the stuff I didn't get to over the weekend. No XM, no internet, and no cell phone... it was almost like the early 1990's!

Sunday, November 25, 2007

11/25/07

You know what's annoying? Waking up in a state, driving all day, and then going to bed in the same state. This trip is like one big enigma. It's so damn boring that I can't stand it, but there's nothing around to distract me so I just keep on driving.

I knocked out nine hours today and then pulled in for the night. My 70 hour clock is feeling the strain of the hard running, so I can only work eight hours tomorrow. I could have done eleven today and six tomorrow, but why bother?

My internet connection here is utterly pathetic. I've been trying to reply to a few e-mails for fifteen minutes now and it looks like tonight's just not the night. I even tried connecting to the Siricomm service here, but that doesn't appear to be working either. Montana apparently goes in the North Dakota camp concerning internet service - painfully slow and/or nonexistent. Luckily for me, I have no plans to move out here any time soon.

I'll have enough hours to get to the T/A in North Bend tomorrow, so that's the strategy I guess. I've never had much luck parking any closer to the Seattle area, so I'll stay there tomorrow night and then finish off the run on Tuesday morning. I imagine today was my last free pass regarding traffic and parking. Tomorrow the holiday weekend is over and it's back to reality.
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