11/13/08

That... was... brutal. As I suspected, the trip across the Tenn-N.C. line took me over some mountains. Fair enough there. There were some wicked long climbs and my truck was begging for mercy, but that's the way it goes sometimes. Then once I got past Asheville and onto Us-74... fuck me! Up. Down. Hard left. Hard right. Repeat about a thousand times. The nominal speed limit on US-74 varied between 55mph and 60mph. Adding in the frequent climbs, wet roads and steady rain, I would guess that I averaged maybe 35-40mph for that last 30 miles. It's probably a pretty nice ride on a sunny day with a sports car. Not so much this morning with a heavily loaded trailer. Oh well. At least it's not snowing yet.

The directions to my consignee were easy enough to follow. After checking in, I was told to go down to the end of their lot and spin around to back into the docks. People who complain about the CTL obstacle course and say it's unnecessary... you've heard this speech from me before. It was pretty nuts. I had to get as close as I could to stacks of metal racks on one side in order to make the spin without hitting my trailer against my truck on the other side. At one point, when I got out to take a look at things, I was about six inches from the racks and my trailer was about two inches from the cab extender on my truck. Talk about 'no room for error.' I got settled in and they had me unloaded before too long.

I asked the lady in the receiving office if she knew of a place where I could park and wait for my next load. She suggested that I go north on US-19 and stop at the Ingle's grocery store in town. When I got to the store I didn't like the look of the parking lot. It looked like I could get in there but I had no idea how I would get out, so I kept driving. I wound up snaking my way along some Godforsaken river from Deliverance or something before I managed to catch US-441 back south to US-74. Just a couple of hours earlier, US-74 looked like a goat path to me. After my trek along the river, US-74 looked like the Autobahn. I guess it's all about perspective. I remembered seeing a rest area along US-74 on my way to the consignee this morning. I didn't know if trucks were allowed but I was going to find out.

As I turned into the rest area I received my next planned load information. There was room for me to park, which was a relief, so I stopped and took a look. Since I had just spent a half hour moving eastward, I expected to be headed west for my next pickup. Good luck this time though. I was going the right way after all. I had to grab a load in Canton this evening and head to Dallas for Monday morning. Time for a nap. The last stretch on US-74 (after I woke from my nap) didn't seem bad at all when the road was dry and my trailer was empty.

My pickup at the paper mill in Canton has been no fun at all so far. I had to do some extreme maneuvering in order to get parked in the staging area. Then wait... and wait... and wait. I'm presently waiting to be called to a dock. By the time I get loaded, my 14 hour clock will have run out for the day. I will have had something loosely resembling eight hours of down time today though, so I'll be able to extend it out to a 22 hour clock and drive through the night. It's not exactly an ideal schedule but I spent half the day sleeping anyway. Might as well work for a while. This is going to be another 45,000 pound anvil around my neck. Maybe driving when there's less traffic will be a little easier.