12/10/08

Let's see. How long did it take to make my first mistake today? Actually when I went to bed last night. It was 50 degrees outside, with a light rain. I went to sleep with my truck off. Yeah, it got cold. 26 degrees when I rolled out of the sack this morning. That's never a pleasant discovery to make when you're not fully clothed. (For your own sake, don't try to picture that.)

So, it probably took a while for the second mistake, right? No, not really. My intention was to drive west on US-223 and bypass the Ann Arbor area. I made the mistake of not looking at a map. I'm not sure but, in hindsight, that truck stop where I spent last night must have been on US-223. I went north on US-23 thinking that I would run into US-223 at one of the next exits. Nope. So I got to hit Ann Arbor during rush hour. It wasn't as bad as I expected it to be though. The old saying goes that Michigan has two seasons - winter and construction. In today's case, winter wasn't as bad as construction. The ramps and bridges were all good to go, so the only really slow spots were right before and after the merge onto I-94. After State Street everything shook out and the drive was fine.

I pulled into the customer's lot and walked toward the receiving area to check in. There were several doors with signs that said, "Use other door." Each of these signs had an arrow pointing toward one particular door. That's the particular door that I was approaching. My third mistake of the day was litening to one of the other drivers. He told me that I had to check in at the door on the end of the dock (one of the "use other door" ones). So I walked down there and stood in the cold for a few minutes before deciding that he was full of shit and nobody was coming. Back at the door to which I was originally walking, I went inside and handed my paperwork to the forklift dude.

About an hour later I was empty and ready to rumble. I drove across the freeway to the little local truck stop to park and await my day's work. This situation, per usual when I'm empty in southeast Michigan, brought an unfortunate contradiction. I was #12 on the board and in the Taylor dispatch zone. This could have meant that I had a bunch of free time to kill at home. Maybe meet someone for lunch. Maybe kick back on the couch and play some video games. Maybe do a little shopping. I was sixty-five miles from Taylor though, so instead I had a bunch of free time to sit in my truck and look at the snow.

Around 2pm I finally got my assignment. My next pickup would be in Adrian, Michigan. Adrian is the home of Adrian College. Yeah, go figure. Adrian College was a hell of a place for a high school kid to hook up with wild college girls back in the early 90's... er, so I'm told. I also heard that it was helpful to be on a baseball team with a guy who went to Siena Heights so you would have a place to sleep after a night of partying at Adrian.

No parties or any of that today though. Just a shipper with the inside/outside dock setup. That's always a bonus. Sun in my eyes looking forward. Complete darkness looking backward. Concrete poles a few inches from my mirrors on both sides. No real way to tell if I'm moving straight back or not while I'm at the wheel. Good times, good times.

I got rolling after a little while there and headed for Texas. The down time waiting for my assignment and the time at the shipper combined to limit my driving before the 14 hour rule caught up with me. I was able to get to the rest area on the west side of Indianapolis before I had to shut it down. So once again I'll have a pain in the ass schedule to run for the next day and a half. I'll put in a full eleven tomorrow, take a ten hour break, and drive the last hour or so on Friday morning. That's one of the neat little conundrums about OTR driving I guess. When business is better, I get an assignment ahead of time and set up my schedule however I like. When things are slow, I sit all day waiting for a brokered load to come across the satellite and then have to run hard to make the drop on time. Less business = less flexibility. There probably aren't too many other industries that work this way.

I guess I'll roll the dice and grab one more load on Friday before requesting my home time. I might get burned that way but I really can't afford to go straight home and miss out on any pay for next week. We're not supposed to leave for the little family trip until Saturday. I should be okay.