12/3/08

Well, I was able to walk without too much difficulty today. That's always a good start. My ankle isn't exactly feeling super, but it has definitely been worse before. The rest of the day? Eh, whatever.

I got up nice and early and I was rolling as soon as my ten hour break was complete. The drive to my consignee was exactly forty miles and took a little over an hour. The last fifteen miles or so were pretty damn slow. As I followed the directions to the customer, I could have sworn that I had been taken back in time to CDL school in Detroit. Go down one shithole ghetto street and make an insanely tight right turn onto another shithole ghetto street. Park next to some decrepit old building and try to figure out what to do next. Yep, just like CDL school in Detroit.

I wound up having to back onto a side street in order to get turned around and pointed in the right direction, then back from the main street into the dock area of the customer. Fortunately the traffic on that particular street wasn't nearly as heavy as that of the surrounding streets. I don't think I caused any terrible delays for anyone. Those guys had me unloaded rather quickly and I was back in the SOL parking situation.

Yesterday I was out in the sticks with nowhere to park. Today I was in the 'hood with nowhere to park. I dropped down I-77 to the turnpike and stopped at the service plaza on the westbound side. I figured that I could get on I-71 and go in pretty much any direction from there once I got an assignment.

By the time I grabbed a quick breakfast I got that assignment. I wasn't completely headed in the wrong direction, so that was nice. I would have been better off if I were still on I-77, but I only wound up going ten miles or so out of the way once all was said and done. The drive to my next shipper was a twisting and winding one through the hills of Central Ohio. For the second day in a row, I got a load from an outside broker. This one is paper going from Coshocton, Ohio to Wilson, North Carolina. A nice 41,000 pounder to drag through the mountains. Groovy. The shipper took a couple of hours to have me rolling, but it wasn't too terrible.

Yeah, this paragraph... whatever. Down I-77 through West Virginia with a heavy trailer. Use your imagination.

Once I got past Wytheville, Virginia I was getting close to my 14 hour limit. I decided to stop at a little truck stop in Austinville to use the restroom and check my directory for somewhere to park. The truck stop in Austinville has a small parking lot so I assumed that I wouldn't find a space there. Hey, how about that! I got the last spot. I'll have to knock out another three and a half or four hours in the morning to reach my delivery point from here.

So we tacked on some pretty decent mileage today. The deadhead was a little over a hundred miles and the loaded trip is five hundred something. With Thursday, Friday, and Saturday still to come, I might just pull out a good week somehow.