This 400-mile per day pace is definitely the way to go, as far as the OTR job is concerned. I haven't set an alarm since I left home. I just wake up and get moving whenever the mood strikes me. Then, since I don't have to deal with any customers or work long hours, I can stop whenever the mood strikes me and it's still early enough to find parking. I knocked out a little over 400 miles today and got to Montgomery, where I've stopped at the damn T/A for the night. This place is a pain in the ass, but I got here early enough to grab a spot so I guess it's all good.
Tomorrow brings a 340 mile drive to Port Wentworth, where I'll set up ahead of my Monday morning drop. I've been to the Pilot in Port Wentworth and it's not the roomiest place, but hopefully I'll find a spot tomorrow afternoon. Monday morning I have to get up early and drop by 8am, but not tomorrow. One more day without an alarm... gotta love it while I can.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Friday, May 2, 2008
5/2/08
Another 400 miles, another nice day of work. The dude on the news updates kept saying there was bad weather in my neck of the woods, but I never saw it. The way the wind has been waking me up at night, it wouldn't surprise me if some nasty stuff was around, but maybe my timing has just been good. I cruised out of Texas and on to Minden, Louisiana today. From here I'll have another 775 miles to my destination, so another couple of light days lie ahead. I'm parked facing due west, so maybe the wind won't rock my truck so badly tonight.
The Pistons, Red Wings, and Tigers are all doing a great job of delaying the inevitability of my wrongful prediction. Gotta love that. That hockey game may have been the worst NHL ass-kicking I've ever seen.
Oh, no UPS pay today. Corksoakers. I, for one, would be thoroughly embarrassed if I were unable to pay an employee $17.50 within three months of his having earned it. I guess that's just me.
The Pistons, Red Wings, and Tigers are all doing a great job of delaying the inevitability of my wrongful prediction. Gotta love that. That hockey game may have been the worst NHL ass-kicking I've ever seen.
Oh, no UPS pay today. Corksoakers. I, for one, would be thoroughly embarrassed if I were unable to pay an employee $17.50 within three months of his having earned it. I guess that's just me.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
5/1/08
Another day, another dollar. I put in my seven hours of driving across oil country and set up here in Tye for the night. The Tigers and Wings are playing tonight, so it's time to kick back and relax for a while.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
4/30/08
I woke up this morning and found that my trailer still was not there, just like I expected... err... feared... err... whatever. It wasn't there. So I sent another message to Joplin. This time though, I got a useful reply and an effective response. How 'bout them apples?
They said that the planned trailer hadn't made it into our fine country yet, so they put me on a different load. This one was in fact sitting on the yard, which makes it all that much nicer. I'm now headed to Port Wentworth, Georgia for a Monday morning delivery. Since I had zero miles before this run, and this run will use up the rest of my week, the week won't be a great one. Without the benefit of being able to re-write the last couple of days though, I guess this is as good as I could hope for. 2,015 miles and all the way to the east coast is about as good as it was going to get coming out of Nogales.
The 400 mile per day pace of this run is just about ideal for me. If that could be every day out here, I think I would like my job a lot better. No real long hours, no real short hours, no 70 hour rule, decent pay, etc. So that's what I'll be running through the weekend, around seven or eight hours each day. I stopped at our yard on the east side of El Paso to cool my heels for tonight. I guess tomorrow I'll shoot for somewhere around Abilene.
They said that the planned trailer hadn't made it into our fine country yet, so they put me on a different load. This one was in fact sitting on the yard, which makes it all that much nicer. I'm now headed to Port Wentworth, Georgia for a Monday morning delivery. Since I had zero miles before this run, and this run will use up the rest of my week, the week won't be a great one. Without the benefit of being able to re-write the last couple of days though, I guess this is as good as I could hope for. 2,015 miles and all the way to the east coast is about as good as it was going to get coming out of Nogales.
The 400 mile per day pace of this run is just about ideal for me. If that could be every day out here, I think I would like my job a lot better. No real long hours, no real short hours, no 70 hour rule, decent pay, etc. So that's what I'll be running through the weekend, around seven or eight hours each day. I stopped at our yard on the east side of El Paso to cool my heels for tonight. I guess tomorrow I'll shoot for somewhere around Abilene.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
4/29/08
I spent the night at a little ghetto truck stop near my drop, then woke up to find myself at #4 on the board. Not bad. A few hours later, I got a load assignment. I had to head down to our main broker in Nogales and pick up a load headed for Texas. Not bad. First I went to the Pilot on the north side of town and got some food. There was no line at the cashier and the traffic wasn't as screwed up as it usually is around there. Not bad.
Yeah, that's about as far as that 'not bad' paragraph could possibly go. My dispatch to the other broker said that I was picking up a pre-loaded trailer and it included a trailer number. The inclusion of the trailer number tends to indicate that I'm good to go. Not this time. I showed up this afternoon and checked the yard. My trailer was nowhere to be found. I hung out for a while, watching every trailer that came and went. Nada. I took a nap, woke up, and took another walk around the yard. Nope. I sat all night, again watching each trailer come and go. Nothin' doin'.
Remember yesterday, when I mused about not having to communicate with Joplin? At some point this evening, I initiated the following exchange of messages:
Q: IS THIS TRLR COMING TODAY?
A: SHOULD BE.
Should be? Really? That's the answer? Should be? What the hell ever man. I don't recognize the name attached to the message, but that tends to be about as good as it gets after business hours so I didn't even bother following up. I had enough broadband speed to watch the Tigers and Red Wings, so I've put my feet up for the night. Maybe my trailer will be here when I wake up tomorrow.
Does anyone know what langauge (not the English, I figured that part out) this is?
The Wings were being broadcast all over the net, so I have a nice easy (English) feed to watch for this one. 2-1 in the second - sweet. It's not the same without Claude the Bitch to kick around, but they're still the Avalanche.
Not much chance of putting a good spin on the start to this week. Sunday and Monday were spent finishing last week's work and Tuesday was spent with my thumb up my ass. I did, however, get an extra diversion when another driver down here was giving away 72-count boxes of Airheads. Apparently she was at a shipper that gave her a whole case of those boxes. I thought for sure I could eat all 72, but I got a stomach ache after 25 of them. At least I didn't have to buy any food tonight though, since my week-to-date pay is a big fat goose egg. That's a bonus.
Anyway, GO WINGS!
Yeah, that's about as far as that 'not bad' paragraph could possibly go. My dispatch to the other broker said that I was picking up a pre-loaded trailer and it included a trailer number. The inclusion of the trailer number tends to indicate that I'm good to go. Not this time. I showed up this afternoon and checked the yard. My trailer was nowhere to be found. I hung out for a while, watching every trailer that came and went. Nada. I took a nap, woke up, and took another walk around the yard. Nope. I sat all night, again watching each trailer come and go. Nothin' doin'.
Remember yesterday, when I mused about not having to communicate with Joplin? At some point this evening, I initiated the following exchange of messages:
Q: IS THIS TRLR COMING TODAY?
A: SHOULD BE.
Should be? Really? That's the answer? Should be? What the hell ever man. I don't recognize the name attached to the message, but that tends to be about as good as it gets after business hours so I didn't even bother following up. I had enough broadband speed to watch the Tigers and Red Wings, so I've put my feet up for the night. Maybe my trailer will be here when I wake up tomorrow.
Does anyone know what langauge (not the English, I figured that part out) this is?
The Wings were being broadcast all over the net, so I have a nice easy (English) feed to watch for this one. 2-1 in the second - sweet. It's not the same without Claude the Bitch to kick around, but they're still the Avalanche.
Not much chance of putting a good spin on the start to this week. Sunday and Monday were spent finishing last week's work and Tuesday was spent with my thumb up my ass. I did, however, get an extra diversion when another driver down here was giving away 72-count boxes of Airheads. Apparently she was at a shipper that gave her a whole case of those boxes. I thought for sure I could eat all 72, but I got a stomach ache after 25 of them. At least I didn't have to buy any food tonight though, since my week-to-date pay is a big fat goose egg. That's a bonus.
Anyway, GO WINGS!
Monday, April 28, 2008
4/28/08
It occurred to me as I was driving today that my job has been quite enjoyable since I left home. Then it occurred to me that I haven't talked to anyone in Joplin since before I went home. I'm not sure if the two are related. In any case, I do like being left alone to do my job and having things go according to plan. As long as nothing goes wrong, there is no reason to have a head-scratching conversation.
Today's drive took me across US-70 from Roswell to Las Cruces, and then on the interstates to Nogales. The mountains were pretty tame with my reasonably light load, so that was nice. I even got to see some fighter jets cruising around the Air Force base on US-70. Not exactly something I see up close every day.
I got to the broker tonight and got to see if I still know how to back my truck. I've had pull-through parking spaces since I left the shipper, who had a huge wide-open dock area. This place was up some scrawny ass dirt road and behind what appeared to be houses. The dock area was quite tight and the ground was not even close to being flat. As I inched back toward the dock, the angle I had to use left my trailer extremely close to the one on my left. As the wheels on the right would go over a bump, the trailer would tip leftward and come within inches of an "incident." Never fear though; Another foot back would be another bump on the ground, tipping it back to the right.
Long story short - I made the drop tonight instead of tomorrow morning and got on the board at #8. That was an hour and a half ago and I'm still #8, so my guess is that I'm not getting an assignment until morning. So Sunday and Monday were spent finishing out last week's 2,262 miles. Tuesday will start this week for me. There are a lot of wide open spaces around here so I should have a good shot to kick things off with a decent number of miles.
Today's drive took me across US-70 from Roswell to Las Cruces, and then on the interstates to Nogales. The mountains were pretty tame with my reasonably light load, so that was nice. I even got to see some fighter jets cruising around the Air Force base on US-70. Not exactly something I see up close every day.
I got to the broker tonight and got to see if I still know how to back my truck. I've had pull-through parking spaces since I left the shipper, who had a huge wide-open dock area. This place was up some scrawny ass dirt road and behind what appeared to be houses. The dock area was quite tight and the ground was not even close to being flat. As I inched back toward the dock, the angle I had to use left my trailer extremely close to the one on my left. As the wheels on the right would go over a bump, the trailer would tip leftward and come within inches of an "incident." Never fear though; Another foot back would be another bump on the ground, tipping it back to the right.
Long story short - I made the drop tonight instead of tomorrow morning and got on the board at #8. That was an hour and a half ago and I'm still #8, so my guess is that I'm not getting an assignment until morning. So Sunday and Monday were spent finishing out last week's 2,262 miles. Tuesday will start this week for me. There are a lot of wide open spaces around here so I should have a good shot to kick things off with a decent number of miles.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
4/27/08
You know what happens when you almost hit a goose at 65mph? He shits all over your truck. Just FYI.
I'm officially starting to think something's up. This was the third long day of driving since an extended stint at home. This was the third day without taking a break. This was the third day that I didn't get tired or distracted. Who am I and what happened to the real driver of this truck? I even reviewed my intended route before I started driving today. Crazy.
Today was the best leg of this particular journey. From just west of Tulsa, across Oklahoma, through the Texas panhandle, angling down from Amarillo through the cowtowns on the way to Roswell. Light traffic, good roads, pretty flat terrain; Good stuff. Tomorrow I have to head into the mountains. Since this load is only 18,000 pounds it shouldn't be too bad.
The customer has overnight parking so I intend to get there tomorrow evening and spend the night. This load is due into Nogales at 4:25am MT Tuesday. I have no idea what the hell that's all about, but I guess it's nothing new. I think Nogales is a 24 hour crossing, so maybe someone is actually going to take this thing into Mexico before the sun comes up. Whatever. It's 6:25am for me, so that ain't so bad.
For now it's a beautiful night so I guess I'll go see if I can find some trouble.
I'm officially starting to think something's up. This was the third long day of driving since an extended stint at home. This was the third day without taking a break. This was the third day that I didn't get tired or distracted. Who am I and what happened to the real driver of this truck? I even reviewed my intended route before I started driving today. Crazy.
Today was the best leg of this particular journey. From just west of Tulsa, across Oklahoma, through the Texas panhandle, angling down from Amarillo through the cowtowns on the way to Roswell. Light traffic, good roads, pretty flat terrain; Good stuff. Tomorrow I have to head into the mountains. Since this load is only 18,000 pounds it shouldn't be too bad.
The customer has overnight parking so I intend to get there tomorrow evening and spend the night. This load is due into Nogales at 4:25am MT Tuesday. I have no idea what the hell that's all about, but I guess it's nothing new. I think Nogales is a 24 hour crossing, so maybe someone is actually going to take this thing into Mexico before the sun comes up. Whatever. It's 6:25am for me, so that ain't so bad.
For now it's a beautiful night so I guess I'll go see if I can find some trouble.
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