Basically the only issue to address today was the routing/permit situation with respect to Vermont. Since I would be the one to get a ticket, I wasn't too excited about taking someone's word for it, so I did some more searching and came up with an answer. If you're an OTR driver, you might want to take a second and download this PDF from the State of Vermont. It could come in handy some time in the future. That map is a hell of a lot more concise than their published rules that I saw before. I'm taking red routes tomorrow, so I'm all good. That trip that I took last year was in fact quite illegal, but it ain't a crime if you don't get caught.
Today took me up and out of Ohio, then across and onto the New York Thruway. By the time I got to the service area by Syracuse, I was ready for dinner. At that point I had covered well over half the miles to my final destination, so I'm calling this place home for the night.
I'll head up to Saint Alban's tomorrow and get unloaded at 11pm, then hope like hell that there's a parking spot for me at the local truck stop. Considering the way the parking lots have looked all weekend, I think I'll be okay.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Friday, July 4, 2008
7/4/08
Yes. Yes. Yes! The perfect storm. Actually, it wasn't much of a storm at all, but it was a little rainy and a lot cloudy. This kept the sun from heating up my truck and allowed me to sleep all morning long. Damn, I needed that.
I hung around the yard all day and waited for my relay to arrive. The other driver rolled in around 8pm, so I did get a little bit of a head start on my trip. I rolled up to the T/A in Seville (~120 miles), so I'll have a couple of easy days this weekend. As always on a holiday, the truck stop had plenty of parking for me and the traffic was really light. I'll bet that the cops in Ohio get double time on holidays though, because the freeway was crawling with them.
I received a message as I was rolling that has me a little perplexed. It says that I don't need a Vermont permit to deliver to my consignee, but that I should stay on the interstates as long as possible. What exactly does that mean? The customer is right off the interstate, so it's theoretically possible for me to take interstates all the way. Of course, this would add 200 miles to my trip. I'll drive it that way if I need to, but then they'll have to pay me accordingly. I took a look at some Vermont website last night and I thought my intended route was fine. Now I don't know. I guess I'll call tomorrow and see what I can find out. Saturday on a holiday weekend... probably not much.
I had a few snarky words ready to write today, for some of the folks who now find it fashionable to talk down our country every time they get a chance. That really would miss the point of today though, so I'm just going to wish everyone a happy Independence Day and wish the country that I love a happy birthday. I know that I wouldn't trade my life in this country for anything. I would hate to imagine a world in which the United States, imperfect as we may be, had never come to exist.
I hung around the yard all day and waited for my relay to arrive. The other driver rolled in around 8pm, so I did get a little bit of a head start on my trip. I rolled up to the T/A in Seville (~120 miles), so I'll have a couple of easy days this weekend. As always on a holiday, the truck stop had plenty of parking for me and the traffic was really light. I'll bet that the cops in Ohio get double time on holidays though, because the freeway was crawling with them.
I received a message as I was rolling that has me a little perplexed. It says that I don't need a Vermont permit to deliver to my consignee, but that I should stay on the interstates as long as possible. What exactly does that mean? The customer is right off the interstate, so it's theoretically possible for me to take interstates all the way. Of course, this would add 200 miles to my trip. I'll drive it that way if I need to, but then they'll have to pay me accordingly. I took a look at some Vermont website last night and I thought my intended route was fine. Now I don't know. I guess I'll call tomorrow and see what I can find out. Saturday on a holiday weekend... probably not much.
I had a few snarky words ready to write today, for some of the folks who now find it fashionable to talk down our country every time they get a chance. That really would miss the point of today though, so I'm just going to wish everyone a happy Independence Day and wish the country that I love a happy birthday. I know that I wouldn't trade my life in this country for anything. I would hate to imagine a world in which the United States, imperfect as we may be, had never come to exist.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
7/3/08
Well that was a rather long and somewhat eventful day.
4am delivery... grocery warehouse... lumpers... blah. That generally sucks and I can't say that this morning was much of an exception. The last time I had to pay a lumper at the end of a pay period, they held over the Comcheck charge until the next pay period, when the reimbursement hit. If that happens again, I guess that would be nice. Sixty bucks is sixty bucks.
From the grocery warehouse, I headed north to Romeoville for my next pickup. I checked in and started chatting with another CTL driver who got there ahead of me. It was the usual small talk about where we had been and where we were headed. I was headed to Magnolia, Texas. The guy told me, "That's where I live," and rolled his eyes. I assumed that he meant that he was from the Houston area. Next he pulled out his driver's license and I had to chuckle - Magnolia, Texas. No shit.
So, seeing as the load delivers on Tuesday and I was going to be sitting in a truck stop for two or three days, I told him that he could call his fleet manager and see if he could get my load, if he wanted to do that. I didn't know where he was headed at that point, but why not give the guy a chance to visit with the family for a couple days on the holiday weekend? He told me that he had a 300-something mile run and that I probably didn't want that. Oh hell, why not? Maybe some day someone may do the same for me. He called his fleet manager, who told him that I would have to run it by my fleet manager before they could change our assignments. Since I would be the one essentially losing 700 miles of pay, she couldn't make the switch unilaterally. I called and gave my fleet manager the rundown. I don't know exactly how all of that load assigning works, but he took care of it and I wound up with a load dropping at our yard in Columbus, Ohio.
We spent the whole morning and the better part of the afternoon waiting to get loaded. At one point I hadn't felt my trailer shake for a while, so I headed inside. The lady told me that they had one more pallet to load. I hung around inside for a while and never heard anything. About a half hour later, I asked her again what was my status. She repeated the line about one more pallet. I told her that I was going out to my truck and that they could come and get me when I was ready to roll. Outside, there were about twenty hispanic lads playing soccer in the parking lot. Obviously it was lunch time at the warehouse. In what I'm sure is just a coincidence, as soon as their lunch/soccer break was over I got my last pallet.
I wasn't quite sure how the decision to give up a 1,055 mile run was going to play out. Generally speaking, it's probably not smart to give up miles on a holiday weekend. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time though. Once I headed east, and my last fifteen miles on I-80 took over an hour, I was vehemently cursing the entire population of Magnolia, Texas. Then, as I say from time to time, things took a turn...
The traffic cleared up, I finally found some good music on the radio, and the planners in Joplin kept their batting average for this week at a cool 1.000 . I received a pre-plan for a load leaving Columbus tomorrow and going to Saint Albans, Vermont. That more than makes up the 700 miles that I gave up, plus adds some northeast pay to the mix. Better still, the delivery in Vermont is Sunday night, as opposed to Tuesday morning in Texas. That gets me another potential day of work on Monday. I also won't have to spend day after day idling my truck to stay cool over the weekend, since things have been rather pleasant in the evenings up north lately. So I guess the moral is that doing the right thing can work out for the best sometimes. See there, I'm a role model! Haha, funny, I know.
The drive across to Columbus was pretty good once I got clear of that mess in northern Indiana. The biggest challenge was the fact that I was getting tired, and fast. I thought about calling to see if I could just drop in Columbus tomorrow morning, but after a pit stop and a bite to eat I caught a second wind and finished off the run with no problem.
My Vermont run is supposed to be here tomorrow by 9pm. If it shows up early, I guess I'll head out for a few hours tomorrow. Hell, I might drive for a while even if it's here at 9pm. The way my sleep has been going lately, I may very well be wide awake for a while after that.
I just spent more time planning this route than I think I've spent on any ten routes combined. Getting to Saint Albans is sort of a pain in the ass. I punched the route into three different programs and each one talked about taking a ferry into Vermont. For starters, I don't intend to take a ferry. I'm sure that it's no big deal, but it sounds like just one more hassle that I can do without. Then there's the mileage. My paid 'practical' miles are something like 730. Truckmiles.com says 726 miles, but that involves about 200 different roads (plus the ferry). No thanks. Rand McNally (not truck specific) says 782 miles and the route looks reasonable, but it includes a jaunt into Canada. Not an option. PC Miler says 762, but again the ferry issue comes up. Once you start tweaking the route to stay on dry land and bridges, it starts either to get really convoluted or really lengthy.
After a while I came up with something workable. I'm pretty sure I found a route that should be fairly easy, and somewhere around 740 miles, but it will involve a little bit of skinny road driving through some rough terrain. Hopefully it's a light load. I had started to plot out a route that I took through the Adirondacks once before, but I'm not sure that my route in Vermont on that occasion was completely legal. In any event, the route I'll be taking this time shouldn't be too much longer than my paid miles.
I got towatch hear somebody's fireworks tonight after I dropped my trailer. I'm facing right toward the part of the sky that was lighting up, and I could hear some explosions, but there's a big ass warehouse where the horizon should be. Oh well, at least the Tigers are kicking some ass.
4am delivery... grocery warehouse... lumpers... blah. That generally sucks and I can't say that this morning was much of an exception. The last time I had to pay a lumper at the end of a pay period, they held over the Comcheck charge until the next pay period, when the reimbursement hit. If that happens again, I guess that would be nice. Sixty bucks is sixty bucks.
From the grocery warehouse, I headed north to Romeoville for my next pickup. I checked in and started chatting with another CTL driver who got there ahead of me. It was the usual small talk about where we had been and where we were headed. I was headed to Magnolia, Texas. The guy told me, "That's where I live," and rolled his eyes. I assumed that he meant that he was from the Houston area. Next he pulled out his driver's license and I had to chuckle - Magnolia, Texas. No shit.
So, seeing as the load delivers on Tuesday and I was going to be sitting in a truck stop for two or three days, I told him that he could call his fleet manager and see if he could get my load, if he wanted to do that. I didn't know where he was headed at that point, but why not give the guy a chance to visit with the family for a couple days on the holiday weekend? He told me that he had a 300-something mile run and that I probably didn't want that. Oh hell, why not? Maybe some day someone may do the same for me. He called his fleet manager, who told him that I would have to run it by my fleet manager before they could change our assignments. Since I would be the one essentially losing 700 miles of pay, she couldn't make the switch unilaterally. I called and gave my fleet manager the rundown. I don't know exactly how all of that load assigning works, but he took care of it and I wound up with a load dropping at our yard in Columbus, Ohio.
We spent the whole morning and the better part of the afternoon waiting to get loaded. At one point I hadn't felt my trailer shake for a while, so I headed inside. The lady told me that they had one more pallet to load. I hung around inside for a while and never heard anything. About a half hour later, I asked her again what was my status. She repeated the line about one more pallet. I told her that I was going out to my truck and that they could come and get me when I was ready to roll. Outside, there were about twenty hispanic lads playing soccer in the parking lot. Obviously it was lunch time at the warehouse. In what I'm sure is just a coincidence, as soon as their lunch/soccer break was over I got my last pallet.
I wasn't quite sure how the decision to give up a 1,055 mile run was going to play out. Generally speaking, it's probably not smart to give up miles on a holiday weekend. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time though. Once I headed east, and my last fifteen miles on I-80 took over an hour, I was vehemently cursing the entire population of Magnolia, Texas. Then, as I say from time to time, things took a turn...
The traffic cleared up, I finally found some good music on the radio, and the planners in Joplin kept their batting average for this week at a cool 1.000 . I received a pre-plan for a load leaving Columbus tomorrow and going to Saint Albans, Vermont. That more than makes up the 700 miles that I gave up, plus adds some northeast pay to the mix. Better still, the delivery in Vermont is Sunday night, as opposed to Tuesday morning in Texas. That gets me another potential day of work on Monday. I also won't have to spend day after day idling my truck to stay cool over the weekend, since things have been rather pleasant in the evenings up north lately. So I guess the moral is that doing the right thing can work out for the best sometimes. See there, I'm a role model! Haha, funny, I know.
The drive across to Columbus was pretty good once I got clear of that mess in northern Indiana. The biggest challenge was the fact that I was getting tired, and fast. I thought about calling to see if I could just drop in Columbus tomorrow morning, but after a pit stop and a bite to eat I caught a second wind and finished off the run with no problem.
My Vermont run is supposed to be here tomorrow by 9pm. If it shows up early, I guess I'll head out for a few hours tomorrow. Hell, I might drive for a while even if it's here at 9pm. The way my sleep has been going lately, I may very well be wide awake for a while after that.
I just spent more time planning this route than I think I've spent on any ten routes combined. Getting to Saint Albans is sort of a pain in the ass. I punched the route into three different programs and each one talked about taking a ferry into Vermont. For starters, I don't intend to take a ferry. I'm sure that it's no big deal, but it sounds like just one more hassle that I can do without. Then there's the mileage. My paid 'practical' miles are something like 730. Truckmiles.com says 726 miles, but that involves about 200 different roads (plus the ferry). No thanks. Rand McNally (not truck specific) says 782 miles and the route looks reasonable, but it includes a jaunt into Canada. Not an option. PC Miler says 762, but again the ferry issue comes up. Once you start tweaking the route to stay on dry land and bridges, it starts either to get really convoluted or really lengthy.
After a while I came up with something workable. I'm pretty sure I found a route that should be fairly easy, and somewhere around 740 miles, but it will involve a little bit of skinny road driving through some rough terrain. Hopefully it's a light load. I had started to plot out a route that I took through the Adirondacks once before, but I'm not sure that my route in Vermont on that occasion was completely legal. In any event, the route I'll be taking this time shouldn't be too much longer than my paid miles.
I got to
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
7/2/08
Well, I think I managed to sleep for a few hours last night, so I guess that's a start. I still don't see why we can't have a few beers before bedtime out here. If I'm shut down and the law says that I can't move for ten hours, who in the hell would I be hurting? I would sleep a lot better at night. I can tell you that much.
The morning's drive was pretty ho-hum. After crossing western Wisconsin for the third time in as many days, I suddenly feel the urge to eat curds of cheese as I stay at a gigantic lodge with an indoor water park, or something like that. Illinois was good and shitty for a while until I broke free of the construction, but overall not too terrible.
It got to be somewhere around 5pm as I approached Bloomington when the planner people chalked up another victory. Three trips since I left home and three pre-plans. This one was especially useful, since I'll be empty in the morning and there really doesn't appear to be a place to park near my customer. Now that I know where I'll be picking up next, I can head straight there once I get unloaded. Beauty. I have to cruise up to the southwestern suburbs of Chicago and grab a load headed for Texas. That will knock this week over 3,000 miles, plus holiday pay. So yeah, pretty decent week.
The only bad thing that the holiday appears to have done is kick back my delivery date in Texas to Tuesday morning. That means I'll have tomorrow, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday to cover something around 1,250 miles (including the deadhead). I guess I'll have some layover pay coming, but that's a pretty slow weekend in any case. The load looks like the type that would have been delivered on Monday, but whenever businesses close for a day they tend to get behind for a while. I don't know. Whatever. I'll be empty on Tuesday morning, so next week shouldn't be hurt too badly.
I called my bank this morning, expecting my safety bonus for the second quarter to have posted within the last couple of days. Nope. Just one more thing that CFI did better than ConWay I guess. It seems that anything involving money going from them to me takes longer than it used to. For example, the bonus period in question ended on May 31st. It used to be that the money would hit my bank account on the 28th of the following month (June in this case). Then, for the first period this year, it was the 30th of the following month (March in that case). Now it's July 2nd and the money is still not in my account.
So I guess this is how I would summarize things under the ConWay umbrella... Base pay - always right, always on time. Reimbursements - timing may vary, but usually pretty reasonable. Stop off pay - occasionally requires a reminder message, but usually paid immediately. UPS pay - no, they aren't able to handle that one at all. Detention - maybe, if you're lucky. Layover - sooner or later, but keep track and send a few reminders just in case. (And now) Safety bonus - I guess they'll get to it eventually.
Anyway, I have something like thirty miles to run before 4am local time, then it's off to pick up the Texas load. Depending on how much sleep I get tonight, tomorrow may or may not involve much driving after that.
UPDATE: I have to edit to add that I'm a dummy, as if we didn't already know that. Apparently my safety bonus was added into last week's paycheck. Amid all of the festivities at home, I never bothered to check my stub on the ConWay website. Safety bonuses had always been a seperate pay event, but not this time. So ignore that part about the safety bonus being late. Okay then, as you were...
The morning's drive was pretty ho-hum. After crossing western Wisconsin for the third time in as many days, I suddenly feel the urge to eat curds of cheese as I stay at a gigantic lodge with an indoor water park, or something like that. Illinois was good and shitty for a while until I broke free of the construction, but overall not too terrible.
It got to be somewhere around 5pm as I approached Bloomington when the planner people chalked up another victory. Three trips since I left home and three pre-plans. This one was especially useful, since I'll be empty in the morning and there really doesn't appear to be a place to park near my customer. Now that I know where I'll be picking up next, I can head straight there once I get unloaded. Beauty. I have to cruise up to the southwestern suburbs of Chicago and grab a load headed for Texas. That will knock this week over 3,000 miles, plus holiday pay. So yeah, pretty decent week.
The only bad thing that the holiday appears to have done is kick back my delivery date in Texas to Tuesday morning. That means I'll have tomorrow, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday to cover something around 1,250 miles (including the deadhead). I guess I'll have some layover pay coming, but that's a pretty slow weekend in any case. The load looks like the type that would have been delivered on Monday, but whenever businesses close for a day they tend to get behind for a while. I don't know. Whatever. I'll be empty on Tuesday morning, so next week shouldn't be hurt too badly.
I called my bank this morning, expecting my safety bonus for the second quarter to have posted within the last couple of days. Nope. Just one more thing that CFI did better than ConWay I guess. It seems that anything involving money going from them to me takes longer than it used to. For example, the bonus period in question ended on May 31st. It used to be that the money would hit my bank account on the 28th of the following month (June in this case). Then, for the first period this year, it was the 30th of the following month (March in that case). Now it's July 2nd and the money is still not in my account.
So I guess this is how I would summarize things under the ConWay umbrella... Base pay - always right, always on time. Reimbursements - timing may vary, but usually pretty reasonable. Stop off pay - occasionally requires a reminder message, but usually paid immediately. UPS pay - no, they aren't able to handle that one at all. Detention - maybe, if you're lucky. Layover - sooner or later, but keep track and send a few reminders just in case. (And now) Safety bonus - I guess they'll get to it eventually.
Anyway, I have something like thirty miles to run before 4am local time, then it's off to pick up the Texas load. Depending on how much sleep I get tonight, tomorrow may or may not involve much driving after that.
UPDATE: I have to edit to add that I'm a dummy, as if we didn't already know that. Apparently my safety bonus was added into last week's paycheck. Amid all of the festivities at home, I never bothered to check my stub on the ConWay website. Safety bonuses had always been a seperate pay event, but not this time. So ignore that part about the safety bonus being late. Okay then, as you were...
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
7/1/08
Don't look now, but the planner people are working on a two-game hitting streak. I'm guessing that the upcoming holiday will change all that, but so far so good.
I tossed and turned all night, even worse than normal, so of course the morning wasn't exactly 'happy time.' That being said; My load was ready on time, it scaled out perfectly on the first try, the ConWay yard wasn't busy at all, traffic was light all the way across Wisconsin and Minnesota, I got a pre-plan after a few hours of driving, my fuel stop wasn't crowded at all, the ConWay yard in West Fargo was likewise not busy, I got a clean and mechanically sound empty, the next shipper was only ten miles away, they had me loaded within fifteen minutes of my arrival, and traffic heading back out of Fargo was light. How's that for a run-on sentence?
I am heading to Urbana, Illinois for a 4am Thursday delivery. It's one of those pain in the ass places where we can't park the night before, we can't arrive early, and there's no truck stop nearby. I hadn't really decided how to attack the trip when I guess my mind was made up for me. I got about a hundred miles back into Minnesota before the highway was Sugar Ray and I was Roberto Duran - "No mas." I had the hours to go a little further today, but I was dead tired so I pulled into a rest area and immediately fell asleep... for two hours. Now I'm wide awake and my 14 hour clock has expired, so I guess there ain't much I can do except try to get a little more sleep. From here I can drive about 600 miles tomorrow and get to a truck stop along I-74, about 35 miles from my consignee. As we reverse-engineer the math, we find that I would have to be ready to start work by 3am locally Thursday, which is really 4am for me in east coast time, so I would have to start my break by 6pm Eastern, so I would have to leave here by 7am Eastern (assuming that the drive will take eleven hours). It will likely be less than eleven hours, but it's usually best to allow for a snafu or two along the way whenever Illinois is involved. I guess I'll set my alarm for 6am and we'll take it from there.
The week's miles are starting to shape up to be pretty decent. With this dispatch I am at 1,849 and I'll be empty on Thursday morning. I guess that's the one positive thing about a 4am delivery. Even if the planners don't continue their 100% pre-plan rate of this recent excursion, I'll be on the board before they start handing out freight on Thursday. My memory seems to suggest that the 4th of July is never a very productive time to be looking for freight, so hopefully I can catch something nice and long (or, if not, at least something going to Taylor) for the weekend. I don't expect as much, but a fella can hope. Obama told me so.
Hey, maybe you guys can help me out with something that's been on my mind all day. So, the story goes that this guy named Dimitri left some voice mails for this chick named Olga. She then appears to have put the voice mails on the internet. I heard some guys on the radio making fun of Dimitri this morning, so now I'm a little confused. I think he is playing his cards like a champ, what with the stalker-like mentality and the way that he tells her that she must have been abused or something. If you can manage to hang on to the end (where he really hits his stride), let me know. Should this not be someone that I try to emulate? Maybe that's why I don't get more affection on the road...
I tossed and turned all night, even worse than normal, so of course the morning wasn't exactly 'happy time.' That being said; My load was ready on time, it scaled out perfectly on the first try, the ConWay yard wasn't busy at all, traffic was light all the way across Wisconsin and Minnesota, I got a pre-plan after a few hours of driving, my fuel stop wasn't crowded at all, the ConWay yard in West Fargo was likewise not busy, I got a clean and mechanically sound empty, the next shipper was only ten miles away, they had me loaded within fifteen minutes of my arrival, and traffic heading back out of Fargo was light. How's that for a run-on sentence?
I am heading to Urbana, Illinois for a 4am Thursday delivery. It's one of those pain in the ass places where we can't park the night before, we can't arrive early, and there's no truck stop nearby. I hadn't really decided how to attack the trip when I guess my mind was made up for me. I got about a hundred miles back into Minnesota before the highway was Sugar Ray and I was Roberto Duran - "No mas." I had the hours to go a little further today, but I was dead tired so I pulled into a rest area and immediately fell asleep... for two hours. Now I'm wide awake and my 14 hour clock has expired, so I guess there ain't much I can do except try to get a little more sleep. From here I can drive about 600 miles tomorrow and get to a truck stop along I-74, about 35 miles from my consignee. As we reverse-engineer the math, we find that I would have to be ready to start work by 3am locally Thursday, which is really 4am for me in east coast time, so I would have to start my break by 6pm Eastern, so I would have to leave here by 7am Eastern (assuming that the drive will take eleven hours). It will likely be less than eleven hours, but it's usually best to allow for a snafu or two along the way whenever Illinois is involved. I guess I'll set my alarm for 6am and we'll take it from there.
The week's miles are starting to shape up to be pretty decent. With this dispatch I am at 1,849 and I'll be empty on Thursday morning. I guess that's the one positive thing about a 4am delivery. Even if the planners don't continue their 100% pre-plan rate of this recent excursion, I'll be on the board before they start handing out freight on Thursday. My memory seems to suggest that the 4th of July is never a very productive time to be looking for freight, so hopefully I can catch something nice and long (or, if not, at least something going to Taylor) for the weekend. I don't expect as much, but a fella can hope. Obama told me so.
Hey, maybe you guys can help me out with something that's been on my mind all day. So, the story goes that this guy named Dimitri left some voice mails for this chick named Olga. She then appears to have put the voice mails on the internet. I heard some guys on the radio making fun of Dimitri this morning, so now I'm a little confused. I think he is playing his cards like a champ, what with the stalker-like mentality and the way that he tells her that she must have been abused or something. If you can manage to hang on to the end (where he really hits his stride), let me know. Should this not be someone that I try to emulate? Maybe that's why I don't get more affection on the road...
Monday, June 30, 2008
6/30/08
Well, the planners in Joplin are 1 for 1 on this particular stretch of work. I've pulled one load and I've received one pre-plan. That was a little surprising, since northern Wisconsin isn't exactly a hotbed of manufacturing activity. The pre-planned load was one picking up tomorrow morning though, only ninety miles away from today's drop. I guess that's not so surprising, since northern Wisconsin isn't exactly a hotbed of manufacturing activity.
This morning's drive was pretty decent. There was construction for what was left of Illinois, but the traffic in Wisconsin was rolling nicely. I guess Madison would be the only area along the route that might get busy sometimes, but not today. The consignee in Eau Claire got me unloaded within a half hour or so, then I headed back down I-94 toward Tomah.
I have to pick up a ConWay load by 5am, so I stopped for a break along the way and had some dinner. As I long as I got to Tomah by 7pm, I could get a legitimate ten hour break at the shipper. The idea was to get here right around 7pm, at which time the night shift drivers would be out doing what they do and the yard wouldn't be congested. Good call. Hopefully that wasn't my one good decision for July, a day early.
Now I'm just listening to the ballgame and wishing the people parked on either side of me would shut off their damn trucks. $4.65 a gallon and they have them running for no apparent reason. I don't buy the fuel so that's not my problem, but I could do without the noise.
This morning's drive was pretty decent. There was construction for what was left of Illinois, but the traffic in Wisconsin was rolling nicely. I guess Madison would be the only area along the route that might get busy sometimes, but not today. The consignee in Eau Claire got me unloaded within a half hour or so, then I headed back down I-94 toward Tomah.
I have to pick up a ConWay load by 5am, so I stopped for a break along the way and had some dinner. As I long as I got to Tomah by 7pm, I could get a legitimate ten hour break at the shipper. The idea was to get here right around 7pm, at which time the night shift drivers would be out doing what they do and the yard wouldn't be congested. Good call. Hopefully that wasn't my one good decision for July, a day early.
Now I'm just listening to the ballgame and wishing the people parked on either side of me would shut off their damn trucks. $4.65 a gallon and they have them running for no apparent reason. I don't buy the fuel so that's not my problem, but I could do without the noise.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
6/29/08
Ahh yes, back to the good old daily grind. I had to wake up before 7:30am and report for duty. Preliminary reports indicate that this was about four hours earlier than I would have liked to wake up. The dispatcher in Taylor got me on the board at #3 and said it would probably be a while, so I went back to bed. Beauty.
Around 8:30am, I got up to use the bathroom and called the 800 number to see where I stood. I was already assigned to a load. How about that? So I made another call to the terminal to find out what kind of timeline I would be facing. Pick up in Plymouth, Michigan today at 3pm. Okay, good. Probably a wicked heavy water load, but still good as far as timing goes. Deliver tomorrow afternoon in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Home run. Good miles for my first trip back on the road, time for a nap before I picked up, plenty of time to stop and rest tonight whenever I felt like it, and no goofy early or late delivery time tomorrow.
On the way to Plymouth, I got a call from my roommate. He uses my car every now and then when I'm out of town, so he had dropped me off at the terminal when I went back to work. My new medical card was sitting on the front seat of my car. Great. I pulled into a rest area on I-275 and waited for him to bring the card to me. I still made it to the pick up a few minutes early, so good enough I guess.
The shipper (yeah, it was the water place) had me loaded and rolling today around 5pm. Two hours at the dock is about as good as it gets for those guys. When I went back to close my trailer doors, I saw that the pallets of water came all the way to the back. That can't be good. I checked the bills, thinking that maybe this load was lighter than usual. If so, the back axles would maybe be okay, even with some weight all the way to the doors. Nope. A full 44,000 pounder. Shit.
The nearest scale was a good twenty miles away, so I set the wheels quite a way back and headed off. Once I scaled, I knew I was going to have some issues. 36,000 on the rears. Damn! So I counted off another five holes and slid 'em back to there. 34,180 on the rears. Damn! One more hole and one more re-weigh got me under 34,000. At that point, the maximum wheelbase laws would be the only issue. Technically speaking, I'm not sure that I could drive this thing in any of the states along my route with the wheels as far back as they are. I'm not completely stretched out, but they're pretty damn far back there. Without taking out a tape measure and my atlas to nail down exact numbers, I decided that I was close enough to press on. Driving twenty miles back to the shipper and finding someone to re-work the load sounded worse than being a few inches longer than I should be, since the weights were all good at that point.
About the only thing I wanted to accomplish tonight was to get past Chicago. I knew that, given the last few days' activities, I would most likely get tired after a few hours on the road. As long as I could hang in there and get clear of Chicago tonight though, tomorrow would stand to be a much better day. It would really suck to wake up and idle through Chicago traffic for three hours in the morning. I got through in pretty decent shape, given the never-ending construction and ridiculously ubiquitous rain.
I pulled into the rest area in Belvidere to see if there might be a place to park for the night. There was a single spot, bordered by a guy who can't park straight (on the left). This particular spot also sat in front of an asswipe who parked along the back, in a non-parking zone. Usually that stuff is more of an annoyance than a problem, but today I had to squeeze in with my extra long wheelbase. I was able to keep just a sliver of light between myself and the dipshit on my left as I swung in from the shallow approach angle caused by the dipshit behind me. Fun, fun, fun. I only have around four or five hours to go tomorrow, so I'm fully expecting a lot less hassle than what today brought.
Around 8:30am, I got up to use the bathroom and called the 800 number to see where I stood. I was already assigned to a load. How about that? So I made another call to the terminal to find out what kind of timeline I would be facing. Pick up in Plymouth, Michigan today at 3pm. Okay, good. Probably a wicked heavy water load, but still good as far as timing goes. Deliver tomorrow afternoon in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Home run. Good miles for my first trip back on the road, time for a nap before I picked up, plenty of time to stop and rest tonight whenever I felt like it, and no goofy early or late delivery time tomorrow.
On the way to Plymouth, I got a call from my roommate. He uses my car every now and then when I'm out of town, so he had dropped me off at the terminal when I went back to work. My new medical card was sitting on the front seat of my car. Great. I pulled into a rest area on I-275 and waited for him to bring the card to me. I still made it to the pick up a few minutes early, so good enough I guess.
The shipper (yeah, it was the water place) had me loaded and rolling today around 5pm. Two hours at the dock is about as good as it gets for those guys. When I went back to close my trailer doors, I saw that the pallets of water came all the way to the back. That can't be good. I checked the bills, thinking that maybe this load was lighter than usual. If so, the back axles would maybe be okay, even with some weight all the way to the doors. Nope. A full 44,000 pounder. Shit.
The nearest scale was a good twenty miles away, so I set the wheels quite a way back and headed off. Once I scaled, I knew I was going to have some issues. 36,000 on the rears. Damn! So I counted off another five holes and slid 'em back to there. 34,180 on the rears. Damn! One more hole and one more re-weigh got me under 34,000. At that point, the maximum wheelbase laws would be the only issue. Technically speaking, I'm not sure that I could drive this thing in any of the states along my route with the wheels as far back as they are. I'm not completely stretched out, but they're pretty damn far back there. Without taking out a tape measure and my atlas to nail down exact numbers, I decided that I was close enough to press on. Driving twenty miles back to the shipper and finding someone to re-work the load sounded worse than being a few inches longer than I should be, since the weights were all good at that point.
About the only thing I wanted to accomplish tonight was to get past Chicago. I knew that, given the last few days' activities, I would most likely get tired after a few hours on the road. As long as I could hang in there and get clear of Chicago tonight though, tomorrow would stand to be a much better day. It would really suck to wake up and idle through Chicago traffic for three hours in the morning. I got through in pretty decent shape, given the never-ending construction and ridiculously ubiquitous rain.
I pulled into the rest area in Belvidere to see if there might be a place to park for the night. There was a single spot, bordered by a guy who can't park straight (on the left). This particular spot also sat in front of an asswipe who parked along the back, in a non-parking zone. Usually that stuff is more of an annoyance than a problem, but today I had to squeeze in with my extra long wheelbase. I was able to keep just a sliver of light between myself and the dipshit on my left as I swung in from the shallow approach angle caused by the dipshit behind me. Fun, fun, fun. I only have around four or five hours to go tomorrow, so I'm fully expecting a lot less hassle than what today brought.
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