8/18/09

Hey, look at that. I get to not care about Brett Favre again. Sweet.

As far as last night went, I think it was a good thing that I didn't look into the nature of today's assignment. The evening was much more enjoyable without the knowledge that I would get to be the sacrificial bitch today. As far as today went, it was a good thing that I took a few minutes and actually did some trip planning. A potentially ugly scene may or may not have been avoided.

Since I had been instructed not to pick up early and my appointment was for 2pm, I stayed in Pageland until around 12:45pm and then headed up to Monroe. I reached the shipper at 1:15pm and got backed into a dock. So far, so good. They had me loaded and rolling by 2:15pm. Then the day went the way that days sometimes go... downhill.

I was dispatched to make my next pickup in Bryson City, North Carolina by 6:30pm. A little over four hours, 205 miles or so, should be no problem, right? Yeah, right. By the time I re-traced that red light filled stretch of US-74 and got through Charlotte, one hour was gone. Then it was up into the mountains. I called to see how firm the 6:30pm thing was, as I was running low on fuel and the timeline wasn't looking too promising. I was originally supposed to be there by 5pm, I was told. Ponder that one for a minute and then get back to me. Monroe at 2pm, can't pick up early, Bryson City at 5pm. Right.

Since I was already operating in what the soccer fans would call 'injury time,' I ducked off in Charlotte to grab a hundred gallons of fuel just to be safe. After the Texas incident, I wasn't feeling too compelled to head into the mountains on empty again. I made it in and out quickly and got to the second shipper at 6:40pm. Good enough. That last stretch on US-74 was full of blue-hairs making life difficult for me, but I managed it as well as could be expected.

Once I was loaded in Bryson City it was time to head for Knoxville. Here's where a little trip planning and a pretty comprehensive memory came in handy. As I was looking at my atlas before I left South Carolina this morning, I saw that I could go straight up along US-129 and shave a bunch of miles off my route. I typed the route into truckmiles.com to see what they thought I should do and, much to my surprise, their practical route was the one that I had been eyeing.

I seemed to remember a previous trip to Bryson City though. Something about pain in the ass skinny roads came to mind, quite prominently. Yeah, I've been there once before. I was delivering in that case and picking up in this case, but the thought of those roads certainly gave me pause. I decided to punch the roads for my intended (westward) route into Google and see how they might compare to the (eastward) path that I took out of town the last time. Hmmm... "tail of the dragon," eh? Eventually I found my way to this page and then concluded that even I was too much of a chickenshit for that route. I can't believe that they don't restrict commercial traffic up there. If we can't take US-441 through the park, then we sure as hell shouldn't be taking a route that has 318 turns in 11 miles. In any case, that looked like a little too much for my taste.

So I got to backtrack to Waynesville and then shoot across on I-40 instead. My dispatched miles were 120 and that route through Deal's Gap would have been 90, so at least the 'practical routing' software in Joplin was a little more sensible than that on the interwebs. After having gotten a bullshit ETA to my second stop, surely I would get something reasonable to the third, right? No, not right. They gave me just over two hours. The 120 miles wound up being more like 160, by the time we add in the usual 2-3% vig and the fact that I really had to go a good 20 miles past Knoxville proper. Plus I had to fax the bills to Joplin "ASAP," according to my instructions. Twenty minutes at the Pilot in Waynesville ought to help the cause. And there's the thirty or forty miles in the mountains where the truck speed limit is 50mph and there's no passing allowed. Then the stretch into Knoxville where the speed limit is 55mph for trucks. Yeah, we didn't quite hit that dispatched ETA.

As if it weren't bad enough fighting traffic and mountains and bullshit ETA's and unpaid miles all day, the load was being relayed to a team bound for California. Hence the "sacrificial bitch" aspect of the day. Ten hours after my day began, I had 343 miles and a splitting headache to show for myself. My colleagues would then be free to hammer down the interstates without a care in the world. Whatever man. At least I didn't have to go to California. That has to count for something.

My relay, to put the icing on the cake, was at the Godforsaken Petro on the west side of Knoxville. 90% Idleaire parking? Hey, let's relay there. Sounds swell. As a just reward for my excessive negativity no doubt, the good Lord was kind enough to make it rain just in time for me to get out and drop my trailer. Then they didn't pay me for my extra stop, so I'll have to take that up with my fleet manager tomorrow. One of those days.

Adding some amusing but not terribly consequential texture to our little tale here, the team to which I gave the relay was coming off of home time. They live along I-81 near White Pine. So they drove westward along I-40 past Knoxville, then waited for me to drive westward along I-40 past Knoxville and bring them the load. It's not for me to decide, but wouldn't it make sense to do the relay in White Pine or Dandridge or something, instead of paying us both to trace the same route? I don't know. I'm just a driver.

All was not lost this evening though. My Tigers made a pretty exciting comeback in the 8th inning for a win and those thugs from Chicago lost a home game to the lowly Royals. Plus I seem to have reaped the first of what I hope will be many paybacks from my declaration of independence from text messages. A friend of mine was about to send a text just before I got to Knoxville, but she decided to call instead. Nice.

I got my next assignment shortly after making the relay, so tomorrow is set up pretty well for me. I'll be heading (back past White Pine and Dandridge, of course) to Greeneville and picking up a load headed for Texas. That run will kick my week's miles up over 2,300. I'll also have my $35 for the extra stop and a little over $20 in northeast pay, with the weekend still to come. Not so bad.