The morning's trip across Arkansas and into Oklahoma was good and easy. The terrain tends to require some patience when you have 44,000 pounds in tow, but this is what I do for a living and such. Not so bad.
I took a break for a little while to watch some of the ballgame, then got back on the road after those peckerheads from Minnesota started piling up the runs. So I was driving and didn't get to see the brewhaha that broke out after a few bean balls. Story of life. I got to the consignee a couple of hours ahead of schedule and the forklift dude had me empty in ten minutes. Beauty.
As soon as I sent in my empty call, I received a message. I assumed that I must have typed the wrong trailer number or something, since the only messages that come through that quickly are error messages. I took a look. 'Planned Load Summary.' Well I'll be damned. The load assignment itself came in a minute later and I was set to go once again.
If I could have written the script for the next load, it would have included the following elements:
(1) A deadhead of around a hundred miles, tacking on a few bucks to my paycheck but not making me work too late tonight before trying to find parking;
(2) A trip back to the Midwest, keeping me far away from both the Rockies and the Mexican border for at least a few more days;
(3) Around six or seven hundred miles for the weekend, getting my week's paycheck up around a thousand bucks or so;
and (4) A delivery on Monday, meaning that I would have plenty of time to settle in at one of the Corleone family's estates and watch football on Saturday.
Let's see how we did then... Deadhead? 108 miles to Shawnee. Ding! Trip to the Midwest? Romeoville, Illinois. Ding! Six or seven hundred loaded miles? 754 for the weekend. Ding! Monday delivery? We'll have to see about that, but the consignee is only open Monday through Friday and I ain't driving 754 miles tomorrow, so you do the math. Ding! So, given recent history, I have only one thing to say to the folks in the big building on 32nd Street...
The only thing left to do was head over to Shawnee and make my drop/hook. The trip to the shipper was nice and easy, so we were off to a good start. I checked in with the security dude via intercom and received my instructions - Drop my empty in the gravel lot, go into Door 15, sign the bills, leave a copy in the mailbox, grab my loaded trailer, inspect the load, seal it up, and hit the road. Okay, sounds easy enough. One little problem had to pop up though. My loaded trailer turned out to be empty. Shit.
I flagged down a forklift driver who told me that there must have been a production problem and my trailer wouldn't be loaded tonight. I would have to try checking back tomorrow at 7am, since they didn't allow drivers to stay on their property and the shipping people had all gone home for the evening. Oh well, can't win 'em all I guess. As long as they can get me rolling at some point tomorrow morning, the weekend should take shape the same way I intended. I was probably only going to drive another half hour or so tonight anyway. Starting the trip tomorrow won't make that much of a difference in the grand scheme of things, plus I'll probably have a good chunk of detention pay coming for my troubles.
Since I don't have a trailer, the shopping mall down the street from the shipper seemed like a logical place to cool my heels for the night. Restauarants and stores and such are a nice break from the usual truck stop routine. Now let's just keep our fingers crossed and hope that everything works out with this run. There's a distinct possibility that I can make it into the Chicago media market by Saturday afternoon. Getting to watch my Irish and my Tigers on TV in a comfy motel room would be a welcome outcome indeed.
What's up Joe,I keep hearing how truckers are starving to death out there and I read your blog almost on a daily basis.
ReplyDeleteDoes CFI keep all their drivers as busy as you?
Whenever you hear a truck driver talk about miles, there is a 75% chance that he is lying. I have no idea what is the reason behind this, but it's a bizarre trait of those in this profession.
ReplyDeleteSome of them will say they're driving a bunch of miles so they can try to recruit people or stroke their own egos. Others will say they're hardly getting any miles because they just love to bitch all the time. This makes it hard to figure out when the few people on either end of the spectrum are actually telling the truth, so I just don't bother listening to anyone.
I have no reason to think that my miles are anything out of the ordinary. As documented here, I never call my fleet manager unless it's absolutely necessary and I almost never pick up or deliver early. I just take whatever they send me and it all seems to work out fine.