11/24/09

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you see the following statement? (I don't really care to know but, for your own sake, try a quick word association.)...

"You are being videotaped. All pull-outs will be prosecuted."

I saw this on a (poorly worded) sign outside the window of a truck stop as I was eating dinner tonight. Telling people not to steal gasoline, of course, but that ain't what popped into my head when I first saw it.

I was tired when I wrote to you fine folks last night and I may be even more tired now. Fortunately (or maybe not so fortunately, as time will tell) my logbook is on a collision course with the 70 hour rule at this point. I can only work a total of seven hours tomorrow. Then I only pick up four and a half hours on Thursday and six more on Friday. So I won't be working terribly hard and this tired driver business will be put to rest (pun intended), at least until the weekend. That's the fortunate part. With a logbook short on hours and a holiday approaching though, I may end up stuck in the middle of nowhere with my thumb up my ass for a few days. That would be rather unfortunate.

This morning got started bright and early. The drive was quite a bit easier than I expected. I knew that US-30 is a pretty easy ride, but I expected a little more traffic around the cities and towns. Bypassing Fort Wayne at 8am, one would have thought that it was 3am on a Sunday or something. Almost no traffic to be seen. I had time for a lunch break along the way and still arrived at my consignee before noon.

It was a 'good news/bad news' deal at the consignee. Good news in that I was assigned to a door and unloaded right away (actually leaving at 1:30pm, when I was scheduled to arrive). Bad news in that I had to pay $50 to a lumper. I don't know how the intervening holiday will affect the payroll people or the TripPak transit schedule, but hopefully my reimbursement can still be handled before my next paycheck is processed.

I sent in my empty call and then headed over to the Flying J on I-71 once I got checked out at the security booth. The drive was something like seven or eight miles. Of course, as I sat in the left turn lane waiting to get into the truck stop, I received a new assignment. They couldn't have sent it through before I started driving away from the consignee, could they? Eh, whatever. I had to drop off that TripPak anyway.

The next load was picking up in Waverly, Ohio. I scooted down through Columbus before the afternoon rush got too heavy and then caught US-23 to the south. My directions to the shipper were wrong. To put it more accurately, the directions were correct in the sense that they got me to the shipper, but I needed to be at a different warehouse belonging to that shipper. The security guard at the first (wrong) location gave me a printed sheet with directions to the second (correct) location and sent me on my way. After arriving at the second location, my drop/hook was quick and easy. With a groovy 8,000 pounds in the wagon, away we go.

I'm heading to Eastern Pennsylvania so the route took me up US-23 to US-22 and then across to I-70. That stretch of US-22 was far more tedious than I remember from previous trips. Cancels out the morning's drive being easier than expected, I suppose. Eventually I caught up with the freeway and put my foot down. I got into Pennsylvania before I was completely worn out and decided to call it a day. I ducked off at Exit 6 and found a parking spot at the Petro. Just to throw a curveball to the cosmos, I decided on a slice of Sbarro pizza for dinner instead of a SubWay Italian BMT with double meat. Hopefully SubWay can forgive me.

As soon as I've been here for ten hours, it will be time to hit the road again. I am set to make a drop/hook in Minersville, Pennsylvania by tomorrow at 12:30pm. Then I'll be down to something like two hours remaining on my log book and staring a holiday in the face. The load planners are good for a surprise every now and then though, sometimes positive and sometimes negative. I'm sure hoping for a positive surprise tomorrow. Getting stuck sitting out a holiday isn't any great tragedy in and of itself. Getting stuck sitting out that holiday in Minersville, Pennsylvania would be pretty crummy.