If you enjoyed the warm and sunny weather in Michigan today, you're welcome. I found it in Wisconsin yesterday and decided to bring it with me. The folks at the Fenian Godfather Weather Service were kind enough to pull a few strings, so here we are.
It turned out that the drive down to this afternoon's shipper took only five hours, so I had another six hours available to me under the 70 hour rule once I was loaded. My dispatched miles from Remington to Taylor were 297 so the usual 47mph dispatch would have had to factor in a ten hour break. Once I sent in my loaded call though, the powers that be decided to play hardball and dispatched me to be in Taylor tonight. Okay then. Guess we're heading home. No stopping to watch football this time around.
The next hour was spent looking forward to a certain radio broadcast. The following four hours were spent resisting the urge to drive my truck into a bridge abutment every time I heard the words from my XM radio. Then the last hour was spent looking forward to some cold refreshment once I got home. Highs and lows, I suppose.
For various reasons it's about time for bed now, so we'll have to leave it there. But for what it's worth, I'm more fired up about next weekend than I ever was before. I've always loved a good fight and plenty of people around here will be talking shit for the next several days. Hopefully Our Lady's lads will come through for me this time around. I'm behind them 100%.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Friday, November 6, 2009
11/6/09
There's just something about Wisconsin, it seems. As I sat last night reading the news of the day, I received a pre-planned assignment to pick up after this morning's drop. As usual, my delivery was scheduled for 9am (can't deliver early) and the next pickup time said 9:30am, 80 miles away in Bloomington, Minnesota. As always, I confirmed it. The run itself was going to require absolute efficiency on my part and some cooperation from the traffic gods, as it would use every single hour available to me under the 70 hour rule. It was set to deliver this evening in some town in Wisconsin that I can't spell. All good though. We can get 'er done.
On my way to the consignee this morning, I got a message from my fleet manager asking me to let him know what time I could reach the next shipper. I took a peek at the nearest mile marker and did some quick calculation, then replied that I should be there around 10am. Nothing further followed so I took this as a sign that everything was good. Then I got to the consignee. Check in, get the bills signed, drop my trailer, grab an emp... umm...
That ain't funny, dude. No freaking empties. How in the hell am I supposed to pick up my next load without an empty trailer? So I had to check back with the traffic people at the consignee. They told me to get lost for three hours, then come back and try again. Fantastic. I called my fleet manager to fill him in on the situation and then scooted over to the local truck stop to wait it out.
Since I apparently was the only one in the area able to pick up the next load, there was some uncertainty as to what would follow. My 14 hour clock would allow me to work until 7:30pm Central, so an hour and a half of driving to the shipper and five more hours to the consignee would back us up to 1pm. My three hour 'check back' time at this morning's consignee was 11:45am. Assuming that the shipper could wait for me and that it wouldn't take too long to get loaded, there was a chance that we could pull it off.
I sat at the truck stop and caught up on some e-mails. There was one from my mother, hidden among the usual barrage of dumb anti-Obama chain letters. Looks like Dad bagged a nice one this season. A darling of PETA, he is not.
I headed back over to the distribution center in Menomonie after a couple more hours, circled the drop lot a few times, and found nada. Instead of going back to the truck stop I decided to park at the edge of the lot and wait it out. Given the scheduling situation, I wanted to be ready to grab the first empty trailer that showed up as soon as it became available. I wouldn't want to be sitting at the truck stop when the spotter brought out a trailer, only to have one of my coworkers make a drop/hook and snag it while I wasn't around. So I sat... and waited. Lots of empty trailers cruising by. Knight, Schneider, Swift, Dart, you name it. No Con-way Truckload or CFI trailers though.
Once I sat for another hour without any luck, I sent a message letting my fleet manager know that there still were no empties. A short time later, the load out of Minnesota was unassigned. Bummer. Could have been a nice 400 miles tacked onto my week. With me sitting there and watching my Friday afternoon tick away, there could be no certainty that anything good would take its place. I did get a message from the detention people though, asking for my arrival and departure times. Maybe I'll get my $12 an hour or whatever it is.
At some point in the afternoon I went for a walk and saw that the only CFI trailer in a dock was the one that I dropped this morning. That can't be good. Usually those distribution centers have a bunch of our trailers floating around. I checked with the traffic control lady and she said that it was being unloaded and then it would be in the queue for the yard dog to pull. Okay then. Back to our regularly scheduled sitting.
Around 2:20pm a security lady in a pickup truck told me that I can't "camp out in the yard" and that I would have to leave. Yeah, clearly my pup tent and s'mores were a dead giveaway. Moron. I explained the situation to her and she said that I could park over by the traffic control office and check with the lady in there again. The gal in the office checked her computer and, this time, came up with the number of an empty. Yep, the one that I dropped this morning. Since it was finally empty and I had been there all day, she called the yard dog and asked him to put my trailer ahead of the others on his list so that I could leave. He did so very quickly and even dropped it right behind where I was parked. I just had to back under it and we were good to go.
Back over at the truck stop, I found myself on the board at #1. Could have been worse then, I suppose. Sometimes, on a Friday afternoon, the ready board can get a little crowded if there isn't enough freight to get everyone planned for the weekend. With my 14 hour clock having been reduced to a 5 hour clock, I sent in my detention times and then kicked back to see what was next.
Despite whatever you Drudge-reading neanderthals out there may think, global warming landed squarely in Wisconsin today. The temperature got into the 60's and the sun was shining brightly. Seasonal weather fluctuation? Phooey. I sprayed a can of Right Gard in the air last week. My dividend was paid today. Plus the truck stop next to the distribution center has a SubWay. All in all, if I was destined to get jerked around, this wasn't the worst time and place for it to happen.
After about an hour and a half on the board I received a new assignment. Those 400 miles that I lost this afternoon were replaced by a 437 mile deadhead to Remington, Indiana. From there I'll be heading to Taylor, Michigan. Since the load is bound for Canada and I'm a no-border-crossing kinda dude, we can assume that my home time will begin once I make it to the terminal. I hit the road right away and made it back to the Petro in Portage (where I spent last night) before my 14 hour clock ran out. Good enough.
The load in Remington is scheduled to pick up at 2pm. For obvious reasons (2:30pm kickoff), I'm going to show up early and see what happens. I know that these chuckleheads are going to dispatch me to arrive in Taylor at some goofy hour on Sunday morning, since I won't have the hours to get there tomorrow. They'll factor in a ten hour break and the computer will say 4:13am sounds good or something. So, that being the case, I would prefer to get some driving done early in the afternoon and then catch the football game during my ten hour break. If I can't get rolling until after 2pm, I'll probably just drive and listen on the radio again. Some of you may think that nothing is on the line against the middies since they broke the streak. If you try really hard though, you can believe that 2007 never happened.
On my way to the consignee this morning, I got a message from my fleet manager asking me to let him know what time I could reach the next shipper. I took a peek at the nearest mile marker and did some quick calculation, then replied that I should be there around 10am. Nothing further followed so I took this as a sign that everything was good. Then I got to the consignee. Check in, get the bills signed, drop my trailer, grab an emp... umm...
That ain't funny, dude. No freaking empties. How in the hell am I supposed to pick up my next load without an empty trailer? So I had to check back with the traffic people at the consignee. They told me to get lost for three hours, then come back and try again. Fantastic. I called my fleet manager to fill him in on the situation and then scooted over to the local truck stop to wait it out.
Since I apparently was the only one in the area able to pick up the next load, there was some uncertainty as to what would follow. My 14 hour clock would allow me to work until 7:30pm Central, so an hour and a half of driving to the shipper and five more hours to the consignee would back us up to 1pm. My three hour 'check back' time at this morning's consignee was 11:45am. Assuming that the shipper could wait for me and that it wouldn't take too long to get loaded, there was a chance that we could pull it off.
I sat at the truck stop and caught up on some e-mails. There was one from my mother, hidden among the usual barrage of dumb anti-Obama chain letters. Looks like Dad bagged a nice one this season. A darling of PETA, he is not.
I headed back over to the distribution center in Menomonie after a couple more hours, circled the drop lot a few times, and found nada. Instead of going back to the truck stop I decided to park at the edge of the lot and wait it out. Given the scheduling situation, I wanted to be ready to grab the first empty trailer that showed up as soon as it became available. I wouldn't want to be sitting at the truck stop when the spotter brought out a trailer, only to have one of my coworkers make a drop/hook and snag it while I wasn't around. So I sat... and waited. Lots of empty trailers cruising by. Knight, Schneider, Swift, Dart, you name it. No Con-way Truckload or CFI trailers though.
Once I sat for another hour without any luck, I sent a message letting my fleet manager know that there still were no empties. A short time later, the load out of Minnesota was unassigned. Bummer. Could have been a nice 400 miles tacked onto my week. With me sitting there and watching my Friday afternoon tick away, there could be no certainty that anything good would take its place. I did get a message from the detention people though, asking for my arrival and departure times. Maybe I'll get my $12 an hour or whatever it is.
At some point in the afternoon I went for a walk and saw that the only CFI trailer in a dock was the one that I dropped this morning. That can't be good. Usually those distribution centers have a bunch of our trailers floating around. I checked with the traffic control lady and she said that it was being unloaded and then it would be in the queue for the yard dog to pull. Okay then. Back to our regularly scheduled sitting.
Around 2:20pm a security lady in a pickup truck told me that I can't "camp out in the yard" and that I would have to leave. Yeah, clearly my pup tent and s'mores were a dead giveaway. Moron. I explained the situation to her and she said that I could park over by the traffic control office and check with the lady in there again. The gal in the office checked her computer and, this time, came up with the number of an empty. Yep, the one that I dropped this morning. Since it was finally empty and I had been there all day, she called the yard dog and asked him to put my trailer ahead of the others on his list so that I could leave. He did so very quickly and even dropped it right behind where I was parked. I just had to back under it and we were good to go.
Back over at the truck stop, I found myself on the board at #1. Could have been worse then, I suppose. Sometimes, on a Friday afternoon, the ready board can get a little crowded if there isn't enough freight to get everyone planned for the weekend. With my 14 hour clock having been reduced to a 5 hour clock, I sent in my detention times and then kicked back to see what was next.
Despite whatever you Drudge-reading neanderthals out there may think, global warming landed squarely in Wisconsin today. The temperature got into the 60's and the sun was shining brightly. Seasonal weather fluctuation? Phooey. I sprayed a can of Right Gard in the air last week. My dividend was paid today. Plus the truck stop next to the distribution center has a SubWay. All in all, if I was destined to get jerked around, this wasn't the worst time and place for it to happen.
After about an hour and a half on the board I received a new assignment. Those 400 miles that I lost this afternoon were replaced by a 437 mile deadhead to Remington, Indiana. From there I'll be heading to Taylor, Michigan. Since the load is bound for Canada and I'm a no-border-crossing kinda dude, we can assume that my home time will begin once I make it to the terminal. I hit the road right away and made it back to the Petro in Portage (where I spent last night) before my 14 hour clock ran out. Good enough.
The load in Remington is scheduled to pick up at 2pm. For obvious reasons (2:30pm kickoff), I'm going to show up early and see what happens. I know that these chuckleheads are going to dispatch me to arrive in Taylor at some goofy hour on Sunday morning, since I won't have the hours to get there tomorrow. They'll factor in a ten hour break and the computer will say 4:13am sounds good or something. So, that being the case, I would prefer to get some driving done early in the afternoon and then catch the football game during my ten hour break. If I can't get rolling until after 2pm, I'll probably just drive and listen on the radio again. Some of you may think that nothing is on the line against the middies since they broke the streak. If you try really hard though, you can believe that 2007 never happened.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
11/5/09
How badly does the city of Chicago suck? I think this is one of the great questions of the modern age. In case you haven't guessed yet, my plan to sneak through in the early afternoon didn't quite work as planned. The place was a freaking parking lot. Ah well, what can you do? Just a day in the life.
The rest of the trip, before and after Chicago, was pretty nice. Foot to the floor, light traffic, good weather. My seven and a half available hours allowed me to cover 400 miles, reaching the Petro in Portage, Wisconsin, along with a fuel stop and a post-trip inspection. Not a bad day's work.
I'll have around 170 miles to cover in the morning before 9am Central in order to keep my delivery appointment, assuming that tomorrow is in fact the correct day. I already mentioned to you that the paperwork says Monday, but I do have a drop number and my company is usually pretty good about getting the appointments right with this particular customer. There have been a couple of exceptions over the last few years though, so we'll see.
After my drop/hook in the morning, I'll have somewhere around six hours available to use tomorrow. Then I pick up a steady stream of days in the 7-10 hour range. This should be plenty to allow me to handle whatever kind of schedule comes my way for the weekend. A delivery in Michigan a few days from now would obviously be quite welcome if it's in the cards. This last month or so on the road has been a pretty productive one, but once I know that I'll be heading home soon I tend to get a case of short-timers disease. The frosty cold goodness at Kelly's pub is calling my name, you know.
The rest of the trip, before and after Chicago, was pretty nice. Foot to the floor, light traffic, good weather. My seven and a half available hours allowed me to cover 400 miles, reaching the Petro in Portage, Wisconsin, along with a fuel stop and a post-trip inspection. Not a bad day's work.
I'll have around 170 miles to cover in the morning before 9am Central in order to keep my delivery appointment, assuming that tomorrow is in fact the correct day. I already mentioned to you that the paperwork says Monday, but I do have a drop number and my company is usually pretty good about getting the appointments right with this particular customer. There have been a couple of exceptions over the last few years though, so we'll see.
After my drop/hook in the morning, I'll have somewhere around six hours available to use tomorrow. Then I pick up a steady stream of days in the 7-10 hour range. This should be plenty to allow me to handle whatever kind of schedule comes my way for the weekend. A delivery in Michigan a few days from now would obviously be quite welcome if it's in the cards. This last month or so on the road has been a pretty productive one, but once I know that I'll be heading home soon I tend to get a case of short-timers disease. The frosty cold goodness at Kelly's pub is calling my name, you know.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
11/4/09
If your party ran a Notre Dame graduate for governor in 2009, you won 100% of the time. I'm still on a general strike against political talk, but I'll bet ole Dick Morris didn't spot that trend.
I tend to view 4:15am as the appropriate time to fall asleep, so you can probably guess how I felt about getting rolling at that time today. It was definitely a good idea to get out of Jersey City ahead of all of the traffic though. After a few hours I ducked off at a rest area in Pennsylvania and took a nice nap to get myself back on track. When I awoke I found that the cops had turned the rest area into a weigh station. Peckerheads. It took almost ten minutes to get out of there and back on the road.
The rest of the trip was pretty ho-hum. My 17,000 pound payload didn't drag me too badly in the hills, the weather was decent, and the traffic was reasonably light all the way across I-80. The hours that I had available were enough to get me to the last service plaza on the Ohio turnpike, so overall a pretty productive day.
The hours that I pick up tomorrow should get me within a couple hundred miles of my destination. Then I'll have to try to get some rest ahead of one more pre-dawn road trip on Friday. Tomorrow morning though, I think I'm sleeping in. There's not much sense in trying to get past Chicago during the morning rush so I'll just leave here a little later. Maybe I can cruise through in the late morning or early afternoon a little more easily than I have the last few times around. Maybe.
Guess it's time to go and watch the Matsui show now. Since I have no rooting interest, I was kinda hoping for a Game 7.
I tend to view 4:15am as the appropriate time to fall asleep, so you can probably guess how I felt about getting rolling at that time today. It was definitely a good idea to get out of Jersey City ahead of all of the traffic though. After a few hours I ducked off at a rest area in Pennsylvania and took a nice nap to get myself back on track. When I awoke I found that the cops had turned the rest area into a weigh station. Peckerheads. It took almost ten minutes to get out of there and back on the road.
The rest of the trip was pretty ho-hum. My 17,000 pound payload didn't drag me too badly in the hills, the weather was decent, and the traffic was reasonably light all the way across I-80. The hours that I had available were enough to get me to the last service plaza on the Ohio turnpike, so overall a pretty productive day.
The hours that I pick up tomorrow should get me within a couple hundred miles of my destination. Then I'll have to try to get some rest ahead of one more pre-dawn road trip on Friday. Tomorrow morning though, I think I'm sleeping in. There's not much sense in trying to get past Chicago during the morning rush so I'll just leave here a little later. Maybe I can cruise through in the late morning or early afternoon a little more easily than I have the last few times around. Maybe.
Guess it's time to go and watch the Matsui show now. Since I have no rooting interest, I was kinda hoping for a Game 7.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
11/3/09
It's time for another of my hypotheses that sounds really brilliant to me but probably doesn't make any sense in reality. ---> The next time I find my miles slacking off, I'm going to tell myself that I need to request home time. Then I'll be raking in the bucks.
It would seem that the only requirements of this hypothesis are for me to think about going home and, perhaps, to tell you folks in blogland about my intentions. The actual requesting of the home time doesn't appear to be a required element, since the pre-plans start popping up before the request has been sent. Yeah, I got another one today. Go figure.
The trip through Ithaca this morning wasn't nearly as slow and tedious as I expected it to be. Certainly the super light payload helped the cause, but even the folks on their way to work were driving like reasonable individuals today. I wound my way out of Dryden on NY-392 until I saw the construction site for the new Greek Peak mountain lodge on my left. Oy. I could already see that I was gonna have some fun delivering to that place. Constructions sites, you see, aren't actually designed with the occasional truck driver in mind. So disrespectful.
Rather than plunge myself into a spot from which I couldn't escape, I parked in a gravel lot across the street from the construction site and went for a walk up the steep driveway. After talking to a few people who had no idea what I should do, I caught up with the general contractor for the lodge project. He told me to drive down to the next street and hang a left. At the top of the hill I would see a sign for Construction Entrance #3. I should enter there and follow the driveway until I got to the water slides. Okay then.
About halfway down the winding driveway inside Entrance #3, that sinking feeling really began to set in - the feeling that I was irreversibly screwed. There was a small gravel parking area full of parked cars and a narrow path winding down around the edge of the construction site. Even if I could manage to get down to the water slides, which was far from a given, there was no possible way that I would be able to get turned around to leave. Without turning around, the only option would be to back out. I've backed out of plenty of jams in my time on the road. There was no way on God's green earth that I would be able to back my way out of there today though. My trailer tires had been hanging off the edge of the gravel as I drove into the place. Backing up that little skinny driveway with its hairpin turns was completely out of the question.
Rather than sit and dwell on my apparent misfortune, I decided to try to find someone who could unload my trailer. Then I would confront the navigational issue once I was forced to do so. I found, as I wandered from one hard-hatted dude to the next, that those people say "fuck" at least twenty times as often as I do. I'm no choir boy by any stretch of the imagination, but damn. I was reminded of the Lewis Black routine where he says that, in New York, "fuck" is nothing more than a comma. Indeed, Lewis. Indeed.
I found a guy who worked for the contractor installing the water slides, so the first step was complete. Second was to get rid of the freight. He and a buddy pulled the four pieces of plastic to the end of the trailer and piled them onto some kind of power equipment dohickey. And that was that. They also showed me another way to exit the construction site, taking away the prospect of my having to back out of there. It was pretty insane to navigate some of the turns, but I inched along in low gear and made my way back toward the lower part of the hillside. There was a spot where I was able to swing across an area of beaten-down grass and get myself onto the main driveway (that I had walked earlier in the morning). From there I wound my way back down to the main road and escaped with no damage.
The best representation that I can find is a scale model, but it looks fairly accurate. None of the paving or landscaping are done yet, but here's a peek at the peak. (Yeah, I'm a regular punster.)
On the right edge of the picture, halfway up from the bottom, you can see the serpentine main driveway where the adventure began and ended. Snaking in (behind the lodge from this perspective), you can see the street that led me from NY-392 to Construction Entrance #3. The entrance itself, with its insane driveway and overloaded parking area, would be off-camera to the left from this perspective. The water slides are right there for you to see. The ones that I delivered were some kind of little kiddie pool things, but that's still the area where they were unloaded. And that pretty white ribbon of concrete in the foreground is the path that I had to follow as I left. Of course it's presently not concrete though. It's mud and gravel and uneven terrain, lined with parked cars and discarded scraps and such. If you connect that path with the original driveway (across the strip of grass between them), the whole voyage comes full circle.
The delivery at the construction site was, for bookkeeping purposes, in Cortland. Interestingly enough, it's listed as a point of interest (a little red square near Virgil, not Cortland) on the Rand McNally motor carrier's atlas. My next pickup was actually in Cortland, so the unpaid "local" deadhead to the shipper was twenty miles long and took a half hour. I made a quick drop/hook there and got back on the road. I had made the same run about a month ago, but I don't think I took the same route from Cortland to Monroe Township this time. I have no idea what route I took that last time around, but I seem to remember a bunch of red lights and traffic along the way. Today I took I-81 to I-380 to I-80 to PA-33 to I-78 to I-287 to River Road to NJ-18 to the turnpike, and it was good. Some of the route did seem familiar though. I distinctly remember going past Rutgers both times. I don't know. I'm rambling here. The point is that it was a nice and easy drive today.
As I rolled southward through Pennsylvania, I got my other pre-plan. As was the case the last time that I intended to go home, I have no idea what is the appropriate protocol to follow. The employee handbook says that we can't request home time until we're within 25 miles of our delivery and we're not planned on another load. That's a Catch-22 if there ever was one. I have no control over the pre-plans, so if they keep coming before I get within 25 miles of my delivery point, I could theoretically never request home time. Obviously that won't do, so I went ahead and sent in my request when I got to this afternoon's consignee, pre-planned or not. Everything has worked out in the past when this scenario has played out. I have no reason to expect any issues this time.
After another quick drop/hook on the delivery end, my next deadhead was a 40-mile job up to Jersey City. In true 'man bites dog' fashion, there was absolutely no traffic on the Jersey Turnpike at 4:30pm today. Bizarre. Then my drop/hook at this evening's shipper was yet another test of my driving skill. The security guard showed me where to drop my empty trailer and then where to get my loaded trailer. Holy jeez, man. It took around forty minutes or so for the whole process. The tight quarters of the drop yard were enhanced nicely by massive potholes full of water and complete darkness. Slowly and carefully though - that's how we do it.
Okay then, all loaded up and ready to roll for Wisconsin. Or not. I had 15 minutes left under the 70 hour rule by the time I was ready to depart. Any guesses as to where you can get within 15 minutes of leaving a shipper on some dilapidated dead-end street in Jersey City? Nowhere. From a dilapidated dead-end street in Jersey City, you can get exactly nowhere within 15 minutes. So I was forced to pull off to the side and park for the night. I didn't realize until I was done and my stomach started rumbling, but it turns out that I had been so busy all day that I forgot to eat. Domino's delivery took care of that part though, so all is now well.
My dispatch has me delivering in Menomonie, Wisconsin on Friday morning. The paperwork says Monday morning but, after exchanging a few messages with the dispatcher tonight, I've been told that Friday it is. Fair enough. Since I can drive around nine and a half hours tomorrow and then seven hours on Thursday, I'll end up having to make a pre-dawn excursion to finish the trip on Friday. C'est la vie. Hell, I may be on some goofy kind of schedule even before Friday. Given the pain in the ass that it was to get into this neighborhood, it would probably behoove me to get the hell out of Jersey City as soon as my ten hour break is up (at 4:15am). There shouldn't be many cars driving around at that hour. If there is any traffic around, I have no idea how I'll get back on the road headed to the turnpike. After starting so early, I'll probably be in the mood for a late morning nap. Then I'll be up all night tossing and turning, since that's the standard routine for me. You see where this is going. It's entirely possible that the early Friday part of the trip will seem perfectly natural by the time we get to it.
The week's paycheck is off to a solid start. After using Sunday and Monday to finish off last week's work, Tuesday brought dispatches of 251 miles, 45 miles, and 1,138 miles, in addition to over $30 in northeast pay. Whatever miles I can get on the way back home should make the week just fine with me.
I guess that's all for tonight. 4:15 am, eh? Oy.
It would seem that the only requirements of this hypothesis are for me to think about going home and, perhaps, to tell you folks in blogland about my intentions. The actual requesting of the home time doesn't appear to be a required element, since the pre-plans start popping up before the request has been sent. Yeah, I got another one today. Go figure.
The trip through Ithaca this morning wasn't nearly as slow and tedious as I expected it to be. Certainly the super light payload helped the cause, but even the folks on their way to work were driving like reasonable individuals today. I wound my way out of Dryden on NY-392 until I saw the construction site for the new Greek Peak mountain lodge on my left. Oy. I could already see that I was gonna have some fun delivering to that place. Constructions sites, you see, aren't actually designed with the occasional truck driver in mind. So disrespectful.
Rather than plunge myself into a spot from which I couldn't escape, I parked in a gravel lot across the street from the construction site and went for a walk up the steep driveway. After talking to a few people who had no idea what I should do, I caught up with the general contractor for the lodge project. He told me to drive down to the next street and hang a left. At the top of the hill I would see a sign for Construction Entrance #3. I should enter there and follow the driveway until I got to the water slides. Okay then.
About halfway down the winding driveway inside Entrance #3, that sinking feeling really began to set in - the feeling that I was irreversibly screwed. There was a small gravel parking area full of parked cars and a narrow path winding down around the edge of the construction site. Even if I could manage to get down to the water slides, which was far from a given, there was no possible way that I would be able to get turned around to leave. Without turning around, the only option would be to back out. I've backed out of plenty of jams in my time on the road. There was no way on God's green earth that I would be able to back my way out of there today though. My trailer tires had been hanging off the edge of the gravel as I drove into the place. Backing up that little skinny driveway with its hairpin turns was completely out of the question.
Rather than sit and dwell on my apparent misfortune, I decided to try to find someone who could unload my trailer. Then I would confront the navigational issue once I was forced to do so. I found, as I wandered from one hard-hatted dude to the next, that those people say "fuck" at least twenty times as often as I do. I'm no choir boy by any stretch of the imagination, but damn. I was reminded of the Lewis Black routine where he says that, in New York, "fuck" is nothing more than a comma. Indeed, Lewis. Indeed.
I found a guy who worked for the contractor installing the water slides, so the first step was complete. Second was to get rid of the freight. He and a buddy pulled the four pieces of plastic to the end of the trailer and piled them onto some kind of power equipment dohickey. And that was that. They also showed me another way to exit the construction site, taking away the prospect of my having to back out of there. It was pretty insane to navigate some of the turns, but I inched along in low gear and made my way back toward the lower part of the hillside. There was a spot where I was able to swing across an area of beaten-down grass and get myself onto the main driveway (that I had walked earlier in the morning). From there I wound my way back down to the main road and escaped with no damage.
The best representation that I can find is a scale model, but it looks fairly accurate. None of the paving or landscaping are done yet, but here's a peek at the peak. (Yeah, I'm a regular punster.)
On the right edge of the picture, halfway up from the bottom, you can see the serpentine main driveway where the adventure began and ended. Snaking in (behind the lodge from this perspective), you can see the street that led me from NY-392 to Construction Entrance #3. The entrance itself, with its insane driveway and overloaded parking area, would be off-camera to the left from this perspective. The water slides are right there for you to see. The ones that I delivered were some kind of little kiddie pool things, but that's still the area where they were unloaded. And that pretty white ribbon of concrete in the foreground is the path that I had to follow as I left. Of course it's presently not concrete though. It's mud and gravel and uneven terrain, lined with parked cars and discarded scraps and such. If you connect that path with the original driveway (across the strip of grass between them), the whole voyage comes full circle.
The delivery at the construction site was, for bookkeeping purposes, in Cortland. Interestingly enough, it's listed as a point of interest (a little red square near Virgil, not Cortland) on the Rand McNally motor carrier's atlas. My next pickup was actually in Cortland, so the unpaid "local" deadhead to the shipper was twenty miles long and took a half hour. I made a quick drop/hook there and got back on the road. I had made the same run about a month ago, but I don't think I took the same route from Cortland to Monroe Township this time. I have no idea what route I took that last time around, but I seem to remember a bunch of red lights and traffic along the way. Today I took I-81 to I-380 to I-80 to PA-33 to I-78 to I-287 to River Road to NJ-18 to the turnpike, and it was good. Some of the route did seem familiar though. I distinctly remember going past Rutgers both times. I don't know. I'm rambling here. The point is that it was a nice and easy drive today.
As I rolled southward through Pennsylvania, I got my other pre-plan. As was the case the last time that I intended to go home, I have no idea what is the appropriate protocol to follow. The employee handbook says that we can't request home time until we're within 25 miles of our delivery and we're not planned on another load. That's a Catch-22 if there ever was one. I have no control over the pre-plans, so if they keep coming before I get within 25 miles of my delivery point, I could theoretically never request home time. Obviously that won't do, so I went ahead and sent in my request when I got to this afternoon's consignee, pre-planned or not. Everything has worked out in the past when this scenario has played out. I have no reason to expect any issues this time.
After another quick drop/hook on the delivery end, my next deadhead was a 40-mile job up to Jersey City. In true 'man bites dog' fashion, there was absolutely no traffic on the Jersey Turnpike at 4:30pm today. Bizarre. Then my drop/hook at this evening's shipper was yet another test of my driving skill. The security guard showed me where to drop my empty trailer and then where to get my loaded trailer. Holy jeez, man. It took around forty minutes or so for the whole process. The tight quarters of the drop yard were enhanced nicely by massive potholes full of water and complete darkness. Slowly and carefully though - that's how we do it.
Okay then, all loaded up and ready to roll for Wisconsin. Or not. I had 15 minutes left under the 70 hour rule by the time I was ready to depart. Any guesses as to where you can get within 15 minutes of leaving a shipper on some dilapidated dead-end street in Jersey City? Nowhere. From a dilapidated dead-end street in Jersey City, you can get exactly nowhere within 15 minutes. So I was forced to pull off to the side and park for the night. I didn't realize until I was done and my stomach started rumbling, but it turns out that I had been so busy all day that I forgot to eat. Domino's delivery took care of that part though, so all is now well.
My dispatch has me delivering in Menomonie, Wisconsin on Friday morning. The paperwork says Monday morning but, after exchanging a few messages with the dispatcher tonight, I've been told that Friday it is. Fair enough. Since I can drive around nine and a half hours tomorrow and then seven hours on Thursday, I'll end up having to make a pre-dawn excursion to finish the trip on Friday. C'est la vie. Hell, I may be on some goofy kind of schedule even before Friday. Given the pain in the ass that it was to get into this neighborhood, it would probably behoove me to get the hell out of Jersey City as soon as my ten hour break is up (at 4:15am). There shouldn't be many cars driving around at that hour. If there is any traffic around, I have no idea how I'll get back on the road headed to the turnpike. After starting so early, I'll probably be in the mood for a late morning nap. Then I'll be up all night tossing and turning, since that's the standard routine for me. You see where this is going. It's entirely possible that the early Friday part of the trip will seem perfectly natural by the time we get to it.
The week's paycheck is off to a solid start. After using Sunday and Monday to finish off last week's work, Tuesday brought dispatches of 251 miles, 45 miles, and 1,138 miles, in addition to over $30 in northeast pay. Whatever miles I can get on the way back home should make the week just fine with me.
I guess that's all for tonight. 4:15 am, eh? Oy.
Monday, November 2, 2009
11/2/09
I haven't decided yet, but there may be a problem here. I just made a purchase at the little truck stop where I'll be spending the night. In conducting that purchase, I used my debit card. So the flirtatious little lass behind the counter checked my identification. And here's where the problem (if there is one) arose. After a bit of back-and-forth banter she remarked, "I'm still older than you." I replied that I would surely catch up to her before long. She then pointed out that her birthday is in February and mine is in September, both of '76, so she's only a few months older. Dammit, dude. She's not a bad looking gal and all, but I would have sworn she was over 40. If I'm getting that old, we may have a problem. I don't intend to get too detailed here, but my last few encounters with the fairer sex did not involve anyone remotely close to this chick's age. If this means that I'm some kind of pervert, there may be a problem here.
Anyhow... that I-86 is a real doozy, eh? Holy smokes. For the first hundred miles or so, I could have sworn that I was on I-75 back home. I think a few of my teeth are still rattling. Further into New York the road smoothed out and I was able to notice that it was a pretty scenic drive. Of course all scenic drives are made better when you have an 800 pound payload in the wagon. Good old cruise control and good times.
I stopped in Kanona, New York to top off the fuel tanks around 3pm today. A quick review of my directory showed that the two truck stops there would be the last along the interstate on my route to Cortland. I wasn't satisfied with having driven 300 of the 400 miles though, so I continued onward. I decided to try the Citgo in Cayuta and then, if I didn't find any parking, continue on to Cortland and take my chances there. The place in Cayuta turned out to be A-OK. Despite the fact that it's out here in the sticks, I have broadband internet speed on my Sprint card and... wait for it... there's a SubWay. Yeah, things are going pretty swell at this point. I failed to mention it earlier but you probably could have guessed that I started after 10am today.
Tomorrow morning's drive will only be around 45 miles or so. I'll have to go through Ithaca on NY-13 though. I seem to recall having made that drive in the other direction once and having found it to be rather tedious. Then the rest of the drive to Cortland should be pretty basic. My consignee is a mountain resort that is building a new water park. I happen to have a few plastic water slides to contribute to the construction - hence the 800 pound payload. Hopefully there will be some kind of signage to direct me to the proper location, since my company-provided directions appear to have been pulled directly from Streets & Trips.
After I deliver tomorrow I'll be picking up another load in Cortland and taking it to Monroe Township, New Jersey. I received a pre-plan as I entered New York this afternoon. If that route sounds familiar to you, then I'm impressed. Seriously. It did ring a bell for me, but I still had to look it up. This here web log is useful for something every now and then, it turns out. Been there, done that, less than a month ago. Seems like a lot longer.
I'll be down to only a couple of available hours, at best, once I make my second delivery tomorrow. I'm going to get down there and then send in my hometime request, so everything should fall into place from that point. It looks like I'll be lucky enough to help my brother move into his new house since his closing paperwork has been delayed by a week or so. Timing is everything, as they say.
Anyhow... that I-86 is a real doozy, eh? Holy smokes. For the first hundred miles or so, I could have sworn that I was on I-75 back home. I think a few of my teeth are still rattling. Further into New York the road smoothed out and I was able to notice that it was a pretty scenic drive. Of course all scenic drives are made better when you have an 800 pound payload in the wagon. Good old cruise control and good times.
I stopped in Kanona, New York to top off the fuel tanks around 3pm today. A quick review of my directory showed that the two truck stops there would be the last along the interstate on my route to Cortland. I wasn't satisfied with having driven 300 of the 400 miles though, so I continued onward. I decided to try the Citgo in Cayuta and then, if I didn't find any parking, continue on to Cortland and take my chances there. The place in Cayuta turned out to be A-OK. Despite the fact that it's out here in the sticks, I have broadband internet speed on my Sprint card and... wait for it... there's a SubWay. Yeah, things are going pretty swell at this point. I failed to mention it earlier but you probably could have guessed that I started after 10am today.
Tomorrow morning's drive will only be around 45 miles or so. I'll have to go through Ithaca on NY-13 though. I seem to recall having made that drive in the other direction once and having found it to be rather tedious. Then the rest of the drive to Cortland should be pretty basic. My consignee is a mountain resort that is building a new water park. I happen to have a few plastic water slides to contribute to the construction - hence the 800 pound payload. Hopefully there will be some kind of signage to direct me to the proper location, since my company-provided directions appear to have been pulled directly from Streets & Trips.
After I deliver tomorrow I'll be picking up another load in Cortland and taking it to Monroe Township, New Jersey. I received a pre-plan as I entered New York this afternoon. If that route sounds familiar to you, then I'm impressed. Seriously. It did ring a bell for me, but I still had to look it up. This here web log is useful for something every now and then, it turns out. Been there, done that, less than a month ago. Seems like a lot longer.
I'll be down to only a couple of available hours, at best, once I make my second delivery tomorrow. I'm going to get down there and then send in my hometime request, so everything should fall into place from that point. It looks like I'll be lucky enough to help my brother move into his new house since his closing paperwork has been delayed by a week or so. Timing is everything, as they say.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
11/1/09
Sometimes the stars just align. We've covered my disdain for waking before 10am in recent blog postings. Sometimes it's a fact of life, but when it's day after day after day, it annoys me. I wanted to get in a full day of driving though and I wasn't really sure where I would end up. Since this meant that I wasn't sure how the nighttime parking situation would play out, I reluctantly set my alarm for 8:30am and planned to get rolling at 9am today. Ahh, but 9am today turned out to be 10am in a sense, didn't it? I forgot about that.
The whole 'fall back' thing turned out to be a harbinger of a good day on the road. Armed with what is essentially an empty trailer, I was able to set the cruise control and enjoy a nice easy ride through the hills. My Swedish buddy Sjoe even remembered to grab a few boxes of Kentucky contraband for the black lung crowd back home after I topped off the tanks in Glendale. Getting Nashville, Louisville, Cincinnati, and Columbus out of the way on a weekend was pretty groovy as well. My available hours got me all the way up to Lodi, Ohio tonight and there was plenty of parking at the Pilot when I pulled in. Sometimes the stars just align.
According to truckmiles.com, I only have around 400 miles left to go from here. I have eight hours available for tomorrow so I guess that means I'm in pretty good shape. I'm not sure if I should drive all the way to Cortland and hope for a spot at one of the small truck stops there or if I should stop off further back along the interstate. Guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
My road trip to Pittsburgh is set to commence on the 13th so I need to be home by the 11th or 12th. If we back out the seven day window, I would need to request home time by the 4th or 5th. I deliver on the morning of the 3rd. Probably best to put in my request for home time once I get to the consignee then, it would seem. And down the stretch they come...
The whole 'fall back' thing turned out to be a harbinger of a good day on the road. Armed with what is essentially an empty trailer, I was able to set the cruise control and enjoy a nice easy ride through the hills. My Swedish buddy Sjoe even remembered to grab a few boxes of Kentucky contraband for the black lung crowd back home after I topped off the tanks in Glendale. Getting Nashville, Louisville, Cincinnati, and Columbus out of the way on a weekend was pretty groovy as well. My available hours got me all the way up to Lodi, Ohio tonight and there was plenty of parking at the Pilot when I pulled in. Sometimes the stars just align.
According to truckmiles.com, I only have around 400 miles left to go from here. I have eight hours available for tomorrow so I guess that means I'm in pretty good shape. I'm not sure if I should drive all the way to Cortland and hope for a spot at one of the small truck stops there or if I should stop off further back along the interstate. Guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
My road trip to Pittsburgh is set to commence on the 13th so I need to be home by the 11th or 12th. If we back out the seven day window, I would need to request home time by the 4th or 5th. I deliver on the morning of the 3rd. Probably best to put in my request for home time once I get to the consignee then, it would seem. And down the stretch they come...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)