2/2/10

I suppose that, if one is going to be awakened before he is ready, then the sound of big trucks cruising past is probably preferable to that of a Qualcomm unit announcing a message that is unlikely to convey anything of value. No dumb messages this morning but the New Mexicans did open the scales as I suspected they might. (Is it 'New Mexicans'? That looks weird.) In any event, I was up a little earlier than planned. Nobody bothered me though, so I was able to hang around until my ten hour break was complete and then hit the road.

Given the spirit in which I composed last night's post, today would have to be considered one in which the pendulum swung completely in the other direction. I knew that I would have to get going as soon as possible and I knew that I would have to cover a lot of miles. Contrasting this with yesterday's several hours of sitting around and waiting without any knowledge of what would come next, I suppose we were off to a good start. Beyond these two required elements though, I wasn't sure how I would work the rest of the trip.

As noted above though, today's swing of the pendulum really was a complete one. At some point in the afternoon, cruising along at 65mph in good weather, I received a pre-planned assignment to follow tomorrow's delivery. Armed with this bit of advance knowledge, I am able to handle my affairs far more effectively. In the absence of a pre-plan, and feeling rather tired, I likely would have stopped in Flagstaff or Seligman tonight. Given the knowledge imparted by the pre-plan though, I stayed on the road all the way to Kingman, using almost a full eleven driving hours. This way I managed to preserve more hours (in terms of tomorrow's 14-hour clock) with which to handle my next assignment, as opposed to burning them up on the way across Arizona in the morning. Then, after I'm empty, I won't have to waste time and fuel by driving around in search of somewhere to park. Knowing what lies ahead, I'll be able to drive right to my next shipper in Carson and get to work.

The shipper in Carson, if last time is any guide, will quite possibly undermine some of the benefits of the pre-planning. Even though I drove my ass off today, I'll still have to burn six hours or so in reaching my consignee in City of Industry tomorrow. So I'll have roughly eight hours on my 14-hour clock prior to losing however long it takes to get unloaded. Then whatever it takes to drive over to Carson. Then whatever it takes for my drop/hook. Then whatever it takes to get back out onto I-10 and cover some miles. If I end up getting detained for several hours again, then I suspect that I might just have to complete a break at the shipper and leave in the middle of the night. That seems to have worked pretty well before, notwithstanding the difficulty in managing my sleep schedule.

The temperature only got down to 33° at the top of the mountains today, hanging around in the low 40's for most of the trip. This is a welcome change of pace from what I've found in recent weeks. Since my bunk heater kills my batteries within a couple of hours and I've been in some wicked cold weather, I've been forced to idle my truck far more than usual as of late. I've been able to leave it off for the last couple of nights though and things are quite comfortable in Western Arizona at the moment, so maybe we can get the old MPG back on track. Now if only I could catch a break from these heavy loads for a little while...