4/3/10

I probably say this on every holiday weekend, but it really does bear repeating.  If I could do all of my driving on holiday weekends, then my job would be pretty groovy.  Even with the built-in tedium of dragging a 44,000 pound payload up and down the hills all day, things seemed to go pretty smoothly.  The largest factor would have to be the lack of cars passing me on the way up the hills and cutting me off on the way down.  The handful of cars and trucks that did pass me were usually long gone by the time I got back through my gears and up to cruising speed.

Last night's pickup was pretty uneventful.  I got over to the shipper around midnight and they had me loaded and rolling by the time my 1am appointment rolled around.  The place was a paper mill at the end of a desolate road right along the Delaware River.  Sitting at the outdoor picnic table next to the shipping docks, I actually found it to be rather scenic, at least as far as factory locations go.  I remember thinking as I drove in that it seemed like I was going back in time.  During a conversation with the forklift driver, I learned that the place runs 24/7 because it's so old that they hate to shut it down.  It takes several days to get the machinery up and running again.  Funny.

The road leading into the place comes from the top of this picture.  In order to access the docks near the bottom (in the interior courtyard), one would have to spin around in the lot at the entrance and then back all the way in between the buildings and around the corner.  There's a sign at the entrance advising drivers of this inconvenient fact so that they don't drive in forward and find themselves in a jam.  In breaking with what seems to be my traditional luck, I didn't have to use those docks.  The shipping docks are the ones at the top of the photo.  Nice and easy.

I hadn't slept in nearly 24 hours but I wasn't terribly tired yet, so I decided to head out and see how it went.  My delivery appointment came through as 8am on Monday, meaning that I had all the flexibility that I could want for this weekend.  After an hour and a half I saw a rest area with lots of open parking.  I was getting into that 'kinda tired but kinda not' condition at the time, so I decided that I might as well pull in and call it a night.  Mountains and heavy trailers and so forth.  Better to err on the safe side.  Four hours later I actually managed to fall asleep.  Story of life.

With no alarm clock set for this morning, I slept pretty soundly until the greenhouse effect dragged me out of bed.  At that point I felt nice and refreshed, but I still had two hours until my break was complete.  In hindsight, since I didn't drive all that far this afternoon, I could have used a split and taken off earlier.  It didn't occur to me at the time though.  In any event, the afternoon drive went nicely and smoothly, as noted above.

The Pilot in Austintown, Ohio is home for the night, leaving something under 300 miles to cover by Monday morning.  My directions to the consignee don't mention anything about overnight parking but there aren't any truck stops that are really close to the location, so I may just drive there tomorrow night and see what happens.  Otherwise I'll have to get cracking early on Monday to reach Cincinnati by my 8am appointment time.  One thing's for sure in either case - no alarm clock tomorrow.  That ain't half bad.

The week wraps up with a nice and steady 2,723 miles plus some northeast pay, leaving my earnings at almost two and half times what I made last week.  Peaks and valleys...