My list of grievances with the federal government is long and diverse. I know that I've said my piece about the FMCSA regulations more than a few times, so I won't get into a protracted treatise this afternoon. I just can't figure how today's fatigue level can, in any way, be affected by what happened eight days ago. Alas, some people on the taxpayer dole say that it matters. I ran out of hours yesterday and I worked for six hours last Friday, so six hours were all that I could use today. At least the truck stops seem to be properly spaced for me thus far. Yesterday's hours got me to Pecos and today's got me to Weatherford.
I pick up 8.25 hours tomorrow and I'll probably need fuel at some point, meaning that I won't be able to reach West Memphis from here. Given that, I suppose that I might as well shove off a little early. That way I can get my two new tires and still have time to find a motel or something in Eastern Arkansas where I can kick back and watch the Super Bowl.
It looks pretty clear, as well, that I won't be making it to my consignee by Monday night. I guess my streak of dodging snowstorms might be in jeopardy if current projections hold true. Nothing quite as fun as waking at 5am to drive through ice and snow in Kentucky, I reckon.
A quick review of the particulars shows that this week wraps up with 3,875 miles, so that's rather profitable. I'll burn a little bit of next week in finishing this trip but, in any event, a week that knocks on the door of $1,500 can't be half bad.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Friday, February 5, 2010
2/5/10
A 50/50 split on the Super Bowl poll so far? That's what I like to see. Gear up for battle! The folks at PPP are convinced that there's a political connection, but I think they might be reaching a little on that one. Independents trend with Republicans in partisan matters these days (counter to the football results) and, when 46% of people don't care who wins, you're working within a weak subset from the start. But the important poll is right here, baby. 50/50 going into the weekend.
There weren't a whole lot of expectations for today in the life of your humble blogger, so it comes as no surprise that those expectations were easily exceeded. Aside from the fact that traffic in El Paso was moving at roughly the speed of a one-armed person swimming the backstroke, the morning drive overall was pretty decent. Of course, there's the ever-present issue of fine lines. As in - There's a fine line between a scenic sunrise coming over the mountains and a giant ball of helium burning its way through your eye sockets. It went from 'Hey, this is pretty nice' to 'Holy shit, I can't see' in a matter of seconds. The trouble passed soon enough though.
I rolled into our yard and made my drop, then found myself on the board at #7. After a half hour or so, I was assigned to a new load and back to work. For the second time in a row, my load out of El Paso was already at the yard and it was heading eastward. No trips back into town or to the copper mine and no large amounts of unpaid mileage. Beauty.
I drove over and hooked to my trailer bound for Kentucky and then scooted out of town. I had 3.25 hours left under the 70 hour rule, so I was hoping to make it to the truck stop in Pecos within three hours. Then I could do my post-trip inspection and keep everything on good terms with the feds. It took three hours and four minutes to reach the truck stop. Close enough.
I can only work a total of six hours tomorrow, so I guess I have a nice morning of sleeping late in store. That'll be a welcome change of pace. Then eight hours on Sunday and eight more on Monday. I'm not sure if that will be enough to reach my destination in Nicholasville, Kentucky or not. I may have to put in a couple of hours on Tuesday morning in order to deliver by 7am, but we'll just have to see how that shakes out.
It's getting to be about time to replace the two drive tires that we kept back in November as well. I suppose I'll make a call to the road service guys tomorrow and see where they want me to go. If my impressions are correct, having new tread all around on the drives will gain me around 1-2 mph whenever I have my foot to the floor. Watch out world. I'm coming (at 65.4 mph or so) and... Hell's coming with me! Yeah.
There weren't a whole lot of expectations for today in the life of your humble blogger, so it comes as no surprise that those expectations were easily exceeded. Aside from the fact that traffic in El Paso was moving at roughly the speed of a one-armed person swimming the backstroke, the morning drive overall was pretty decent. Of course, there's the ever-present issue of fine lines. As in - There's a fine line between a scenic sunrise coming over the mountains and a giant ball of helium burning its way through your eye sockets. It went from 'Hey, this is pretty nice' to 'Holy shit, I can't see' in a matter of seconds. The trouble passed soon enough though.
I rolled into our yard and made my drop, then found myself on the board at #7. After a half hour or so, I was assigned to a new load and back to work. For the second time in a row, my load out of El Paso was already at the yard and it was heading eastward. No trips back into town or to the copper mine and no large amounts of unpaid mileage. Beauty.
I drove over and hooked to my trailer bound for Kentucky and then scooted out of town. I had 3.25 hours left under the 70 hour rule, so I was hoping to make it to the truck stop in Pecos within three hours. Then I could do my post-trip inspection and keep everything on good terms with the feds. It took three hours and four minutes to reach the truck stop. Close enough.
I can only work a total of six hours tomorrow, so I guess I have a nice morning of sleeping late in store. That'll be a welcome change of pace. Then eight hours on Sunday and eight more on Monday. I'm not sure if that will be enough to reach my destination in Nicholasville, Kentucky or not. I may have to put in a couple of hours on Tuesday morning in order to deliver by 7am, but we'll just have to see how that shakes out.
It's getting to be about time to replace the two drive tires that we kept back in November as well. I suppose I'll make a call to the road service guys tomorrow and see where they want me to go. If my impressions are correct, having new tread all around on the drives will gain me around 1-2 mph whenever I have my foot to the floor. Watch out world. I'm coming (at 65.4 mph or so) and... Hell's coming with me! Yeah.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
2/4/10
I haven't checked the data yet, but I would guess that 90% of the product reviews offered by the folks at Fenian Godfather Consulting tend to reach a negative conclusion. Thus I'm happy to report on a very useful product this time around. As noted a while ago, I forgot to pack my hair clippers the last time I left home in December. My head has been shaved nearly every weekend since I was 24 years old, so the shaggy hair that grew over the course of the last month was getting annoying. A few days ago I had a chance to stop at a Wal Mart, so I decided to pick up a replacment. Given that I'm not sure exactly when I'm going home next and I don't enjoy shaving my lumpy head with a razor, this seemed like the prudent thing to do.
As I perused the offerings, I saw a battery-powered beard trimmer offered by Wahl. This seemed promising to me, since the only power inverter in my truck is a little one that plugs into the cigarette lighter. It doesn't put out enough power to charge a hair clipper, so I often found myself sitting near a power outlet in a truck stop for a while in order to prepare for a hair cut. Compared to this process, shelling out a few bucks for some AA batteries didn't sound bad at all.
On to the point then - I had my doubts about the power and effectiveness of anything that ran on two AA batteries. Today I had the time and the motivation to trim my hair, so I broke out the new device and gave it a whirl. Two thumbs up, I must say. It cuts quite closely and puts out plenty of power. Through whatever period of time it took to shave my head, I detected no sign that the batteries were under any strain. Unfortunately I don't pay much attention to the cost of most things that I buy, but I'm under the impression that the price was somewhere around twenty or thirty dollars. In summary, the Wahl battery-powered beard trimmer has now received the full endorsement of the consumer products division at Fenian Godfather Consulting.
Shortly after submitting last night's blog post and trying to venture off into dreamland, I received a phone call telling me that my load was ready. In keeping with the plan, I got my paperwork and then hung around the shipper until I had been there for ten hours before heading out. Unfortunately I didn't manage to sleep much at all during my remaining few hours of break time. The little bit of added fatigue was worth it though, in terms of getting out of Southern California in the middle of the night.
I was struggling a little by the time I got to the Arizona state line, but the rising sun helped out quite a bit. I also got a little shot in the arm by stopping for fuel in Quartzsite and grabbing a bite to eat. I wasn't sure exactly how I wanted to set up the rest of the trip from that point in time. On the last occasion that I made this run, I spent ten hours in the Phoenix area and then ran another overnight shift to make the delivery. It worked out well in the end, but the thought of an overnighter this time around didn't sound very appealing to me. So I decided to scrap that idea. I wound up deciding to take a quick nap later in the morning, as the eyelids were getting a little too heavy, and then stayed on the road until I got down to Eloy and called it a day.
I should be able to get to our drop yard within six hours or so from here. My available hours at the time of my dispatch forced our benevolent computer to give me an afternoon arrival in El Paso, rather than an early morning one, so I think I should be able to get back toward whatever qualifies as normalcy in my little world. Since I'm in the Mountain time zone and I operate on Civilized time, the extra two hours will come in quite handy.
This week's miles are somewhere over 2,300, with the weekend still to come, so it goes without saying that last week's poor performance hasn't been repeated. My available hours are still not in overabundant supply so I expect a somewhat light workload for the weekend. Fine with me. Perhaps I'll have time to visit one of the Corleone Family's estates and take in a football game. Or perhaps not. We'll see.
As I perused the offerings, I saw a battery-powered beard trimmer offered by Wahl. This seemed promising to me, since the only power inverter in my truck is a little one that plugs into the cigarette lighter. It doesn't put out enough power to charge a hair clipper, so I often found myself sitting near a power outlet in a truck stop for a while in order to prepare for a hair cut. Compared to this process, shelling out a few bucks for some AA batteries didn't sound bad at all.
On to the point then - I had my doubts about the power and effectiveness of anything that ran on two AA batteries. Today I had the time and the motivation to trim my hair, so I broke out the new device and gave it a whirl. Two thumbs up, I must say. It cuts quite closely and puts out plenty of power. Through whatever period of time it took to shave my head, I detected no sign that the batteries were under any strain. Unfortunately I don't pay much attention to the cost of most things that I buy, but I'm under the impression that the price was somewhere around twenty or thirty dollars. In summary, the Wahl battery-powered beard trimmer has now received the full endorsement of the consumer products division at Fenian Godfather Consulting.
Shortly after submitting last night's blog post and trying to venture off into dreamland, I received a phone call telling me that my load was ready. In keeping with the plan, I got my paperwork and then hung around the shipper until I had been there for ten hours before heading out. Unfortunately I didn't manage to sleep much at all during my remaining few hours of break time. The little bit of added fatigue was worth it though, in terms of getting out of Southern California in the middle of the night.
I was struggling a little by the time I got to the Arizona state line, but the rising sun helped out quite a bit. I also got a little shot in the arm by stopping for fuel in Quartzsite and grabbing a bite to eat. I wasn't sure exactly how I wanted to set up the rest of the trip from that point in time. On the last occasion that I made this run, I spent ten hours in the Phoenix area and then ran another overnight shift to make the delivery. It worked out well in the end, but the thought of an overnighter this time around didn't sound very appealing to me. So I decided to scrap that idea. I wound up deciding to take a quick nap later in the morning, as the eyelids were getting a little too heavy, and then stayed on the road until I got down to Eloy and called it a day.
I should be able to get to our drop yard within six hours or so from here. My available hours at the time of my dispatch forced our benevolent computer to give me an afternoon arrival in El Paso, rather than an early morning one, so I think I should be able to get back toward whatever qualifies as normalcy in my little world. Since I'm in the Mountain time zone and I operate on Civilized time, the extra two hours will come in quite handy.
This week's miles are somewhere over 2,300, with the weekend still to come, so it goes without saying that last week's poor performance hasn't been repeated. My available hours are still not in overabundant supply so I expect a somewhat light workload for the weekend. Fine with me. Perhaps I'll have time to visit one of the Corleone Family's estates and take in a football game. Or perhaps not. We'll see.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
2/3/10
Funny thing. Two nights ago at this hour, I was rolling through the frozen wilderness and wondering why in the hell people couldn't be a little more forward-looking. Tonight I'm kicked back relaxing in the temperate suburbs of Los Angeles and, much to my personal amusement, looking forward (on either my part or my employer's) hasn't accomplished a thing.
I was scheduled to deliver in City of Industry at 3:30pm and then head over to Carson for my next pickup. This called for a little bit of a balancing act in terms of hours. Wanting to preserve as much of my 14-hour clock as possible (meaning don't start too early), but also wanting to get in and out of City of Industry before I-10 turned into a parking lot (meaning don't start too late), I settled on a schedule that found me rolling into the consignee's lot at 2pm. My exit was under construction so the last couple of miles took fifteen minutes, but what are you gonna do?
Upon stepping into the receiving office, I was told, in the following order; (1) they closed at 2pm, (2) I didn't have an appointment, (3) I may have had an appointment but the corporate office never e-mailed the local office, (4) There were no open docks, (5) I likely wouldn't get unloaded until 5am, and (6) I needed to call my dispatcher and find out with whom the appointment had been made. Okay then.
I headed out to my truck and called Joplin to see what was what. The young lady on the phone told me that she would check with the customer service people and then send me a message. I was silly enough to think that she meant a satellite message. It turns out that she must have been referring to a telepathic message or something, since I have yet to see any news about the issue on my Qualcomm.
After sitting around for 40 minutes or so, I saw the lady from the receiving office walking toward my truck. I stepped out and informed her that I was still waiting for further information. She said that she had arranged for me to get unloaded today, but she needed the name of the lady in Joplin with whom I had spoken. "So I can bitch her out," the friendly lass said. I informed her that I had only spoken with an afternoon dispatcher whose name was of no consequence. Any "bitching out" would have to go through the normal channels. The receiving lady nodded and directed me to a dock.
As for the dock... dude.
I was scheduled to deliver in City of Industry at 3:30pm and then head over to Carson for my next pickup. This called for a little bit of a balancing act in terms of hours. Wanting to preserve as much of my 14-hour clock as possible (meaning don't start too early), but also wanting to get in and out of City of Industry before I-10 turned into a parking lot (meaning don't start too late), I settled on a schedule that found me rolling into the consignee's lot at 2pm. My exit was under construction so the last couple of miles took fifteen minutes, but what are you gonna do?
Upon stepping into the receiving office, I was told, in the following order; (1) they closed at 2pm, (2) I didn't have an appointment, (3) I may have had an appointment but the corporate office never e-mailed the local office, (4) There were no open docks, (5) I likely wouldn't get unloaded until 5am, and (6) I needed to call my dispatcher and find out with whom the appointment had been made. Okay then.
I headed out to my truck and called Joplin to see what was what. The young lady on the phone told me that she would check with the customer service people and then send me a message. I was silly enough to think that she meant a satellite message. It turns out that she must have been referring to a telepathic message or something, since I have yet to see any news about the issue on my Qualcomm.
After sitting around for 40 minutes or so, I saw the lady from the receiving office walking toward my truck. I stepped out and informed her that I was still waiting for further information. She said that she had arranged for me to get unloaded today, but she needed the name of the lady in Joplin with whom I had spoken. "So I can bitch her out," the friendly lass said. I informed her that I had only spoken with an afternoon dispatcher whose name was of no consequence. Any "bitching out" would have to go through the normal channels. The receiving lady nodded and directed me to a dock.
As for the dock... dude.
As you look at this photo, you see piles of cardboard along the bottom edge. The entrance to the shipping and receiving area brought me around such that I was parked along the 'top' side of those piles of cardboard, facing to the left. There was an open dock where you see that row of trailers at the left edge of the photo. I could have accessed it without too much difficulty by swinging around to the far side of the piles of cardboard and then making a slightly blindsided move back to the dock. There also was an open dock where you see those two trailers in the upper right quadrant of the photo. That one would have been a little tougher than the one on the left, but still manageable. There wasn't enough room to spin around between the buildings (parked cars along the building on the right are obscured from this view), but I could have accessed it by making a blindside turn into the open space and then backing straight in to the dock.
No, I got the dock indicated by the yellow arrow. Don't feel bad if you couldn't tell that there was a dock in there. Neither could I when the lady pointed toward it. I had to walk over and take a closer look to see what I would be facing. The only way to access that one was to back to my blindside around the corner and into the opening between the buildings, then make a wicked blindside turn between the trailer and dumpster that you see pictured. That was hard. I mean really, really hard. You don't suppose that I was the object of someone's need for retribution, do you?
After the rather lengthy process of getting settled into the dock, complete with about fifty trips to the back of the trailer to take a look at my progress, I was unloaded in about five or ten minutes and sent on my way. I sure as hell got my taste of L.A. traffic this time around. I-605 to I-105 to I-710 to I-405... fun stuff. The 27 mile trip took damned near an hour.
I checked in with the security guard at the shipper and, in what should come as a surprise to nobody, my load wasn't yet ready. I made another call to Joplin to fill them in on the situation. As was the case last time around, I'll end up having to stay here and complete a ten hour break and then take off for El Paso. This is, of course, assuming that my load is ready at some point tonight. I may very well be here for ten hours before they even call me. Quite frankly though, I don't give a damn. Since these peckerheads have already prevented me from getting out of town today and I'm now into $12-an-hour territory, they might as well take their time. It's always the case that I prefer to sleep late in the morning. If sleeping late would also equate to an extra hundred bucks or two for my trouble, then I say what's the hurry?
Now that I've said this, I'll surely receive my wake-up call as soon as Alice Panikian and I have begun to resolve cross-border traffic issues.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
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...
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...
Monday, February 1, 2010
2/1/10
I simply don't get it sometimes. Today, as I sat in the drop yard at last night's consignee and waited for a new assignment, I was led to recall my one previous trip to that location. On that occasion, I had received a load plan that had me pissed off for various reasons. Exactly what sort of planning goes into these loads, I wondered at the time.
Once I received today's assignment (pre-loaded rolls of paper), I was forced to recall my most recent paper load. Today, in a similar fashion to that last time, I sat around with my thumb up my ass for several hours only to be sent for a trailer that had been loaded since Saturday. I simply don't get it.
I was back on the board around 8:30am and I received my new assignment at 2:13pm. What is that, almost six hours? I was to head north into Kansas and make a drop/hook in Hutchinson, northwest of Wichita. I found that the road conditions had largely improved since last night and I was able to get out of Stillwater without any trouble. There was some misty rain as I got into Kansas, but traffic was light and I had no issues in reaching the shipper.
I walked into the warehouse and a gentleman quickly gave me my paperwork and sent me on my way. I merely needed to drop my empty trailer "somewhere out there" and hook to my loaded one. After making the drop/hook and setting the trailer's wheelbase to California's specifications, I pulled onto the customer's automated scale and found that everything was kosher. So I grabbed my Qualcomm unit and sent in my loaded call. This is when I saw that the trailer was loaded on January 30th.
If it's mildly annoying to sit around all day and then get sent to pick up a trailer that has been waiting all weekend, then what follows would be sure to aggravate even the most even-tempered individual. My dispatch came through as I pulled off the scale. The trip is taking me from Hutchinson, Kansas to City of Industry, California. The paid mileage is 1,344 and I'm due to deliver by 3:30pm on Wednesday. And yet they had to wait and make me get a late start this evening? What a bunch of horseshit. Yet again I have to wonder exactly what sort of planning goes into these loads.
Apparently it snows every damned day in this country now, plus I'll have to cross the mountains with a 45,000 pound load, plus the speed limit in California is 55mph. So the long and short of it is that I couldn't afford to stop this evening and leave two days of driving to reach the consignee. There could be no guarantee that two long shifts would be enough. Given the contingencies that I mentioned above, I would have to cover at least a few hundred miles today. Thus I was forced to drive late into the night along a route (US-54) with shit for parking. By the time I had driven far enough to leave myself within striking distance of California, the few little truck stops along the way were all overflowing. The little roadside turnouts in Texas are all inaccessible due to the piles of snow along the side of the road. I may have had enough hours available to reach Tucumcari, but I've had the misfortune of trying to find late night parking there once before. Never again.
I saw that the New Mexico scales outside Nara Visa were closed, so I pulled in and called it a night. Hopefully I won't get kicked out tomorrow, since my ten hour break will force me to sit here until 11:15am Eastern, so I guess 9:15am for these people. If they're going to open in the morning, I suspect that they'll do so before 9:15am.
The fruity little bald guy on weather.com says that I should have a good shot at covering some decent miles tomorrow. Assuming that they have their information right, the next storm won't get off the coast until Wednesday. We'll see how it goes.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
1/31/10
My old business partner is a fairly religious guy. We used to have some interesting discussions involving the nature of prayer and the proper approach to religious practice and so forth. As with any issue involving me personally, you could probably guess that we didn't always see eye to eye. I have no intention to go into any great detail here, but it's worth noting that I found myself much closer to his viewpoint tonight. That's a bit of a departure for me.
After a leisurely day during which I took a couple of extended breaks, I rolled into Stillwater, Oklahoma tonight and found that the road conditions were pretty lousy. US-177 wasn't too terrible though. I missed a turn somewhere along the way and wound up heading out of town to the south, so I had to double back and try again. On the second pass, as I approached what I thought would be the street leading to my destination, I saw a completely untouched sheet of ice covering a pretty skinny little road. I couldn't see a street sign but I was certain that there was no way this could be my road. After another half mile or so, I realized that the skinny icy street was probably the one. I saw a factory of some sort to my right so I turned onto the adjacent street. Anywhere that there's a factory, there tends to be a road designed for trucks, the theory went.
Next thing to cross my mind - Fuck me! Rolling along in second gear at 3mph, there was no guarantee that I would be able to stay on the road. It was a little farm road of some kind with a crowned shape, such that it sloped off noticeably to either side. There was no place to turn around and backing up was not an option, so I had no choice but to hang on and hope for the best. Just stay off the brakes and make the tiniest possible corrections with the steering wheel, I said to myself as I watched the ass end of my truck move from side to side. This is where a lot of self-reflection and prayer comes into play. When you're asking for some sort of miracle, you tend to become keenly aware that you're really not worthy of any miraculous intervention at all. Somehow though, I made it to a stop sign without crashing.
The intersecting road looked as if it had been plowed at least a little bit. Ever so gingerly, I eased around the corner to my right and continued onward. This road was indeed a huge improvement over the prior one. I wound up going through a residential area where I'm sure trucks don't belong, but I didn't exactly have a lot of options at this point in time. Once I found another road that was wide enough for me to turn back toward the main drag, I finally managed to exhale.
Circling back to the north once again, I rolled along very slowly and kept a keen eye out for the street signs. That ice sheet from earlier in the episode turned out to be the road that I needed after all. In first gear, moving at a speed slightly above zero, I started to slide off the road as I made the turn. My tires did finally grab though, pulling me onto the road and keeping me employed for the moment.
At the consignee, I was directed to drop my loaded trailer in a door and then return to the security booth to have my paperwork signed. Getting the trailer into the door was no problem. Getting out from under it was another story entirely. The loading docks were the sort that slope downward sharply from street level to the building. Given the weather that this area has seen lately and the fact that the business is closed on Saturdays, there was a sheet of ice preventing me from moving forward.
Following a bit of advice that I received from an old Canadian guy a few years ago, I put my truck in fifth gear, revved the engine, and let the clutch out. ("Quit being such a pussy and get the damned tires spinning," he had said to me.) My tires spun like a mofo and I managed to move forward a few inches. Then I promptly slid back under the trailer. Shit. After a few repetitions of this scene, I managed to get myself clear of the trailer. I was not, however, able to get all the way up the slope and back to level ground. The security guys had been watching me on their video screens as this process went on. After a little while, one of them came walking out with a bucket of salt and sprinkled the area around my tires. I used my shoes to grind the salt into the ice as well as I could and then waited a few minutes for it to do its work. When I got back in my truck and tried again, I was able to roll up the hill. Beauty.
After getting my paperwork signed, it was time to head to the drop lot and see what sort of adventures I would encounter in hooking to an empty trailer. Surprisingly, I was able to back under an empty and hook it without any issues. I did my walk around and knocked off as much ice as possible, then got back in the truck. Seeing that I almost fell down more than once while I was walking, I had reason to suspect that I wouldn't be going anywhere once I tried to pull the trailer from its parking space. I had nowhere to go tonight but I figured that I might as well not wait until tomorrow to find out that I was screwed. If I would have to deal with being stuck in ice, I might as well do so before I had a new assignment waiting for me. So I put the truck in gear and... I was correct. No movement at all.
I grabbed my crowbar and banged it against the trailer's brake drums a few times, then got in the truck and tried again. Nothing. As a practical matter, it occurred to me that frozen brake drums were probably a non-issue. Even if the tires wouldn't turn, they were on solid ice so they should have slid pretty easily. Thus I needed to focus on getting some kind of traction with my drive tires. I chipped away some of the ice and then started rocking back and forth. One inch, two inches, three inches, five inches... I steadily started to build some momentum. After a few minutes, I was able to drag the trailer forward out of its parking space. Rather than back into the same spot, I drove around to the other side of the drop lot and backed into a different one. This side of the lot appears to have seen a little more traffic and the spot that I took is less icy than some of the others. Maybe I'll have a sporting chance of leaving without too much difficulty. Plus I was able to see that my trailer tires were rolling and not sliding as I drove over here, so that's nice.
I'm #1 on the board at the moment but my 14 hour clock is about to run out and I need some sleep, so I guess I'll have to take myself off duty until tomorrow morning. I've been to this customer once before and, on that occasion, I wound up picking up my next load here after sitting for a full day following my initial delivery. I won't be too thrilled if that's how this trip plays out but I don't suppose I have much say in the matter. No point in trying to get too far ahead of myself.
After a leisurely day during which I took a couple of extended breaks, I rolled into Stillwater, Oklahoma tonight and found that the road conditions were pretty lousy. US-177 wasn't too terrible though. I missed a turn somewhere along the way and wound up heading out of town to the south, so I had to double back and try again. On the second pass, as I approached what I thought would be the street leading to my destination, I saw a completely untouched sheet of ice covering a pretty skinny little road. I couldn't see a street sign but I was certain that there was no way this could be my road. After another half mile or so, I realized that the skinny icy street was probably the one. I saw a factory of some sort to my right so I turned onto the adjacent street. Anywhere that there's a factory, there tends to be a road designed for trucks, the theory went.
Next thing to cross my mind - Fuck me! Rolling along in second gear at 3mph, there was no guarantee that I would be able to stay on the road. It was a little farm road of some kind with a crowned shape, such that it sloped off noticeably to either side. There was no place to turn around and backing up was not an option, so I had no choice but to hang on and hope for the best. Just stay off the brakes and make the tiniest possible corrections with the steering wheel, I said to myself as I watched the ass end of my truck move from side to side. This is where a lot of self-reflection and prayer comes into play. When you're asking for some sort of miracle, you tend to become keenly aware that you're really not worthy of any miraculous intervention at all. Somehow though, I made it to a stop sign without crashing.
The intersecting road looked as if it had been plowed at least a little bit. Ever so gingerly, I eased around the corner to my right and continued onward. This road was indeed a huge improvement over the prior one. I wound up going through a residential area where I'm sure trucks don't belong, but I didn't exactly have a lot of options at this point in time. Once I found another road that was wide enough for me to turn back toward the main drag, I finally managed to exhale.
Circling back to the north once again, I rolled along very slowly and kept a keen eye out for the street signs. That ice sheet from earlier in the episode turned out to be the road that I needed after all. In first gear, moving at a speed slightly above zero, I started to slide off the road as I made the turn. My tires did finally grab though, pulling me onto the road and keeping me employed for the moment.
At the consignee, I was directed to drop my loaded trailer in a door and then return to the security booth to have my paperwork signed. Getting the trailer into the door was no problem. Getting out from under it was another story entirely. The loading docks were the sort that slope downward sharply from street level to the building. Given the weather that this area has seen lately and the fact that the business is closed on Saturdays, there was a sheet of ice preventing me from moving forward.
Following a bit of advice that I received from an old Canadian guy a few years ago, I put my truck in fifth gear, revved the engine, and let the clutch out. ("Quit being such a pussy and get the damned tires spinning," he had said to me.) My tires spun like a mofo and I managed to move forward a few inches. Then I promptly slid back under the trailer. Shit. After a few repetitions of this scene, I managed to get myself clear of the trailer. I was not, however, able to get all the way up the slope and back to level ground. The security guys had been watching me on their video screens as this process went on. After a little while, one of them came walking out with a bucket of salt and sprinkled the area around my tires. I used my shoes to grind the salt into the ice as well as I could and then waited a few minutes for it to do its work. When I got back in my truck and tried again, I was able to roll up the hill. Beauty.
After getting my paperwork signed, it was time to head to the drop lot and see what sort of adventures I would encounter in hooking to an empty trailer. Surprisingly, I was able to back under an empty and hook it without any issues. I did my walk around and knocked off as much ice as possible, then got back in the truck. Seeing that I almost fell down more than once while I was walking, I had reason to suspect that I wouldn't be going anywhere once I tried to pull the trailer from its parking space. I had nowhere to go tonight but I figured that I might as well not wait until tomorrow to find out that I was screwed. If I would have to deal with being stuck in ice, I might as well do so before I had a new assignment waiting for me. So I put the truck in gear and... I was correct. No movement at all.
I grabbed my crowbar and banged it against the trailer's brake drums a few times, then got in the truck and tried again. Nothing. As a practical matter, it occurred to me that frozen brake drums were probably a non-issue. Even if the tires wouldn't turn, they were on solid ice so they should have slid pretty easily. Thus I needed to focus on getting some kind of traction with my drive tires. I chipped away some of the ice and then started rocking back and forth. One inch, two inches, three inches, five inches... I steadily started to build some momentum. After a few minutes, I was able to drag the trailer forward out of its parking space. Rather than back into the same spot, I drove around to the other side of the drop lot and backed into a different one. This side of the lot appears to have seen a little more traffic and the spot that I took is less icy than some of the others. Maybe I'll have a sporting chance of leaving without too much difficulty. Plus I was able to see that my trailer tires were rolling and not sliding as I drove over here, so that's nice.
I'm #1 on the board at the moment but my 14 hour clock is about to run out and I need some sleep, so I guess I'll have to take myself off duty until tomorrow morning. I've been to this customer once before and, on that occasion, I wound up picking up my next load here after sitting for a full day following my initial delivery. I won't be too thrilled if that's how this trip plays out but I don't suppose I have much say in the matter. No point in trying to get too far ahead of myself.
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