About the only thing better than waking at 10am would have to be waking at 11am. Now, I know what you're thinking - A couple of adventurous sorority sisters acting on a dare would be better than waking at 10am - but come on now, in my world, a morning of quiet rest is about as good as it gets. Somehow nobody parked next to me with an idling truck or a reefer this morning and I was able to sleep for a solid six or seven hours. Beauty.
I rolled out of Kenly around 11:30am and had a nice easy day of driving. Since I started so late and took a lunch break in the middle of the drive, I decided to stop at the Pilot in Brunswick, Georgia to kick back for the night. My Italian BMT with double meat was delicious, as always, so everything appears to be right with the world.
The week wraps up with a healthy 2,882 miles plus some northeast pay. Not bad at all. Tomorrow looks like another ~400 mile kinda deal. We'll have to see how the parking situation plays out in terms of where I'll end up waiting for Monday afternoon to come along. I got a tip from a fella down there (whose voice sounds curiously similar to that of comedian Jim Florentine), suggesting that a local farmer's market in Pompano Beach has truck parking, so I might be able to stop there and commiserate for a while. The catch would be that, if they won't let me hang around until Monday, I would have to try to nab a spot at the little service plaza on the turnpike or the truck stop in Hialeah Gardens. I haven't had any luck at either place on past visits to the area. I suppose I'll try to find a phone number for the market and give them a call on the way down.
In any case, the nice easy weekend will hopefully continue. Now I probably have to watch another movie or something. I thought about checking out the news, but Congressman Kennedy seems to think that it would be a waste of my time. Damned press, always messing up...
Every winter, like clockwork, a bunch of our trucks slide off the road and we're treated to a barrage of satellite messages telling us to park our trucks and call Joplin if the road conditions are unsafe. Better to arrive late than not at all, and so forth. I get off the road sometimes if the weather is getting on my nerves, but I don't think I've ever had a pickup or delivery that was impacted. I've occasionally been curious to know if the operations people and the safety people were of one mind on the subject. There was recently a message from one of the bigwigs saying that yes, absolutely, the driver is the captain of the ship and there is no problem as long as we communicate properly with the dispatchers. Still, you have to wonder.
Anyhow, I woke at 5:30am this morning and looked outside. I couldn't see ten feet in front of me, on account of the thick fog. Well that sucks. I called Joplin and asked the dispatcher whether my delivery had an open unloading schedule or it was a firm 8am appointment, letting her know that the fog was wicked bad and I would rather wait for the sun to burn it off a little. She said that it was a set appointment. I said, "That sucks." Then she asked if I was going to be able to roll and make the appointment. I told her that I had seen a few trucks leave the fuel island and drive away, so maybe the conditions wouldn't be so bad once I got out on the highway.
"Well, if you get out there and you don't feel safe, I don't care what other trucks are doing. You need to park and let us know," she replied. I told her that I was thinking along the same lines, but that I would at least head out and see. If there hadn't been a firm appointment I would have waited for sunrise. But, since the customer was expecting me at 8am, I might as well at least give it a go. "Yeah, I'd definitely rather move [the appointment] out for you if I could. Just let us know if you need to park it."
It turned out that the fog in the area where I had spent the night really was pretty damned bad, but I was able to follow the tail lights ahead of me on the highway. As long as I stayed in the right lane and took it slow, I didn't feel unsafe. Then the fog got lighter and lighter as I proceeded northward. By the time I reached the exit for I-581, visibility wasn't much of an issue at all. Once I got out past Bedford, the sun was rising and everything was lovely. I rolled into Lynchburg 45 minutes ahead of schedule.
Two things are worth noting, I suppose. First is that, even in conditions that might not be considered terribly dangerous by various people, I was not expected to drive if I was uncomfortable in doing so. Actually, if any pressure could be inferred from the above conversation, although I inferred none, it would have been pressure not to drive. That's at least a little encouraging. I seem to get pretty lucky with the nasty roads for the most part but you never know. (The cynical hypothesis would be that we probably have a few asshole drivers who try to trap the dispatchers into telling them to run in bad weather, and that this was merely standard CYA rhetoric from the dispatcher. This wouldn't surprise me, but I'll just stick to the actual conversation and leave the conspiracy theories for someone else.) Second is that I had been connected to the dispatcher via the night/weekend 'Press 1 if you're a driver' system. I've certainly had varied experiences with the late shift folks, probably more bad than good if we're being honest here, so it's always nice to have a coherent and productive conversation with one of them. Good lookin' out, my sister.
As I sat waiting for my turn to get unloaded, I received my next assignment. That reverse psychology experiment from Wednesday appears to have paid off. No I-77 involved. Beauty. I had to take my empty trailer to the ramen noodle place in Richmond and pick up a load heading to the Miami suburbs. The noodle place in Richmond? Hmm, sounds familiar. On that previous visit, I had been among the horde of trucks that checked in right when the place opened. Today, the horde had settled in long before I arrived. The security guard said to me, "Find a place to park if you can. Then check in."If I can, indeed. Holy smokes. Every trailer spot was full. Every loading dock was occupied. There were trucks wedged in at each end of the lot. I squirreled my way in next to one of my CTL colleagues at the far end of the lot, blocking in a couple of guys who were parked in actual spaces. What are you gonna do, right? I would just have to move whenever one of them got a door assignment.
I walked in and gave the shipping lady my pickup number. While 8-10 trucks, many of them CTL trucks, sat parked all over the place, she told me to back into Door #5. Then, over the course of the next couple of hours, she called the other trucks on the CB, assigning each to a door whenever one became avilable. Now, the casual observer might be inclined to think that this was just the result of good timing or a scheduling coincidence. The folks at Fenian Godfather Research have discovered that there might be a different reason why I was able to gain the (normally cranky) shipping lady's favor. I haven't shaved in a few days, after all. I ain't sayin', I'm just sayin'.
My self-delusion notwithstanding, there still were a bunch of trucks already at the dock before me. They, consequently, got loaded before I did. I wound up hanging around for four and a half hours before my trailer was loaded, after which the shipping lady... wait for it... apologized for keeping me waiting. I ain't sayin', I'm just sayin'.
With my nice light 13,000 pound payload all secured, it was time to head south. My 14 hour clock wasn't going to allow a whole lot of driving this evening, but I got down to Kenly, North Carolina with plenty of time to spare. Now I should have a nice and easy weekend in store. My delivery appointment in Hialeah Gardens (where I'm kinda hoping to meet this guy) is set for 1pm on Monday. I guess it's probably around 800 miles from here to there. So not only do we get the usual Saturday and Sunday without an alarm clock, but also the coveted sleep-in on Monday. I dare say this was a pretty sweet assignment. Plus I'll get a few bucks in detention pay for taking a nap this afternoon, just for good measure.
Role Models... not bad. Not great, but not bad. I was pretty encouraged for a little while. Then it went off the rails during the last half hour or so. Better than either of those chick flicks, so good enough.
You know, I've gone to a couple of things that could loosely be described as 'tea party' rallies. The first one just seemed... well... pretty lame. The second one was generally a collection of friendly folks with catchy phrases on homemade signs, but still a bit on the nerdy side. (Yeah, I was there. And I tend to agree with most of the folks who attend the rallies. I'm not exempt from 'nerd' status here.) That second one did accomplish the unprecedented feat of getting my brothers, my aunt Tina, my uncle Norm, and me in the nation's capital at the same time, for whatever that's worth. As of tonight though, I have to re-calibrate my definition of lame.
Imitating those racist, hatemongering rubes that so trouble you, in your oh-so-above-it-all Starbucks kinda way? Heh. Dorks.
A sleepless night in a rest area, on account of the fact that the parking space next to my head must have had a sign saying, "Everybody ignore the other ten open spaces, pull into this one, set your brakes, leave your piece of shit truck running while you go inside and take a dump, come back out, rev your engine like an asshole for a few minutes, release your brakes, roar out of here like a drag racer, call your buddy down the road, and tell him to do the same thing five minutes later."Check.
The forklift dude at my consignee waiting until I was almost asleep, then bouncing my trailer to unload one stack of freight, then waiting until I was almost asleep again before unloading the next one, repeating this process until the trailer was empty. Check.
A route taking me down through West Virginia on I-77 for the third time this week, with a 44,000 pound payload, constantly getting passed on the way up the mountains and then cut off on the way down, by a bunch of douchebags whose parents probably hated them since they suck so bad. Check.
Big signs on every overpass, underpass, highway, byway, on ramp, and off ramp, naming every inch of West Virginia's pork barrel spending in honor of everyone's favorite former Klansman. Check.
The weather forecast for Tuesday finally turning out to be right on Thursday, making a potential crash victim out of each driver who cut me off on wet roads in heavy fog without allowing any following distance, all the while reminding me that nobody knows what in the hell the weather will actually be like next week, let alone a hundred years from now, as I curse the bastard motorists and hope for Cap and Trade to become law and run those coal mining pricks all into poverty, creating an internal conflict within my mind since I really kinda like having a somewhat functional economy and I burn lots of oil every day in the process of earning a living myself. Check.
Delivering into a state that bans 53' trailers on a bunch of U.S. highways, for no apparent reason, just because they freaking can, forcing me to go all the way through West Virginia and come across on US-460 in order to stay somewhere close to my paid mileage, and finding that US-460 makes I-77 look like a rolling meadow, with a few red lights at the bottom of mountains in 65mph zones just to make it interesting. Check.
Very few parking options within a reasonable distance of my consignee, combined with an asinine federal regulation that purports to know the exact minute when I'll be too tired to drive, even though I've been tired all damned day and that was perfectly legal, thus preventing me from driving all the way to Lynchburg and parking at the industrial park tonight, meaning that I had to stop in Elliston since there was no guarantee that I would find anything closer, so now I have to get up at 5:45am and drive the rest of the way in order to keep my 8am appointment. Check.
I guess we've got all the bases covered. So... how was your day? Mine, I must admit, was rescued at the end by that magical little sign above the entrance to the truck stop where I'm spending the night. Small victories, my friends. Small victories.
Ahh yes, the good old 'race the fuel gauge' routine. The mountains and curves and and all of that aren't the only beautiful part about driving up and down I-77. There's also a paucity of company-approved fuel stops. I should have known this before I started driving today. I did not know this.
I managed to sleep nice and late this morning after watching a couple of movies last night. Apparently it was chick flick night in Virginia, and I didn't even have a chick to blame. Pathetic. (Couples Retreat - mediocre at best. Valentine's Day - dumb as hell. In my defense though - Both movies did employ plenty of lovely 'scenery' to help pass the time, if you catch my drift.) By the time I got up today and figured out where I was, I also figured out something else. "Tomorrow" wasn't tomorrow anymore. It was today. Italian BMT with double meat for breakfast. Kickass.
Somehow I haven't seen any rain since I left home. This has been entirely unexpected since I took a look at the forecast before I rolled out of Taylor on Monday. Rain all week, starting Tuesday, they said. Given the terrain that I covered over the last few days, we can take the inaccurate forecast as good news. The drive through the mountains wasn't quite as tedious as usual, mainly since the aforementioned fuel situation had me keenly tuned in to things. Since I hadn't taken on any fuel in Charlotte yesterday, the next option on my route would be the Pilot in Columbus, Ohio. Once I noticed that the red light (1/8 tank) had come on, I started doing some quick on-the-fly calculating. Unlike some in our country, I happen to be pretty good at mathematics. I needed to see if I could reach Columbus or if I would have to take I-64 westward to Nitro, West Virginia and then re-route myself from there.
Satisfied that I should make it to Columbus, I stayed on I-77 up to US-33. I then got an unwelcome dose of reality when I saw a sign on I-77 saying that Columbus was 124 miles away. Shit. That's further than I thought it would be. I guess math skills don't really help if you start with the wrong assumptions. The gauge went totally below 'E' while I was still a good 40-50 miles from my fuel stop. Previous experience suggested to me that 40-50 miles shouldn't be too bad, but when I got stuck in rush hour traffic I started to get a little concerned. Shifting and accelerating are the enemies of an empty gas tank. I got there though. 192.56 gallons to top 'er off. I don't know if these tanks have a total volume of 200 gallons or if that's how much you can actually put in them, up to the fuel caps. In any event, I heard the stuff hitting the bottom of the tank when I turned the pump on. Probably should be a little more diligent about checking my fuel book before I start a trip.
I had a nice peaceful two hours of rolling through the Ohio countryside this evening, with a pre-plan for tomorrow thrown in for good measure, so all's well that ends well. I grabbed a spot at the rest area on I-75, just a couple of miles from where I'll have to get onto the skinny roads to finish off the run to Whitehouse. I'm guessing that I have around 35 miles left fom here. Good enough.
Since I'm going from Maumee, Ohio to Lynchburg, Virginia tomorrow afternoon, I suppose it's time to try a little reverse psychology. I love driving through West Virginia. If I could get trips through West Virginia every day, I would be the happiest driver on the road. Maybe that'll help or something. Maybe. At least the miles keep coming though. You know, paid by the mile and all.
Do you remember the old intro for ABC's Wide World of Sports? You had the 'thrill of victory' dude getting carried off while celebrating a victory (boxing, I think) and then you had the 'agony of defeat' dude crashing off the ski jump. Now you know how I felt this evening. We'll get to that in a minute.
First, let's talk about West Virginia... Yeah, I still have nothing to say about West Virginia.
Before I left the service plaza this morning, I received a pre-plan with a good schedule so things were looking half decent. I say only half decent because the route was going to take me right back up I-77. As an aside, do you suppose those poor mountaineers believed that story about the man named Jed? I wonder.
After dragging my load through the mountains all morning and then fighting my way through Charlotte in the afternoon, I pulled into my consignee for a nice and easy drop. I was delivering in York, South Carolina and my next load was set to pick up in York, South Carolina, so I played a hunch and sent in my empty call before actually hooking to an empty trailer. As I suspected, the next load was picking up at the same place. Making things nice and convenient for me, the dispatch included the number of my loaded trailer. So I got to skip an unnecessary step. I just drove across the yard and hooked the loaded trailer, then hit the road. Beauty.
The drive back to the north was taking me through Charlotte right in the middle of rush hour, but I didn't even get that far before the frustration began. I got to the end of the customer's driveway and edged myself out between the numerous school buses, only to find that traffic on the state highway was at a dead stop. It turns out that the middle of a skinny two-lane bridge is a bad place for a couple of pickup trucks to smash into each other. Who knew?
Once the local peace officer showed up and started directing traffic, things got moving steadily if not quickly. On a positive note, the northbound traffic through Charlotte at 4:30pm was much lighter than the southbound traffic had been at 2pm. I'm due in Whitehouse, Ohio by Thursday morning at 8am, so I decided to get into Virginia tonight and then kick back for a while. I'm not a fan of those big truck stops around Wytheville though and there isn't a whole lot else along I-77. I decided to duck off at the little place in Austinville, since the sun was just setting and I was pretty sure I would find a parking space. There were three open spaces. Beauty.
And now to the real story. I've stayed at this truck stop a few times in the past. There had always been a little food shop inside, serving various stale and/or soggy fried products that nobody would actually want to buy. So what did my eyes behold this evening? They've replaced the food shop with a SubWay? The thrill of victory!
I strolled over, anticipating my enjoyment of a fantastic Italian BMT with double meat to wrap up a productive day on the road. I'm an ordering pro when it comes to this place. Always specify the type of bread first, you see. Some of the fine folks at SubWay weren't blessed with the cognitive retention to remember the type of sandwich if you say that first. To keep things nice and orderly, you just tell them the type of bread you want. Then, once the bread is in hand, you put them to work on the salami, pepperoni, ham, and Provolone.
"We open for business tomorrow, sir. Just getting everything set up tonight."
The agony of defeat.
Assuming that my dispatched miles are somewhere close to reality, I'll have around 450 miles to go from here to my consignee. That should make for a decent day of work tomorrow, even if I do have to go back through West Virginia. At least my trailer is a little lighter this time. On the way down I hauled truck axles, stacked on metal racks. The total weight was 33,000 pounds. I'm hauling back empty racks weighing 25,000 pounds. That just doesn't seem right.
You know what's pretty cool? Going home, setting up a new laptop, seeing that it works fine, heading back out on the road, and then discovering that your new laptop's touchpad only works when the power cord is disconnected. Obviously something ain't kosher with the voltage of my $20 power inverter. The power cord charges the battery and powers the computer fine, but I have to run on straight battery power if I want to use the touchpad. Always something. Oh well, what are you gonna do? Maybe I'll have to get that real inverter installed one of these days. It's been sitting in my cabinet since I moved into this truck.
As far as first days back at work go, I suppose today was good enough. I called the terminal bright and early to get myself on the board and then went back to bed for a couple of hours. By the time I woke again, I had an assignment waiting for me. It didn't pick up until 3pm though. Beauty. Back to bed for a while.
Once I got up to the yard and set about my business, I ran into one of the guys that participates on the topdriverboards.com site. I ran into ole Tomcat in Taylor once a couple of years ago, so I guess our paths are set to cross on a biannual basis. After a brief chat and a topoff of the fuel tanks, I had to roll up to the old Detroit Diesel plant on the southwest edge of Detroit. My shipper was actually an axle manufacturer, but it's all part of the same facility these days. Some bad instructions from the security guard left me in the unfortunate position of trying to get turned around in very tight quarters, so that's always fun. Eventually I got my empty trailer dropped and my loaded one connected.
The trip is taking me down to South Carolina for a delivery by 5pm tomorrow, so I was afforded some level of flexibility in my scheduling. As long as I knocked out at least 100-200 miles today, I would be easily within a single driving shift of the consignee. I decided to get through Columbus and then see how I felt from there. Given my ludicrous behavior and sleep patterns during my time at home, it's anybody's guess how long I can go without getting tired once I get back to work. I was doing pretty well as I rolled through the southeastern part of Ohio though. Might as well keep rolling.
The issue that was sure to arise next was one of parking. I started to get sick of the road by the time I rolled onto the West Virginia Turnpike. I don't typically have a lot of luck parking in this Godforsaken state, but there are no guarantees in Virginia late at night either. I stopped in at one rest area and found nothing, so the next chance would be the big service plaza in Beckley. After inching my way through a few rows of parked trucks, things weren't looking too good. Every space was full and people were parked in every non-space that could be created. I circled back toward the entrance and gave myself a little pep talk. Might be a long night after all, it seemed.
I had to do a double-take as I passed what appeared to be an open space next to a dumpster. It wasn't clear at first glance whether or not the spot was actually wide enough. It turned out to be a real-life parking space with lines and everything. Beauty. I still haven't managed to figure out why the breaks seem to fall my way most of the time. I'm certainly not one who has earned much of anything. I'll take it though.
It looks like I have somewhere on the order of 250 miles to drive tomorrow before my 5pm scheduled delivery. My plan summary says that it's another drop/hook so I suppose there shouldn't be any harm if I decide to get there a little early. We'll see how I sleep tonight. Last night involved a lot of tossing and turning. Getting moving before noon shouldn't be too tough in any event. As long as this chick isn't heading northward, I don't think I should encounter any delays.
I've spent the last few hours trying to convince myself to accomplish something. Unsuccessfully thus far, but the night ain't over yet. I really should do some laundry or something before going back to work in the morning. Or maybe go to bed early and get a solid night's sleep. Or maybe try to catch up on some reading. What I actually do tends to be far less than what I should do though. I don't know. Whatever. We'll see.
