7/16/08

I left the Georgia welcome center around 8am. I stopped in Cartersville to top off the fuel tanks. I stayed in the right lane and didn't bother passing people unless they were ridiculously slow. This all should have meant that I got to Atlanta after the morning traffic had died down. The effective word in the preceding sentence is 'should.' Yeah, it didn't work out that way. What a mess. The rest of the drive wasn't bad, so I guess it was about as good as can be expected.

I was getting tired and annoyed with people in Florida by the time I got to I-10 this afternoon. They kept speeding past me when the rain lightened up and then slamming on the brakes when the rain started falling again. We went in and out of a few light showers, so this process went on somewhat regularly. I decided to duck into a rest area and take a quick nap, hoping that things would shake out by the time I woke.

I had enough time to sleep for about an hour. I would guess that I started to doze off after twenty minutes or so. Then, right on cue, the satellite unit woke me. I got a pre-plan for a load leaving Jacksonville tomorrow morning and going to Charleston. That's fine, but of course I was back awake at that point. Onward to the consignee...

The drop lot was pretty tight, but it looks like I'm pretty good at backing my truck today. That's always nice. I made my drop/hook and sent in my empty call. I knew that I was going to be in a pickle with respect to parking, so I wanted to see if it was a beer load that I would be getting in the morning. It was. Sometimes beer loads are ready early. If tomorrow's load was ready, I could head over to the brewery and then head north to look for parking. I called the 800 number to check on the load, but got no good news. My trailer was not yet loaded.

My directory showed two truck stops along I-295 on the west side of Jacksonville, one at exit 22 and another at exit 25. I tried exit 22 first and didn't see any truck stop. I tried exit 25 and every parking space was full. My next option appeared to be to head back down to I-10 and try the rest area west of town. There are a couple of truck stops and a rest area on the south side of Jacksonville, but that's pretty far from where I was. I went back south on I-295 toward I-10 and decided to take another look at exit 22. Down the street about a half mile to the east, I found a little shithole ghetto truck stop in a little shithole ghetto neighborhood. There was one spot, requiring me to maneuver around a few jagoffs who are parked where they shouldn't be. Yep. I do know how to back my truck today. I snaked this bitch in there on the first try. That hasn't been happening much lately, but you know, blind squirrels and nuts and so forth.

From here I'll take the loop around to I-95 and hit the brewery tomorrow morning. The run to Charleston is nothing special, but it will get me over 2,000 miles with a few days left in the pay period. I've been getting pretty grumpy on the road lately and it doesn't seem like freight is exactly booming, which usually means that it's time to take a few days off. I also have some business to tend back home before too much longer. I spent half of June at home though, so I would prefer to stay out for another week or two. I guess we'll play it by ear and see if I can catch a few good days to break out of this funk.

7/15/08

I was toying with the idea of getting a motel room to watch the All Star Game tonight, but it didn't work out that way. I have to be in Jacksonville by 5pm tomorrow, so I needed to get to Georgia tonight. That way, the only major traffic obstacle for tomorrow will be Atlanta. Once I got tired and took a nap this afternoon, I wound up having to drive well into the night in order to get past Chattanooga. So XM radio it is.

That route through Kentucky and Tennessee is awfully damn frustrating for some reason. People just seem to refuse to stay to the right when they're going slowly. As such, I can't say that I enjoyed today all that much. The stretch from southern Kentucky on into Nashville is one of my least favorite drives anywhere. It's no I-25, mind you, but it still sucks. I did manage to knock out a little over 600 miles though. That should leave me a little over seven hours to finish the trip, assuming it doesn't take me five hours to get past Atlanta.

Extra innings without many substitute players available... this could get pretty interesting.

7/14/08

The day started with a quick thirty mile drive up to my consignee. I sent a message as I was leaving, and my fleet manager switched my unpaid run to a paid one. That's always nice. I showed up around 45 minutes ahead of my appointment time. The guy in the dock area acted like I was three days early or something. I don't know what that's all about, but they got me a dock before too long. Once I was empty, I had to decide whether to go back thirty miles to the south (where I spent the night) or to go twenty miles to the north. I picked north.

After hanging around for most of the afternoon, I got my next assignment... going south. Story of life I guess. I had to head down to the Chicago suburbs for a drop/hook tomorrow morning. My choice was whether to head into the northern Illinois mess during rush hour and look for somewhere to park or to hang around in Wisconsin and make the drive before the sun comes up tomorrow. I decided to go straight to the shipper and let the parking situation sort itself out on its own. My load wasn't ready, but the security guard did let me drop my trailer and park in an unused driveway for the night. That'll do.

In keeping with what seems to be a typical July pattern, I dropped off a load one day and didn't get a pick up until the next day. At least this time around I got a longer deadhead than I've been getting over the past week or so. The 164 miles down here, combined with the 1,076 loaded miles, will have me on a pretty good pace this week.

I found a few video streams of the Home Run Derby, but they're all a little too choppy for me to watch. That's not really a favorite event if mine anyway, but the political talk is getting stale again so some kind of diversion would be fun. I think I'll just watch a few more video clips of Miss Venezuela. Ay! caramba!

7/13/08

To quote the old guy from Cool Hand Luke - "What we've got here is... failure... to communicate." I was given instructions and such for this load, just like I am given with every assignment. Let's review the information, for educational purposes...

I was told that the pick up was a live load. It was in fact a drop/hook.

I was told to pick up at 3am Sunday morning. I arrived at 1am Sunday morning, to find that my trailer had been loaded since Friday.

I was told that the load was picking up and delivering in the same town. Obviously this meant that the destination was unknown. I picked up my trailer and found that the destination was Madison, Wisconsin.

I was told that the delivery was scheduled for 10am Sunday morning. The delivery is in fact scheduled for 10am Monday morning.

As I left the shipper, I was dispatched for a local delivery, meaning that I was paid zero miles. I called and spoke with a lady who changed my delivery location to Madison, Wisconsin. She did not, however, see fit to change it to a paid run. I'll have to call tomorrow morning and get it sorted out.

So instead of picking up and driving for a while yesterday, I sat around trying to sleep. Instead of getting 515 miles tacked onto last week's paycheck, I got no miles tacked onto any paycheck (yet). After preparing to drive through the night since I would have to deliver this morning, I wound up sitting here in Wisconsin all day today and waiting for tomorrow morning's appointment.

Oh well, such is life. At least I got a nice light load and had time for a good nap this morning. I also got through the clusterfuck known as northern Illinois on a weekend, which is infinitely better than having to go through during the week. Once I get the pay thing sorted out it should be a 515 mile run, so that's a decent start to this pay period. Now as long as I can find directions to my customer, I'll be all set. CTL sent me an address, but I already had the address on the paperwork.