Dude. I know some of you fine OTR drivers like to run all day, every day. My hat's off to you. After seven or eight hours, my interest wanes quite rapidly. I had eleven hours left on my 70 at the start of today, so I put in a full day on the road. I guess it ain't so bad once in a while, but there's no way I would want to drive that much every day.
The most efficient route, according to the software that figures out these things, would have taken me east to Nashville and then up I-65 into Kentucky. By the time I got to Memphis and realized that I would be hitting Nashville during rush hour, I didn't have the stomach for it. That stretch of I-40 into I-65 and then north... no. I hung a left on US-51 and went up that way. There are quite a few towns along the first stretch out of Memphis, but otherwise that's not a bad ride. It's one of those routes that is supposedly going to be an interstate in the future, so quite a bit of the road is wide open. The Kentucky portion of the drive definitely brought the payoff. The parkways in this state are some of the best freeways in the country as far as I'm concerned. It always surprises me how light the traffic is whenever I drive on them.
I got to my fuel stop in Morton's Gap just before my hours ran out, so I guess that works out pretty well. It looks like I'll have a little over three hours to go from here to Lexington. My appointment time is 8am, but the directions to the consignee have me thinking that I'll try to get there a little earlier. They say that the turns are tight and it's a good idea not to arrive while there's traffic around. I don't know if there's parking available, but Google Earth seems to indicate that I should be able to find a place to sit for a while. It looks like a pretty big place.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
7/22/08
Q: What city do I not hope to see any time in the immediate future?
Give yourself five points if you said Houston. I'm sure it's a fine town, but I had my fill today. I had to contend with rush hour traffic on the way into town this morning. Yuck. Thank God I don't have one of those 'swear jars.' I would have had to take out a personal loan.
My plan summary indicated that I had a drop/hook. The security chick at the consignee said that I had a drop/hook. Then she saw that I had two bolt seals, a cable seal, and two thin metal seals on my trailer. I guess the amigos across the border didn't want that load getting fucked with. Simple deal, right? I drop the trailer and the yard dog cuts the seals whenever they get around to unloading it. Wrong. They changed it to a live unload and made me take the trailer to a door, since the bolt cutters are kept at the dock doors. Dumb. Punks.
After a couple of hours there, I was on my way to my next pickup. I had to go west along I-10 and catch Beltway 8 to the north. Beltway 8 is the surface road that runs along the Sam Houston toll road. The interchange was under construction and the signs were ambiguous, so of course I wound up on the toll road by accident. Even better, I managed to go south instead of north. I took the first exit and pulled up to the toll booth. I don't carry cash on the road unless I expect to need it. My mistake was not a terribly costly one ($4), but I'll still have to mail a check to the state of Texas within seven days. Oh well. The guy at the booth was helpful in getting me sorted out and headed toward my customer, so that was nice.
I rolled into the shipper's location and had a drop/hook. They made me go to a neighboring lot to drop my empty and then come back to the main lot for my loaded trailer. Nothing really exciting there, but it took quite a while. People were backing into the (extremely tight) loading docks each time I tried to pass, so I had to be a little bit patient. I saw that I only had five forklifts in my trailer, so I thought the weight might not be too bad. Then I saw that each one weighs 9,000 pounds. Damn.
Then it was back onto the freeway and all the way back through Houston. Like I said, I'm sure it's a fine town... At least I got out before the wind and rain from the hurricane got there. I headed up US-59 toward Texarkana. The routing programs say that the 'practical' route is eastward across Louisiana and then northward. My paid route is quite a bit shorter than that, coming pretty close to the route that I'm taking. For some reason, these runs originating in eastern Texas always work out that way. US-59 is a decent drive for the most part, so I can't complain too much. My 70 hours ran out before I got to Arkansas, so I'll have some hard driving ahead of me. I'll get up bright and early and go as far as possible tomorrow, then finish off the run early in the morning on Thursday.
I heard on the radio that Estelle Getty died tonight. I always got a kick out of The Golden Girls for some reason. It just seemed to be one of the wittier sitcoms and the casting was perfect. I (sort of) made an appearance on that show a long time ago. I was at Disney World with my family when I was thirteen years old. They had this thing where they selected people from the audience to appear in an episode of The Golden Girls. I was one of a few people chosen from a pretty huge crowd. They gave us about five minutes to memorize our lines and then filmed us against a green screen. The people in the crowd were watching an actual episode of the show on a movie screen. Then when a certain scene came up, there we were, right on the screen with the real actors. My parents couldn't afford to buy the videotape so I never got to see it, but everyone said it was pretty cool. I just realized that there's really no point to this story, but screw it. I'm not getting paid for this. I just liked Estelle Getty. That's all.
Give yourself five points if you said Houston. I'm sure it's a fine town, but I had my fill today. I had to contend with rush hour traffic on the way into town this morning. Yuck. Thank God I don't have one of those 'swear jars.' I would have had to take out a personal loan.
My plan summary indicated that I had a drop/hook. The security chick at the consignee said that I had a drop/hook. Then she saw that I had two bolt seals, a cable seal, and two thin metal seals on my trailer. I guess the amigos across the border didn't want that load getting fucked with. Simple deal, right? I drop the trailer and the yard dog cuts the seals whenever they get around to unloading it. Wrong. They changed it to a live unload and made me take the trailer to a door, since the bolt cutters are kept at the dock doors. Dumb. Punks.
After a couple of hours there, I was on my way to my next pickup. I had to go west along I-10 and catch Beltway 8 to the north. Beltway 8 is the surface road that runs along the Sam Houston toll road. The interchange was under construction and the signs were ambiguous, so of course I wound up on the toll road by accident. Even better, I managed to go south instead of north. I took the first exit and pulled up to the toll booth. I don't carry cash on the road unless I expect to need it. My mistake was not a terribly costly one ($4), but I'll still have to mail a check to the state of Texas within seven days. Oh well. The guy at the booth was helpful in getting me sorted out and headed toward my customer, so that was nice.
I rolled into the shipper's location and had a drop/hook. They made me go to a neighboring lot to drop my empty and then come back to the main lot for my loaded trailer. Nothing really exciting there, but it took quite a while. People were backing into the (extremely tight) loading docks each time I tried to pass, so I had to be a little bit patient. I saw that I only had five forklifts in my trailer, so I thought the weight might not be too bad. Then I saw that each one weighs 9,000 pounds. Damn.
Then it was back onto the freeway and all the way back through Houston. Like I said, I'm sure it's a fine town... At least I got out before the wind and rain from the hurricane got there. I headed up US-59 toward Texarkana. The routing programs say that the 'practical' route is eastward across Louisiana and then northward. My paid route is quite a bit shorter than that, coming pretty close to the route that I'm taking. For some reason, these runs originating in eastern Texas always work out that way. US-59 is a decent drive for the most part, so I can't complain too much. My 70 hours ran out before I got to Arkansas, so I'll have some hard driving ahead of me. I'll get up bright and early and go as far as possible tomorrow, then finish off the run early in the morning on Thursday.
I heard on the radio that Estelle Getty died tonight. I always got a kick out of The Golden Girls for some reason. It just seemed to be one of the wittier sitcoms and the casting was perfect. I (sort of) made an appearance on that show a long time ago. I was at Disney World with my family when I was thirteen years old. They had this thing where they selected people from the audience to appear in an episode of The Golden Girls. I was one of a few people chosen from a pretty huge crowd. They gave us about five minutes to memorize our lines and then filmed us against a green screen. The people in the crowd were watching an actual episode of the show on a movie screen. Then when a certain scene came up, there we were, right on the screen with the real actors. My parents couldn't afford to buy the videotape so I never got to see it, but everyone said it was pretty cool. I just realized that there's really no point to this story, but screw it. I'm not getting paid for this. I just liked Estelle Getty. That's all.
Monday, July 21, 2008
7/21/08
Hmmm, that day was something. It was a pretty easy drive into Laredo this morning. I guess that's pretty cool at least.
Once I got to the terminal and the guy inspected my trailer, I headed up to the dispatch window in order to get on the board before I delivered my load. I don't know whether self-proclaimed badasses are just drawn to this line of work or if something about this job turns people into self-proclaimed badasses. Whichever it is, I observe more than my share of bullshit bravado whenever I spend any amount of time around other drivers. Today's example was a guy who apparently got inspected while leaving to deliver a load and received a ticket for an obstructed placard. Even if we accept his version of the 'obstruction' being a non-issue and the ticket being undeserved, it should have ended there. The following twenty minutes consisted of him telling stories to the dispatcher about how CTL can kiss his ass if they think he's paying the ticket and how he told the cop what-for and so on. All I needed to do was get to the window and get on the board. King Salami there just kept going on and on about what a tough guy he is, holding up the line for the rest of us. Obnoxious.
I finally got my turn and then headed over to the broker to drop my trailer. There was a guy waiting to make the left turn into the yard, so I pulled in behind him and turned on my blinker. Twenty minutes later, the entrance cleared and the guy ahead of me turned in. Twenty minutes after that, I was able to enter the yard. Something about twenty minutes today...
The security guard checked over my trailer and wrote "4 mal" on the part of the inspection report about tires. My Spanish ain't what it used to be, but I seem to recall that 'mal' means 'bad.' The CTL dude had indicated that they were all fine. Whatever man. Not my problem. I (luckily) didn't have to put the trailer in a door. That place was incredibly crowded and the quarters were tight, to put it mildly. He told me to drop at the far end of the yard. Then it was... go ahead and take a guess... twenty minutes until the driveway cleared and I could get out.
I hung around most of the day and finally got called in to dispatch around 10pm. The dude knew that I was getting hosed without me saying anything, so he called the Texas planner in Joplin and got me another run to back up the one that he was giving me. I have to drop in Houston at 9am tomorrow morning, to a consignee with no overnight parking. I could either stay in Laredo for a couple more hours, complete a ten hour break, and then head to Houston or I could use the eight hours that I had been in Laredo as the front end of a split. I decided that I would rather use the split, so I grabbed my trailer and headed out.
By the time I got back to Ganado, I decided to pull in and get a little sleep while I finished off the split. No parking spaces available. Nice. So, I got back on the road and started looking out for somewhere to shut it down. In rather poetic fashion I suppose, I had to drive for exactly twenty minutes until I spotted a little truck stop with plenty of room to park. I'll catch a nap here and then run the last hour or so to Houston.
My pre-planned load picks up on the other side of Houston and goes up to Kentucky, so I should get clear of any hurricane-related issues before they arise. Groovy.
Once I got to the terminal and the guy inspected my trailer, I headed up to the dispatch window in order to get on the board before I delivered my load. I don't know whether self-proclaimed badasses are just drawn to this line of work or if something about this job turns people into self-proclaimed badasses. Whichever it is, I observe more than my share of bullshit bravado whenever I spend any amount of time around other drivers. Today's example was a guy who apparently got inspected while leaving to deliver a load and received a ticket for an obstructed placard. Even if we accept his version of the 'obstruction' being a non-issue and the ticket being undeserved, it should have ended there. The following twenty minutes consisted of him telling stories to the dispatcher about how CTL can kiss his ass if they think he's paying the ticket and how he told the cop what-for and so on. All I needed to do was get to the window and get on the board. King Salami there just kept going on and on about what a tough guy he is, holding up the line for the rest of us. Obnoxious.
I finally got my turn and then headed over to the broker to drop my trailer. There was a guy waiting to make the left turn into the yard, so I pulled in behind him and turned on my blinker. Twenty minutes later, the entrance cleared and the guy ahead of me turned in. Twenty minutes after that, I was able to enter the yard. Something about twenty minutes today...
The security guard checked over my trailer and wrote "4 mal" on the part of the inspection report about tires. My Spanish ain't what it used to be, but I seem to recall that 'mal' means 'bad.' The CTL dude had indicated that they were all fine. Whatever man. Not my problem. I (luckily) didn't have to put the trailer in a door. That place was incredibly crowded and the quarters were tight, to put it mildly. He told me to drop at the far end of the yard. Then it was... go ahead and take a guess... twenty minutes until the driveway cleared and I could get out.
I hung around most of the day and finally got called in to dispatch around 10pm. The dude knew that I was getting hosed without me saying anything, so he called the Texas planner in Joplin and got me another run to back up the one that he was giving me. I have to drop in Houston at 9am tomorrow morning, to a consignee with no overnight parking. I could either stay in Laredo for a couple more hours, complete a ten hour break, and then head to Houston or I could use the eight hours that I had been in Laredo as the front end of a split. I decided that I would rather use the split, so I grabbed my trailer and headed out.
By the time I got back to Ganado, I decided to pull in and get a little sleep while I finished off the split. No parking spaces available. Nice. So, I got back on the road and started looking out for somewhere to shut it down. In rather poetic fashion I suppose, I had to drive for exactly twenty minutes until I spotted a little truck stop with plenty of room to park. I'll catch a nap here and then run the last hour or so to Houston.
My pre-planned load picks up on the other side of Houston and goes up to Kentucky, so I should get clear of any hurricane-related issues before they arise. Groovy.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
7/20/08
That was about the easiest trip west along I-10 that I can recall. Even going through Houston, things moved right along at the speed limit. Any time you can hit spots like that on a weekend, things are definitely going in your favor.
I've stopped at the T/A in Ganado to grab some dinner and spend the night before heading into Laredo tomorrow. My job has definitely been more enjoyable for the past few days, compared to the few before that, so I think I'll stay out for another week or so before heading home and tending to some personal business.
I think tonight I'll catch up on some reading and try to figure out whether or not I should put an alcohol still on my parents' property up north. If I can convert my car and brew my own fuel, I may have a leg up on the rest of you suckers. Considering that we're about to elect a guy who thinks it's a good idea to have a campaign rally at Adolph Hitler's favorite monument to military domination, I don't have any good reason to think our national policies will move in the right direction any time soon.
I've stopped at the T/A in Ganado to grab some dinner and spend the night before heading into Laredo tomorrow. My job has definitely been more enjoyable for the past few days, compared to the few before that, so I think I'll stay out for another week or so before heading home and tending to some personal business.
I think tonight I'll catch up on some reading and try to figure out whether or not I should put an alcohol still on my parents' property up north. If I can convert my car and brew my own fuel, I may have a leg up on the rest of you suckers. Considering that we're about to elect a guy who thinks it's a good idea to have a campaign rally at Adolph Hitler's favorite monument to military domination, I don't have any good reason to think our national policies will move in the right direction any time soon.
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