10/6/09

Some day, I'm going to feel motivated enough to resume my crusade against truck drivers in sleeveless shirts. Some day. Not today though. I'm busy listening to a ballgame. Time for extra innings. I guess sometimes 163 games just aren't enough.

I was the king of the hills for the bulk of the day so I guess that's pretty nice. The load that I dragged into Pennsylvania was only 8,000 pounds, allowing me to race past the long lines of trucks dragging ass up each slope. Beauty.

Along the way I received a call from the lady in Joplin who handles our detention billing. She needed me to help her reconstruct the timeline of the Shawnee incident so that she could deal with the matter appropriately. I take this to mean that I'll have some extra pay coming. Beauty.

Not long after that call, I received a pre-plan for a load picking up after I made my drop in Hazleton. Since I was burning a chunk of today's hours in making my delivery, it was good to see that I would have some work to make use of my remaining hours for the day. Beauty.

The drop/hook took a little while, since I had to deliver the loaded trailer to one warehouse and then retrieve an empty trailer from a different warehouse. The multiple check-ins and check-outs and such can slow a fella down a little. Eventually though, I had my empty and I was headed up I-81 toward Cortland, New York. Without any weight in the wagon, I was once again able to blow past all of the slower traffic in the hills. Beauty.

The pickup in Cortland was a drop/hook and the paperwork was already ready already, so I was loaded and rolling in short order. This load is a 40,000 pounder though, so my reign as king of the hills came to an abrupt end. Oh well, heavy lies the crown and so forth.

I have a delivery in Jersey tomorrow morning and the timeline is fairly tight, so I wanted to knock out a good portion of the trip tonight. I'm not what you would call a morning person. Back down I-81, over to I-380, and then onto I-80, I was targeting the big truck stop at Exit 302B. I had been there a few times in the past and always found plenty of available parking at night. After around two and a half hours of driving, I reached my exit. Off the freeway, to the end of the ramp, take a quick left... dude, where's the truck stop? Hmm. Guess they're building a shopping center or something in its place. I'll be damned.

This left me royally screwed in a couple of ways. First was that I was heading the wrong way on PA-611. I had no idea where that road led. Better find somewhere to turn around then. Yeah, that's a lot of fun on a little hick road through the hills in the dark. A few miles up the road, I spotted a little strip mall and swung into the parking lot. The businesses had all closed for the evening, so all I had to do was go in one driveway and out the other. Umm... yeah, there was no other driveway. Shit. I had enough room to back up along the buildings and then swing back around through the one driveway and onto the street. Always something in this line of work, it seems.

I got back onto the freeway and started trying to figure out how to deal with the other half of my newfound screwedness. Where to park? Once I got into Jersey my hours would be almost gone and I would find slim pickings in terms of truck parking. I pinned my hopes on finding a spot at the Pennsylvania welcome center off Exit 310. Three open spots, I'm only driving one truck, we're all good. My internet connection sucks and I had vending machine snacks for dinner, but hey, beggars can't be choosers.

It looks like I have around 80 miles to go from here and my ten hour break will be over at 6am. 9am delivery... Three hours to go 80 miles? Should be okay, but it is Jersey. We'll see.

RABURN THROWS OUT THE RUNNER AT THE PLATE! WE'RE GOING TO THE 11TH! HOLY SMOKES!