12/23/09

Over the last four winters, I've consistently tried to take some time off in the middle of December and then get back on the road before Christmas. My theory holds that, with most of our drivers at home, I stand a better chance of getting some nice long runs to pad the year's pay right at the end. So, of course, today I chose to turn down the nice long run that was offered to me.

I woke a little after 7am and called the terminal to put myself on the board. The local dispatcher said that he had nobody on the board and there were two runs that he could assign. The first was a load sitting on the yard and making a couple of drops. The first drop was in Joplin, Missouri (strike one). The second drop would take me across the mountains out west (strike two) for a Monday delivery in California (strike three). Next.

The other run was much shorter, but more to my liking. It too was sitting on the yard and was waiting to be delivered in Memphis, Tennessee by tomorrow afternoon. That'll do. I went back to bed for a while and then headed to work, hoping to get out and reach some warmer air before the shitty weather rolled across the Great Lakes region. This worked pretty well. The temperature climbed steadily as I made my way down through Ohio and into Kentucky, ending up at 55º, and I never caught more than a few raindrops on my windshield.

I got a call from the local dispatcher in West Memphis after I had been on the road for an hour and a half or so. She said that she wanted to check and make sure that I wasn't trying to get home, since I wasn't highlighted on her computer screen, before she assigned me to another load. I told her to bring it on. Then, a half hour later, she brought it on. Shit. The damned People's Republic got me after all. I'll be taking a load from the West Memphis terminal to Southern California for a delivery next week. I saw a nice 20-car pileup in Flagstaff on the Weather Channel while I was at the terminal this morning. Maybe I'll have better luck during my trip. Maybe.

I took my customary route across the Kentucky parkways this evening and settled in at the big truck stop in Kuttawa. I had been vacillating on whether or not to stay on I-65 down toward Nashville this time until a very scientific process helped me to make a decision. Another CTL truck pulled onto the freeway somewhere below Louisville and it was gradually gaining on me. We reached the point where, if I stayed on I-65, it would pass me within another five miles or so. If I took the parkway it would never pass me and I would thus be the winner of the imaginary race. So I took the parkway. Yeah, like I said, very scientific.

I have a little under 200 miles to go from here to Memphis before tomorrow afternoon's delivery. Then we'll have to see how the next run plays out. My plan summary says that it's leaving West Memphis on Saturday morning and delivering on Tuesday morning. I'm hoping that someone will be dropping off the trailer in West Memphis on his way home for Christmas. In that case I can get it tomorrow and enjoy a nice leisurely pace over the weekend. In any event, I'll have 2,500+ miles, in addition to my holiday pay, in the books before the pay period ends. Not so bad for a week during which I was home until Wednesday. The Left Coast issue notwithstanding, my long mile holiday strategy seems to have worked this time around.