So it's summer in an election year. I guess the thing to do is promise a bunch of stuff that will never actually happen. I'm happy to do my part. I promise to establish a national database for truck stop whores, so that once you refuse the first one the other three won't bother knocking. I'm also better on economics than either of the current candidates, but since I'm not old enough to actually be President, we'll just stick with the whore database for now.
Other than the working girls, I didn't have any criminal issues arise last night. That was a nice relief, given the questionable nature of my surroundings. I got up and headed over to the brewery bright and early this morning. Traffic was reasonable, considering the 8am pick up time. Once I got my loaded trailer and scaled out, it was a fairly easy drive up to the consignee in South Carolina. They had some newfangled automatic wheel chock thing that threw me off at first. It was set up such that the trailer had to be absolutely perfectly square with the dock. Then, as I backed in, a roller type thing came up around the trailer tires to hold them in place. Pretty cool I guess.
Once I got empty there, I headed west along I-26 to the nearest rest area, maybe twenty miles from my drop point. After an hour or two, I got my next assignment. In breaking with recent tradition, I was actually headed west along I-26. Lately it seems that I drive one way to find parking, then get sent the other way for my next load. I headed up to Gaffney for another drop/hook and then parked for the night. I have another load heading for Jacksonville, slated to drop tomorrow afternoon.
Today was not nearly as frustrating as most days have been lately. That's a good thing since I'm trying to hang in there and grab a couple more paychecks before I take a few days off. There was some pretty heavy rain along I-95. Otherwise though, just a nice steady day of work. My deadhead to Gaffney was fairly long and tomorrow's loaded run is a little over 400 miles. Adding in whatever I get for the weekend, I have a decent shot at a 3,000 mile week. This would mitigate the 1,900 miles last week for the most part.
I guess it's bedtime now. I need to get to Jacksonville by 2pm, so tomorrow brings an early wake up call.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
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.
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.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
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.
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.
Monday, July 14, 2008
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!
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!
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