Monday, December 31, 2007

Houston, TX

After a couple of very long days, I'm over in the lone star state. Three days ago, I was in Miami, dealing with record-shattering 80°F degree heat. Then, in a single day, I drove from there to Marianna, FL (~560 miles). Yesterday, I then went all the way from there to Houston, pulling 630 miles in ten and a half hours. Thankfully, aside from an accident just down the highway from where I started, everything went well yesterday and has been going just fine for the last several days. Tomorrow, I have a roughly four-hour drive to where I'm delivering; as usual, I have no idea where I'll be going next, but I hope I keep getting good miles. At some point I'm just going to have to buckle down and run as hard as I can one week; I'd love to get a $1000 paycheck at some point.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Pensacola, FL

Amazingly, I made it home a full hour ahead of schedule. Even my most optimistic estimates put me home at 7AM, but I pulled into the truck stop here about ten minutes ago. As an added bonus, I even found a space I could pull straight into, saving me the trouble of trying to back into a space while tired. I'm going to catch a nap now; I have a lot of things I want to do today. :)

Friday, December 21, 2007

Atlanta, GA

Well, I found out just how they're going to route me home and I'm quite amazed. I'm under a load that is a live unload... in Pensacola on Christmas Eve. So, basically, I'm going to head home, then just have to wake up to drive the truck over to get it unloaded, drop the trailer off at another place in town, then still get another 48 hours off. This means that I'll be home for almost four days. If all goes well, I might be in Pensacola as early as 7AM, but it's more likely I'll get to town closer to 8 or even 9. I'll make another update when I get there; I'm quite happy at the moment though. :)

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Green Bay, WI

Yesterday was a rather frustrating day, but at least it ended well. I got to the shipper, got into the dock in relatively few attempts (probably within 15 minutes, maybe even 10), then waited. And waited. What should have taken two hours took nearly four. Then, due to the weight of the load (39,900), I had to find a scale. Well, there were none along my route until I crossed the state line, so I had to backtrack fifteen miles... only to find out that the place refused to accept anything but cash. I called support shift to find out what I should do - or at least to get authorization to go another 40 miles out of route - then had to go to another scale... only to find out the company credit card wouldn't work there, forcing me to pay for it myself, though at least that will be reimbursed. To add insult to injury, the only DOT scale I passed on the whole trip was closed, thus meaning I'd never have been in trouble even if I was overweight. So, essentially, I drove 75 miles and wasted nearly four hours for absolutely no reason.

At least, once I got to the delivery point, everything went well. I found it in one try, then had to drop the trailer at the very end of a row, such that I had the entire length of the parking lot to back into there. Straight line backing is something I have down just about pat; I can drive in reverse without too much trouble, it's just the fancy cornering required to get into a dock that I have a hard time with.

After dropping the trailer, I went to the Green Bay OC and put my truck in for maintenance. I spent nearly an hour just chatting with the mechanic, since neither of us really had anything better to do. I told him the few things that were wrong with the truck, such as the windshield wipers and a blown power outlet; apparently both things are fairly simple to fix. The mechanic even said he'd look into getting my truck outfitted with a heater so I don't freeze during the winter, which would resolve the only major complaint I have about the job. Though I could have gotten the work it needed done within an hour, I found out that the hotel would let me have an early check in for Saturday, so I went to the hotel anyway. So I'll be checking out tomorrow, despite checking in at 5:30AM. So once my 34-hour restart is done around 2PM tomorrow, I'll be hitting the road and heading south, hopefully to find that it's somewhat warmer.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Monee, IL

Well, with all the news about bad weather in the northeast, I was prepared for the worst. I figured that I'd be late making this delivery and piss off both dispatch and the customer in the process. I already had warned management that I might be late due to weather, which they understood, but I still wanted to try. For all my worrying and planning, though, there was one possibility that I failed to account for: that the weather would cooperate. Aside from about 20 or 30 miles of fairly heavy snow in Pennsylvania and one rather close call with the truck, I had nothing to deal with but rain and even that stopped shortly after I made it into Ohio. The only problem I had left was Chicago traffic, since I cross into the state right around 6PM, but even that proved to be a non-issue. Thus, I went from worrying about being half a day late to arriving half an hour early.

Just about everything else went well, too. I was able to stop for food pretty much as I wanted. Traffic was never a problem all day. I never drove through a construction zone that had a reduced speed limit. I even found a parking space on my first try at the truck stop; someone was just pulling out of a space when I arrived. Overall, a very good day indeed.

That's not to say there aren't a few things I still have to worry about. For one thing, I had to take toll roads to make up time and the roads I took are ones they don't normally reimburse drivers for. If they decide they're not going to pay me back, I'm out $49.50 for the Ohio and Indiana turnpikes. I also still had a hard time backing in at the customer, which led to some rather unnerving looks from other drivers.

I still don't know where I'm going next, but I really hope that it's somewhere warmer. It's currently 26 degrees here and only forecast to get to 32. Worse, there's a huge storm coming in over the weekend and I'd love to get out of the way before that hits. So if they could route me down to Charlotte (which is currently experiencing record highs), I'd be very, very happy. :)

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Sturbridge, MA

Well, today has definitely been one of those days. I'm currently stuck in the fuel island of the Pilot here because my truck just won't start. There's a service guy on the way already, but it still means I'm going to lose even more time on a day where I didn't have much time to lose. I hope I can make it to the place I originally planned on stopping, as there just aren't any other good stopping points along my route. Of course, this isn't the first delay I've had today; I lost almost an hour because some jerk decided to stop and take a nap in the driveway of a customer, then another half hour in traffic. I'll be stopping almost 100 miles short of where I wanted to get tonight and I'll need to have everything go perfectly tomorrow in order for me to get to the customer in time and without running out of hours.

In any case, my truck just got fixed, so now I just need to weigh my load and get driving.

Friday, December 7, 2007

Cherry Hill, NJ

Yes, New Jersey. There's really not much here, but I'm right in the middle of it, I suppose. I'm waiting at a customer to get loaded, so I really have nothing to do but kill time. The last few days have been fairly uneventful, really, though the weather has finally turned to snow. I haven't had to drive in active snow yet, but there is snow on the side of the road and I worry that ice is going to form on the highways. I will be coming back south with this load, though I'm not sure just how far I'll make it tonight. I hope to at least get to North Carolina.

Also, for anyone considering driving for Schneider, one driver made a very good point the other day. This is the time of year you want to start driving. Why? Well, you'll be learning how to drive in winter conditions, such that when spring rolls around and the weather improves, it'll just get easier. That's a lot better than I've done by going to the academy in the summer and learning under easy conditions, then having to adapt that to increasingly wintry conditions. Just some food for thought.

Sunday, December 2, 2007

La Vergne, TN

So after a relatively short day, I've dropped the trailer and called it a night. My next load is supposed to be a live load at 3:30 tomorrow, but the place I dropped at had no empty trailers, so I couldn't pick one up tonight. I'm not sure if dispatch will send me back there tomorrow to see if they've emptied one out or if I'll have to go trailer-hunting, but either way I need to be up and ready to go in the morning. Unfortunately, I'll be delivering this load to a place I've already been and had a heck of a time finding, so it's going to be a rather long and frustrating evening tomorrow as well. I may just take another relatively short day and just deliver it in the morning, such that I'll be driving during the daylight hours instead.