Aberfoyle, ON

Just a few more quick things, while I'm thinking about them.

1. I saw a Canadian trucking newspaper lying around in here. Front page news? A proposal to limit all trucks that operate in the province to be mechanically governed to 105 km/h (65 mph). This has me rather confused, as the highest maximum speed anywhere in Ontario is 100 km/h (62 mph). Wouldn't it make a bit more sense to require them to stay at the speed limit?
2. Perhaps unrelated to trucking, but it still is on my mind: is it normal for temperatures to get this cold in May? Last night's low was -5°C; tonight should be roughly the same. At least, unlike West Virginia, it isn't snowing here.
3. I just had to fax yet another copy of my license to the office because apparently they couldn't read the last copy of it that I sent. The guy at the fuel desk suggested that, if they can't read this copy (enlarged to 200%) that I simply mail it in or ask to be routed to the appropriate OC and hand it to the appropriate people in person. I might instead ask if I can e-mail a copy of it to someone and save all that trouble. Of course, I'd be even happier if I didn't have to keep sending this thing in; I find it quite strange they'd only start pestering me about this now, several months after I've started driving.

Possible updates to this post later, if I think of anything else I want to blog about before bed.

Aberfoyle, ON

A short day today, but still a fair bit of driving to do. One comment I should make is that Canadian drivers are just as bad as people in the US. Given a sign that says "right lane ends" in 300 m or 1000 ft (depending on country), an obnoxiously large number of drivers will wait at least 300 m or 1000 ft before making any attempt to merge left. Similarly, most drivers will do 10 mph or 15 km/h over the speed limit. The only difference is that the major highways (the 400-series in Ontario, at least) don't have billboards all over the place due to provincial laws prohibiting such distractions.

In any case, the driving itself went decently, outside of those annoyances in traffic. I arrived at my delivery at exactly 4 o'clock, dropped the load, then went somewhere else to pick up the empty. The "somewhere else" was a place that seemed quite annoyed that I even came in to the office, but the empty I needed was there, available, and I was out of there in 20 minutes. Another hour of driving brought me back to the OC. I have an 8AM appointment at somewhere about 25 miles away, so I'm still driving during the day, even after I stayed up late as I could last night to try and adjust to being nocturnal again.

As for the repairs I need on my truck, they're just not going to happen. Yesterday, they found that one of the lights was grounding out, which caused the whole circuit to go haywire. The shop here replaced the light, the fuse, and everything seemed to be working fine. But on my way back here, all my signals went out again, leaving both the shop and me very confused. There's nothing obviously wrong with the system, which suggests there's some sort of funky wiring problem or that the fuse simply wiggled its way loose. If it's a wiring issue, it could take days to fix unless the problem manifests itself yet again.

However, I did find out one thing that makes me say repairs just aren't going to happen: the mechanic told me that my truck is scheduled for disposal on May 3. Yes, three days from now. That would explain why I haven't gotten any messages about upcoming PMs, even though it's been about six weeks since I last had one done and they're usually scheduled for every two months (roughly 20,000 miles). Now, granted, my truck is five years old and has roughly 635,000 miles, so I figured they would upgrade it sooner or later, but it would have been nice to get some kind of warning about it. I have no idea how they're going to handle it, frankly, but I presume that they'll simply give me a new(er) truck at the first OC I come to that has one available. I'll write more about that when I find things out, though.

In the meantime, however, I'm going inside to get dinner.

Aberfoyle, ON

4:55AM: Before I left the travel center here, I needed to get a copy of my customs forms for border crossing. Guess where I had to get it done.

The diesel desk? Nah, too easy.
The gas station nearby? Still wrong.
Inside at the souvenir store? Nice try.
At the Burger King? Yes! We have a winner!

If this kind of comedic absurdity sets the tone for the day, it's going to be a long and yet strangely amusing day.


4:10PM: Holy cow, I made it. Crossing the border was so easy that it's almost scary, in hindsight; they stamped my paperwork and didn't even look at my passport beyond the moment I waved it at the guy in the customs booth. So I'm actually at the OC near Toronto, waiting to get into the shop to have my lighting systems looked at. I keep going through those 20 amp fuses for the signals; when I put a new one in today, it was hot to the touch before I'd even turned any of the lights on. If it's something they can fix right away, then great; if it's something that I have to put the truck in the shop over, I'll have to relay this load and be up here in Canada for a few days longer than I thought I might. Ultimately, I don't really mind either way right now; I'm just excited to be up here.

Beckley, WV

I knew I didn't want to get up this morning, but I didn't know the reason until I finally walked outside. Snow. At the end of April, I'm still finding snow flurries. It wasn't sticking to the ground, but it's still enough to make driving conditions interesting.

I was expecting something weird to happen, given that I'm going in to Canada, but I thought I'd be north of the border before encountering something like this.

Beckley, WV

I managed to use up my entire fourteen hours today, down to the minute; I shut down just as the clock rolled over to 4:15PM after starting at 2:15AM this morning. I got in to and out of my delivery faster than expected, which left me several hours to kill at the Charlotte OC while I waited for my appointment at the next place. During that time, I ate, called in to find out what I needed to do at the border, and got all the supplies I needed for the truck. All day today, it seemed things went well. I'd have liked to get my load faster than I did, but I only lost about a half hour down there and still made it about 75 miles further than I planned on.

For tomorrow, I have about 540 miles to go to get to the Toronto OC, where I plan on stopping for the evening. If everything goes well, I should be there with a bit of time to spare on my 11 and 14, but I'm still not entirely sure what to expect at the border. If that goes quickly, then I'll be able to just fly on through and get to the OC in the early afternoon hours. If I really get lucky, I'll have to spend 24 hours up there killing time, which might entitle me to layover pay and allow me to just spend a day enjoying myself north of the border. Either way, though, I'll have plenty of time to spare as long as I make the OC tomorrow.

One quick note about a possible concern, though: the 20 amp fuse for my turn signal lights looks like it's about ready to burn up. Quite literally burn, too; there are scorch marks on the thing and I burnt myself when I touched it. I definitely have to put my truck in the shop when I get to Toronto, if only to have that looked at. So I might well be in a hotel room tomorrow, whether or not I get a layover.

Charlotte, NC

Today was a day where I wonder where all the miles went! It started slowly enough, but as the day went on, the truck just felt like it moving faster. I made the 460 mile trip from Carlisle to Charlotte in just over 7 1/2 hours, half an hour faster than I'd hoped. I'll now have plenty of time to shower, eat, do laundry, and take care of any other errands before I go to bed. I'm still not looking forward to waking up at 2AM to deliver this load, but at least that means I'll get to shut down early tomorrow.

Carlisle, PA

Aside from that minor hiccup with trying to pick up a trailer that wasn't there, today went quite well. When I picked up the relay, the previous driver had left a scale ticket that showed the weight was well under the legal limit (more than 3,000 pounds to spare on both the drives and trailer) so I didn't even need to stop to double-check it. While I've gotten here a bit later than I would have liked, I should have enough time to comfortably make it to the Charlotte OC tomorrow. For now, though, I need to eat and sleep; I want to leave as soon as my ten hour break is up.

Berwick, PA

Though I was given the number of an empty trailer at this drop yard, there aren't any empty Schneider trailers here. Oops. So now I have to go an extra 15 miles to another facility to get a different empty. Hopefully this one will be there, though I have a hunch that they'll just have me bobtail to the place I'm picking the relay up at if I can't get an empty on the second try.

Milesburg, PA

Another day, another dollar. Or something like that. I was pleasantly surprised to get in 600 miles today in 10 hours without stopping for anything other than fuel in Akron, OH. I'm only 87 miles from where I'm delivering so I can afford to get started a little later than I did this morning. An odd quirk comes with this load, though: I'm picking up a relay, but the work assignment just says "53' preloaded trailer" instead of actually giving me the trailer number. Also, the assignment says that I'll be getting there at noon when I know I can get there somewhat earlier, so it's quite possible that the trailer I'm getting isn't even being dropped until about that time. So I have even more time to kill since I'd rather not get there and have to kill time; this place is so far out of the way that I probably won't even have a cell phone signal. I'll probably just shut down at the Carlisle OC tomorrow, then continue down to the Charlotte OC the day after that, with the delivery elsewhere in town at 4AM Monday morning. It's nice to have a plan this far in advance for a change!

Glendale, KY

I really hope that I don't have to go back to the place I dropped my last load at. There's not enough room for trucks to turn around anywhere inside the facility, so I had to drive up the driveway as if I were exiting, then back up half-blindly down the way I came in. Once I got turned around, it was fine, but trying to maneuver around the construction equipment and the hole in the parking lot was not fun at all. I swear, this job is going to make me go bald quickly just because of all the times I end up pulling my hair in frustration.

Once I left that place, though, things went rather smoothly. Even though I had a 4PM appointment to pick up my current load, I got there around 1:30, got in a dock door by 2, and was out of there by 3. Whee! I decided to stop a bit earlier tonight, though, mostly because I found a Petro truck stop and really, really wanted to get steak for dinner. In any case, I'll be able to leave here as early as 4AM and I plan on getting a move on as quickly as possible; the earlier I leave in the morning, the further I can get before truck stops start getting crowded. If all goes exceptionally well, I'll be just under 100 miles away from the delivery, at a Pilot truck stop where I can get a shower and a nice meal, and with enough time to get another full night's sleep. Speaking of a full night's sleep, it's about time to get to bed.

New Albany, IN

Well, this is rather obnoxious. I got to the shipper at about 7:15 eastern (a bit later than I intended) and found that there were four other trucks in front of me waiting to be unloaded. While this wouldn't be so bad, normally, they have only one dock that they use to unload trucks and we're all waiting on that one dock. Worse, they have only one person actually working on the trailers, which means each trailer takes at least an hour to unload. So this means that, at best, I'll be here until noon unless they really pick up the pace. While I'll be getting a nice bit of detention pay for this, I was pulled off another work assignment that had to be picked up by 11:30 since there's virtually no chance I'll be out of here in time for that.

So, in short, I have a wait of unknown duration here and no work assignment yet. Hopefully at least one of these will be remedied soon.

Shepardsville, KY

Since this load had a lot of extra time on it, I took a couple days off in Huntsville, AL to make up for the fact I'm not going home at all this month. In the process, I apparently managed to annoy both the trip planner and the operations leaders, both of whom wanted to know why I took so much extra time. I called in to explain the situation and they seemed to understand, though I'll have to just deal with the fact I'm going to have to work my butt off for the next few weeks, right up until I go home for Memorial Day weekend.

In any case, I'm only about 30 miles away from where I need to deliver and, while they're open from 7AM to 4PM, I want to get there as early as possible so I have a full day to drive once I'm done. I'm hoping to get in a decent day's drive, since I do have to make up for those two days I was off the road.

Charlotte, NC

Today I had to call cargo claims after finding that some freight had fallen over inside the trailer. Specifically, I had to open it to make one more pick up, but the stuff that had previously been loaded in there had fallen over, leaving the last shipper too little room to put their stuff inside. However, I could tell when I picked the load up that it hadn't been loaded properly and took a few pictures, which I forwarded on to the claims department. So now, if there's any claim for damaged goods, it's not our fault; it'll go back to the shipper that failed to load the trailer properly.

Aside from that cargo incident, everything else went fairly well today. Morning traffic around DC was unpleasant but I still made my pick up on time. I probably could have driven another hundred miles or so today, if I really wanted, but the trailer I have is due for maintenance and needed a couple repairs so I brought it in here. Now I just have to decide whether I want to leave from here early in the morning tomorrow or if I want to hold out and put myself back on driving nights. Not an easy call, really; both have plenty of perks...

Breezewood, PA

After leaving that first shipper, the rest of the day went rather smoothly. I found the second place without a problem, arrived about 45 minutes early, and got assigned a dock just about exactly at my appointment time. As such, I was in and out of there in less than two hours; the company told me to plan on three. The only problem I ran in to, really, is that I checked the traffic report and saw that Washington DC was a mess with rush hour. So instead of pushing through there, as I'd originally planned on, I decided to shut down at the first truck stop I found after the PA turnpike. This kept me out of traffic, but does have a distinctive downside: I'll have to be out of here before 5AM, since I have a little more than 300 miles left to drive and there's a risk I'll hit DC's morning rush hour (as opposed to the evening rush). On the bright side, I'm going to bed as soon as I post this, so I'll finally be able to get eight hours of sleep in a night for a change. Hopefully that'll be enough for me to feel comfortable working most of my 14 hours tomorrow.

Newell, WV

Wow, it's only 9AM and today's already off to a miserable start. Though this place was only 50 miles away, it took me almost an hour and a half to get here, mostly because Pennsylvania seems to think that 45 is the highest reasonable speed limit on any road other than the Interstates. Then I had to make a series of ridiculously tight turns to get into the place I'm picking up my load at, then was told where I had to back in to the dock. Their dock is at the end of a street; backing into it requires backing up on a street. Now, their business is the only thing on that block, but to line up for it, you still have to back up past another street, with no way of telling where any cross-traffic might be. They have four dock doors back there, but only one is straight back from the road. one is off to the side, behind some parked cars that would be impossible to see while backing in. The other two are down an alley that is also on the blind side, requiring a 90-degree turn from a one-lane road into these two docks; it would be nearly impossible to get in there even with help. And, of course, nobody at this facility is willing to help at all; the woman down here (saying 'lady' implies she has manners) got angry when I pointed out that most places are willing to help drivers out when there's a dangerous situation like that.

I'm going to call operations and explain the whole mess to them and see what they want me to do. It looks like this place will let me wait, if I absolutely have to (and I do), but I know they're going to call and complain later no matter what I end up doing at this point. I'm not going to do something just because a customer demands it if I can't do it safely; I've already had enough incidents out here.

Bentleyville, PA

Another day, another crazy load assignment. This time, though, I have plenty of time to get around. And I'm certainly going to get around: I have a total of nearly 1,000 miles to drive just to get everywhere I need to be! There are three separate places I'm picking up from - two tomorrow, one on Friday - then I deliver down in Georgia either Friday evening or Saturday. I still have to figure out the directions, since most of what Google is coming up with aren't truck routes, leaving me to manually confirm everything using my atlas. At least I can catch up on sleep; the first appointment is at 9AM, though I can get there an hour early, allowing me to catch up on sleep.

There is one thing going on of note, though: the company is going to lower our trucks' speed from 63 to 60, effective July 1. They're estimating that it could save them up to $15 million a year. Also, they're alleging that customers are so focused on being green that they'd rather work with an ecologically-friendly carrier. Personally, I don't like it at all, and not just because I like to drive a little bit faster. For one thing, that 3 mph is often the difference between holding 10th gear and having to drop to 9th while going up a hill; I already notice this in Ohio and Illinois, where the speed limit is lower. Every time I have to rev the engine to downshift, I'm wasting fuel; this would make those shifts more frequent. Also, there are better ways of reducing fuel costs; biodiesel could be very quickly implemented, at least at the operating centers, and would save more money than they claim they'll save by slowing the trucks down. So while I understand the need to save money (and hopefully get better equipment or pay us more), I don't feel this is a very good way of going about it. I plan on stating all this in one of the conference calls they're holding this week; hopefully someone up in operations will think about it.

One more item of interest: a search for news about Schneider turned up this story about a driver who ended up in jail for having pot. The article says "a search of [his] truck," which is slightly ambiguous; it could have been in the cab or in the trailer, since the authorities can search either (or both) at will. This version of the story makes it sound more like he picked it up as a relay and didn't know what was going on. At least, that's what the driver is claiming. Either way, this is not terribly good publicity.

Indianapolis, IN

Despite driving a relatively short 250 miles today, it's been rather eventful. The drive to the delivery was fairly easy, at least until I had to turn into the place; it was a sharp left turn that I just barely made. If I followed the original set of directions I was given, I would have been left with a practically impossible right turn. On the way out, though, I had exactly that: a right turn that was impossible. As I swung out to try and make it, I came within a hair's breadth of hitting a parked car. Realizing that it wasn't going to happen, I had to back up about a block and take another way out. Even then, I just barely made it onto the street; I came within perhaps three inches of hitting a fire hydrant despite swinging so widely that cars in the left turn lane had to back up.

Also, regarding that run I dropped, I had to call and explain why it was late. I've written about all the details here, but I then had to explain it to operations: that I couldn't have picked it up or delivered it on time to begin with, then a repair pushed it back another half a day. So the service failure wasn't my fault; the weekend support shift was entirely to blame for that.

Aside from that bit of drama, the day went fairly well. I'm just waiting in line at the express bay right now since the fan for the climate control went out. This means no heat, no a/c, and no defrost. Given how erratic the weather has been, this is not a good thing, so I want it taken care of as quickly as possible. It's going to be a bit tight on this delivery, but I should make it there with a couple of hours to spare if I don't oversleep or otherwise screw up.

Gary, IN

Whew! I'm rather pleasantly surprised that I made it all the way here tonight. For a while it was looking awfully close, but I seem to have just squeaked in here as my 11 hours ran out. From here, my delivery is about 26 miles away and I'll be contending with Chicago's morning rush hour to get there, hopefully as close to 8AM as possible. It's a first-come-first-served place, so the sooner I get there, the faster I'll get out. I still haven't gotten a new work assignment yet and probably won't until I actually arrive at this place; I'm hoping that it proves to be less chaotic than what I've had the last few days.

Waterloo, NY

After that repair issue, dropping my trailer, and picking up this new load, I only had 45 minutes left on my 14 hours. Instead of being able to drive 100 miles or more and stop somewhere near Buffalo, I barely made it here before my time was up for the night. This leaves me more than 650 miles away from where I'm delivering. I'll probably have to stop at the Gary, IN operating center tomorrow night, which is still 627 miles away; it'll require a bit of good fortune to make it that far, especially considering that much of my drive will be through Ohio, complete with its obnoxious 55 mph truck speed limit.


One perk, though: tonight's low here is forecast to be 29 degrees and I have a load that requires freeze protection. In other words, I have to leave the truck running so it causes enough vibration to keep the cargo from freezing. Meaning, in turn, I don't freeze inside the cab since I'll just leave the heater running through the night. I just hope they give me credit back for this idle time; this will be the first time in Q2 that I've deliberately left the truck running for any significant period of time.

Baldwinsville, NY

Today has been a great day... up until I got to this place. I decided to sleep in a little and get moving around 7:30AM, then drove to the place I needed to drop the load at, making only one quick break along the way. I was originally told to drop my trailer in a space that had a trailer in it; when I pointed this out, they just told me to drop it anywhere in the row. Gotta love it when other drivers just throw trailers wherever they want. Things went fine on my way out of there, too.

The problem occurred when I arrived at the shipper for this load (23 hours late) and the tandems wouldn't slide. Both pins on the driver's side were stuck. Using the hammer, I freed up the front one, but the rear pin was extremely difficult to even hammer in. I couldn't find any way of holding it in place with my crowbar and duct tape, as I have in the past, since I couldn't even get it to move using the bar. So I was forced to call the maintenance people. I was just about convinced I'd be stuck here all night, since they rarely can find places to do service in a timely manner on the weekend, but apparently I lucked out and a place will be here within the hour. If so, there's a chance I could make it as far as Buffalo, NY tonight. If not, I may have to park here overnight. At least they allow overnight parking, if it comes to that; most places don't.

Carlisle, PA

Another day, another bit of zaniness. Though the driving today went quite well, I got a work assignment while I was hooking up to my trailer... one that was for an appointment tonight at 8PM. I don't see how they expected me to make that, since the load I'm already on has to be delivered tomorrow. Apparently, though, I'm the only driver who can even get close, so I guess they're just going to take whatever flak the shipper gives them. I just hope that I can make a little time up along the way, since the delivery appointment is going to be extremely difficult to keep; it's 660 miles away from where I'm picking up and I have to be there by 1PM on Monday. I'll have to figure out just how close I can get and give operations an update; I seriously doubt I'll be able to make that.

Charlotte, NC

Woo. I thought today was going to be a nice, short day, given that I had a work assignment instructing me to pick up a relay from here. Instead, though, the drop I had turned into a small adventure. Basically, I made a wrong turn off the Interstate and couldn't find anywhere to turn around until I came to a car wash about 10 miles down. Yes, a car wash. This one, if anyone's wondering. That grassy square is roughly as long as my trailer, meaning it took a lot of creativity to get in and out of there without even clipping a curb. After that, I found the place and took care of business, then came back to the OC here. I'll leave here sometime in the morning and head to Carlisle, then on to where I'm delivering. Hopefully I'll get a decent load after that, since the area I'm delivering to has very little in the way of parking available.

Charlotte, NC

After the way Wednesday went, I was looking forward to a better day yesterday. I got it, too. Aside from a bit of morning fog and a tendency to get stuck behind every person who felt the Interstate speed limit should be 55, it was a smooth drive all the way down here. Today is going to be a very short day; I just need to drive 20 miles or so to the other side of Charlotte, drop this load and pick up an empty, then drive back to the Charlotte OC to drop the empty. There's a relay here that I'm picking up; however, the load is supposed to be delivered on Sunday at a place just over 800 miles away, which is roughly a one-and-a-half day drive. As such, I'll leave here Saturday, drive as close to 11 hours as I can stand. Alternatively, I might just shut down in Carlisle, PA at the operating center, which is just over half way there and would leave a 350 mile trek to finish the run. This will also be the first time I'm driving right by New York City, which makes me glad that I'm doing all this on a weekend; I shudder to think what a weekday morning rush hour would be like over there.

York, PA

Today has been one of those days where nearly every little thing that could go wrong has. About the only things to my credit are that I didn't cause an accident or receive a citation. Frankly, given the number of things that went wrong, I'm rather surprised I didn't.

The day started off reasonably well. I didn't hit much in the way of traffic on the way to where I dropped the load I had in the morning. The problem? They sent me across the street to get an empty, but they didn't have any; there was only one of our trailers and it was still fully loaded. So I went back across to ask if they had any empties on that side and the receiving clerk just went off on me. She started yelling about this and that, essentially telling me that she wasn't going to do the slightest thing to help me; she even refused to search in the computer to see if there were any empties on the yard.

So I called up support shift (one minute before they closed) and she told me to send in a message saying that the customer wouldn't release the trailer. I sent this in. And waited. And waited. An hour later, I tried calling operations, but the routing system was acting up and I couldn't actually get routed to anyone useful. So I sent in another message asking what was going on, then got a message back saying that there were at least three empties there; they gave me the numbers for two of them. So I walked around to look for them, found one of the three and found it to be empty, then immediately hooked up to it and took off. As such, mostly due to the bitch at the receiving counter, I lost two hours there. While I told her "I'm sorry you're having a bad day" as I walked out of the office (and she was still yelling as I closed the door behind me) I had plenty of other choice things I wanted to say.

As such, I was behind schedule the rest of the day. The first place I was going to was just across the NJ/PA state line, not far from downtown Philadelphia. However, the place was on an extremely narrow street requiring a hard right turn. I pulled into the center lane of three to turn right, giving me one extra lane to get over onto this side road... but even that wasn't far enough out. And as such, if I continued forward, I'd have either hit an Acura parked (illegally) on the corner or have taken out a traffic light. A couple other people noticed what was going on, including the security officer from a nearby facility, and collectively helped me back up onto the street I'd tried turning from so I could take up the entire road (including the oncoming side) just to turn into this darn place. Thankfully, I didn't have to back in anywhere; I just parked on the street and they loaded the truck there.

While the loading only took half an hour, I still was behind schedule from dealing with the receiving bitch earlier in the morning. So I was about thirty minutes late for pick up #2. The guy at the gate actually said that it wasn't bad at all that was late by half an hour. Sure enough, they immediately put me into a dock and started loading. The problem here? It took nearly three hours; I was told to plan for two. Also, I made a wrong turn trying to exit the place and nearly drove out the entrance. Minor things, certainly, but it made an already irritating day feel that much worse.

The big problem was pick up #3, where I am right now. The directions I received (written by other drivers) said to take exit 19B. The problem? I needed exit 19A, not B. So instead of going right to this place, as I should have, I ended up going through downtown York, PA. Getting turned around was nearly impossible, as there were no parking lots big enough for me to use and only two truck routes; thankfully, they looped around and let me get back toward the Interstate. But the detour was extremely frustrating; getting lost is one of those things that always scares the heck out of me. This wasn't an entirely unfounded fear, either; there was one intersection where there were no truck signs straight ahead and to the right and a sign that said "trucks: no left turn." Another trucker made the left turn anyway and I followed, for lack of any other route. I got back on the Interstate, turned around at the next exit, then followed the directions for northbound I-83, where exit 19 isn't split into A and B.

Thankfully, this place didn't seem to mind that I missed the appointment either, especially after I explained what happened. I did have to wait for another driver to leave before I could get into a door (which took about an hour), then they immediately loaded me and gave me a place to park. So now I just have to wait out a 10 hour break, do a pre-trip, then hit the road again. The total weight for these three pick ups is about 31,000 pounds, so I'll stop by a CAT scale on my way out of the area. Though this does mean I have an extra 40 miles to drive tomorrow, I should still be able to make Charlotte, NC; I'll just be there a few hours later than I originally had intended. Since I don't have any places at all that I have to stop tomorrow (except the scale), I should just be able to fly straight down the Interstate. I really hope that's the case.

Perryville, MD

Today was one of those days that probably could have gone much worse, but could also have gone better had I planned it all out more carefully. It turns out that I can't deliver the load I have any time on Wednesday; I have to have it there by 7AM. Oops. No big deal, though; that just meant I couldn't sleep in as I originally planned. So I left Charlotte around 6AM, with a plan to stop south of Washington, DC. Instead, though, I busted my tail and did an extra 100 miles, leaving me just 75 miles away from where I'm delivering; hopefully within an hour and a half drive. Since I have to have it there by 7AM, that means I have to leave here by 5:30AM.

I got my next work assignment while sitting in Washington, DC traffic. I had just long enough to glance at it, to find that I had three different places to pick up from. Joy. They're all appointments, too. It turns out that it's a very good thing I drove the extra 100 miles today; had I stopped where I originally planned, I wouldn't have had enough hours to do all the driving they're requiring of me. As it is, I'll have a mere 15 minutes to spare at the end of the day if everything goes according to plan and I park at the Carlisle, PA operating center. If things don't, I can park at the third place I'm picking up from; things would have to go disastrously bad for me to not make it that far. Thursday will be much less hectic; I'll just drive from wherever I stop tomorrow night to the Charlotte OC, then make the delivery from there on Friday morning. I just hope that the next load is less zany than this!

Charlotte, NC - Spring Training Complete

Despite the fact I haven't done any load-related work today, it's still been a bit of an adventure. When I woke up this morning, I saw a couple of messages from operations telling me that my load had been switched to a relay. Apparently I had my dates all mixed up; the load I has was supposed to be dropped last night by midnight, not tonight. Rather a big oops; that's a pretty blatant service failure. So rather than just sit around and worry, I went inside and called operations to explain what happened: I somehow got the dates crossed up. They didn't seem to be that upset about it, since this is only the second service failure I've had in the seven months I've been working, but I really need to make sure I know what day it is in the future.

Once I got off the phone, I went out to put the paperwork on the trailer, since I dropped it as soon as I got here, taking another driver's suggestion for parking. Turns out that they'd already sent it off with another driver, as it wasn't there by the time I walked across. I hope he (or she) got the bills of lading and such from operations directly. I just have no idea what I'm supposed to do with the original paperwork now; normally it gets signed and I send it in, but I didn't make the delivery, it doesn't have all the information from the consignee. I'll have to call operations tomorrow to find that out, since I've never encountered this situation before. At least now I know why I sometimes I have loads that are delivered 30 miles from an operating center and lack all the paperwork.

After sorting all that mess out, I had lunch, then proceeded to clean out the tractor. It's amazing how much trash can pile up in places that you never think about. I also apparently miss the trash can behind my seat more often than I thought, given the number of old scale tickets and receipts I found next to the bin. I also swept up, something that I haven't done since I got the truck. It was rather embarrassing having a dust pan completely full of.. well, dust, mostly. The boots they issue tend to attract a lot of things. I took a shower once the truck was clean, ensuring now that everything I have is all clean; I did laundry, cleaned up the cab, and had a nice shower.

I finished the shower just in time to head into the evening spring training session. I've been slightly worried about this, since it's the first real training session I've been involved with and I wasn't sure what to expect. The class started with a classroom portion of perhaps an hour and a half, with about a third of that time dedicated to a video explaining how to do all the trivially basic things in as many steps as possible. For example, it took the presenter two minutes just to explain the process of getting in to and out of the truck. While all that was going on, someone looked over our permit and log books to ensure everything was as it should be; mine checked out just fine. After that, we went outside and were asked to demonstrate some of the things we saw on the video, such as opening and closing the hood, getting into and out of the truck and trailer, and climbing on and off the truck's catwalk. Again, all the basic stuff that I don't even consciously think about any more; it's just an automatic behavior.

Then came the part that I'd been most concerned about: the road test. By this time, though, the instructors all just wanted to go home. Rather than it being a long, involved drive, we went around the block. The trainer spent more time reading the newspaper than watching me drive and said I was doing everything well. I was worried he might say something about my tendency to hug the right side of the road or that I don't shift smoothly, but no, he just checked off "acceptable" all the way down the sheet.

So now that I have that out of the way, I got a $7 meal ticket (free dinner!) and a $50 gift card to the company store. Of course, this being my day, even that didn't go smoothly; my "$50 gift card" apparently was somehow issued to someone else on March 25 and has $1.71 left on it. I'll have to contact someone tomorrow about that so it can get corrected; I actually found $50 worth of stuff that I want to buy in the store. Specifically, I want some window screens before the summer sets in, as well as a couple of new shirts. Hopefully they'll be able to correct it or give me a new card or otherwise get it sorted out. I just hope they don't want me to fix this in person since I'd like to leave earlier than that.

Speaking of leaving, I did get a work assignment early this afternoon. I'll be going up toward Greensboro, NC, then delivering that in New Jersey on Wednesday. Since I am not feeling particularly well (exhausted, for some reason) I'm not up to driving overnight, so I'll instead leave sometime in the morning, pick the load up, and drive perhaps a total of 400 miles. That'll leave me 175 miles or fewer for Wednesday, which in turn means I should have a reasonable amount of time left to work after I drop my load off. Hopefully everything will go according to plan on that front.

Charlotte, NC

Whee! Finally got a decent set of miles today. I started a little later than I wanted and arrived at the shipper at just after 8AM and spent nearly three hours there (as opposed to the two I was told it would take), scaled the load at the nearest truck stop, then drove non-stop to get down here to Charlotte with just 15 minutes left on my 14-hour day. From here, it's just 50 miles to where I'm delivering, but I might take a day off just because I can, do the obligatory spring training Monday evening just to get it out of the way, then deliver this thing Monday night. I just hope that I can continue getting things that work out as well as this load has.

Crafton, PA

So far, at least, today hasn't been anything terribly special. It's not been a bad day, by any means, but nothing notably good either. I woke up at midnight after getting to bed at 10 AM (no typo there; I slept fourteen hours), took care of a few personal errands, then hit the road around 5 o'clock. On the road, traffic was pretty decent, even as I approached Pittsburgh; I expected to have to deal with some rush hour madness somewhere along the way. As such, even though I took a longer-than-normal stop for breakfast, I got here about 45 minutes early. I'm currently just waiting for them to start unloading my truck; after that, who knows what?

Seville, OH

Hoo boy. The last two days have been something special in that ever-so-unpleasant kind of way. I can't even remember all the things that went wrong, but among other issues, I had to "save" a load that was going to take me three hours to deliver and was due to be dropped in 2 1/2 hours; I got stuck in Chicago traffic due to a fire near the Interstate which, in turn, cost me about an hour; and I picked up a trailer with an electrical short so bad that it blew 30 amp fuses in the tractor and scorched a 20 amp fuse next to those directly affected.

Because of that electrical short, I'm here in Seville to allow them to repair it. Since this load was supposed to be delivered about an hour ago, it's going to have to be rescheduled, since I'm on a ten-hour break. I don't know when they're going to get it set up again, but I have a hunch it'll be at 4AM tomorrow since I missed the appointment at 4AM today. Failing that, I have no idea. I just hope that I'm not stuck here for a prolonged period of time.