Roland, OK

I took a slightly shorter day today (8.25 hours), mostly since I got a slightly later start. I can't afford to do that again tomorrow, though; I need to be on the road at 4:30AM just to have any hope of making it toward where I want to be tomorrow night. I have about 65 miles to where I'm dropping this load, 50 miles from there to my next pickup, then just under 500 miles to the place I need to deliver the load at 8AM tomorrow. Still, it's going to be worth it; at this rate I'm very, very likely going to need to take a restart sometime next week.

Cedar Hill, TX

This weekend is off to a crappy start. Even though I received three separate confirmations that I was supposed to pick up a trailer here, I arrived to find there were NO empties, especially not the one I had been assigned. So now I - er...

Great. Got a message telling me to forget it. I still have to pick up an empty from the OC, 19 miles back up the road, but that's going to the next customer. However, they seem to have conveniently subtracted the miles to go down here from my assignment; I've asked them to fix that. If I had to drive this far and waste an hour and a half, I at least want my miles for it.

Dallas, TX

Today was remarkably frustrating, if nothing else. Things were going reasonably well until my previous post, but from there on things have just gotten steadily more irritating. I ended up having to go to Dallas to drop the load as a relay, as I figured... then got paid zero miles to drive across town to pick up an empty trailer. After that, it was 51 miles up the Interstate to drop the empty and pick up a load, then 51 miles right back to the operating center. By the time I finished fueling, my fourteen hour day was up, but this trailer is due for maintenance and they're working on it now; technically, I can't be on break until I've parked the truck for the night, so this is actually eating into my time for tomorrow (since I prefer not to be driving past about 7PM to ensure I have any chance of finding parking at a truck stop).

Once they finally finish with this, I'm still not done for the day. I have to go inside, take care of various paperwork relating to this relay, and then I can finally park the truck for the night. I'll be getting a quick dinner and shower then getting to sleep, since I want to at least have twelve hours to run tomorrow, much as I'd like to be working fourteen once again. I haven't gotten a new work assignment yet, but for some bizarre reason I have been told to pick up an empty from somewhere and drop it somewhere else. While that usually means I'll be picking up a preloaded trailer from the location I'm dropping the empty, the fact I haven't gotten a message explicitly saying this makes me wonder what kind of crap the weekend shift is up to. And if they're already up to this stuff at 5PM on Friday, I'm seriously doubting that my weekend is going to get any better.

Waxahachie, TX

I definitely should have double checked the time requirements for this load before I started driving this morning. I thought this was about 350 miles; it was just over 400. As such, I was nearly an hour late. Then I had to call to get a confirmation number; by te time I got off hold, it was just after 1PM, making me exactly one hour late. Policy for this place dictates that missing an appointment by an hour requires a reschedule and they're not open on weekends. Now I'm on hold while they figure out what they're doing with the load; hopefully I can just relay it in Dallas.

Joplin, MO

At least once I got a drop number, things went smoothly. It's going to be very tight on this delivery, though; I can't start driving before 4:45AM and it has to be delivered at noon, leaving me 350 miles to go in seven hours, not counting the fuel (and lunch) stop I need to make. Things today went well, all things considered, but now I have to worry about tomorrow. At least at the rate I'm going, I'll need a 34-hour restart somewhere; I've used up more than ten hours each of the two days I've worked so far.

Joplin, MO

You'd think that getting a pick up number for a load would be a quick, easy process. Such things are supposed to be automatically included on te work assignment. For some reason, though, I never got one for this run. I've been on the phone for 10 minutes (and counting) and placed on hold twice so far. How is this so confusing?

West Memphis, AR

I did a complete pre-trip on the truck yesterday since I had been off for a week and found one tire with a problem. Last night, when I brought a trailer in for its annual inspection, I couldn't find that tire problem so I just parked. When I did my inspection this morning, since I had a feeling I'd missed something, I found that three tires had issues: both steer tires had a small cut and one of my drive tires had a nail in it. Turns out, though, that the damage to the steer tires is too minor to worry about, so the drive tire is the only one that needs to be replaced. Amusingly, both the mechanic and I thought the nail could just be pulled out, since it didn't look like it had penetrated that deeply, but it was plugging a major air leak.

So now I'm in the shop, trying to figure out whether or not I should even hit the road after this. I'm leaning against it, in favor of departing sometime around dawn tomorrow, since I could use a day to catch up on sleep and such. If I can pull that off, I'll be able to work 14 hours and still shut down before the truck stops get full, which is always a bonus. I'm really hoping to eventually have to take a restart, since that means I've pulled a ton of miles, will get a great paycheck, and get the benefit of a mandatory day off. Not working today (nothing worth logging, anyway) won't help on that front, but I'll still be getting close to that seventy-hour limit if I have a few more good loads.

West Memphis, AR

My first day back to work was a doozy. I ended up logging more than ten hours and while I'm sure there's plenty that happened today that's worth writing about here, I'm far too tired to do anything more than make a post so everyone knows I'm still around and collapse from exhaustion for about nine hours.

Evergreen, AL

After almost a week off, I'm just getting ready to resume driving. I have a work assignment; I just need to plan it out before I hit the highway.

Evergreen, AL

What a long day! I ended up needing most of my 14 hours - and all of my 11 of driving time - to get here. But I'm here and just need to wait for the driver to pick up this relay. I called in a favor to get a ride home from the drop yard, so I won't even have to wait for my DOT break to be up; as such, I might actually be home before noon. It'll be nice to finally get out of this truck!

Ennis, TX

11:45 - Wow, this is going to be one heck of a long day, if it goes the way I think it might. It looks as if they're considering having me drive to a drop yard and relay the load face-to-face with another driver. This is a load they're kind of paranoid about and they don't want me leaving it unsecured in an open drop yard. However, the place they want me to go is a whopping 668 miles away; to get there within my eleven hours, I'd have to average 60.7 mph. Yes, my truck now only does 60 on cruise control, but I can use the accelerator to go 63. Of course, I can round a few things in my favor to add some time; making up half an hour means I only have to average 58.

Either way, it's going to be ridiculously close, probably questionably legal, but if I make it down there tonight I'm less than a two hour drive from home, which I will be more than happy to do in the morning, once I can legally move the truck again. I'm currently on hold, waiting to talk to the trip planners; hopefully they'll have some good news or a bright idea. At least I have a few pieces of information to give them. Specifically, the shipper said they are ahead of schedule and might be able to load me immediately after lunch, but they can only guarantee my 2:15PM appointment. Once they start, it should take about an hour. This means that I shouldn't be out of here any later than 3:15... eleven hours of driving with a fuel stop works out to roughly 2:30AM at the drop yard. This means I could leave there no earlier than 1PM... I'll be getting home a few hours later than I'd have liked, but at least it won't be complete chaos when I get there. And... it's ringing. More to come!

---

12:10 - It looks like there's only one driver available to pick up this relay and he'll be there around 9:30AM. That means I might not get a full eight hours of sleep before I have to hand over the paperwork, but it also means that there's already at least one possible option for getting this load handed off. I just need to get the load here, update operations with an expected arrival time, and hope that I can somehow make it there within my driving time limit. It's going to be yet another exceptionally long night, but given how much I want to get home, I'll make it work one way or another.

Ennis, TX

I actually pulled in here about five minutes after my fourteen hour day was up, but that's close enough for government work, right? Unfortunately, there's no chance of them loading me overnight; they had several trailers they were getting ready to pre-load, meaning they wouldn't get to me on this shift and my appointment is too late in the day for them to put me in a door now. So I sent a message to operations telling them this, in the hopes that someone will see it in the morning and can start making plans for me based on that information. In any case, I'm going to bed now; the sooner I sleep, the sooner I'll wake up and be ready to get started with all of this.

Bixby, OK

4:00 - I got my next work assignment while I was driving here to pick up a load. It would be great - it's nearly a thousand miles - but I have a 6:30AM flight to catch Thursday morning and there's no way I can deliver this load and catch the plane. I'm on hold now trying to see if I can either get another load or (preferably) relay this one at a drop yard near home, but it's just rolled over to 4 o'clock so I might not be able to get a hold of anyone on first shift; support shift probably won't be able to do a thing to help me if I get stuck talking to them.

4:30 - And they think they've worked something out, but it all hinges on the place I'm picking the next load up at getting me out of there several hours early. Right now, it's a 2:15PM appointment tomorrow, but if they load me when I get there tonight (around midnight), I'll be able to relay this load in Dallas, pick up another load, then relay that second load at a drop yard near home. It's a gamble, but I'm feeling lucky for once.

Duncan, OK

One exceptionally long day down and at least one more to go. I got a somewhat later start than I intended - nearly noon - but I needed to make this drop by midnight and the place allowed parking. I seemed to end up behind a lot of people that insisted on doing 50 mph or slower on the Interstate, which didn't help my time, but I still got here around 11:30PM. I dropped the trailer, then went inside... then had to wait nearly 30 minutes for someone in the receiving office to take my paperwork, stamp it, and hand it back to me. I'm not going to name the chain in question, but this is the third distribution center of theirs I've gone to and they've all had exceptionally slow people working in the receiving office. It just doesn't make the slightest bit of sense to me.

In any case, I picked up an empty and am now stopped on a disused road that's now used as truck parking. Tomorrow, I don't have quite as many miles to run - about 525 instead of 600 - but it's still going to be quite a long day. Since I'm supposed to be home by Wednesday, I really hope they get me to an operating center and have me pick up a relayed load; I don't see much hope for getting home in time otherwise. I'll probably call the trip planner before I head out in the morning just to see if she has anything figured out that I'm not currently aware of. Hopefully it'll be good news.

Chicago, IL

I don't think I've ever seen traffic nearly this bad in Chicago. All of I-94 - from where I got at the I-80 split to where I finally got off 30 miles later - was snarled. As such, I was a full hour behind schedule just when I got to my delivery point. I had about an hour and a half to spare, so that was okay... but I had another pick up to make by 3PM. It didn't help that I needed to get onto I-90 west and sign that said "to I-90 west" took me on city streets that clearly were not meant for trucks; I think I scraped the top of my truck on a 13'6" high overpass.

When I finally picked up the empty trailer I needed, I was five miles away from where I was to pick up the load and had less than five minutes to get there on city streets. Clearly not going to happen. I'd already told dispatch that I'd likely be late and I'd update with any further delays; I never received a message telling me that this wasn't okay. But when I got there at 3:04PM, both another driver and I were angrily told they were closed and that we'd have to come back at 6:30AM tomorrow. Needless to say, we both were pissed off, especially considering that the only reason we were late was the extraordinarily bad traffic.

About ten minutes on the phone with dispatch got me taken off that load and assigned something else. It's a much longer run - over 900 miles - though it doesn't pick up until tomorrow morning, so I have to kill a night here in Chicago. I'm going to end up all the way down in Oklahoma, so I hope I have enough money to cover all the toll roads; that state is painfully expensive to drive through.

Carlisle, PA

A short day, but at least it gave me time to catch up on things like laundry and sleep. Unfortunately, when I got back to get that headlight fix, the guy at the shop decided to turn my truck's speed down to 60. While I knew it was coming, the last several mechanics just ignored it. I understand why it needs to be done, but the fact they lied to us twice about when this change was going to take effect does not make me happy: first we were told it would be after July 1, then we were told it would be done as part of the regular preventative maintenance schedule. At least I'm driving through Ohio for most of my miles tomorrow; there, the limit is 55, where it won't matter.

I am wondering, however, just how much fuel this is going to save. I wrote down about two dozen fillups in my notebook when I was trying to figure out if my fuel gauge was acting up (it is a little off, but not hugely so), so I actually have a decent baseline to work off of. When I start my next notebook (I'm perhaps two-thirds of the way through this one), I'll probably start tracking my fuel economy again. Operations claims that, by turning our speed down from 63 to 60, it will improve fuel economy by roughly 0.3 mpg. I sincerely doubt that, though I'm not going to make any accusations without hard data to back it up. If over the course of two weeks (or more), I see a minimal improvement in fuel economy, I'm definitely calling someone up.

Carlisle, PA

Yesterday was one of those days where it felt like everything was moving in slow motion. After spending more than an hour in the shop just to get a tire replaced, I got on the road and ended up behind every slow person on the highway. Then, when I tried to pass, I'd either lose speed on a hill, the person I was passing accelerated, the person in the passing lane would slow down, or some other strange occurrence would render it a moot point. Despite all the frustration, I was able to make the delivery with about two hours to spare, then drove back here to the OC.

I'll be leaving here momentarily to pick up the first half of another load, then probably just come right back for the evening. Tomorrow, I'll be doing about 570 miles, going through Ohio to pick up the second half of this load, then probably shutting down in Indianapolis. That'll leave me just over 200 miles to the place I'm delivering, which is quite doable. Hopefully I can keep getting these decently-long runs; I like it when I have a good day of driving, but I don't have to completely burn myself out to get where I need to be.

Wytheville, VA

I noticed I had a flat trailer tire last night, so I called maintenance as soon as I stopped. I was told they'd call it in so I'd just have to walk to the shop after my break, but of course, they didn't call in anything. So after spending 16 minutes on the phone to get maintenance to actually set up the repair, I'm in the shop and have been sitting here for almost half an hour. It looks like they've finally grabbed a new tire, so I should be out of here soon. It's going to be close on this delivery now that I've lost another hour, though...

Exhaustion

Somehow, despite getting nine hours sleep, I was too tired to go even 150 miles tonight. Soon as this posts, I'm going to bed. I hope I'm not getting sick..

West Memphis, AR

Last night was rather... interesting, I suppose. I originally had planned to drive from Indianapolis down to southern Alabama, possibly as far as Satsuma. But then I started getting messages from operations asking me if I could possibly relay this load here so another driver could take it to go home. After finding out that I'd have another long load waiting for me, I accepted. So I took my break here instead and will pick up that trailer on my way out. The directions for this load couldn't be much easier: I-40 east to I-81 to where I'm delivering. I have to drop it any time on Monday, so I have enough extra time that I don't have to keep sleep-depriving myself to make the delivery.

Green Bay, WI

After yesterday, I decided to just take the extra day at the operating center up here, as I needed to recover a bit of time on my 70. I got a bit later start than I intended - about an hour ago - and needed to stop for fuel before I left the OC. However, they had a mechanic out there checking on trucks and he found that one of my trailer tires just slightly too flat to be inflated. Specifically, if a tire drops below 60 psi, the steel-belt can come apart from the tread; my tire was at about 57. So now I'm stuck here until they replace the tire, since they're not going to let me swap out for another empty (assuming one's available). This is going to eat into my 14 hours for the day, which means I may or may not make Indianapolis tonight, as I'd currently planned on doing. If not, I'm going to have to scrap my entire trip plan and hope I can somehow find parking somewhere else.

Green Bay, WI

A relatively short day today, but I'm not complaining too much with as hard as I've been running lately. I arrived at my pick up location slightly early, even after going 10 miles the wrong way. As it was only 6,500 pounds, I didn't have to scale it, but I did stop for a couple hours to let Chicago's morning rush hour clear up so I wouldn't get completely held up in traffic. It probably saved me half an hour on my drive, though traffic still was rather unpleasant. Now I'm at the Green Bay OC, just relaxing for the rest of the evening. I have a 7AM delivery (live unload tomorrow) that's expected to take six hours, so I'll probably just come back here and park; I don't see much point in having only five hours left to drive. Besides, I need to pick up some time on my 70 hours; I've used more than 50 hours in the last seven days and have been running around that level for a while, so a day off would help alleviate that. I probably won't be able to take a full 34-hour restart, though; operations isn't going to let me take one of those unless I truly am out of hours. Even so, I'll take what I can get.

Elkhart, IN

Good is a 1450 mile run. Bad is not being ae to pick it up on time due to a DOT break. As a result, they took me off the load, leaving me no assignment and too little time to do anything productive. So, instead, once they finish unloading me here (should take an hour or so) I'll be driving to a truck stop about five miles back down the road and taking my 10-hour break. At least there's plenty of food within walking distance, so I should be able to get something yummy before bed. I'd rather have gotten two good days worth of work, though.

Wytheville, VA

Despite trying to sleep all day, it's just too hot in here to actually get any useful rest. As such, I have to be on the highway in a little over two hours and I still am exhausted. I'm going to catch a nap with the time I have left, but I worry that it won't be enough to actually keep me awake overnight. Perhaps I'll have to refill my oversized soda mug with Mountain Dew, just for the sugar and caffeine...

Charlotte, NC

I made the trip by driving straight through, which left me only half an hour late; I made up a full hour on the highway. I dropped the trailer and received a work assignment while I was uncoupling from it, so I'm now here at the OC to pick up a relay. It's going up to Indiana, about 670 miles away, for a 10AM unload tomorrow. However, the trailer I'm picking up has a recap that's coming apart and the shop is closed until 5AM eastern time, so I'm not going to make it nearly as far as I wanted. As such, while I could have taken an Interstate route if I had left earlier, I instead am going to have to try and make a shortcut on secondary routes. It's going to be close, mostly because I'll only be able to drive about 13 hours (counting the two I'll have left tonight), requiring that I average over 50 mph on those back highways. Hopefully I can do it; I really don't want to have to do something creative with the load.

Carlisle, PA

Yeah, I stopped here. Why? Because there were at least two separate instances where it seemed like the truck suddenly shifted over about ten feet to the right and I caught it just before I went off the shoulder and into the grass. Unfortunately, I only have enough time for eight hours of sleep, if I intend on getting a shower and a meal before I leave here, but that's a lot better than I've been doing. Hopefully it'll be good enough.

Kearny, NJ

Wow, only 3AM and tonight has already had enough suckage for one day. I woke up and felt sick to my stomach from the Burger King meal I had for lunch, which seems to have set the tone for the day. I decided against eating there again, so I hit the road. I hopped on the Turnpike and looked for exit 16E, as my directions said. There's a problem, though! There is no exit 16E when you're going south. It turns out I needed exit 17, not that I had any way of knowing that. So I passed it, but the next exit was 15X. It said it went to the roads I needed, so I took it anyway... but there were no signs at the exit showing me which way to go and, after fifteen minutes looking for somewhere to turn around, I just went back to the turnpike. Once I found exit 16E while going north, I just hopped off and started looking for the other roads. I still struggled to find things, though. I took the route the directions said I needed; I instead needed to take a fork that led directly to the next route I had to follow. So, again, I was left driving around and searching desperately for somewhere to turn around or for the route I should have been on. Once I finally ended up on the right road, road construction forced me to make some very... interesting maneuvers, including a button hook turn that I probably would have needed four lanes to make; I instead bumped a construction barrel. Long story short: what should have been a three mile, five minute drive instead took 23 miles and an hour and a quarter. Definitely not a good start to the night.

Things only improved marginally after I picked up the load. Dropping the trailer and picking up the new one went smoothly, but once I left, I once again got turned around repeatedly. As such, the seven mile trip to this drop yard cost me 12 miles. For anyone keeping track, I've driven 35 miles and gotten paid for 10; I don't think operations would be terribly happy seeing 250% out of route miles. I dropped the relay load, then hooked up to the relay I'm picking up, heading back into North Carolina. I just need to finish updating my logbook and drive out of here; I've done all the inspection work on the trailer and typed this while I was waiting for the air tanks to pressurize. Given all the crap that's happened so far tonight, I really don't feel like doing any more work; I'd rather just get back to sleep. But I have 550 miles on this run and I have to deliver it by 2AM tomorrow (less than 22 hours from now), so I have to make at least a few miles tonight. I might just stop in Carlisle, PA but I'll make that choice once I get there.

Kearny, NJ

Just was awakened to the sound of my next work assignment coming in and I wish I could just sleep in now. The pick up is just three miles away, then I have to relay it at the drop yard seven miles from that. So I'm getting up at midnight to drive 10 miles. They better have something good for me after that, but seeing as it's weekend support shift, I'll be lucky to even get assigned another load before I drop the relay.

Kearny, NJ

Since Kilroy commented that it took an exceptionally long time to get through customs, allow me to explain what happened. Apparently the computer that handles all the electronic customs goodness went down yesterday, meaning my paperwork had to get cleared manually. At no point was I given a message telling me as much; I found out by calling in myself, after sitting at the OC for about six hours. As such, I only got about a three hour nap before I hit the road around 1AM. Driving to the border was rather easy; I was able to drive the speed limit the entire way.

When I got to the border, things went relatively smoothly, considering how much time I had to wait to get word from operations. I pulled up to the booth, handed over my load's paperwork, my passport, and got directed to an X-ray machine so they could scan the truck. They promptly waved me through after the scan; they didn't even bother charging me the $10.75 "customs fee" that everyone (that is: operations, other drivers, and the driver's handbook) said I needed to have exact change for. A bit strange, but I'm not complaining; I don't want to need cash again before I go home over Memorial Day weekend

In any case, the trip went smoothly until I made it into New Jersey. I stopped for fuel at a truck stop just across the state line, got breakfast, then hopped back in to finish the run. Unfortunately, the route I needed (NJ state route 11) was closed due to road work and the detour wasn't marked clearly; I only caught a glimpse of the sign after the second time I made a wrong turn trying to get on the road. Once I found the detour, it was easy enough to follow, though it did involve a series of about nine right turns in a row. The delivery was easy as well; it took me a couple minutes to break the bolt seal using the cutters they gave me, then a couple more to get backed into the dock, but I was in and out of the place in just under an hour. I got a message telling me to go to a drop yard we have, but I found a service plaza at the very north end of the NJ turnpike (perhaps two miles south of where I-80 ends at I-95) and stopped there to get lunch. I also got told I could just take my break here, which means I'll be able to eat before I hit the road, saving me a stop tomorrow.

So now I just need to finish eating, send in a message telling them when I'll be available, and then try to catch up on sleep while I have the chance. Hopefully I'll have a decent assignment waiting for me when I wake up.

Back in the USA

I crossed the border about four hours ago but only now stopped for a stretch break. I'll write a full post later.

Pain at the Pump

Just to illustrate how expensive it is in this industry right now, allow me to add a photo for you. This is from one of the pumps at the T/A in Wytheville, WV. Thankfully, that wasn't my truck nor do I have to pay for my own fuel, but I have had one that was pretty close. It's worth noting, as well, that just about everything you buy is moved by truck three times: first as raw materials to a manufacturer, then as a finished product to a distribution center, and finally from that distribution center to your local store (or to your house, if you buy online). And our trucks average seven miles per gallon on a good day; with a heavy load in mountainous terrain, it's a stretch to get even 6 mpg.

While it would be a gross oversimplification to say that slashing fuel prices would solve the economic problems in the US, it would certainly help out in a much more profound way than most people seem to realize.