Troutville, VA

Well, this was entirely unproductive. Nine hours after I started my day and I'm back here in Troutville, parked at the same stop I was at last night with the same empty trailer. What happened? After several hours of waiting (and waiting, and waiting, and..) I finally got a work assignment for a live load tomorrow that picks up about fifty miles east of here. I can pick it up any time, so I'm probably going to sleep in a little to try and get my sleep pattern back on track. Of course, by "sleeping in" I still mean that I'm going to get out of here around 6 or 7 AM, but that's quite a bit later than the time my required break will be up: 3 AM.

Once I pick up the load, my goal is to just get down to Charlotte, NC and see if I can relay the load there. Why? Because, even though it's picked up tomorrow, it only delivers in Augusta, GA on the 7th. There's no way I'm going to hold it over the weekend. As it is, though, there's no way at all I'll make it down to Evergreen tomorrow unless they have me picking up a preloaded trailer that's on the way; even then, I seriously doubt I can make it that far in the eleven hours I can drive. So, at best, I'll be getting home on the morning of Saturday, the 5th, and even that assumes that they don't screw up anything else.

Before I head to bed, I'm going to send operations a message explaining all that to them. I'm also going to call once I get to Charlotte and ask them for detention pay since I waited six hours at the "shipper" for that misplaced load. I got there at 9:15 and finally left at 3:15; that's exactly six hours and worth $45 if they're going to pay me for it. I'd really like it if they just gave me layover pay, which I'm eligible for if I have a 24-hour delay; that's $80 and, given how long it took them to give me a load that actually is there to be picked up, I think I can make a case for it. Either of those that will offset the cost of getting IdleAire in the truck tonight, which will allow me to finally get a good night's sleep, something I've been sorely lacking since I lost air conditioning a few days ago.

In any case, I'm going to enjoy a nice, steak dinner here before heading out to the truck to post this and the couple other posts I've typed up.